State (polity)

About: State (polity) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 36954 publications have been published within this topic receiving 719822 citations. The topic is also known as: state (polity).

Capacity to trust? Institutional capacity, conflict, and political trust in Africa, 2000–2005:

Abstract: Civil conflict and state failure has often been linked to breakdowns in regime legitimacy. Trust in government is a critical element of regime legitimacy and the state’s ability to mediate between ...

State capitalism(s) redux? Theories, tensions, controversies:

Abstract: This article interrogates the notion of state capitalism, exploring the contributions and limits of the concept as a means of theorizing the more visible role of the state across the world capitali...

China's Turn Against Law

Abstract: Chinese authorities are reconsidering legal reforms they enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. These reforms had emphasized law, litigation, and courts as institutions for resolving civil grievances between citizens and administrative grievances against the state. But social stability concerns have led top leaders to question these earlier reforms. Central Party leaders now fault legal reforms for insufficiently responding to (or even generating) surging numbers of petitions and protests.Chinese authorities have now drastically altered course. Substantively, they are de-emphasizing the role of formal law and court adjudication. They are attempting to revive pre-1978 Maoist-style court mediation practices. Procedurally, Chinese authorities are also turning away from the law. They are relying on political, rather than legal, levers in their effort to remake the Chinese judiciary. This Article analyzes the official Chinese turn against law. These Chinese developments are not entirely unique. American courts have also experienced a broad shift in dispute resolution patterns over the last century. Litigation has fallen out of favor. Court trials have dropped in number. Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms have increased in number. Observing such long-term patterns, Marc Galanter concluded that the United States experienced a broad “turn against law” over the 20th century. China’s shift also parallels those in other developing countries. In recent decades, nations such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines have resuscitated or formalized traditional mediative institutions. This is part of a global reconsideration of legal norms and institutions imported or transplanted from the West.Despite these similarities with global trends, this Article argues that Chinese leaders’ shift against law is a distinct domestic political reaction to building pressures in the Chinese system. It is a top-down authoritarian response motivated by social stability concerns. This Article also analyzes the risks facing China as a result of the shift against law. It argues that the Chinese leadership’s concern with maintaining social stability in the short term may be leading them to take steps that are having severe long-term effects of undermining Chinese legal institutions and destabilizing China.Last, this Article argues for rethinking the trajectory of Chinese legal studies. Scholars need to shift away from focusing on formal Chinese law and legal institutions in order to understand how the Chinese legal system actually operates and the direction it is heading.

Women's Access to Politics and Peaceful States*

Abstract: The article examines the relationship between women in society and the use of force by the state in the international arena. The arguments build on a conception of power relationships found in gender studies and feminist theories, and focus on how the internal distribution of political power at a societal level (as opposed to a state level) will influence the willingness of the ruling elite to engage in militarized interstate disputes and war. That is, the article explores the extent to which fertility rates directly and indirectly - through women's employment and political office - are associated with the use of force by a state. The authors draw on public opinion literature, which shows that women's attitudes toward the use of force differ from those of men, to argue that the more women have access to the political process the more constrained will be the state in its use of force. The results of the analysis demonstrate that at the dyadic level, contiguous pairs of countries with low birthrates are less likely to go to war, while, more generally, the lower the birthrates the less likely is a country to become engaged in the more violent of militarized disputes. Our results suggest that policies to promote family planning might be one effective form of managing the amount of interstate violence.