Showing papers in "Perspectives on Politics in 2004"
TL;DR: Levitsky et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis, based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive.
Abstract: Mainstream comparative research on political institutions focuses primarily on formal rules. Yet in many contexts, informal institutions, ranging from bureaucratic and legislative norms to clientelism and patrimonialism, shape even more strongly political behavior and outcomes. Scholars who fail to consider these informal rules of the game risk missing many of the most important incentives and constraints that underlie political behavior. In this article we develop a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis. The framework is based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive. We then explore two issues largely ignored in the literature on this subject: the reasons and mechanisms behind the emergence of informal institutions, and the nature of their stability and change. Finally, we consider challenges in research on informal institutions, including issues of identification, measurement, and comparison.Gretchen Helmke's book Courts Under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina, will be published by Cambridge University Press. Steven Levitsky is the author of Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective and is currently writing a book on competitive authoritarian regimes in the post–Cold War era. The authors thank the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame for generously sponsoring conferences on informal institutions. The authors also gratefully acknowledge comments from Jorge Dominguez, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Dennis Galvan, Goran Hyden, Jack Knight, Lisa Martin, Hillel Soifer, Benjamin Smith, Susan Stokes, Maria Victoria Murillo, and Kurt Weyland, as well as three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Perspectives on Politics.
2,220 citations
TL;DR: Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World as discussed by the authors is a recent book about gender equality and cultural change around the world, focusing on women's empowerment and empowerment.
Abstract: Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World.
1,130 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a framework for thinking about how policies influence mass politics is proposed, including defining membership, forging political cohesion and group divisions, building or undermining civic capacities, framing policy agendas, problems, and evaluations, and structuring, stimulating, and stalling political participation.
Abstract: Democracies, and the citizenries that stand at their center, are not natural phenomena; they are made and sustained through politics. Government policies can play a crucial role in this process, shaping the things publics believe and want, the ways citizens view themselves and others, and how they understand and act toward the political system. Yet, while political scientists have said a great deal about how publics influence policies, they know far less about the ways policies influence publics. In this article, we seek to clarify how policies, once enacted, are likely to affect political thought and action in the citizenry. Such effects are hard to locate within the standard framework of approaches to mass behavior, and they are generally ignored by program evaluators and policy analysts. To bridge this gap, we direct attention toward a long and vibrant, but underappreciated, line of inquiry we call the “political tradition” of mass behavior research. Drawing this tradition together with recent work on “policy feedback,” we outline a framework for thinking about how policies influence mass politics. The major types of such effects include defining membership; forging political cohesion and group divisions; building or undermining civic capacities; framing policy agendas, problems, and evaluations; and structuring, stimulating, and stalling political participation.
662 citations
TL;DR: Singer as mentioned in this paper discusses the role of the private military industry in the United States' involvement in the war in Iraq and argues that 1 in 10 of those deployed in the most recent war was a contractor.
Abstract: Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. By P. W. Singer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. 368p. $39.95.Peter Singer has produced a highly commendable volume for the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series on an area of study that has received relatively little attention within the academic world. Much of the existing literature focuses on the mercenary end of private military companies (PMCs) and ignores the breadth of the industry. Similarly, the debate on transformation has tended to focus on technology and changing approaches to the conduct of war; relatively little has concerned itself with the increasing role of the privatized military companies, yet, as Singer points out, 1 in 10 of those deployed by the United States in the most recent war in Iraq was a contractor. It is not just the scale of the industry at present (one estimate puts it at $100 billion per year) that makes it an important area for study. It is also that this industry covers the full spectrum of defense activities. It ranges from service provision at home to the provision of combat services and military units. This will become even more so as we move away from the linear battlefield and the idea of a front line melts away. Moreover, this is not just a Third World issue; virtually every state uses elements of the industry, with the United States being the largest user.
419 citations
TL;DR: The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe as discussed by the authors ) is a recent study of civil society in post-communist Europe, focusing on the role of women.
Abstract: The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe.
396 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative theory of legislative discretion and the policy making process is presented, along with the design of laws across separation of powers systems and their design across parliamentary systems.
Abstract: 1. Laws, bureaucratic autonomy and the comparative study of delegation 2. Rational delegation or helpless abdication? The relationship between bureaucrats and politicians 3. Statutes as blueprints for policy making processes 4. A comparative theory of legislative discretion and the policy making process 5. Legislation, agency policy making and Medicaid in Michigan 6. The design of laws across separation of powers systems 7. The design of laws across parliamentary systems 8. Laws, institutions, and policy making processes.
