Showing papers in "World Politics in 1999"

The Political Economy of the Resource Curse

Abstract: How does a state's natural resource wealth influence its economic development? For the past fifty years, versions of this question have been explored by both economists and political scientists. New research suggests that resource wealth tends to harm economic growth, yet there is little agreement on why this occurs. This article reviews a wide range of recent attempts in both economics and political science to explain the “resource curse.” It suggests that much has been learned about the economic problems of resource exporters but less is known about their political problems. The disparity between strong findings on economic matters and weak findings on political ones partly reflects the failure of political scientists to carefully test their own theories.

The High Politics of IMF Lending

Abstract: Analysts have long suspected that politics affects the lending patterns of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but none have adequately specified or systematically tested competing explanations. This paper develops a political explanation of IMF lending and tests it statistically on the developing countries between 1985 and 1994. It finds that political realignment toward the United States, the largest power in the IMF, increases a country's probability of receiving an IMF loan. A country's static political alignment position has no significant impact during this period, suggesting that these processes are best modeled dynamically. An analysis of two subsamples rejects the hypothesis that the IMF has become less politicized since the end of the cold war and suggests that the influence of politics has actually increased since 1990. The behavior of multilateral organizations is still driven by the political interests of their more powerful member states.

Women in the Legislatures and Executives of the World: Knocking at the Highest Glass Ceiling

Abstract: This article reports the results of a survey of women in legislatures and executives around the world as they were constituted in 1998 (N = 180). The chief hypotheses regarding the factors hindering or facilitating women's access to political representation were tested by multivariate regression models. The regression models juxtaposed a cocktail of institutional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic variables with the following dependent variables: (1) the percentage of MPs who are women and (2) the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women. A number, although not all, of the cited hypotheses were statistically confirmed and more finely quantified. The socioeconomic development of women in society has an effect on the number of women in parliament but not in the cabinet. A country's length of experience with multipartyism and women's enfranchisement correlates with both the legislative and the executive percentage. Certain electoral systems are more women friendly than others. The ideological nature of the party system affects the number of women elected and chosen for cabinet posts. And last, the state's dominant religion, taken as a proxy for culture, also statistically relates to the number of women who will make it to high political office. However, other long-held hypotheses were not proved. The degree of democracy is not a good indicator of the percentage of women who will make it into the legislature or the cabinet, nor is the dichotomy between a presidential or parliamentary system.

The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885-1992

Abstract: The authors test Kantian and realist theories of interstate conflict using data extending over more than a century, treating those theories as complementary rather than competing. As the classical liberals believed, democracy, economic interdependence, and international organizations have strong and statistically significant effects on reducing the probability that states will be involved in militarized disputes. Moreover, the benefits are not limited to the cold war era. Some realist influences, notably distance and power predominance, also reduce the likelihood of interstate conflict. The character of the international system, too, affects the probability of dyadic disputes. The consequences of having a strong hegemonic power vary, but high levels of democracy and interdependence in the international system reduce the probability of conflict for all dyads, not just for those that are democratic or dependent on trade.

Democracy, Indigenous Movements, and Postliberal Challenge in Latin America

Abstract: Scholars of democratic consolidation have come to focus on the links between political institutions and enduring regime outcomes. This article takes issue with the conceptual and analytical underpinnings of this literature by highlighting how new political institutions, rather than securing democratic politics, have in fact had a more checkered effect. It delineates why the theoretical expectations of the democratic consolidation literature have not been realized and draws, by example, on the contemporary ethnic movements that are now challenging third-wave democracies. In particular, it highlights how contemporary indigenous movements, emerging in response to unevenly institutionalized reforms, pose a postliberal challenge to Latin America's I newly founded democracies. These movements have sparked political debates and constitutional reforms over community rights, territorial autonomy, and a multiethnic citizenry. As a whole, I they have laid bare the weakness of state institutions, the contested terms of democracy, and the I indeterminacy of ethnic accommodation in the region. As such, these movements highlight the need to qualify somewhat premature and narrow discussions of democratic consolidation in favor I of a broader research agenda on democratic politics.

