Globalization and its Alternatives

Colin Duncan: The Centrality of Agriculture: Between Humankind and the Rest of Nature. Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1996.

Richard Powers: Gain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.     

Grant N. Havers,Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique

Grant Havers's Leo Straus and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique seriously misrepresents Strauss's thought, largely as a result of Havers's determination to use the history of political philosophy for partisan purposes of his own, unlike Strauss's determined and meticulous effort to learn fromthe greatest philosophic writers both ancient and modern.?     

Inflation and political instability in eight Latin American countries 1946-83

The path of consumer price rises is compared with data for the incidence of political change and the frequency of military regimes from 1946 to 1984 for the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. A highly significant connection between the frequency of military government and the level of inflation is found. This appears to be due to two other significant results: (i) The military regimes are relatively unstable ones. (ii) Inflation normally turns upwards under civilian and downwards under military regimes, i.e., the military regimes are relatively strong in fighting inflation. Finally, it is demonstrated that few regimes survive a spell of hyperinflation.     

Prime ministers' identity in semi-presidential regimes: Constitutional norms and cabinet formation outcomes

Abstract.  This article examines how presidential involvement in the cabinet formation process affects cabinet formation outcomes in the semi-presidential regimes of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It analyzes whether the formal distribution of appointment-dismissal powers allows for the development of useful indicators for predicting a prime minister's location on the continuum between the ideal points of the president and the legislature. First, to derive theoretical expectations about a prime minister's identity in the different types of semi-presidential regimes, the article discusses constitutional variation in the formal distribution of cabinet appointment-dismissal powers across semi-presidential constitutions. Second, the empirical outcomes of cabinet formation are then compared with the theoretical predictions. Empirical tests, while providing substantial support for the hypothesized effect of variation in cabinet appointment-dismissal powers, indicate the importance of other variables. Qualitative and quantitative differences in the character of the party system and the nature of the electoral cycle also have a systematic effect on cabinet formation outcomes.     

Terrorism

Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, War Without End: The Terrorists ‐ an Intelligence Dossier (London: Harrap, 1986). Pp.279. £9.95.

James Adams, The Financing of Terror (London: New English Library, 1986). Pp.293. £12.95.

Benjamin Netanyahu (ed.) Terrorism: How the West Can Win (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986). Pp.254. $18.95.     

How Disgust Influences Health Purity Attitudes

Food and health regulations are increasingly being pushed onto the political agenda, with rising concerns about genetically modified foods, obesity rates, and vaccination. Public beliefs and attitudes on these issues often conflict with the scientific evidence, yet we know relatively little about what influences opinion on these issues. The public lacks clear partisan cues, and many food and health attitudes cut across the ideological spectrum. We argue that these issues represent new ‘purity’ attitudes that are driven by the emotion of disgust. Across three studies, both by measuring individuals’ trait disgust sensitivity and experimentally inducing an emotional state of disgust, we demonstrate the impact of disgust on food and health policy attitudes. Our results show that greater sensitivity to disgust is associated with support for organic foods, opposition to genetically modified foods, and anti-vaccination beliefs. However, we find only limited evidence that experimentally manipulated disgust affects attitudes toward genetically modified and organic foods. Overall, our results demonstrate that disgust plays an important role in attitudes regarding public health and broadens our understanding of purity attitudes.     

