Showing papers in "World Politics in 2011"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the commitment problem that arises in personalist regimes between elites who hold joint control of the state's coercive apparatus, and find that ethnic exclusion substitutes civil war risk for coup risk.
Abstract: Why do rulers employ ethnic exclusion at the risk of civil war? Focusing on the region of sub-Saharan Africa, the author attributes this costly strategy to the commitment problem that arises in personalist regimes between elites who hold joint control of the state's coercive apparatus. As no faction can be sure that others will not exploit their violent capabilities to usurp power, elites maneuver to protect their privileged position and safeguard against others' first-a rising internal threat, rulers move to eliminate their rivals to guarantee their personal and political survival. But the cost of such a strategy, especially when carried out along ethnic lines, is that it increases the risk of a future civil war. To test this argument, the author employs the Ethnic Power Relations data set combined with original data on the ethnicity of conspirators of coups and rebellions in Africa. He finds that in Africa ethnic exclusion substitutes civil war risk for coup risk. And rulers are significantly more likely to exclude their coconspirators -the very friends and allies who helped them come to power-than other included groups, but at the cost of increasing the risk of a future civil war with their former allies. In the first three years after being purged from the central government, coconspirators and their coethnics are sixteen times more likely to rebel than when they were represented at the apex of the regime.
282 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the distribution of risk in a society has important consequences via popular demand for social policy-making, and that the more equally unemployment risk is distributed, the higher unemployment replacement rates are.
Abstract: Why are unemployment benefits more generous in some countries? This article argues that citizens trade off the redistributive and insuring effect of social insurance. As a result, the distribution of risk in a society has important consequences via popular demand for social policy-making. At the microlevel, the article shows that, in addition to income, the risk of unemployment is a key predictor of individual-level preferences for unemployment benefits. Based on the microlevel findings, the article argues that at the macrolevel the homogeneity of the risk pool is an important determinant of benefit generosity: the more equally unemployment risk is distributed, the higher unemployment replacement rates are. Empirical testing at both levels finds support for this account of social policy by popular demand.
192 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the inclusion-moderation hypothesis with reference to political Islam: the idea that political groups and individuals may become more moderate as a result of their inclusion in pluralist political processes.
Abstract: Recent years have seen a surge of studies that examine the inclusion-moderation hypothesis with reference to political Islam: the idea that political groups and individuals may become more moderate as a result of their inclusion in pluralist political processes. Most of these interventions adopt one of three foci: (1) the behavioral moderation of groups; (2) the ideological moderation of groups; and (3) the ideological moderation of individuals. After a discussion of various definitions of moderate and radical, the concept of moderation, and the centrality of moderation to studies of democratization, the author examines the scholarship on political Islam that falls within each approach. She then examines several studies that raise questions about sequencing: how mechanisms linking inclusion and moderation are posited and how other approaches might better explain Islamist moderation. Finally, she offers a critical analysis of the behavior-ideology binary that animates many of these models and suggests some fruitful paths for future research.
181 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an institutional theory of direct/indirect rule is proposed to explain the difference between a relatively direct (centralized) and a relatively indirect (decentralized) system of rule.
Abstract: Most governance arrangements involve spatial units with highly unequal powers, for example, a feudal monarchy and its principalities, an empire and its colonies, a formal empire and an informal empire (or sphere of influence), a national government and its subnational entities, or a regional government and its local entities. In this situation, the dominant unit ( A ) usually enjoys some discretion about how to institutionalize its authority over the subordinate unit ( B ). An important element of this decision concerns how much authority should be delegated to the weaker unit. The authors simplify this dimension of governance along a continuum of “direct” and “indirect” styles of rule. Why, in some cases, does one find a relatively direct (centralized) system of rule and in others a relatively indirect (decentralized) system of rule? While many factors impinge on this decision, the authors argue that an important and highly persistent factor is the prior level of centralization existing within the subordinate unit. Greater centralization in B is likely to lead to a more indirect form of rule between A and B , all other things being equal. The authors refer to this as an institutional theory of direct/indirect rule. Empirical analyses of this hypothesis are applied to patterns of direct and indirect rule (1) during the age of imperialism and (2) across contemporary nation-states. The article concludes by discussing applications of the theory in a variety of additional settings.
