Showing papers in "Comparative Political Studies in 1989"

Cleavage Dimensions in Ten West European Countries: A Comparative Empirical Analysis

Abstract: The present article discusses different approaches for identifying empirical cleavage dimensions and concludes that a so-called cleavage-defined approach is most appropriate for identifying and interpreting party dimensions. It is further argued that discriminant analysis is a powerful statistical tool for analyzing cleavage dimensions in accordance with a cleavage-defined approach. Using different structural variables that are incorporated in the Lipset-Rokkan model for party cleavages in Western Europe, and two ideological dimensions (called left-right materialism and materialism/postmaterialism) as “input” for the dimensional analyses, data from Norway and the European Community countries (based on Euro-Barometer 16 from 1981) are analyzed and related to the comparative literature on cleavage structure in Western Europe.

Economics, Votes, Protests Western European Cases

Abstract: In Western European studies, general investigations of mass political participation are an established tradition. However, these efforts have not drawn from the vigorous current of research on economics and politics. Specifically for Western Europe, there exists no systematic work on economic conditions and political participation (conventional or unconventional). Here we integrate these economic arguments into general explanations of both participation modes. First voting turnout is examined, then protest activity, both as measured in recent survey data from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. The findings uncover support for a general model of political participation within these nations, as well as pointing to provocative between-nation differences. The economic results are especially stimulating. Pocketbook effects are absent, but collective evaluations of economic performance make an impact, and do so in intriguing ways. First, it is prospective, not retrospective, evaluations that count. Second, th...

Global News Flows: Dependency and Neoimperialism

Abstract: This article seeks to test certain hypotheses drawn from structural communications theory, hypotheses that tend to support the call for a New World Information Order (NWIO). Structural theorists such as Johan Galtung and NWIO advocates from the Third World have charged that developing nations are dependent upon the West for international news. News dependency, in turn, is said to lead to the adoption of Western news values and subsequent cultural imperialism in the South. Finally, news dependency is said to be neocolonial in the sense that information flows through “vertical” channels (from North to South) and within distinct spheres of communication hegemony. These claims are tested with a news flow study drawn from African and Latin American dailies. Results of the empirical tests show that the Third World is dependent on Western agencies for the bulk of its international news, and that Third World newspapers reflect the news values of Western prestige dailies. Nonaligned newswires, however, are shown t...

Cultural Origins of Public Support for Democracy in Korea: An Empirical Test of the Douglas-Wildavsky Theory of Culture

Abstract: Anthropologist Mary Douglas and political scientist Aaron Wildavsky have proposed a theory that people's political preferences are shaped largely by the culture in which they prefer to live. This s...

Ethnic Nationalism and Collective Choice Theory

Abstract: This article assesses how different kinds of divisions of labor constrain and enable ethnic collective action. The argument begins from the issue of the completeness of the group's division of labor and pursues the contradiction between Hechter's and Rogowski's position on the importance of the skill distribution among cultural group members. The article demonstrates that each of these positions draws on a different theory of international trade. The argument emphasizes the importance of “trading for independence,” as a condition for the emergence of ethnic collective action, when the group is incomplete. The argument also emphasizes the importance of preference aggregation within a group, and thus reinterprets the conventional treatment of ethnic nationalism as a single-issue movement.

Political Centralization and State Interests in Britain: The 1986 Abolition of the GLC and MCCs

Abstract: This article addresses contemporary state theory by examining the role of state interests and the constraints upon state autonomy in recent central-metropolitan relations in Britain. The abolition of the Greater London Council and six Metropolitan County Councils in Britain in 1986 is analyzed by reference to liberal, Marxist, and statist propositions about state autonomy and state interests. Three versions of the statist perspective are delineated, and it is argued that an understanding of central state interests is necessary for a complete account of the 1986 abolition.