Tinpots,Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights

Ronald Wintrobe (1990, 1998) has recently provided atheoretical foundation for estimating equations that attemptto explain the dependence of civil liberties and politicalrights in non-democratic regimes on the history of economicgrowth. This theory suggests that data from different kinds ofnon-democratic countries should not be pooled without allowingcoefficients to vary with regime type. It also placesinteresting restrictions on the signs of the coefficients ofeconomic growth in equations explaining freedom in the typesof regimes Wintrobe identifies. In this paper, we employ theserestrictions to test Wintrobe's theory. Some additionalhypotheses about the difference between democratic andnon-democratic regimes and about the role of education, notconsidered by Wintrobe, are also investigated.The results indicate clearly that the relationship between thedegree of freedom – as measured by the sum of the Gastilindexes of civil liberties and political rights – andeconomic growth varies significantly across all types ofregimes. Totalitarians (that attempt to maximize power) areclearly different than tinpots (that just attempt to maintainpower) in this respect, and non-democratic regimes differ fromdemocracies. Other aspects of the theory are partiallyconfirmed. In particular, in totalitarian regimes, positivegrowth reduces freedom, and negative growth increases it insome specifications. The theory predicts the opposite patternfor tinpots, and we do find that negative growth reducesfreedom in tinpot regimes. However, positive growth in tinpotsalso appears to reduce freedom in some cases, which is not inaccord with the theory. Secondary schooling has a positive effect on freedom, as inprevious empirical work, a result that is shown here to holdeven when each type of regime is considered separately. Butthe effect of primary schooling is different: in tinpot andtotalitarian regimes, but not in democracies, primaryschooling is associated with reduced freedom.     

Subnational political regimes and formal economic regulation: Evidence from Russian regions

The paper contributes to the studies of effects of political regimes on public policies by looking at a previously unexplored aspect of this issue: the propensity of political regimes to create vast and extensive formal regulation. To study this topic, it applies subnational comparative method and uses a dataset of subnational regions of Russia, which provides a unique opportunity for a large-N investigation of the research question because of substantial variation of regional political regimes and regulatory environments and because of availability of a proxy for comparing the use of formal regulation across regions. The paper shows that more competitive regimes are more likely to expand the formal law than less competitive ones; however, the implications of this expansion of formal law for the economy are ambiguous.     

Elections and Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

When do elections in authoritarian regimes lead to democracy? Building from the distinction between competitive and hegemonic authoritarian regimes, I argue that presence of relatively weaker incumbents renders competitive authoritarian elections more prone to democratization, but only when domestic and international actors choose to actively pressure the regime. The effects of two forms of pressure—opposition electoral coalitions and international conditionality—are theorized. Propositions are tested using a comprehensive dataset of elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2007. Results support two core claims: that the effect of electoral pressure is conditional on the type of authoritarianism and that this greater vulnerability to pressure is the reason why competitive authoritarian elections are more likely to lead to democracy. In contrast, several alternative explanations—that differences across regime type are explained by alternation in power, better electoral conduct, or ongoing processes of liberalization—are not supported by the evidence.     

On revolt and endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes

Numerous empirical studies have investigated the direction of causality between democracy and economic growth (as well as the level of income per capita), but this empirical work has been paralleled by relatively few theoretical models that endogenize the institutional structure of the regime. Moreover, the different types of autocratic regimes have received relatively little attention. This paper develops a game-theoretic model of endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes facing a revolt or an insurgency. In this model, there are three players: the regime, the rebels, and the masses. There are three stages in the game. In the first stage, the regime determines the level of infrastructure and the tax rate. In the second stage, the masses allocate their time between production and helping the rebels. In the third stage, the regime and the rebels simultaneously choose their fighting effort levels in a contest, in which the probability of survival of the regime is determined. It is found that autocratic regimes facing a revolt endogenously sort themselves into “tinpot” regimes that maximize their consumption at the cost of their survival, and (weak and strong) “totalitarian” regimes that maximize their probability of survival at the expense of their consumption. Empirical implications of the model are derived, and the relevance of the model to public policy is discussed.     

Economic Voting in Latin America: Rules and Responsibility

The impact of institutions on the economic vote stands as a well‐established proposition for the advanced democracies of Europe. We know less, however, regarding the institutional effects on the economic vote in the developing democracies of Latin America. Carrying out an analysis of presidential elections in 18 Latin American countries, we offer evidence that the usual Eurocentric conceptualization of the clarity of responsibility is not ideal for understanding the economic vote in this region. There does exist a powerful effect of institutions on the economic vote within Latin American democracies, but one uniquely associated with its presidential regimes and dynamic party systems. Rules for these elections—such as concurrence, term limits, and second‐round voting—suggest that we should reconceptualize the notion of the clarity of responsibility in Latin America, focusing more on individuals in power and their constraints, and less on the political parties from which they hail.     