163 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a measure of voter ideology called vote-revealed leftism and a time-series cross-sectional analysis of aggregate public opinion indicators generated from mass surveys of eighteen countries over thirteen years were used to show that the left has a clear economic policy mandate but that this mandate is much more moderate than many observers might expect.
Abstract: The rise of the left across Latin America is one of the most striking electoral events to occur in new democracies during the last decade. Current work argues either that the left's electoral success stems from a thoroughgoing rejection of free-market policies by voters or that electorates have sought to punish poorly performing right-wing incumbents. Whether the new left has a policy or performance mandate has implications for the type of policies it may pursue in power and the voting behavior of Latin American electorates. Using a new measure of voter ideology called vote-revealed leftism (vrl ) and a time-series cross-sectional analysis of aggregate public opinion indicators generated from mass surveys of eighteen countries over thirteen years, the authors show that the left has a clear economic policy mandate but that this mandate is much more moderate than many observers might expect. In contrast to the generalized view that new democracies are of low quality, the authors reach the more optimistic conclusion that wellreasoned voting on economic policy issues and electoral mandates are now relevant features of politics in Latin America.
122 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that constitutions do matter, but as much by shaping informal political arrangements as by being obeyed, and that they do not matter by being overwhelmed by informal politics.
Abstract: How do formal constitutions impact the prospects for democratization in hybrid regimes, where corruption is typically high and rule of law weak? It is often assumed either that they set “rules of the game,” having effects by being followed, or that they do not matter, being overwhelmed by informal politics. In fact, a logic of collective action reveals that constitutions do matter, but as much by shaping informal political arrangements as by being obeyed. Presidentialist constitutions, through an information effect and a focal effect, generate expectations of future informal power that encourage clientelistic networks to coordinate law-disregarding practices around a “single pyramid” of power led by the president. The information and focal effects of divided-executive constitutions, by contrast, create expectations that complicate the coordination of clientelistic networks around a single patron, promoting “competing-pyramid” politics. To isolate the impact of formal constitutional design and rule out other causes, a tightly controlled process-tracing paired comparison is employed using Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan during 2005–10, explaining why Ukraine's Orange Revolution produced a true democratic opening (even if short lived) while Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution did not.
96 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a theory of participation in violence that incorporates both opportunity costs and informational barriers to participation and tested it by comparing violent and nonviolent political activists involved in the anticolonial agitation in Bengal (1906-39) using data from their police files.
Abstract: Many studies of the social backgrounds of terrorists have found that they are wealthier and better educated than the population from which they are drawn. However, studies of political behavior have shown that all forms of political involvement are correlated with socioeconomic status. Among those who are politically active, opportunity costs may lead those involved in nonviolent activities to have a higher social status than violent individuals with a similar ideological orientation. This article develops a theory of participation in violence that incorporates both opportunity costs and informational barriers to participation and tests it by comparing violent and nonviolent political activists involved in the anticolonial agitation in Bengal (1906–39) using data from their police files. While the Bengali terrorists are better educated and have higher status jobs than the population average, they are less educated and less wealthy than the nonviolent activists. These results suggest that socioeconomic status may play a substantial negative role in terrorist recruitment within elites.
87 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in Western Europe are conditional on the position of the median voter, and that if the median is far enough to the right, such parties will adopt business-friendly policies because they are required to win office.
Abstract: The authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in Western Europe are conditional on the position of the median voter. If the median is far enough to the right, such parties will adopt business-friendly policies because they are required to win office. Only when the median is relatively far to the left will globalization constrain social democratic parties, forcing them to adopt policies further to the right in order to retain credibility. It is on this basis the authors argue that empirical studies are misspecified unless they include an interaction between measures of globalization and the position of the median. In addition to presenting formal theoretical arguments, the article reports empirical findings from fifteen countries in the period from 1973 to 2002 that support the conclusion that the effects of globalization are indeed contingent on the median. The authors find that the effects of globalization are significant for social democratic parties only in circumstances in which the median is relatively far to the left.
86 citations
TL;DR: The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources.