Mobilizing International Norms: Domestic Actors, Immigrants, and the Japanese State

Abstract: In recent years immigrant rights have increasingly been examined in an international context. An important theme in these discussions has been the question of whether, and if so how, states are constrained in developing immigrant and immigration policies. Some scholars argue that states are constrained by international human rights standards, while others, skeptical of this position, focus on a wide range of arguments at the domestic level of analysis. The skeptics are right that those asserting the impact of international human rights standards on immigrant policy have not demonstrated their importance domestically. International norms and standards do not diffuse automatically or consistently across states, and there has been too little detailed process tracing to illustrate the mechanisms of norm diffusion and therefore to move beyond correlation. To do so requires attention to the domestic actors who mobilize international norms and to the specific domestic circumstances in which they operate. This article examines a hard case by studying the impact of international human rights standards on policies toward Koreans and more recent migrant workers in Japan. In this case international norms matter. But they do not matter in a mysterious or automatic way. Domestic actors use international norms in context-specific environments to back up and make arguments for which they have few domestic resources. This is not a story of international versus domestic politics, nor is it a story about a paralyzed state. State actors are actively involved in the process of integrating international standards domestically, and the author examines how those standards work their way into the political process.

Distributional Coalitions and the Politics of Economic Reform in Latin America

Abstract: For much of the discipline of economics, a closed economy is seen as the result of efforts of distributional coalitions and rent seekers to maintain sector-specific protections. Accordingly, economic liberalization is explained by the policy consistency of uncompromising reform elites. Students of the politics of economic adjustment in the developing world, in turn, have argued that reform programs concentrate costs in the present and disperse benefits in the future. Hence, losers are prepared to engage in collective action, whereas prospective winners, facing uncertainty about payoffs, remain disorganized. They thus posit the cohesiveness and insularity of policymakers as the main variable for explaining successful reform. Both economists and political scientists, therefore, adopt a collective action approach that overlooks how groups organize in support of liberalization. In the recent Latin American experience, however, these reforms have preserved market reserves for firms that provided vital political support to, and often colluded with, policymaking elites. This setting has thus reproduced incentives for rent-seeking behavior, even in the presence of comprehensive liberalization. This evidence supports two interrelated theoretical claims. First, distributional coalitions may proliferate when the state withdraws from the economy, not only when it intervenes. Second, interest-based variables retain explanatory power in political economy--which state autonomy arguments disregard--irrespective of whether the economy is closed or open--which neoclassical perspectives overlook. To highlight the centrality of interest groups favoring marketization, therefore, the article suggests modifications to the dominant theories of collective action and the literature on the politics of economic adjustment.

Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States

Abstract: Scholars studying electoral systems have consistently found that single-member plurality elections tend to constrain the number of parties operating in a polity to a much greater extent than multimember proportional representation systems. This article tests this hypothesis in the post-communist context by examining the effects of proportional representation and single-member district elections on the number of parties in five postcommunist states. It is shown that some postcommunist states, most notably Poland and Hungary, have followed the standard pattern of party consolidation over time in reaction to incentives of electoral systems, while others, most notably Russia and Ukraine, have not. The author argues that the different effects of electoral systems can be attributed to different levels of party institutionalization found in postcommunist states.These findings have policy implications. Under conditions of extreme party underdevelopment, the electoral system that promotes the use of party labels—proportional representation—may be more effective than the plurality system in constraining the number of parties, provided a legal threshold is used. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that plurality elections offer the greatest constraint on the number of parties.