Power Sharing and Leadership Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes

I examine a fundamental problem of politics in authoritarian regimes: the dictator and the ruling coalition must share power and govern in an environment where political influence must be backed by a credible threat of violence. I develop a model of authoritarian politics in which power sharing is complicated by this conflict of interest: by exploiting his position, the dictator may acquire more power at the expense of the ruling coalition, which may attempt to deter such opportunism by threatening to stage a coup. Two power-sharing regimes, contested and established dictatorships, may emerge as a result of strategic behavior by the dictator and the ruling coalition. This theory accounts for the large variation in the duration of dictators' tenures and the concentration of power in dictatorships over time, and it contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of power sharing and accountability in authoritarian regimes.     

Timing and targeting of state repression in authoritarian elections

Autocrats face a fundamental tension: how to make elections appear credible (maintaining legitimacy) without losing control over outcomes (losing power). In this context, we claim that incumbents choose the timing and targets of state repression strategically. We expect that before elections, regimes will moderate their use of violence against ordinary citizens, while simultaneously directing state-sponsored repression towards opposition elites. Ordinary citizens are likely to experience greater repression after the election. We test these expectations using unique events-based repression data, conducting cross-national analysis of all presidential elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2008 to understand the timing and targeting of repression around elections under authoritarian regimes. In keeping with our expectations, we find that in the months prior and during the election, opposition leaders experience greater rates of repression than voters. We suspect that incumbents find it more effective to repress electoral challengers, since these pose a direct threat to their victory. Conversely, incumbents resist repressing voters whose support they need at the polls to win and to legitimize the election itself.     

Portents of Pluralism: How Hybrid Regimes Affect Democratic Transitions

The original studies of "competitive authoritarianism" and "hegemonic authoritarianism" inspected the occurrence of hybrid regimes during the 1990s but stopped short of testing their propensity for democratic change. This article assesses the causal effects of hybrid regimes, and the post–cold war period itself, on regime breakdown and democratization. Using a dataset of 158 regimes from 1975 to 2004, and a discrete measure for transitions to electoral democracy, I find that competitive authoritarian regimes are not especially prone to losing power but are significantly more likely to be followed by electoral democracy: vigorous electoral contestation does not independently subvert authoritarianism, yet it bodes well for democratic prospects once incumbents are overthrown.     

The Transformation of organic regulation: The ambiguous effects of publicization

The regulatory regime for organic products is different from other non‐state‐market driven (NSMD) regimes because it is the only one that evolved from a purely private into a regime where the establishment of minimum standards has become the monopoly of public powers. This article is the first to study the effects of the process of publicization, a term coined to characterize the transformation of private into public standards. The central hypothesis studied is that the process of publicization has empowerment and containment effects at the same time. To test the hypothesis the article analyses the effects of publicization on regulatory capabilities of private regulators as well as on the quality of the standards. The effects of publicization are further explored by comparing the legal and institutional architecture that shapes the coexistence of private and public regimes in the EU and the US, showing important differences between the two systems. The article offers a new perspective to look at the dynamic interaction between private and public regulation and its findings are of general relevance for the debate on the desirability of governmental intervention on private regulatory schemes.     