Abstract: Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect regardless of public redistributive policies After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the nondistributive effect, a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources Data for fifty autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 are then used to examine whether media freedom—independent of government responsiveness—has a positive impact on life expectancy
85 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that social service provision constitutes an important electoral strategy for elite-backed religious parties to succeed in developing democracies, and demonstrate how the upper caste, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) won unexpected support from lower-caste voters in India, due to services provided by its grassroots affiliates.
Abstract: How do elite parties win over poor voters while maintaining their core constituencies? How can religious parties expand their electoral base? This article argues that social service provision constitutes an important electoral strategy for elite-backed religious parties to succeed in developing democracies. The study demonstrates how the upper caste, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp ) won unexpected support from lower-caste voters in India, due to services provided by its grassroots affiliates. Using a combination of original survey data and extensive interviews, the author tests whether services win votes and identifies the mechanisms by which they do so. Beneficiaries of services were found to be far more likely to support the party, even when accounting for piety, income, and ideological orientation. The author argues that service provision as an electoral strategy cannot be conceptualized as being predicated purely on material exchange. It should instead be understood as a socially embedded tactic especially well suited to helping elite parties with organizational resources, but without pro-poor policy agendas, win over underprivileged electorates.
73 citations
TL;DR: The historical rise of European foreign, security, and defense policy marks an important development in European politics and world politics more broadly as discussed by the authors, and scholars from diverse theoretical and intellectual backgrounds have argued that European integration in these policy areas has gained considerable substance.
Abstract: The historical rise of European foreign, security, and defense policy marks an important development in European politics and world politics more broadly. Long thought unlikely to amount to much, European integration in the domains of traditional “high politics” has consolidated bit by bit since the mid-1990s, under the auspices of a common foreign and security policy (cfsp ) and a pan-European security and defense policy (esdp ). Accordingly, European affairs in these areas have attracted increased scholarly interest. In a variety of books as well as journal articles, scholars from diverse theoretical and intellectual backgrounds have argued that European integration in these policy areas has gained considerable substance—while offering very different causal accounts for why this has occurred. These different theoretical and empirical investigations together produce a new field of study with its own research questions, vocabulary, and search for causal explanations. ir theory is now engaging fully with European integration studies and vice versa. Paradoxically, this takes place in precisely those policy areas in which European integration had long been the weakest and least developed. This article explores and evaluates this new literature that analyzes why, compared with even the very recent past, a European foreign and security policy has emerged and apparently solidified.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the dynamics of persistence and change in state policies toward ethnicity, and develop a new typology, "regimes of ethnicity," and categorize states as having monoethnic, multiethnic, and antiethnic regimes.
Abstract: How do state policies that regulate the relationship between ethnicity and nationality change? This article examines the dynamics of persistence and change in state policies toward ethnicity. In order to better comprehend the nature of political contestation over these state policies, the author first develops a new typology, "regimes of ethnicity," and categorizes states as having monoethnic, multiethnic, and antiethnic regimes. These regimes are defined along dimensions of membership and expression. Second, he develops a theory of ethnic regime change. He explains the persistence and change in policies related to ethnicity and nationality in Germany, the Soviet Union/post-Soviet Russia, and Turkey since the 1950s by reference to the presence or absence of three independent variables: counterelites, new discourses, and hegemonic majority. He argues that if counterelites representing constituencies with ethnically specific grievances come to power equipped with a new discourse on ethnicity and nationality and garner a hegemonic majority, they can change state policies on ethnicity. These three factors are separately necessary and jointly sufficient for change. Reform in the German citizenship law, removal of ethnicity from Russian internal passports, and the beginning of public broadcasting in Kurdish and other minority languages on state television in Turkey are examined as major changes in state policies.
TL;DR: The article finds that candidates in the pre-1997 era campaigned on broad, generic platforms; parties had no independent means of technical policy expertise; the government targeted health resources to narrow geographic areas; and health was underprovided in Thai society.