Village Committee Elections in China: Institutionalist Tactics for Democracy

Abstract: Earlier institutionalist studies in Chinese politics have shown how conservatives and local bureaucrats took advantage of institutional designs in the Leninist system of the People's Republic of China to delay and undermine the implementation of reforms. There has been less discussion of how reformers adapted their strategies to existing institutional constraints to overcome the opposition of conservatives. Using the implementation process of the Organic Law of the Village Committees, this article describes how the reformers adapted to the Chinese institutional setting to promote political reform over opposition at the elite and local levels.As the case of the village elections shows, the reformers in China designed a strategy to promote reform incrementally. Each step along the way was arranged to appear to be a natural response to the interaction between the initial reform policy and unforeseen consequences brought about by the previous policy. In this process, reformers deliberately manipulated a crucial variable—time—to bring about gradual change in the important actor, that is, the peasants, from spectators into participants, and thereby to change the balance of power between proponents and opponents of the reform. Other political players were also carefully enfranchised at different stages of the implementation process to help reformers in their struggle against conservatives.

International Liberalism and Distributive Justice: A Survey of Recent Thought

Abstract: In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the liberal tradition in international thought, with particular attention being paid to liberal conceptions of international distributive justice. This article describes and criticizes three different approaches to international distributive justice represented in the recent literature: (1) social liberalism, which takes the nation-state as basic and argues for international transfers to the extent necessary to sustain just domestic institutions; (2) laisser-faire liberalism, which, in its redistributivist variant, aims to rectify injustices arising from the unequal appropriation of natural resources; and (3) cosmopolitan liberalism, which takes each individual's interests as equally deserving of concern in the design of global (and sectional) institutions.

Africa's Overgrown State Reconsidered: Bureaucracy and Economic Growth

Abstract: How close is the link between outsized states and economic stagnation in Africa? This article shows that African public bureaucracies are not as large as often portrayed, that they have been getting smaller, and that reducing their size alone has not been a prescription for economic revival. To the contrary, the countries with higher levels of public employment, such as Botswana and Mauritius, are apt to have the better economic records. These findings suggest that a superabundance of public personnel is not in itself?, major impediment to growth in Africa. Too much attention has been paid to quantitative or “first-generation” bureaucratic problems, and too little attention has been given the “second-generation” issues of bureaucratic quality.

Democratization and Disintegration in Multinational States: The Breakup of the Communist Federations

Abstract: One of the challenges presented to democratization theory by the collapse of communist regimes is the need to take into account the impact of ethnonational diversity on the processes of transition. This article explores that question in a comparative analysis of the dissolutions of the multinational federations of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. It revisits what has been a core--although usually unarticulated--premise of the democratization literature: that the decisions and negotiations that critically shape regime transition occur in a single, central political arena, a political space common to all actors. In contrast to that perspective, the strategic political context for transition in multinational states differs both from that in homogeneous states and from that in unitary multinational states, in offering multiple arenas of political contestation. The implication for democratization in multinational states is that, depending on the institutional structure of the state, regime change may occur at different rates in different substate political arenas--the republics--in such a way as to trigger the erosion of central control over the transition. Where democratization theory has emphasized strategic choice conditioned by the balance of power between regime and opposition actors, an accounting of the politics of transition in ethnofederal states must emphasize (1) strategic choices by actors in multiple political arenas and (2) the shifting balance of power between center and republics.

After Neoliberalism: The Politics of Reregulation in Mexico

Abstract: Neoliberal economic reforms, rather than unleashing market forces, can result in new institutions for market governance. By vacating institutionalized policy domains, neoliberal reforms can trigger two-step reregulation processes, as first, political entrepreneurs launch projects to build support coalitions by reregulating markets, and second, societal groups respond to these projects by mobilizing to influence the terms of reregulation. Depending on the strengths and strategies of politicians and societal groups, reregulation processes result in varied institutions for market governance. The article develops this argument by analyzing how neoliberal reforms in Mexico led to the construction of distinct institutions for market governance across four states (Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Puebla). The findings from Mexico highlight the importance of moving beyond the questions of why developing countries choose neoliberal policies and how they implement them. Students of the political economy of development should shift their attention instead to understanding the kinds of new institutions that replace those destroyed or displaced by neoliberal reforms.

