Showing papers on "State (polity) published in 1997"

Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government

Abstract: This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. Professor Pettit's eloquent, compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty. The first part traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many attractions, and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part looks at what the implementation of the ideal would imply for substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of relations between state and society founded upon civility and trust. Professor Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, it also provides a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology.

The queen of America goes to Washington city : essays on sex and citizenship

Abstract: In The Queen of America Goes to Washington City , Lauren Berlant focuses on the need to revitalize public life and political agency in the United States. Delivering a devastating critique of contemporary discourses of American citizenship, she addresses the triumph of the idea of private life over that of public life borne in the right-wing agenda of the Reagan revolution. By beaming light onto the idealized images and narratives about sex and citizenship that now dominate the U.S. public sphere, Berlant argues that the political public sphere has become an intimate public sphere. She asks why the contemporary ideal of citizenship is measured by personal and private acts and values rather than civic acts, and the ideal citizen has become one who, paradoxically, cannot yet act as a citizen—epitomized by the American child and the American fetus. As Berlant traces the guiding images of U.S. citizenship through the process of privatization, she discusses the ideas of intimacy that have come to define national culture. From the fantasy of the American dream to the lessons of Forrest Gump, Lisa Simpson to Queer Nation, the reactionary culture of imperilled privilege to the testimony of Anita Hill, Berlant charts the landscape of American politics and culture. She examines the consequences of a shrinking and privatized concept of citizenship on increasing class, racial, sexual, and gender animosity and explores the contradictions of a conservative politics that maintains the sacredness of privacy, the virtue of the free market, and the immorality of state overregulation—except when it comes to issues of intimacy. Drawing on literature, the law, and popular media, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City is a stunning and major statement about the nation and its citizens in an age of mass mediation. As it opens a critical space for new theory of agency, its narratives and gallery of images will challenge readers to rethink what it means to be American and to seek salvation in its promise.

Third World political ecology

Abstract: Introduction 1. An Emerging Research Field 2. A Politicised Environment 3. The State 4. Multilateral Institutions 5. Business 6. Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations 7. Grassroots Actors Conclusion

The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization

Abstract: The economic logic of the current international economy does not predict the “eclipse of the state”. Economic globalization does restrict state power, but transnational capital needs capable states as much or more than does domestically oriented business. National success in the current global political economy has been associated not with minimal states but with states that are capable, active, and engaged. Pressure for eclipse flows from the conjunction between transnational economic forces and the political hegemony of an Anglo-American ideology that, in J. P. Nettl's words, “simply leaves no room for any valid notion of the state”. Even this combination of economic and political pressure is unlikely to eclipse the state, but it is likely to put public institutions on the defensive, eclipsing any possibility of the “embedded liberalism” described by John Ruggie. A “leaner, meaner” state is the likely outcome. The possibility of a more progressive alternative outcome would depend in part on whether current zero-sum visions of the relation between the state and civil society can be replaced by a more synergistic view.

The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare

Abstract: Authors John Clarke and Janet Newman present an original analysis of the creation of new state forms that critically examines the political forces that enabled "more and better management" to be presented as a solution to the problems of the welfare state in Britain. Examining the micro-politics of change within public services, the authors draw links among politics, policies, and organizational power to present an incisive and dynamic account of the restructuring of social welfare. Clarke and Newman expose the tensions and contradictions in the managerial state and trace the emergence of new dilemmas in the provision of public services. They show that these problems are connected to the recurring difficulties in defining the "the public" that receives these services. In particular they question whether the reinvention of the public as either a nation of consumers or a nation of communities can effectively address the implications of social diversity. A cogent critique of the social, political, and organizational conflicts and instabilities that are embedded in new state forms, The Managerial State will be essential reading for students and academics in social policy, public policy, and public management. It will also be of interest to academics in sociology, politics, and organization studies.

Malaysia's Political Economy: Politics, Patronage and Profits

Abstract: 1. Defining the parameters 2. The colonial legacy 3. The new economic policy 4. Privatising state assets 5. The 'new rich' 6. Liberalisation after 1990? 7. Politics, policies and patronage Afterword: from economic to political crisis.

