Consolidating Democracy in Thailand: The First Four Years of Democracy under the Constitution of 1997

The period across parliamentary elections in Thailand, 2001–2005, constitutes the longest continuous government under a democratic constitution in Thai history. This article explores the consolidation of democracy in the Thai population during this period through national probability samples of Thai public opinion. The results indicate movement in the direction of greater support for democracy, but also revealing significant cleavages corresponding to the ‘two democracies’ thesis that proved to be the basis for bringing this era of democracy to an end.     

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Inflows on Economic Growth in Barbados: An Engle-Granger Approach

The purpose of this article is to look at the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on economic growth in Barbados in the long and short run from 1979 to 2008 with the use of the Engle-Granger two-step procedure. The study shows that in the long run, a 1 percent increase in FDI inflows will expand economic growth by 0.10 percent while in the short run, the relationship between FDI and economic growth will be positive but almost flat. These results imply that any policy by Government aimed at boosting economic growth using FDI inflows will have to be considered for the long run since Government could not rely on FDI inflows in the short run.     

Civil Servants on the Silver Screen: The Depiction of Government in American and Australian Cinema

With the prevalence of government, it is unsurprising to find it frequently represented on the silver screen. But, with the ability of film to influence perceptions and attitudes, questions arise, including: how is government portrayed on the silver screen? Are government bureaucrats berated or praised? This research examines the representation of government—and civil servants in particular—in a comparative setting. The top 100 box office grossing films of all time in the United States and Australia were selected to address the question: how do these films in the United States and Australia depict government? This study analyzes these 200 films and the more than 400 government characters in these films and suggests that government in both American and Australian films does not fare well. However, despite the generally negative—or at best mixed—depictions of government overall, individual government characters fare better.