The Obama Administration and United States Trade Policy

For all the focus on economic issues in the wake of the crisis of 2008 the Obama administration has remained ambiguous about a central component of economic policy. As both candidate and President, Obama has sent mixed messages about trade policy. This ambiguity reflects wider uncertainty within the Democratic Party about global trading relationships and this paper explores and assesses the reasons for this uncertainty. A large part of the answer lies in the disparate sources of support for the Democrats. That is, the party has courted support from interest groups and core groups of voters that have widely divergent views about the value of trade liberalisation.     

Zeroing in on the Right: Education and the Partisan Expression of Authoritarianism in the United States

In this paper, we examine how the relationship between authoritarianism and partisanship is conditioned by education. Arguing against perspectives suggesting that authoritarianism is the province of the “unsophisticated,” we hypothesize that the relationship between education and Republican partisanship should be stronger among educated Americans. Moreover, going beyond previous work on how education may moderate the political impact of psychological dispositions, we also argue that partisan signals pertinent to authoritarianism come more strongly from the right, producing a pattern in which the positive relationship between authoritarianism and preference for the Republican Party over independence is stronger among the educated but the negative relationship between authoritarianism and preference for the Democratic Party over independence is not stronger among the educated. Data from the 2004 and 2008 American National Election Studies indicate clear support for both hypotheses.     

The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States

According to the literature on secession, the most importantdeterminant of secessionist sentiment is a high level of grievanceexperienced by the would-be secessionist group. However, therationale behind using secession (as opposed to another strategy)as a grievance-amelioration strategy remains almost completelyunexplained. This article contends that the institutional settingin which political conflict and grievance are experienced playsa crucial role in whether secession is conceived of as a viableoption. This contention is tested by examining the institutionalenvironment of federalism and the role it played in secessionin the United States in 1860 and 1861. The United States wasuniquely vulnerable to secessionist pressures—as are allfederal states, potentially—because of institutional structuresthat gave constituent states a high level of institutional authorityand capacity; this, in turn, contributed to a discourse of states'rights that included the contested right to secede.     

Partisan Differences in Swedish Macroeconomic Policy

The purpose of this paper is to trace partisan differencesamong Swedish governments during the period 1958-2000. According tothe Partisan Theory of macroeconomic policy left-wing governmentsare relatively more concerned with the performance of the realside of the economy (real output and unemployment) as compared toright-wing governments, that place a higher weight on the nominalvariables (inflation). Left-wing governments would therefore pursue moreexpansionary aggregate demand policy, and thereby be willingto risk a higher inflation, in order to improve real economicperformance. In this paper we apply the model developed in Hibbs (1994) onSwedish data. Our empirical results support the partisan theory,showing that, ceteris paribus, aggregate demand policy under left-winggovernments is relatively more expansionary than under right-wing governments, even if the expansionary policysometimes leads to higher inflation.     

Wildfire Management in the United States: The Evolution of a Policy Failure

Wildland fires constitute a major crisis in American environmental policy, a crisis created by a longstanding policy failure. This article explores the political processes that generated and reinforced this policy failure over time. The concepts of bounded rationality, punctuated equilibria, and self- reinforcing mechanisms are applied to study the evolution of American wildfire policy between 1905 and the present. This study finds that a self-defeating wildfire suppression policy was established in the period 1905 through 1911, and subsequently reinforced for more than five decades. This policy did not include a complementary program to counteract the gradual accumulation of flammable organic materials (fuels) that occurred in many ecosystems when fires were suppressed. The resulting fuel accumulations have greatly increased the risk of damaging, high-intensity wildfires in a range of American wildlands. A combination of fire suppression and fuel reduction programs will be needed to manage this risk in the future.     

The Aversion to Direct Cost Imposition: Selecting Climate Policy Tools in the United States

Numerous policy tools could be employed in attempting to mitigate climate change through reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Direct cost imposition through the taxation of carbon content of fossil fuels has long enjoyed support from diverse policy analysts but has proven highly difficult to advance politically in the United States and many other nations. This article considers the evolving American experience in climate policy tool selection, including extended engagement by many states over the past decade and growing federal involvement in recent Congresses. It demonstrates the enduring aversion to direct cost imposition as opposed to other policy options. This includes a brief period in late 2008 and early 2009 when prospects for direct cost imposition heightened markedly at the federal level but collapsed quickly in favor of a mélange of other approaches that are likely to be less efficient but also less direct in their imposition of costs. The article concludes with considerations of other methods to advance direct cost imposition in the American case.     