The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela

Abstract: In 1935, after the death of dictator General Juan Vicente Gomez, Venezuela consolidated its position as the world's major oil exporter, establishing South America's longest-lasting democratic regime. Endowed with the power of state oil wealth, successive presidents appeared as transcendent figures who could magically transform Venezuela into a modern nation. During the 1974-78 oil boom, dazzling development projects promised to effect this transformation, yet now the state must struggle to appease its foreign creditors, counter a declining economy, and contain a discontented citizenry. In critical dialogue with contemporary social theory, this text examines key transformations in Venezuela's polity, culture and economy, recasting theories of development for other postcolonial nations.

Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Abstract: For many years scholars have sought to explain why the European states which emerged in the period before the French Revolution developed along such different lines. Why did some become absolutist and others constitutionalist? What enabled some to develop bureaucratic administrative systems, while others remained dependent upon patrimonial practices? This book presents a new theory of state-building in medieval and early modern Europe. Ertman argues that two factors - the organisation of local government at the time of state formation and the timing of sustained geo-military competition - can explain most of the variation in political regimes and in state infrastructures found across the continent during the second half of the eighteenth century. Drawing on insights developed in historical sociology, comparative politics, and economic history, this book makes a compelling case for the value of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of political development.

The Real New World Order

Abstract: Many thought that the new world order proclaimed by George Bush was the promise of 1945 fulfilled, a world in which international institutions, led by the United Nations, guaranteed international peace and security with the active support of the world's major powers. That world order is a chimera. Even as a liberal internationalist ideal, it is infeasible at best and dangerous at worst. It requires a centralized rule making authority, a hierarchy of institutions, and universal membership. Equally to the point, efforts to create such an order have failed. The United Nations cannot function effectively independent of the major powers that compose it, nor will those nations cede their power and sovereignty to an international institution. Efforts to expand suprana tional authority, whether by the U.N. secretary-general's office, the European Commission, or the World Trade Organization (wto), have consistently produced a backlash among member states. The leading alternative to liberal internationalism is "the new medievalism," a back-to-the-future model of the 21st century. Where liberal internationalists see a need for international rules and institutions to solve states' problems, the new medievalists proclaim the end of the nation-state. Less hyperbolically, in her article, "Power Shift," in the January/February 1997 Foreign Affairs, Jessica T. Mathews describes a shift away from the state?up, down, and sideways?to supra-state, sub-state, and, above all, nonstate actors. These new players have multiple allegiances and global reach.

A study of crisis

Abstract: As the twentieth century draws to a close, it is time to look back on an epoch of widespread turmoil, including two world wars, the end of the colonial era in world history, and a large number of international crises and conflicts This book is designed to shed light on the causes and consequences of military-security crises since the end of World War I, in every region, across diverse economic and political regimes, and cultures The primary aim of this volume is to uncover patterns of crises, conflicts and wars and thereby to contribute to the advancement of international peace and world orderThe culmination of more than twenty years of research by Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, the book analyzes crucial themes about crisis, conflict, and war and presents systematic knowledge about more than 400 crises, thirty-one protracted conflicts and almost 900 state participants The authors explore many aspects of conflict, including the ethnic dimension, the effect of different kinds of political regimes--notably the question whether democracies are more peaceful than authoritarian regimes, and the role of violence in crisis management They employ both case studies and aggregate data analysis in a Unified Model of Crisis to focus on two levels of analysis--hostile interactions among states, and the behavior of decision-makers who must cope with the challenge posed by a threat to values, time pressure, and the increased likelihood that military hostilities will engulf themThis book will appeal to scholars in history, political science, sociology, and economics as well as policy makers interested in the causes and effects of crises in international relations The rich data sets will serve researchers for years to come as they probe additional aspects of crisis, conflict and war in international relationsMichael Brecher is R B Angus Professor of Political Science, McGill University Jonathan Wilkenfeld is Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland They are the coauthors of "Crises in the Twentieth Century: A Handbook of International Crisis," among other books and articles

Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil

Abstract: Preface and acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part I. Historical and Cultural Legacies: 2. Trajectories from colonialism 3. Lessons from slavery 4. The uncertain legacy of miscegenation Implications Part II. Racial Domination and the Nation-State: 5. 'Wee for thee, South Africa': the racial state 6. 'To bind up the nation's wounds': the United States after the Civil War 7. 'Order and progress': inclusive nation-state building in Brazil Comparative racial domination: an overview Part III. Race Making from Below: 8. 'We are a rock': Black racial identity, mobilization and the new South Africa 9. Burying Jim Crow: Black racial identity, mobilization and reform in the United States 10. Breaching Brazil's pact of silence 11. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.