International migration and liberal democracies: the challenge of integration

Migration theories that build on economic incentives and social network effects will generally predict much more international migration than we observe. We have to 'bring the state back in' to explain why so few potential migrations lead to actual flows, and why these flows are highly selective. Immigration policies have been strongly shaped by particular nation-building projects but the increasing diversity of origins in contemporary migrations has also challenged and transformed perceptions of national identity at the receiving end. Bauböck discusses the need for studying integration regimes from a comparative and normative perspective. He examines characteristic features of four regimes - the United States, Canada, Israel and the European Union - and defends a conception of integration that embraces the ambiguities of the term: it should be understood as referring to the inclusion of newcomers as well as to the internal cohesion of the societies and political communities that are transformed by immigration. These two meanings are combined in a third one of integration as federation: the process of forming larger political unions from distinct societies. Particularly in the context of the European Union integration policies for immigrants should live up to the same democratic principles that are invoked for the political integration of the EU. This suggests a European agenda for harmonizing the legal status of third country residents and their access to citizenship. Bringing the state back in makes us also aware that the transnational communities of migrants are no substitute for access, status and rights within territorially bounded polities. Instead of portraying migrants as harbingers of the end of the nation-state, we should rather think how to transform nation-states so that increasingly mobile populations can still share in political authority, a bounded territory and a common historical horizon. This perspective of integration is 'transnational' rather than 'postnational'. A transnational perspective does not envisage the dissolution of nation-states, but emphasizes instead that societies and cultures increasingly overlap both in space and time.     

Should We Support Illiberal Religious Democracies?

The terms on which the US will agree to settle the conflict in Afghanistan reflect a much greater issue that the US faces in the Middle East: will it support only those who seek to establish democratic regimes that also respect individual, or ally itself with the often much more powerful groups that may be democratic, but are likely to foster regimes based on Shari'a law? At the very least, the West should urge all to respect the right to life, call on regimes to negotiate with protesters rather than machine‐gunning them, and insist that protesters follow the Egyptian and Tunisian model of peaceful uprising. Beyond such liberal basics, it is best to let each nation work out its own regime. As a matter of policy, in order to support democratic groups and evolving democratic regimes in the Middle East, western governments had best be prepared to ally themselves with political forces whose liberal credentials, one must recognise, are evolving but not yet particularly high.     

City-level analysis of the effect of political regimes on?public good provision

This paper uses U.S. city-level data on five public expenditure categories to test empirically whether the form of local government affects the amount of public good provision. This also serves as an empirical test of a theory of national politics that predicts higher provision of public good in parliamentary than in presidential regimes. The robust results indicate that: at the city level, the mayor-council form of government provides significantly more public good than the council-manager form of government for two of the public expenditure categories; and, at the national level, presidential regimes provide more public good than do parliamentary regimes.     

Towards a professional civil service in post‐transition Romania

To what degree and under what conditions can a young democracy build a competent, politically neutral public bureaucracy? A crucial component of the transition from communist party rule to democracy is the creation of a professional civil service. Success along this dimension of state‐building generates administrative capacity: non‐elected public officials ensure the implementation of reforms initiated by political leaders. In the communist party‐led regimes of Eastern Europe, forging this new administrative class from its highly politicised predecessor took place as new democracies sought to overcome historical legacies and integrate with the European Union. A case study of administrative reform in Romania during the post‐1989 period suggests the importance of external influences in forming a civil service more closely adhering to the Weberian ideal of an expert, rules‐based bureaucracy. Through analysis of survey data from a nationally representative sample of the Romanian civil servants, the public bureaucracy has professionalised insofar as educational and training credentials rather than political affiliation are significant predictors of salary levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutional competitiveness,social investment,and welfare regimes

Are the rather generous welfare regimes found in most European countries sustainable; that is, are they competitive in a globalizing economy? Or will they, on the contrary, be crowded out by the more austere and less expensive regimes generally found in liberal Anglo‐Saxon countries? We first discuss this issue conceptually, focusing on the notions of institutional competitiveness, social investment, and short‐term and long‐term productivity. We then briefly present the results of an empirical study of 50 social indicators of policies and outcomes in 20 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries during the early 2000s. We conclude that welfare regimes have not been forced to converge through a “race to the bottom.” There remain three distinct ways to face the “trilemma” of job growth, income inequality, and fiscal restraint: Nordic countries achieve high labor market participation through high social investment; Anglo‐Saxon countries attain the same objective through minimal public intervention; while Continental European countries experience fiscal pressures because their social protection schemes are not promoting participation to the same extent.