Continuing Controversies Over State and Local Foreign Policy Sanctions in the United States

Recent state and local government sanctions on business withBurma and certain Swiss banks renews a debate over foreign policypowers in federal systems that operate in an integrated globaleconomy. International business promotion has become an acceptedfunction of state and local governments. More controversialis the imposition of foreign policy sanctions, where economicinvolvement becomes a lever to pursue political goals ratherthan an objective in itself. When compared with past cases,including South Africa and the Arab boycott, recent state andlocal initiatives demonstrate both continuity and fresh departuresin federalism's evolving adjustment to the global economy. Thesedevelopments can be used to examine theoretical concepts suchas constituent and multilayered diplomacy. They also argue forimproved practical cooperation among the multiple and diverseactors engaged in foreign policy issues.     

Competitive Government in the United States: Policy Promotion and Divided Party Control

Divided party control of the executive and legislative branches of American government has traditionally been thought to contribute to the system's tendencies toward policy stalemate and paralysis. Based on a series of brief case studies over the past twenty-five years, this article argues that, under certain circumstances, divided party government may promote rather than hinder the enactment of legislation. It sketches an analytical framework that suggests a range of policymaking outcomes may result from party competition under conditions of divided government, including stalemate, neglect, accommodation, and promotion.     

The United States of America

European Journal of Political Research -     

美国总统特朗普执政与公共政策的秩序维度

美国总统特朗普2017年1月20日宣誓任职后一周内发布了很多行政命令和政策指针。看起来特朗普总统的第一周非常有成绩,但其内在地存在很多秩序维度的冲突。这将使特朗普的执政在第一周看起来很顺利,但实际上隐含着内在的秩序冲突和阻力。本文从秩序维度,分析了特朗普执政第一周所内含的秩序维度的冲突,并展望特朗普总统未来的执政之路会充满秩序维度的冲突,很多政策很可能停留在纸面,而一旦得到有效执行,必将面临更多的来自秩序维度的冲突和阻力,既给美国带来很多麻烦,也给这个世界的公民和其他国家带来很多麻烦。从中可以看出,现实的公共政策并不是理性决策的过程,而是秩序维度的冲突和博弈的过程。     

Personal Income Tax Policy in China and the United States: A Comparative Analysis

Personal income tax has grown in importance in China's revenue system. Revenue from personal income tax was more than 2 trillion RMB yuan for the first half of 2008, a 27 percent increase from the previous year. And while similarities exist between China and the United States, distinctive features separate the two. Hua Xu of Auburn University at Montgomery and Huiyu Cui of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics underscore the need for equitable personal income tax reform in China. Using lessons from the United States, an agenda for future research on tax policy is outlined.     

Federalism, Political Structure, and Public Policy in the United States and Canada

Two of the three large countries on the North American continent—the United States and Canada—share a number of similarities that often make it difficult for the untrained observer to differentiate between the two nations. On the surface, the two are structured similarly as federal systems that, by definition, exhibit shared power between the national government and provincial or state political entities.Although there are other important social and economic characteristics of the two countries that help explain differences in policy processes and outcomes, it is the contention of this article that one gets the clearest sense of what Elazar has called thinking federal by utilizing an analytical approach that joins questions related to federalism with some conceptual frameworks of the public policy field. Two frameworks undergird the argument in this article—the Lowi typology of different types of policies and Deil Wright's typology of different models that describe the American inter-governmental system.In both countries, policies must be sensitive to the greater interdependencies between units of government as well as to linkages between policy areas. The mechanisms or instrumentalities for dealing with policy issues are intrinsically complex. It is also clear that the intergovernmental networks that exist in both the U.S. and Canada are composed of an array of actors. The differing political structures of the systems do impact the types of intergovernmental policies that have emerged in the two countries. The executive dominance so imbedded in Canadian governments has contributed to their ability to adopt and implement certain controversial redistributive policies, such as a national health insurance program. By contrast, the fragmentation of the U.S. system makes redistributive policies more difficult.     

The Partisan and Policy Motivations of Political Donors Seeking Surrogate Representation in House Elections

Political Behavior - Non-constituent donors constitute an increasingly important fundraising base for members of the U.S. House. These donors are theorized to be seeking “surrogate...