Globalization and the myth of the powerless state

Abstract: economies and the demise of the state’s domestic power. This article, instead, seeks to show why the modern notion of the powerless state, with its accompanying reports about the demise of national diversity, is fundamentally misleading.1 It is undeniable that striking changes have taken place inside nation-states in recent times. On the social policy front, there has been a decisive move towards fiscal conservatism, whether from the Right or the Left, with reforms to taxation systems and the trimming of social programmes. In the economic sphere, governments have moved towards greater openness in matters of trade, investment and finance. These changes are often represented as prima facie evidence of the emergence of a new global ‘logic of capitalism’. According to this logic, states are now virtually powerless to make real policy choices; transnational markets and footloose corporations have so narrowly constrained policy options that more and more states are being forced to adopt similar fiscal, economic and social policy regimes. Globalists therefore predict

Emergent actors in world politics : how states and nations develop and dissolve

Abstract: The disappearance and formation of states and nations after the end of the Cold War have proved puzzling to both theorists and policy-makers. Cedarman argues that this lack of conceptual preparation stems from two tendencies in conventional theorizing: firstly, the dominant focus on cohesive nation-states as the only actors of world politics obscures crucial differences between the state and the nation; secondly, traditional theory usually treats these units as fixed. This book presents complex adaptive systems modelling as a way of analyzing world politics. It provides a series of models, computerized thought-experiments, that separate the state from the nation and incorporate these as emergent rather than preconceived actors.

The Anatomy of the Turkish Military's Political Autonomy

Abstract: The most profound contradiction marking Turkish democracy in the 1990s is the demonstrated inability of civilian politicians to control the military. The Turkish military enjoys a strong degree of military autonomy. Three times it has intervened in Turkish politics. The patterned nature of military-civilian relations has created a legacy that reinforces and maintains the independence of the armed forces. Since 1980, however, fresh developments make studying military-civilian relations even more significant. First, the democratic thrust of the radically altered political economy since 1980, both domestically and internationally, must be considered. The growing political role of the armed forces is at best anachronistic and at worse incongruent with the regime's commitment to the norms associated with liberal democracy and free market capitalism. The existence of parallel state structures, one civilian and the other military, undermines the authority and the democratic accountability of elected civilian governments. Furthermore, despite the deep breach in Turkish politics between rhetoric and action, the structural distortions and contradictions generated by the march toward a more "liberal" economic and political order, and the Kurdish insurgency, one should not assume that the past necessarily predicts the future. Finally, there are internal and global conditions antagonistic to the military's ethics and political credentials. Nevertheless, the harmony of the series of civilian governments with the military since the transition to civilian democracy testifies to the civilians' tenuous hegemony. This essay addresses the current difficulty in reasserting civilian supremacy in the Turkish political system. The problem will be identified and analyzed by focusing on several theoretical points, from a historical perspective, relating to the substance and sources of the Turkish military's autonomy. The autonomy of the military will then be examined using index variables measuring the military's political effectiveness vis-A-vis civilian institutions over the last two decades. It is important to note that this essay neither analyzes the causes of coups in Turkey nor studies the nature and consequences of the transition from military to civilian rule. Rather, it focuses on the expanded role of the Turkish military under civilian governments since the 1980 coup.

Privatization in the United States

Abstract: In the United States, the two principal modes of producing local government services are in-house provision by government employees and contracting out to private suppliers, also known as privatization. We examine empirically how U.S. counties choose the mode of providing services. The evidence indicates that state clean-government laws and state laws restricting county spending encourage privatization, whereas strong public unions discourage it. This points to the important roles played by political patronage and taxpayer resistance to government spending in the privatization decision.