Abstract: How do changes in electoral rules affect the nature of public policy outcomes? The current evidence supporting institutional theories that answer this question stems almost entirely from quantitative cross-country studies, the data of which contain very little within-unit variation. Indeed, while there are many country-level accounts of how changes in electoral rules affect such phenomena as the number of parties or voter turnout, there are few studies of how electoral reform affects public policy outcomes. This article contributes to this latter endeavor by providing a detailed analysis of electoral reform and the public policy process in Thailand through an examination of the 1997 electoral reforms. Specifically, the author examines four aspects of policy-making: policy formulation, policy platforms, policy content, and policy outcomes. The article finds that candidates in the pre-1997 era campaigned on broad, generic platforms; parties had no independent means of technical policy expertise; the government targeted health resources to narrow geographic areas; and health was underprovided in Thai society. Conversely, candidates in the post-1997 era relied more on a strong, detailed national health policy; parties created mechanisms to formulate health policy independently; the government allocated health resources broadly to the entire nation through the introduction of a universal health care system, and health outcomes improved. The author attributes these changes in the policy process to the 1997 electoral reform, which increased both constituency breadth (the proportion of the population to which politicians were accountable) and majoritarianism.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply spatial econometrics to the question of whether regime competition fuelled welfare-state growth and find that regime competition stimulated the expansion of welfare state on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the postwar period.
Abstract: Scholars from a number of disciplines have argued that the massive expansion of the welfare state in the postwar period was at least in some part a byproduct of the cold war and the associated political competition between two rival regime blocs. However, the question of whether regime competition fuelled welfare-state growth has never been subject to systematic examination. Applying spatial econometrics, this article offers the first empirical test of this argument. The authors' findings support the notion that regime competition stimulated the expansion of the welfare state on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the postwar period.
TL;DR: This article explored the origins of peak employers' associations to understand why countries produce highly centralized macrocorporatist groups, weaker national associations but stronger industry-level groups, or highly fragmented pluralist associations.
Abstract: This article explores the origins of peak employers' associations to understand why countries produce highly centralized macrocorporatist groups, weaker national associations but stronger industry-level groups, or highly fragmented pluralist associations. The authors suggest that the structure of partisan competition played a vital causal role in the development and evolution of these peak associations. The leadership for peak employers' association development came from business-oriented party activists and bureaucrats, who sought both to advance industrial development policy and to solve specific problems of political control. Business-oriented party leaders and bureaucrats in both predemocratic and democratic regimes feared the rising tide of democracy and labor activism and viewed employer organization as a useful tool for political control, to secure parliamentary advantage, and to serve as a societal counterweight to working class activism. Because leadership for association building came from the state, the political rules of the game were crucial to outcomes. The structure of party competition and state centralization shaped incentives for strategic coordination for both political actors and employers. Dedicated business parties were more likely to develop in countries with multiparty systems and limited federal power sharing than in countries with two-party systems and federalism: in a multiparty context where no single party was likely to gain power, each party had an incentive to cooperate with other social groups. Moreover, business-oriented party leaders and bureaucrats in multiparty systems were motivated to delegate policy-making authority to coordinated societal channels for industrial relations, because they anticipated that employers would win more in these channels than in parliamentary settings where the center and left could form a coalition against the right. Again, centralized party systems were more likely than federal ones to develop a dedicated national business party that transcended regional cleavages and to retain a strong role for the state in the governance of industrial relations.
TL;DR: Examination of differences in how the gentile population in each of two neighboring territories in Romania treated its Jewish population during the Holocaust shows that the civilian population in the area that had been part of the Soviet Union was less likely to harm and more likely to aid Jews as compared with the region that had be part of Romania.
Abstract: The authors draw on a natural experiment to demonstrate that states can reconstruct conflictual interethnic relationships into cooperative relationships in relatively short periods of time. The article examines differences in how the gentile population in each of two neighboring territories in Romania treated its Jewish population during the Holocaust. These territories had been part of tsarist Russia and subject to state-sponsored anti-Semitism until 1917. During the interwar period one territory became part of Romania, which continued anti-Semitic policies, and the other became part of the Soviet Union, which pursued an inclusive nationality policy, fighting against inherited anti-Semitism and working to integrate its Jews. Both territories were then reunited under Romanian administration during World War II, when Romania began to destroy its Jewish population. The authors demonstrate that, despite a uniform Romanian state presence during the Holocaust that encouraged gentiles to victimize Jews, the civilian population in the area that had been part of the Soviet Union was less likely to harm and more likely to aid Jews as compared with the region that had been part of Romania. Their evidence suggests that the state construction of interethnic relationships can become internalized by civilians and outlive the life of the state itself.