368 citations
TL;DR: Robinson as discussed by the authors argued that capital has liberated itself from the social and political constraints imposed on it by nation-states and reorganized the production process on a transnational basis, and this reorganization of the productive base has gone hand in hand with the emergence of transnational capitalist class (TCC), a transnational state apparatus, and a trans-national ideological project.
Abstract: A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. By William I. Robinson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 224p. $46.95 cloth, $18.95 paper. This book intervenes in the contemporary debates on globalization by asking what it means to conceptualize the global economy. Demonstrating the inadequacy of nation-state-based or international-centric responses to this question, it makes a case for conceptualizing globalization as a historically novel form of transnational capitalism. World capitalism, William Robinson argues, has undergone an “epochal change” involving not just a quantitative intensification but also a qualitative reconfiguration of economic, political, and social processes that were hitherto largely international. Taking advantage of technological developments and organizational innovations, capital has liberated itself from the social and political constraints imposed on it by nation-states and reorganized—fragmented and decentralized—the production process on a transnational basis. This reorganization of the productive base has gone hand in hand with the emergence of a transnational capitalist class (TCC), a transnational state apparatus, and a transnational ideological project.
365 citations
TL;DR: Sambanis et al. as discussed by the authors analyzed civil war not as a discrete phenomenon, but rather as one phase in a cycle of violence, and used 21 case studies of civil war onset and avoidance to show the shortcomings in prominent rationalist models of war that rely heavily on economic variables.
Abstract: This article draws on a comparative case study design to refine formal-quantitative models of civil war, expanding them to highlight political processes that lead to civil war. It uses 21 case studies of civil war onset and avoidance to show the shortcomings in prominent rationalist models of civil war that rely heavily on economic variables. These shortcomings include measurement error, unit heterogeneity, model misspecification, and lack of clarity about causal mechanisms. Additionally, the greed/grievance distinction that underlies the economic models is misguided. This article analyzes civil war not as a discrete phenomenon, but rather as one phase in a cycle of violence. Economic models of civil war, however, rely on theories that cannot distinguish effectively between civil war and other forms of political violence. To explain civil war, we must explain why various and often conflicting micro-level motives combine to produce political violence with the characteristics that we attribute to civil war. If we cannot understand why we get civil war instead of other forms of organized political violence, then we do not understand civil war.Nicholas Sambanis thanks Keith Darden, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Jennifer Hochschild, Stathis Kalyvas, Bruce Russett, Jack Snyder, Sidney Tarrow, Charles Tilly, and seminar participants at New York University and the University of Chicago for very useful comments, as well as Annalisa Zinn and Steve Shewfelt for excellent research assistance. He also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the World Bank's Post-Conflict Fund and from the Russell Sage Foundation, where he was fortunate to spend a year of academic leave working on this and related projects. This research is part of the Political Economy of Civil War, a collaborative project between Yale University's U.N. Studies Program and the World Bank's Conflict and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Unit.
318 citations
TL;DR: The authors posit a view of decision making that rests on an integrated notion of emotional rationality and show that emotion can provide an alternate basis for explaining and predicting political choice and action, and that emotion exerts an impact on political decisions in decisive and significant ways.
Abstract: Recent advances in the neurosciences offer a wealth of new information about how the brain works, and how the body and mind interact. These findings offer important and surprising implications for work in political science. Specifically, emotion exerts an impact on political decisions in decisive and significant ways. While its importance in political science has frequently been either dismissed or ignored in favor of theories that privilege rational reasoning, emotion can provide an alternate basis for explaining and predicting political choice and action. In this article, I posit a view of decision making that rests on an integrated notion of emotional rationality.
314 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance is provided, and the authors argue that a deeper understanding of institutions' emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political outcomes should begin from an analysis of cognitive processes.
Abstract: In this article, we provide a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions' emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political outcomes should begin from an analysis of cognitive processes. We explore the nature of individual and collective learning, stressing that the issue is not whether agents are perfectly or boundedly rational, but rather how human beings actually reason and choose, individually and in collective settings. We then tie the processes of learning to institutional analysis, providing arguments in favor of what can be characterized as “cognitive institutionalism.” Besides, we show that a full treatment of the phenomenon of path dependence should start at the cognitive level, proceed at the institutional level, and culminate at the economic level.