When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973

Abstract: As we approach the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it's crucial to look back to the time when abortion was illegal. Leslie Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion, which although illegal was nonetheless widely available, but always with threats for both doctor and patient. In a time when many young women don't even know that there was a period when abortion was a crime, this work offers chilling and vital lessons of importance to everyone. The linking of the words 'abortion' and 'crime' emphasizes the difficult and painful history that is the focus of Leslie J. Reagan's important book. Her study is the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with Roe v. Wade in 1973.Although illegal, millions of abortions were provided during these years to women of every class, race, and marital status. The experiences and perspectives of these women, as well as their physicians and midwives, are movingly portrayed here. Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion. While abortions have been typically portrayed as grim 'back alley' operations, she finds that abortion providers often practiced openly and safely. Moreover, numerous physicians performed abortions, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association.Women often found cooperative practioners, but prosecution, public humiliation, loss of privacy, and inferior medical care were a constant threat. Reagan's analysis of previously untapped sources, including inquest records and trial transcripts, shows the fragility of patient rights and raises provocative questions about the relationship between medicine and law. With the right to abortion again under attack in the United States, this book offers vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom.

Citizens without Rights: Aborigines and Australian Citizenship

Abstract: This is the first comprehensive study of the ways in which Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have been excluded from the rights of Australian citizenship over the past 100 years. Drawing extensively upon archival material, the authors look at how the colonies initiated a policy of exclusion that was then replicated by the Commonwealth and State governments following federation. The book includes careful examination of government policies and practice from the 1880s to the 1990s and argues that Aboriginal people have been central to notions of Australian citizenship by virtue of their exclusion from it. It overturns many assumptions and misunderstandings, arguing that there was never any constitutional reason why Aborigines could not be granted full citizenship. The authors show that citizenship was an empty term used to discriminate systematically against Aboriginal people.

The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon

Abstract: The root of the 'anglophone problem' in Cameroon may be traced back to 1961, when the political elites of two territories with different colonial legacies - one French and the other British - agreed on the formation of a federal State. Contrary to expectations, this did not provide for the equal partnership of both parties, let alone for the preservation of the cultural heritage and identity of each, but turned out to be merely a transitory phase to the total integration of the anglophone region into a strongly centralized, unitary State. Gradually, this created an anglophone consciousness: the feeling of being marginalized by the francophone-dominated State. In the wake of political liberalization in the early 1990s, anglophone interests came to be represented first and foremost by various associations and pressure groups that initially demanded a return to the federal State. It was only after the persistent refusal of the Biya government to discuss this scenario that secession became an overt option with mounting popularity. The government's determination to defend the unitary State by all available means, including repression, could lead to an escalation of anglophone demands past a point of no return. Notes, ref

The frontiers of the new institutional economics

Abstract: Theoretical Foundations: D.C. North, Prologue. R.W. Fogel, Douglass C. North and Economic Theory. Economic History: P.T. Hoffman and J.-L. Rosenthal, The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation in Early Modern Europe: Historical Lessons for Economic Development. A. Greif, On the Interrelations and Economic Implications of Economic, Social, Political and Normative Factors: Reflections From Two Late Medieval Societies. S.L. Engerman, Cultural Values, Ideological Beliefs, and Changing Labor Institutions: Notes on Their Interactions. J.V.C. Nye, Thinking About the State: Property Rights, Trade, and Changing Contractual Arrangements in a World with Coercion. Institutions and Political Economy: L.J. Alston, G.D. Libecap, B. Mueller, Violence and the Development of Property Rights to Land in the Brazilian Amazon. J. Ensminger, Changing Property Rights: Reconciling Formal and Informal Rights to Land in Africa. R.H. Bates and K.A. Shepsle, Intertemporal Institutions. B.R. Weingast, The Political Foundations of Limited Government: Parliament and Sovereign Debt in 17th- and 18th-Century England. J.N. Drobak, Credible Commitment in the United States: Substantive and Structural Limits on the Avoidance of Public Debt. Learning, Cognition and Rationality: A. Clark, Economic Reason: The Interplay of Individual Learning and External Structure. W.B. Arthur, Beyond Rational Expectations: Indeterminancy in Economic and Financial Markets. P.A. David and W.C. Sanderson, Making Use of Treacherous Advice: Cognitive Process, Bayesian Adaptation, and the Tenacity of Unreliable Knowledge. Index.

