Part I. Understanding Secularization: 1. The secularization debate 2. Measuring secularization 3. Comparing secularization worldwide Part II. Case Studies of Religion and Politics: 4. The puzzle of secularization in the United States and Western Europe 5. A religious revival in post-communist Europe? 6. Religion and politics in the Muslim world Part III. The Consequences of Secularization: 7. Religion, the Protestant ethic, and moral values 8. Religious organizations and social capital 9. Religious parties and electoral behavior Part IV. Conclusions: 10. Secularization and its consequences 11. Re-examining the theory of existential security 12. Re-examining evidence for the security thesis.

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Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide

The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. However, the force of this 'rising tide' has varied among rich and poor societies around the globe, as well as among younger and older generations. Rising Tide sets out to understand how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and to analyze the political consequences of this process. The core argument suggests that women and men's lives have been altered in a two-stage modernization process consisting of (i) the shift from agrarian to industrialized societies and (ii) the move from industrial towards post industrial societies. This book is the first to systematically compare attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations that run the gamut from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. Rising Tide is essential reading for those interested in understanding issues of comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, political development, and political sociology.

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Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World

Part I. Introduction: 1. Do rules matter? 2. Classifying electoral systems 3. Evaluating electoral systems Part II. The Consequences for Voting Behavior: 4. Party systems 5. Social cleavages 6. Party loyalties 7. Turnout Part III. The Consequences for Political Representation: 8. Women 9. Ethnic minorities 10. Constituency service Part IV. Conclusions: 11. The impact of electoral engineering.

Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior

In this article we evaluate two claims made in recent studies of the welfare states of advanced industrial societies: first, that welfare states have remained quite resilient in the face of demands for retrenchment; and second, that partisan politics have ceased to play a decisive role in their evolution. Addressing the first claim, we present analysis from a new data set on unemployment insurance and sickness benefit replacement rates for 18 countries for the years 1975‐99. We find considerably more evidence of welfare retrenchment during the last two decades than do recent cross-national studies. Second, we examine the “end of partisanship” claim by estimating the effects of government partisanship on changes in income replacement rates in sickness and unemployment programs. Our results suggest that, contrary to claims that partisanship has little impact on welfare state commitments, traditional partisanship continues to have a considerable effect on welfare state entitlements in the era of retrenchment.

Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies

Explaining voter turnout: A review of aggregate-level research

The ongoing use of the concept of 'corporatism' in industrial democracies has been stretched to include overlapping but still distinctive realities, which in turn often produce different 'lists' of corporatist economies. Consequently, this analysis sets out to disentangle the concept of corporatism and to suggest a replacement. It includes a comparative classification of 24 long-term industrial democracies in terms of the corporatism scores given by 23 different scholarly analyses. The divisions in scoring certain important but problematic cases (such as Japan) can be explained by noting differing emphases in the term. I then propose an alternative, more focused summary measure of economic integration which is clearly linear and which has no 'problem cases'. Precise scores on economic integration are given for four time periods from the late 1960s through the mid-1990s. It will be seen that the industrial democracies have always been dichotomised between integrated and non-integrated (or 'pluralist') economies.

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Corporatism in 24 industrial democracies: Meaning and measurement

. The role of the president is presumed to vary amongst presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary systems. However, there are a variety of subtypes within semi-presidential systems. Debate often hinges on the prime minister and government, and to whom they are more accountable. However, the accountability of prime ministers and governments to presidents can be rather ‘fuzzy’. This article looks through the prism of the president rather than that of the government. After examining definitions of presidential, parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, several dispositional categories of political regimes will be established. Then presidential power will be assessed through a series of dichotomous measures, and for all electoral democracies with a president. Finally, the character of each category will be assessed. The concept of ‘semi-presidentialism’ is rejected in favour of more meaningful labels: presidential systems, parliamentary systems with presidential dominance, parliamentary systems with a presidential corrective and parliamentary systems with figurehead presidents.

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Comparative presidencies: The inadequacy of the presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary distinction

Across the advanced industrial polities, there exists a wide range in the percentage of women in national parliaments However, the range is in fact wider still for women in cabinets Moreover, whereas the literature on comparative female representation in parliament is now well established, comparative analysis of women in cabinets is rather limited This article will examine both phenomena, using the most recent national elections (through the end of 1998) and subsequent governments in 28 nations For each of “women in parliament” and “women in cabinet” a model is produced which explains most of the variance An additional “Scandinavian effect” is found for women in cabinet, but not for women in parliament

Women’s Representation in Legislatures and Cabinets in Industrial Democracies:

This article examines the cross-national variations in turnout for parliamentary elections in Europe since 1990 – a continent with a vast range in turnout levels and some clear subregional patterns, especially that of low turnout in East-Central Europe A full range of socio-economic, mobilizational, party system, institutional, and contextual factors are examined for bivariate relationships with turnout A multivariate model then indicates that cross-national turnout is higher where there is strictly enforced compulsory voting, in polarized two-party systems and countries with a high level of party membership, and where there are no relevant elected presidents or strong regional governments Variances on these and other key factors are what accounts for the subregional pattern of East-Central Europe and the highest turnout case of Malta; however, Switzerland is confirmed to be a significant national dummy variable

Parliamentary Election Turnout in Europe since 1990

This article outlines what is meant by a parliamentary form of government and analyzes how such regimes vary in the postwar advanced industrial democracies. A wide range of variables are discussed and measured annually. Factor analysis is used to produce eight different aspects of parliamentarianism. The first two of these yield a two- dimensional analysis. Based on these two key factors, it is argued that there are three main types of parliamentary systems: (1) those of cabinet dominance; (2) those that are polarized with a central role for a fragmented parliament; and (3) those of cooperative policy-making diffusion with a working parliament. Generally, the first and third of these are polar opposite types, yet they each manifest greater cabinet durability than the cluster of polarized systems.

Alan Siaroff

Papers

Corporatism in 24 industrial democracies: Meaning and measurement

Comparative presidencies: The inadequacy of the presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary distinction

Women’s Representation in Legislatures and Cabinets in Industrial Democracies:

Parliamentary Election Turnout in Europe since 1990

Varieties of Parliamentarianism in the Advanced Industrial Democracies