TL;DR: This article argued that the absence of effective elite closure against parliamentary reform in the early 1830s was the result of an extended process of state reform that had the effect of gradually reducing the capacity of the monarchy.
Abstract: The long-standing understanding of the British 1832 Reform Act as an elite response to a revolutionary threat has been given renewed prominence in recent work on the political economy of democratization. But earlier episodes of popular revolt in Britain led to elite unity rather than elite concessions. This article argues that the absence of effective elite closure against parliamentary reform in the early 1830s was the result of an extended process of state reform that had the effect of gradually reducing the capacity of the monarchy. This deprived the crown of patronage required for the construction of an antireform coalition, while also mollifying the reformers' fears that mass mobilization would invite repression and with it the recalibration of the constitution in favor of the monarchy. Therefore, while pressure from below was indeed critical to the passage of parliamentary reform, its contribution was mediated by institutional changes that, over time, weakened the sources of resistance to change and rendered reformist elites more amenable to the necessary reliance on the threat of force. This case study thus establishes that change at critical junctures can be subject to the influence of incremental institutional change occurring in relatively settled periods.
TL;DR: For years, mainstream international relations (ir ) theorists have essentially ignored reconciliation as a special and perhaps the most difficult form of cooperation building in international politics as mentioned in this paper, which is why reconciliation has been neglected.
Abstract: For years, mainstream international relations (ir ) theorists have essentially ignored reconciliation as a special—and perhaps the most difficult—form of cooperation building in international politics. This review article seeks to make the study of reconciliation a more visible field for further inquiry in ir , comparative politics, and sociology for both theoretical and practical reasons. After summarizing important themes emerged from the recent literature on reconciliation, the author addresses four issues for understanding interstate reconciliation: the interplay of group emotions and group politics, the interplay of domestic politics and international politics, the institutionalization of memories, and methodological issues. Better understanding of these issues also contributes to broadening the scope of inquiry in ir , comparative politics, and the sociology literature.
TL;DR: A close look at the commitments of World Trade Organization (wto ) members presents a striking paradox: most states could raise their duties significantly before falling afoul of their wto obligations as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A close look at the commitments of World Trade Organization (wto ) members presents a striking paradox. Most states could raise their duties significantly before falling afoul of their wto obligations. Moreover, such “binding overhang” varies between countries: some could more than double the amount of trade protection they offer overnight, whereas others are tightly constrained. What accounts for this variation? The author argues that more flexibility is not always better: obtaining it and subsequently using it are both costly. Rather than maximize flexibility, states thus seek an optimal amount. If they have access to policy space through other means, such as currency devaluations and trade remedies, they will exercise restraint in seeking binding overhang. The same supply-side logic holds at the domestic level: governments strategically withhold binding overhang from industries that are able to rely on trade remedies, despite the fact that these tend to have the greatest political clout.
TL;DR: A growing trend in the comparative politics literature on patterns of minority incorporation emphasizes the emerging policy convergence in this area, conventional oppositions between national models notwithstanding, and this convergence is further illustrated by drawing upon the cases of two countries often analyzed within an exceptionalist framework and generally viewed as polar opposites as far as the political legitimacy and legal validity of race-based classifications are concerned: the United States and France as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A growing trend in the comparative politics literature on patterns of minority incorporation emphasizes the emerging policy convergence in this area, conventional oppositions between national models notwithstanding. This convergence is further illustrated by drawing upon the cases of two countries often analyzed within an “exceptionalist” framework and generally viewed as polar opposites as far as the political legitimacy and legal validity of race-based classifications are concerned: the United States and France. The analysis of recent programs designed to increase the “diversity” of the student body in selective institutions of higher education demonstrates that indirect affirmative action is the instrument around which French and U.S. policies have tended to converge. This increasingly visible convergence obtains in part because of the current move toward color-blindness as a matter of law in the United States. Yet it is also a reflection of the fact that the ultimate purpose of affirmative action in liberal democracies requires a measure of indirection and/or implicitness.