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Politics

About: Politics is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 263762 publications have been published within this topic receiving 5388913 citations.


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TL;DR: Lederman, Loayza, and Soares as mentioned in this paper used a cross-country panel to examine the determinants of corruption, paying particular attention to political institutions that increase political accountability.
Abstract: The results of a cross-country empirical analysis suggest that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy, parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption. Using a cross-country panel, Lederman, Loayza, and Soares examine the determinants of corruption, paying particular attention to political institutions that increase political accountability. Previous empirical studies have not analyzed the role of political institutions, even though both the political science and the theoretical economics literature have indicated their importance in determining corruption. The main theoretical hypothesis guiding the authorsi empirical investigation is that political institutions affect corruption through two channels: political accountability and the structure of the provision of public goods. The results suggest that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy, parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption. In addition, the authors show that common findings of the earlier empirical literature on the determinants of corruption related to openness and legal traditionodo not hold once political variables are taken into account. This paper - a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Region - is part of a larger effort to conduct research on pressing policy issues in the region. The authors may be contacted at dlederman@worldbank.org or nloayza@worldbank.org.

596 citations

Book
01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: The first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion as discussed by the authors, that democracies tend to win the wars they fight about eighty percent of the time.
Abstract: Why do democracies win wars? This is a critical question in the study of international relations, as a traditional view--expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville--has been that democracies are inferior in crafting foreign policy and fighting wars. In Democracies at War, the first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion. Democracies tend to win the wars they fight--specifically, about eighty percent of the time. Complementing their wide-ranging case-study analysis, the authors apply innovative statistical tests and new hypotheses. In unusually clear prose, they pinpoint two reasons for democracies' success at war. First, as elected leaders understand that losing a war can spell domestic political backlash, democracies start only those wars they are likely to win. Secondly, the emphasis on individuality within democratic societies means that their soldiers fight with greater initiative and superior leadership. Surprisingly, Reiter and Stam find that it is neither economic muscle nor bandwagoning between democratic powers that enables democracies to win wars. They also show that, given societal consent, democracies are willing to initiate wars of empire or genocide. On the whole, they find, democracies' dependence on public consent makes for more, rather than less, effective foreign policy. Taking a fresh approach to a question that has long merited such a study, this book yields crucial insights on security policy, the causes of war, and the interplay between domestic politics and international relations.

596 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The notion of deliberative democracy was coined by Bessette, who explicitly coined it to oppose the elitist or "aristocratic" interpretation of the American Constitution.
Abstract: roposed as a reformist and sometimes even as a radical political ideal,deliberative democracy begins with the critique of the standard practices ofliberal democracy. Although the idea can be traced to Dewey and Arendt andthen further back to Rousseau and even Aristotle, in its recent incarnation theterm stems from Joseph Bessette, who explicitly coined it to oppose the elitist or‘‘aristocratic’’ interpretation of the American Constitution.

595 citations

Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The Women of the Republic as mentioned in this paper is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records, and it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society.
Abstract: Women of the Republic views the American Revolution through women's eyes. Previous histories have rarely recognized that the battle for independence was also a woman's war. The "women of the army" toiled in army hospitals, kitchens, and laundries. Civilian women were spies, fund raisers, innkeepers, suppliers of food and clothing. Recruiters, whether patriot or tory, found men more willing to join the army when their wives and daughters could be counted on to keep the farms in operation and to resist enchroachment from squatters. "I have Don as much to Carrey on the warr as maney that Sett Now at the healm of government," wrote one impoverished woman, and she was right. Women of the Republic is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records. Achieving a remarkable comprehensiveness, it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society. The rhetoric of the Revolution, full of insistence on rights and freedom in opposition to dictatorial masters, posed questions about the position of women in marriage as well as in the polity, but few of the implications of this rhetoric were recognized. How much liberty and equality for women? How much pursuit of happiness? How much justice? When American political theory failed to define a program for the participation of women in the public arena, women themselves had to develop an ideology of female patriotism. They promoted the notion that women could guarantee the continuing health of the republic by nurturing public-spirited sons and husbands. This limited ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is a measure of the political and social conservatism of the Revolution. The subsequent history of women in America is the story of women's efforts to accomplish for themselves what the Revolution did not.

595 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review recent innovations within democratic theory, focusing especially on problems of fairness, constituency definition, deliberative political judgment, and new, nonelectoral forms of representation.
Abstract: Democratic theorists have paid increasing attention to problems of political representation over the past two decades. Interest is driven by (a) a political landscape within which electoral representation now competes with new and informal kinds of representation; (b) interest in the fairness of electoral representation, particularly for minorities and women; (c) a renewed focus on political judgment within democratic theory; and (d) a new appreciation that participation and representation are complementary forms of citizenship. We review recent innovations within democratic theory, focusing especially on problems of fairness, constituency definition, deliberative political judgment, and new, nonelectoral forms of representation.

595 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202448
202329,771
202265,814
20216,033
20207,708
20198,328