Congressional Communication: Content & Consequences,by Daniel Lipinski. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 143 pp. $29.95 paper.

Television interviews with political candidates are pivotal moments in election campaigns. Previous studies in Anglo-American contexts have shown that adversarialism in television interviews can be predicted by the power of the politician and by the status of the interviewer. However, worldwide the structural conditions of the liberal media system are unique. This article studies how the Anglo-American watchdog model of interviews should be adapted to polarized television markets such as Italy, where broadcast organizations are politically, financially, and historically linked to different political blocks. A content analysis of the level of toughness in questions posed to politicians from different parties during the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections showed that, in line with the watchdog model, journalists are more adversarial toward politicians who are likely to win the elections. Apart from this, interviews in polarized television markets follow a different model: Interviewers with high status are less adversarial, politicians from minor parties face more threatening questions, and partisan bias is more important than role bias. The generalizability of this model is discussed in the light of the polarization of television markets, partisan segregation, and the potential consequences for vote choice and election outcomes.     

Commerce and institutions: Trade, scope, and the design of regional economic organizations

The design of current regional economic organizations (REOs) is remarkably diverse. Some REOs address numerous economic issues, while others have only limited mandates. Some REOs have an independent bureaucracy and a legalized dispute settlement mechanism (DSM), while others do not. What determines this institutional variation? Thinking about these institutions as devices that generate credible commitment to a rule-based regional cooperation, institutionalists maintain that the intensity of commercial ties determine regional institutionalization and institutional independence. A number of studies question this logic and argue that it is “naïve.” Empirical evidence on the links between commerce, economic scope, and regional institutions is scant, however. Using an original data set that contains detailed information on the economic activities and institutional structure of twenty-eight REOs over three decades, this paper presents one of the first systematic analyses of these relationships. The empirical analysis indicates that the institutionalist wisdom is right after all. It shows that higher levels of regional trade are associated with greater institutionalization and economic scope, but only if implementation of signed agreements is accounted for, and that regional commerce and greater economic scope are associated with more independent bureaucracies and more legalized DSMs.     

Liesbet Hooghe,Tobias Lenz,and Gary Marks. 2019. A Theory of International Organization. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

The Review of International Organizations -     

Christian Kreuder-Sonnen. 2019. Emergency Powers of International Organizations: Between Normalization and Containment. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

The Review of International Organizations -