The Free Trade Epidemic of the 1860s and Other Outbreaks of Economic Discrimination

Abstract: Why was there an abrupt increase in economic openness in Europe in the 1860s? This increase may have been the result of a contagion process, in which the Cobden-Chevalier treaty between Britain and France threatened to displace third-party exports to Fra nce with British exports. As a result, most European states signed similar treaties with France, which had further ripple effects. This article outlines a formal model of this process, based on the assumption that an agreement between two states incre ases the desirability of similar treaties to third parties. Propositions regarding the rate and pattern of spread of treaties are derived from this model. This article then discusses the insights these propositions may offer into the rise and fall of the most-favored-nation network of treaties between 1860 and 1929. At a theoretical level the model aims to link the microlevel processes underlying state preferences to system-level phenomena. At a substantive level this analysis offers insight into the current explosion of regionalism.

Loyalty Dilemmas and Market Reform: Party-Union Alliances under Stress in Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela

Abstract: Market reform has dealt a serious blow to traditional alliances between governing parties and labor unions. This article examines the fate of these alliances by applying a revised version of Albert Hirschman's schema of exit, voice, and loyalty to party-union relations in Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela. After refining the concept of loyalty, the author argues that it is embedded in the principles and norms on which these alliances are based. Market reform places party-affiliated labor leaders in a "loyalty dilemma" in which they have no choice but to behave disloyally toward one set of claimants. Their propensity to respond with either voice or exit depends on their vulnerability to reprisals for disloyal behavior and the party's capacity to retain their loyalty even in the face of sacrifices imposed on workers and unions. Both variables are linked to the authority structures in which labor and party leaders find themselves. In the short to medium run the alliances most likely to survive are those in which labor leaders have significant autonomy from their bases and/or in which the party is able and willing to challenge its own executive. In the long run, however, even these alliances may be vulnerable to collapse because of popular frustrations with the inadequacy of interest representation and the multiple pressures on political organizations to adapt to a more fluid and uncertain environment.

Liberal Elites, Socialist Masses, and Problems of Russian Democracy

Abstract: Strong showings by antireform parties in elections in Russia and other East European nations in the early and mid-1990s raised concerns about the long-term prospects for democracy in the region. Some interpret these votes as expressions of public protest over the costs of economic reform, while others argue that they reflected public skepticism of the liberalism of reformist elites. The authors present evidence from parallel elite/mass surveys conducted in Russia in 1992-93 and 1995 of a considerable gap between elite and mass worldviews. They argue that variation in ideological orientations--both between elite and mass and within the mass public--is largely a function of the postcommunist structure of economic opportunity. Analysis of the survey data provides substantial support for the effects of economic opportunity structure on individual ideological orientation and system preference. Thus, what accounts for the Russian elite's embrace of liberalism and its nonacceptance by portions of the Russian mass public is not simply economic decline but the differential impact of restructuring on long-term material prospects. The findings suggest that students of democratic change should focus more fully on the structural factors that constrain what is politically possible.

Old Political Rationalities and New Democracies: Compromise and Confrontation in Hungary and Poland

Abstract: Studies of democratic consolidation tend to highlight the same factors previously used to explain countries' transitional dynamics. Yet one cannot properly understand success or failure in democratic consolidation—much less discern significant qualitative differences among consolidated democracies—by focusing exclusively on formal institutions, modes of transition, incentive structures, or exogenous factors. Close inspection of two newly consolidated democracies—Poland and Hungary—shows that despite radically altered institutional arrangements, legal structures, and political-economic incentives, the most important determinants of the models of democracy emerging today derive from pretransition conceptual frames and informal political settlements. Specifically, the core conflicts between ruling elites and society in communist Poland and Hungary, as well as the patterns of political accommodation that evolved in the management of those conflicts, continue to structure the political agenda and order debate in both countries. In Poland overlapping ethical-ideological cleavages and failures of political accommodation under the ancien regime have resulted in a confrontational-pluralist model of democracy. In contrast, Hungary's compromise-corporatist model stems from early informal accommodation between the party-state and society that recast most conflicts as “economic” in nature. These long-standing conflicts and political patterns explain striking contemporary differences in social mobilization, party competition, and constitutional development. The article concludes with a discussion of how these models are likely to shape each country's prospects for sustained governability and increased democratic legitimacy.