European Citizenship Practice: Building Institutions Of A Non-state

Abstract: Theory and Methodology -- Citizenship in a Non-State -- Contextualized Citizenship -- A Socio-Historical Institutionalist Approach -- Paris -- Agenda-Setting Towards Political Union -- Special Rights -- Passport Union -- Fontainebleau -- Market Making and Union Building in the 1980s -- Special Rights Policy -- Passport Policy -- Maastricht -- A Space Without Frontiers 1 ? - Border Politics -- Dusting Off the Citizenship Acquis -- Fragmented Citizenship Practice Post-Maastricht -- Appendix

The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerabilities of Democracies: A Response to Tocqueville's Challenge

Abstract: We struggle in the modern age to preserve individual freedoms and social self-government in the face of large and powerful governments that lay claim to the symbols and language of democracy, according to Vincent Ostrom.Arguing that democratic systems are characterized by self-governing -- not state-governed -- societies, Ostrom contends that the nature and strength of individual relationships and self-organizing behavior are critical to the creation and survival of a democratic political system. Ostrom begins with a basic contradiction identified by Alexis de Tocqueville. De Tocqueville suggested that if citizens acted on the basis of their natural inclinations they would expect government to provide for them and take care of their needs. Yet these conditions contradict what it means to be self-governing. Ostrom explores the social and cultural context necessary for a democratic system to flourish emphasizing the important role of ideas and the use of language in defining and understanding political life. Discussing differences in the ideas about social organization among various cultural and intellectual traditions, he considers the difficulties encountered over time in building democratic societies in America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. He outlines lessons from these experiences for the efforts to build democracy in the developing world and the countries emerging from communism.Based on a lifetime of thinking about the social conditions necessary to support a democracy, this book makes a significant contribution to the recent discussion about civil society and the fragility of our formal and informal social institutions and will be of interest to social scientists, historiansand all readers concerned with the state of democracy in the modern world..

The Voids of Berlin

Abstract: Eight years after the fall of the wall, seven years after the unification of East and West Germany, and just a couple of years before the final transfer of the national government from Bonn to Berlin, the city on the Spree is a text frantically being written and rewritten. As Berlin has left behind its heroic and propagandistic role as flashpoint of the cold war and struggles to imagine itself as the new capital of a reunited nation, the city has become something like a prism through which we can focus issues of contemporary urbanism and architecture, national identity and statehood, historical memory and forgetting. Architecture has always been deeply invested in the shaping of political and national identities, and the rebuilding of Berlin as capital of Germany gives us significant clues to the state of the German nation after the fall of the wall and about the ways Germany projects its future. As a literary critic I am attracted to the notion of the city as text, of reading a city as a conglomeration of signs. Mindful of Italo Calvino's marvellously suggestive Invisible Cities, we know how real and imaginary spaces commingle in the mind to shape our notions of specific cities. No matter where we begin our discussion of the city of signs-whether with Victor Hugo's reading of Paris in Notre-Dame de Paris as a book written in stone; with Alfred D6blin's attempt in Berlin Alexanderplatz to create a

Who Owns the State? Understanding Ethnic Conflict in Post-Colonial Societies

Abstract: . This article aims to integrate different explanatory approaches to ethnic conflicts: studies on ethnic clientelism and discrimination, on political mobilisation by minority elites, on unequal relations between ethnoregions, and on the effects that different political systems have on the dynamics of ethnic conflicts. For each of these approaches, the relevant research is reviewed and illustrated by selected examples from post-imperial societies. Propositions that seem empirically plausible are integrated into a comparative model which is in turn based on a specific theory of political modernity. The premise holds that the politicisation of ethnicity is to be interpreted as a central aspect of modem state-building. For only when ‘people’ and state are mutually related within the ideal of a legitimate order does the question arise for which ethnic group the state has to act, who is regarded as its legitimate owner, and who is entitled to have access to its services. Ethnic conflicts can thus be interpreted as struggles for the collective goods of the nation-state. Within this paradigmatical frame, a step-by-step analysis at a medium level of abstraction tries to show under which conditions state-building leads to an ethnicisation of political conflicts and in some cases to an escalation into rebellions and wars.

Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic

Abstract: Part One Setting the scene: nationalism the peoples and institutions of the Ottoman Empire nationalist penetration and Ottoman/Turkish responses. Part Two The main contenders: the top-hat secular Kemalist nationalism the grey wolf - the pan-Turkic fringe the crescent - Islamism and the growth of Islamic influence. Part Three Turkish nationalism and the minorities: the Kurds - repression and rebellion the Alevis and other domestic minorities those outside - Turkey as a kin state Part Four National schizophrenia: the struggle continues.