301 citations
TL;DR: In the world's electoral democracies, the policies used for women differ systematically from those used for ethnic groups as mentioned in this paper, focusing on varying ways that gender and ethnic identities intersect with partisan cleavages and on the distinct "work" performed by the different remedies for underrepresentation.
Abstract: Some 50 countries officially allocate access to political power by gender, ethnicity, or both. Yet in the world’s electoral democracies, the policies used for women differ systematically from those used for ethnic groups. The former receive candidate quotas in parties; the latter, reserved seats in legislatures. Why? My explanation focuses on the varying ways that gender and ethnic identities intersect with partisan cleavages and on the distinct “work” performed by the different remedies for underrepresentation. Quotas, which make space within existing parties, are appropriate for groups whose boundaries crosscut partisan divisions. Reservations, which create incentives for the formation of group-specific parties and permit them direct representation, suit groups whose boundaries coincide with political cleavages. Since gender is crosscutting while ethnicity tends to be coinciding, women receive candidate quotas while ethnic groups get legislative reservations. Claims for inclusion via quotas pose less of a challenge to liberal institutions than claims to difference through legislative reservations. Case studies of representational politics in France, India, and Peru illustrate the argument.
TL;DR: Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America as mentioned in this paper has been a hot topic in the last few years, especially in the region of Latin America, where labor-based parties dominate.
Abstract: Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America.
TL;DR: Bimber and Davis as discussed by the authors show that the number of U.S. residents online has increased from fewer than 18 million in 1994 to more than 164 million in December 2000 (www.nua.com/surveys/how_many_online/n_america.html).
Abstract: Campaigning Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections. By Bruce Bimber and Richard Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 240p. 17.95 paper.With the advent of graphic browsers for the World Wide Web, users have surged onto the Internet. Jupitermedia's network user address estimates show that the number of U.S. residents online jumped from fewer than 18 million in 1994 to more than 164 million in December 2000 (www.nua.com/surveys/how_many_online/n_america.html). Such rapid change makes the assessment of the Internet's impact on American elections a precarious undertaking.
TL;DR: Medrano et al. as discussed by the authors studied the attitudes to European integration in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and found that the majority of the respondents supported the European integration process.
Abstract: Framing Europe: Attitudes to European Integration in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. By Juan Diez Medrano. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 344p. $39.95. During the 1990s, a number of scholarly books and articles appeared in both Europe and North America to help explain the preferences and motivations of European mass publics concerning the European integration process. These scholarly efforts were spawned in large part by the vast amount of survey data generated by the Commission of the European Union in its efforts to monitor public opinion on issues pertaining to the European Union.
TL;DR: Hirschl as discussed by the authors considers recent transfers of power to judiciaries to be unprecedented in their breadth and scope, features of what the author describes as "the new constitutionalism".
Abstract: Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. By Ran Hirschl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. 294p. $49.95. To the various systems of government known to political science we may now add another—“juristocracy.” Although not rigorously defined in this book, the term refers to a process of judicial empowerment in which judiciaries take on powers and responsibilities previously exercised by representative institutions. While there is little new in recognizing that courts often make decisions with profound political consequences, this study considers recent transfers of power to judiciaries to be unprecedented in their breadth and scope, features of what the author describes as “the new constitutionalism.”
TL;DR: A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies as discussed by the authors is a critical rewriting of global political economy that integrates reproductive, productive and virtual economies.
Abstract: A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies.
TL;DR: Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the field of direct presidential action, focusing on the power of direct action in government.
Abstract: Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action.
TL;DR: Highton as discussed by the authors places these questions in the appropriate theoretical context and then answers them, and shows that voting is the most fundamental act of political participation and therefore holds a central location in the study of political behavior.
Abstract: In a democracy, voting is the most fundamental act of political participation and therefore holds a central location in the study of political behavior. One significant research tradition focuses on the relationship between registration and turnout and raises important and related questions. How do registration laws influence turnout levels? What types of people are most affected by them? What are the partisan implications of registration requirements? Spanning the late nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries, this essay places these questions in the appropriate theoretical context and then answers them.Previously Benjamin Highton was an APSA Congressional Fellow and worked for Senator Paul Wellstone on health and welfare policy. He appreciates the advice and criticism from Henry Brady, Jennifer Hochschild, Randolph Siverson, Raymond Wolfinger, and the anonymous referees for Perspectives on Politics.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose that evolutionary biology can supply political science with a theory of the ultimate causes of human preferences and behaviors that it otherwise lacks, and present scientific evidence of the startlingly important role genetics plays in shaping politically relevant attitudes and behaviors.