Income Distribution within Nations: Problems of Cross-National Comparison

Abstract: In recent years a large number of cross-national studies have examined the causes and consequences of income inequality within nations. Unfortunately, few of these studies have attended very carefully to problems of measurement and definitional consistency that can seriously undermine the comparative use of currently available data on income shares. This article offers a discussion of the major theoretical and practical problems that can arise in measuring and comparing patterns of income distribution across nations, focusing on the completeness of income coverage, the unit of analysis, the time period over which income is measured, the scope of population coverage, the underreporting of income, and the effect of public sector fiscal policies. It then assesses major published sources of cross-national data on the size distribution of income in light of these problems. Finally, the article offers several suggestions for minimizing the negative consequences of measurement problems that remain in even the be...

Party Structures and Democracy Michels, McKenzie, and Duverger Revisited via the Examples of the West German Green Party and the British Social Democratic Party

Abstract: In recent years a number of new political parties have emerged in Western Europe with novel forms of intraparty organizations. This article addresses some of the questions raised by Michels, McKenzie, and Duverger about oligarchic tendencies and undemocratic features in party organization in light of the experience of two new parties. The data suggests that Michels's “iron law of oligarchy,” while superficially true, does not hold equally well across both cases. The organization of the West German Green Party, while not completely successful in avoiding oligarchic tendencies, does inhibit leadership domination of the membership and party activists. The British Social Democratic Party (SDP) exhibits strong oligarchic tendencies because the party was founded by a group of party notables who desired to avoid activist domination. In other words, the origins of the party—the intentions and policy goals of its founders—play an important role in shaping organizational structure. Oligarchy is not an inescapable o...

Domestic Political Conflict and Basic Needs Outcomes An Empirical Assessment

Abstract: This study undertakes an empirical investigation of the near universal assumption that domestic political conflict is invariably harmful to the societies in which it occurs. In particular, we examine the implications of domestic conflict for the provision of basic human needs once the known effects of aggregate national wealth are removed. Using a variation of the panel regression model, we regress an index of basic needs satisfaction on measures of domestic conflict scope and intensity, along with suitable controls, for a sample of 85 contemporary nations. The findings indicate that the intensity measure is associated with long-term improvements in basic needs while the scope of conflict carries a negative impact for basic needs outcomes.

The Comparative Method and the Study of Development, Diffusion, and Social Change

Abstract: The research investigates substantive and methodological concerns in comparative research, particularly the confounding influences of within-system developmental or causal dynamics, across-time or within-system diffusion, and across-system or spatial diffusion. The article argues that extra-system influences represent a special case of the unmeasured relevant variable problem resulting in model specification error and that proper model specification can mitigate the problem. Structural equation modeling is advocated as a significant advance in such specifications. The argument is elaborated with time-series data on Argentina from 1908 to 1946 to test the developmental relationship between industrialization and political behavior.

State Autonomy and the Crisis of Import Substitution

Abstract: Import Substituting Industrialization (ISI) strategies that were instituted with great expectations in Latin America and elsewhere have not produced the desired results. Instead, ISI has been blamed for giving rise to inefficient economic structures and even for the emergence of Bureaucratic Authoritarian States. This article argues that the problems generally attributed to ISI are, in fact, due to a lack of state autonomy. What causes the loss of autonomy is the emergence of powerful and fiercely competing private sector interests intent on maximizing their share of “economic rents.” The resulting private sector-state dynamic hampers the formulation of long-term policies. The operation of this dynamic is demonstrated through a case study of Turkey in the 1970s, where the state, paralyzed by private sector competition, just witnessed the collapse of its political economy.

The State and Foreign Investment: The Cases of Taiwan and Singapore

Abstract: The influence of a host state on direct foreign investment attracts the attention of scholars much less than do the constraints of the latter on the former. This study addresses the impact of state regulatory policies on the roles of inward foreign investment in Taiwan and Singapore's manufacturing sector. The similarities between the two small Asian open economies are first discussed. The different roles played by the foreign investors in their economies are then compared. A review of the literature in orthodox theories and radical points of view reveals several possible explanatory variables for such differences. Through the logic of the “most similar systems” design, or method of difference, some seemingly plausible factors are ruled out, due to their similarities in the two chosen entities. It is found that some pull factors (such as geographic location, colonial legacy, external political environment, and indigenous industrial capacity) and conversion factors (such as state policies toward foreign in...

Leaders and Leadership in Japanese Politics Images during a Campaign Period

Abstract: This article attempts to observe Japanese students' perceptions of political figures during an election time, and to examine the factors that most dominantly contribute to such images. Employing a sample collected from more than 1,100 students at four universities in Japan, the discussion focuses on measuring the extent to which the respondents evaluated each of the political figures who were candidates for the premiership, the way they structured their evaluations, and the effects of variables such as political involvement and media exposure on this process. The findings show that, although there were no significant differences in the leadership style of the political figures, negative evaluations as a whole were expressed toward the candidate with the most potential ability to become the premier. Moreover, the respondents clustered their perceptions according to five clear dimensions, most notably in regard to the leaders' performance and contact with others. In addition, it was found that-more than any...

Political Transitions in Greece and Argentina: Toward a Reorientation of Marxist Political Theory

Abstract: In this article an attempt is made both to utilize the economistic, reductionist features of Marxist political theory and to suggest conceptual tools for overcoming such features. The utility of the conceptual framework proposed is demonstrated by applying it to the analysis of political developments in two late-industrializing societies: Argentina and Greece.

The Anatomy of the Directive Capacity of the Socialist State

Abstract: This article discusses the problem of the directive capacity of the socialist state, defined as the ability to identify opportunities available within both the domestic and international political economy and to develop and implement policies. The focus is not on how the directive capacity of the socialist state is actually used by the elites but on the identification of basic mechanisms shaping it. The following questions are addressed: What is the relationship between politics and economics in state socialism, and how does it determine directive capacity? What are the underlying structures that shape the socialist state/economy interaction? What mechanisms have developed within the framework of state socialism that compensate for lack of pressures toward higher efficiency? What are the system's limitations and what strategies are available to increase the directive capacity?

Legislative Governing Coalitions in Parliamentary Democracies The Case of the French Third Republic

Abstract: A neglected aspect of parliamentary democracies that do not conform to the British model is the relation between executive and legislative leadership. In multiparty systems with strong legislative committees, committee chairmen constitute a governing coalition comparable to the cabinet. Given the coalitional nature of each leadership group, their partisan composition may not be identical; nor need they be equally stable. These are matters of importance for the operation of government. This article examines the relations between the two coalitions in the primordial parliamentary democracy, the French Third Republic. Using correlation analysis, I found a weak partisan relation between the two coalitions during the five legislatures of the interwar years. Using two measures of stability, durability and the continuity of coalitions beyond formal tenure, I found the legislative coalition always more stable. Institutional rules and the multiparty system helped account for these differences. Nevertheless, there ...

Political Participation in the Barriadas A Research Update

Abstract: This research note updates earlier work that focused on electoral behavior among the urban poor in Lima, Peru. The previous research stopped with the 1983 municipal elections. The data used here extend the analysis through the 1985 presidential election and the 1986 municipal election. The results largely reinforce the hypotheses originally proposed for explaining the observed vacillating support for the left by low-income urban voters.

Modeling Spatial Diffusion Reaction to Wellhofer

Abstract: Wellhofer's adaptation of Klingman's suggestion that spatial diffusion be modeled as an autoregressive spatial series is questioned on two counts. First, this approach is inappropriate for most classes of diffusion models, including dendritic diffusion systems. Second, the procedure by which Wellhofer has ordered the observations in his Argentine illustration produces a database that bears almost no resemblance to the underlying pattern of causation he wishes to examine and actually creates an additional source of bias in the analysis.