Contrasting Unitary and Federal Systems

Abstract: The modern age of statism at most divided polities into unitary or federal states. In doing so it obscured the three models of the origin and development of the polity: hierarchic, organic, and covenantal, with the first two leading to unitary states and the third to federal polities. All three models produce institutions, are informed by political cultures, and lead to political behavior characteristic, and at times even singular, to each. This article explores some of the institutional, cultural, and behav- ioral consequences of each of the three models and compares them. Modern political science is grounded in the study of the state, conceived ideally as a unitary, centralized, homogeneous, self-sufficient, and politically sovereign polity encompassing a single nation, a territory, and a unitary government. This modern conception of statehood was either derived from or found its original expression in the Westphalian system, based on the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, that put finis to the Thirty Years' War in western Europe and, through it, the wars of religion that had plagued that continent since the Protestant Reformation some 130 years earlier. Under the Westphalian system, Europe was to be organized on the basis of such states all striving to achieve those ideal goals. Sovereignty was viewed as vested in the state and indivisible. During the next 300 years this state system spread throughout the world as Europeans settled new territories that in turn became independent states or colonized older societies that acquired statehood through decolonization. At the same time, the leading states in the state system, and in principle all of them, moved from absolutist rule to some definition of republican or democratic rule.

"Color-blind" Racism

Abstract: Theories of Ideology Christianity, the Constitution and Slavery Sharecropping and the Rise of Evolutionary 'Racist' Ideology National Self-Determination and the Consociational State Prelude to 'Integration' Civil Rights and Civil Uprising The Colorblind Reaction Colorblindness Illusions and Consequences

Politics and Culture: A Less Fissured Terrain

Abstract: In the past few years, the area of politics and culture has moved from the margins of cultural inquiry to its center as evidenced by the number of persons who identify themselves as working within the area and by its growing institutionalization within sociology. “Politics and culture” suggests that each term constitutes an autonomous social realm; whereas “political culture” suggests the boundaries of cultural action within which ordinary politics occurs. Bourdieu's emphasis on boundary making, Foucault's disciplinary mechanisms, and Habermas's conception of the public are setting the research agenda of scholars who focus on macro-level social change. Interdisciplinary dialogues are emerging, conducted on a landscape of historical and contemporary empirical research. Four sub-areas have crystallized: first, political culture, which focuses on problems of democratization and civil society; second, institutions, which includes law, religion, the state, and citizenship; third, political communication and me...

Electoral Institutions, Cabinet Negotiations, and Budget Deficits in the European Union

Abstract: A rough consensus has emerged that states with proportional representation systems are" likely to run larger deficits than plurality states. We argue that electoral institutions matter because" they restrict the type of budgetary institution at the governmental phase which a state has at its" disposal. Cabinet members may willingly delegate authority to a finance minister who can monitor" spending ministers and punish those who defect' in a process we label delegation procedure is feasible in states where one-party governments are the norm. Such states usually have" plurality electoral systems. In multi-party governments, which are common in states with" proportional representation, the coalition members are not willing to delegate to one actor the ability" to monitor and punish the others. Negotiated targets in the form of fiscal contracts provide an" alternative in multi-party governments. Pooled time series regression results for the current" European Union states in the period 1981-94 support our contention that it is the presence or absence" of one of these budgetary institutions, rather than the plurality/proportional representation" dichotomy, which has the greatest impact on debt levels.

Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico

Abstract: Since 1989 an indigenous political movement—the Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (COCEI)—has governed the southern Mexican city of Juchitan. In Decentering the Regime , Jeffrey W. Rubin examines this Zapotec Indian movement and shows how COCEI forged an unprecedented political and cultural path—overcoming oppression in the 1970s to achieve democracy in the 1990s. Rubin traces the history and rise to power of this grassroots movement, and describes a Juchitan that exists in substantial autonomy from the central Mexican government and Mexican nationalism—thereby debunking the notion that a state- and regime-centered approach to power can explain the politics of domination and resistance in Mexico. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, Rubin shows that the Juchitecos’ ability to organize and sustain a radical political movement grew out of a century-long history of negotiation of political rule. He argues that factors outside the realm of formal politics—such as ethnicity, language, gender, and religion—play an important part in the dynamics of regional political struggles and relationships of power. While offering a detailed view of the Zapotec community and its interactions, Rubin reconceptualizes democracy by considering the question of how meaningful autonomy, self-government, cultural expression, and material well-being can be forged out of violence and repression.