Abstract: In this article we propose that evolutionary biology can supply political science with a theory of the ultimate causes of human preferences and behaviors that it otherwise lacks. For the most part, political scientists are either unfamiliar with the social side of evolutionary theory or misidentify its key features. Far from being genetically deterministic or leading exclusively to predictions that all human behavior will be selfish, modern evolutionary theories stress that adaptive behavior is frequently characterized by a guarded sort of cooperation. We describe modern biological theory, offer our own version of it, discuss new and potentially useful interpretations of political attitudes and public policies, and present scientific evidence, drawn from research on autistic individuals and monozygotic and dizygotic twins, of the startlingly important role genetics plays in shaping politically relevant attitudes and behaviors.
TL;DR: Althaus as mentioned in this paper examined the relationship between knowledge, representation, and political equality as expressed in opinion surveys and found that political knowledge does matter, and the way that knowledge is distributed in society has an important impact on how one should interpret the collective preferences of the public, particularly when assessing the role of the less knowledgeable.
Abstract: Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People. By Scott L. Althaus. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 384p. 28.00 paper.The central theme of this book deals with the relationship between knowledge, representation, and political equality as expressed in opinion surveys. Scott Althaus finds that political knowledge does matter. In addition, the way that knowledge is distributed in society has an important impact on how one should interpret the collective preferences of the public, particularly when assessing the role of the less knowledgeable.
TL;DR: Ambition, federalism, and legislative politics in Brazil: A Review of the State of Brazil's Federalism and Brazil's Lawmaking Processes as mentioned in this paper, 2011-2013.
Abstract: Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil.
TL;DR: The centenary of the American Political Science Association (APSA) was celebrated in 2017 as discussed by the authors, which was the first year of a woman president handing off the gavel to a female successor.
Abstract: white men now includes a rainbow of persons, and it has just witnessed the first instance of a woman president handing off the gavel to a female successor. Despite the many changes over the decades, there have been important continuities—so many that Goodnow and his colleagues would surely recognize us today as inheritors of the association and disciplinary vision they launched. Now, as then, organized political science encompasses normative theory as well as empirical research. Now, as then, APSA features comparative research, area studies, and a focus on international politics as well as studies of American politics; and our membership is international. APSA fosters both pedagogy and research. We nurture ties to neighboring disciplines and proudly include scholars who started elsewhere in our ranks. Now, as then, we aim to link responsible citizenship in the larger society to scholarly studies of government and politics. In the words of Pendleton Herring, delivered in his APSA presidential address 50 years ago: “[A]s we . . . develop political science as a discipline we both serve our professional needs and perform the vital function of helping our democracy to know itself better.” Above all, as Goodnow put it in his first presidential address, APSA aspires to be “inclusive.” We do not define political science narrowly, and yet we still seek to nurture solidarity and fellowship, especially by sponsoring “annual sessions” that “offer a common meeting ground in more ways than one for those whose work is mainly or largely political rather than economic or historical.” Ours is a vital association, still benefiting from active member involvement and support, a model of unity nourished by diversity. For 100 years, we political scientists have stuck together and flourished. Let us hope that a century from now our successors can look back and say that we built well on earlier foundations, opening the way for still further growth and intellectual and practical engagement. The centenary of APSA, a thriving voluntary membership group, is a fitting time to reflect on the changing shape of the American civic democracy of which we are a part. U.S. democracy has long been considered distinctive—and a model of sorts for the rest of the world. This is somewhat owing to the U.S. Bill of Rights and electoral contests; perhaps even more so, it is because Americans have long been portrayed as preeminent organizers and joiners of voluntary associations that shape and supplement the activities of government. In the 1890s, Lord Bryce—who later served as the
TL;DR: Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences as discussed by the authors is an excellent volume that takes up some of the most challenging problems regarding questions about research design, how to think about causality in the social sciences, and how to connect questions about ontology to research methods.
Abstract: Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Edited by James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 468p. 25.00 paper.Occasionally, when you have really talented graduate students, you are looking for a book that would challenge them to think deeply about their research. This is such a book. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer have put together an excellent volume that takes up some of the most challenging problems regarding questions about research design, how to think about causality in the social sciences, and how to connect questions about ontology to research methods.
TL;DR: Lieberman as discussed by the authors provides a rich historical and comparative account of the rise and consolidation of the two very different tax states of South Africa and Brazil and provides a first-rate work of comparative political economy.
Abstract: Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation in Brazil and South Africa. By Evan S. Lieberman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 344p. $75.00 cloth, $24.99 paper. Evan Lieberman has produced a first-rate work of comparative political economy. Just as importantly, he has done so by going boldly (and engagingly) where so few have gone before—into the tax state. Given how critical the capacity of a state to tax economic elites is to the provision of public goods, redistribution, and the promotion of development in general, it is indeed shocking to realize just how little attention this question has received from political scientists (there being as always some notable exceptions). Lieberman sets out to correct this gap not only by carefully and meticulously defining and measuring different tax states but also by providing a rich historical and comparative account of the rise and consolidation of the two very different tax states of South Africa and Brazil.
TL;DR: Bringing Society Back In: Grassroots Ecosystem Management, Accountability, and Sustainable Communities as discussed by the authors is a book about grassroot ecosystems management, accountability, and sustainable communities, focusing on sustainable communities.
Abstract: Bringing Society Back In: Grassroots Ecosystem Management, Accountability, and Sustainable Communities
TL;DR: Voting for Women: How the Public Evaluates Women Candidates as mentioned in this paper ) is a seminal work in the field of women's political empowerment, focusing on how the public evaluates women candidates.
Abstract: Voting for Women: How the Public Evaluates Women Candidates.
TL;DR: The Limits of the Bully pulpit as mentioned in this paper argues that public opinion is never altered by presidential speech and that efforts to advance a president's political agenda through rhetorical appeals over the heads of Congress to the people are futile wastes of time and energy.
Abstract: On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. By George C. Edwards, III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.The funeral of Ronald Reagan marked a celebration not only of the president's political accomplishments but also of the idea that the core of presidential leadership is mastery of the bully pulpit. Published shortly after Reagan was laid to rest, Bill Clinton's autobiography also reflects our modern preoccupation with rhetorical leadership. Clinton credits many of his political victories—most notably fending off an impeachment charge—to the power of rhetorical appeals. He also attributes many of his failures to an inability to communicate effectively. George Edwards thinks that Reagan, Clinton, and the conventional wisdom they exemplify are just plain wrong. In a thorough and forcefully articulated study, Edwards argues that public opinion is never altered by presidential speech. Efforts to advance a president's political agenda through rhetorical appeals over the heads of Congress to the people are futile wastes of time and energy.
TL;DR: Filippov, Ordeshook, and Shvetsova as mentioned in this paper provided a theory of self-sustainability of democratic federal systems of government, and the authors' central hypothesis is that federal states can reach an equilibrium when both state and federal-level political actors have an incentive to make electoral and other concessions in order to maintain the federal order.
Abstract: Designing Federalism: A Theory of Self-Sustainable Federal Institutions. By Mikhail Filippov, Peter C. Ordeshook, and Olga Shvetsova. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 392p. $75.00 cloth, $28.00 paper. This book is a highly ambitious attempt to provide a general theory on the self-sustainability of democratic federal systems of government. The authors' central hypothesis is that federal states can reach an equilibrium when both state- and federal-level political actors have an incentive to make electoral and other concessions in order to maintain the federal order. In contrast to unitary states, however, the central design feature of federations is not how best to create institutions that ensure that elected politicians faithfully serve constituent interests, but rather the opposite: How can institutions be designed in such a way that the politicians can become imperfect agents of the voters? For if the federation is to evolve into a stable polity, state-level elected representatives must persuade their voters that their interests must be put to one side, at least in the shorter term, because of the sacrifices involved in ceding power to the federal government. Similarly, federal-level politicians have to persuade their constituents to grant policy and other concessions to state governments.
TL;DR: Soroka as discussed by the authors develops an integrating framework for the literature on agenda setting, and attempts to measure and test hypotheses on agenda-setting dynamics in a parliamentary and federal political system.
Abstract: Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada. By Stuart N. Soroka. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002. 168p. $75.00 cloth, $27.95 paper. The literature on agenda setting has gathered momentum in recent years by tapping into garbage-can models, exploring the dynamics of policy subsystems and decision making, and relying on increasingly sophisticated empirical techniques. Stuart Soroka makes two important contributions with this book: First, he develops an integrating framework for the sprawling literature on agenda setting, and second, he attempts to measure and test hypotheses on agenda-setting dynamics in a parliamentary and federal political system.
TL;DR: The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires as mentioned in this paper is a collection of articles about the offshore world, including virtual places, sovereign markets, and nomads.
Abstract: The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires.