The Politics of Fiscal Responses to the Crisis of 2008–2009

The national fiscal responses to the economic crisis of 2008/2009 varied considerably. Some countries reacted with a strong demand stimulus, others intended to slash public expenditures, while a third group pursued mildly expansionary policies. There are strong reasons for governments to pursue a mildly expansionary policy. If governments depart from this default strategy in favor of a significant counter‐cyclical policy, they must be able to swiftly make decisions. Therefore, effective use of counter‐cyclical policy will be unlikely in cases where lengthy negotiations or significant compromises between governing parties with different views on economic and fiscal policy are likely. Therefore, a major determinant of the expansionary strategy is a unified government, usually in form of a one‐party government. If governments opt for pro‐cyclical policy in a major economic crisis, they do so because they have few other viable options. In this situation they tend to shift blame to international organizations.     

The military and bureaucracy in Greece – 1967–1974

This article attempts to examine and analyse the Greek military regime's (1967-1974) relations with the country's administrative apparatus. After briefly tracing the historical and ecological dimensions of these two institutions the article analyses their relations during the 7-year period on the basis of Eckstein and Gurr's superordinate-subordinate theoretical framework. The relevant data, which include interviews with senior civil servants as well as military officers, indicate that due to the nature of their profession, which emphasizes discipline and strict subordination, the military as political governors create an atmosphere to which the less regimented and more give-and-take-oriented bureaucracies have difficulty becoming accustomed. Military regimes and administrators do not enjoy the best of relations.     

Congress,Lawmaking, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1971–2000

Lawmaking studies and evaluations of competing accounts of policy change cannot easily assess the nature of policy change due to the difficulty of locating the status quo and proposals relative to the preferences of critical political actors. Focusing on activity involving the Fair Labor Standards Act, I investigate how the attempted and successful policy change between the 92nd Congress (1971–72) and the 106th Congress (1999–2000) compares to the predicted lawmaking activity according to dominant lawmaking models. Characterizing the incidence and magnitude of policy change over nearly 30 years reveals that policy change is rarer and smaller than current theories predict. Change occurs when the status quo is more extreme than the preferences of the pivot most supportive of the status quo according to supermajoritarian models, but there are many instances where similarly extreme status quos are left unchanged. Moreover, when change occurs, it exhibits a strong status quo bias and the outcome is often indistinguishable from the preferences of the pivot who most prefers the status quo.     

The political process of decentralization in Peru, 1985–1990

This paper, using Peru as a case study, argues that the most potent factor in the implementation of decentralization in developing countries is ‘political’ in nature and operation. The legislative process of decentralization under President Alan García's regime went through three major steps, controlled by his party, APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana,): (1) The 1986 Bill of the Basic Law of Regionalization; (2) The 1987 Basic Law of Regionalization; and (3) The 1988 Modified Law of Regionalization. Why did Alan García push for decentralization, unlike his predecessors? The 1985 elections produced García, a populist demagogue, and a loose political party system dominated by APRA. However, the legislation of decentralization was possible paradoxically because García, who was desperately looking for a political issue to distract people's minds from his misgovernment, needed to control APRA for a regional power base after 1990. Thus, the whole decentralization process was highly politicized, and García's strategy was ‘successful’ in that regional governments came to be controlled by APRA after the 1989 and 1990 regional elections. The Peruvian case shows how far decentralization can be used for personalistic or partisan interests in a fragile democracy.     

On Introducing Proportionality in American Presidential Elections: An Historical Analysis, 1828–2008

It is well known that the President of the United States is elected by the Electoral College and not directly by the population. Every time a candidate who does not win the most popular votes is elected President, detractors of the Electoral College call for its abolishment and supporters extol its undoubtedly merits. This article investigates what would have happened if a solution halfway between both extremes (a direct national election and the current system) had been used in historical Presidential elections; namely, a proportional rule with thresholds to assign electors in each state. This system would generate electoral colleges closer to popular will, reduce the risk of electing a minority president and impose the need of more balanced regional support to be elected, although increasing the risk of a third candidate emerging.     

Negotiating Education Reform: Teacher Evaluations and Incentives in Chile (1990–2010)

Reforms designed to improve the quality of teaching by reforming personnel practices, such as pay for performance arrangements, usually run into opposition from well‐organized teacher unions that can either block reform in the short run or undermine it over the longer term. The experience of a series of reforms that introduced collective and individual pay incentives for teachers in Chile from 1990 to 2010 provide a rare example of ongoing negotiation with the teacher union that resulted in an institutionalized structure of incentive pay for teachers as well as widespread attitudes of sustained support among teachers for performance pay. Chile offers an important example of how sustained change in incentive pay can be achieved through ongoing negotiation.     

Economic crisis and the variety of populist response: evidence from Greece,Portugal and Spain

Abstract

Greece, Portugal and Spain are among the countries worst hit by the 2008 Great Recession, followed by significant electoral and political turmoil. However, one of the dimensions in which they differ is the presence and varieties of populism in parties’ political proposals. Drawing on holistic coding of party manifestos, we assess the varying presence of populist rhetoric in mainstream and challenger parties before and after the 2008 economic downturn. Our empirical findings show that populism is much higher in Greece compared to Spain and Portugal. We do not find a significant impact of the crisis as the degree of populism remains rather stable in Greece and Portugal, while it increases in Spain, mainly due to the rise of new populist forces. The study confirms that populist rhetoric is a strategy adopted mainly by challenger and ideologically radical parties. In addition, inclusionary populism is the predominant flavour of populist parties in new Southern Europe, although exclusionary populism is present to a lesser extent in the Greek case. We contend that the interaction between the national context – namely the ideological legacy of parties and the main dimensions of competition – and the strategic options of party leadership is crucial for explaining cross-country variation in the intensity of populism and the specific issues that characterise populist discourse.     

平台用工劳动关系的现状、挑战与应对

我国平台用工去实体化、去雇佣化、隐秘化及去劳动关系化等现状趋势,带来了平台劳动者权益保障缺失、利益群体分化、组织程度弱化、维权渠道不畅、矛盾风险突出等挑战,给劳动关系协调工作造成巨大压力.进入新发展阶段,亟须在现有探索的基础上,研究确立平台用工劳动关系的界定规则,推动建立适应平台用工的利益协调机制、诉求表达机制、矛盾调...     

Getting to Sweden,Part I: War and Malfeasance, 1720–1850

How and why some countries were able to make the historical transition from a patrimonial, nepotistic and corrupt bureaucracy to a clean, Weberian and professionalised one is still an under‐studied topic in the literature on corruption. This article presents original data on such a transition in the case of Sweden, drawing on court hearings of cases of malfeasance among public officials in the period 1720–1850. It is argued, theoretically, that an important explanation for why the Swedish bureaucracy was able to break out of the collective action trap of corruption relates to Charles Tilly's theory of the importance of war for state‐making. Rather than viewing war‐making in itself as a driver of change, however, this article pinpoints the importance of having lost a significant war – in the Swedish case, the war against Russia in 1808–9 – and the constitutional and regime changes this set in motion. Drawing on comparative data on malfeasance, the similarities in this regard between the Swedish and Danish cases are highlighted.     

Partisan Politics,Globalization, and the Determinants of Privatization Proceeds in Advanced Democracies (1990–2000)

The 1990s have witnessed unprecedented attempts at privatizing state‐owned enterprises in virtually all OECD democracies. This contribution analyzes the extent to which the partisan control of the government can account for the differences in the privatization proceeds raised by EU and OECD countries between 1990 and 2000. It turns out that privatizations are part of a process of economic liberalization in previously highly regulated economies as well as a reaction to the fiscal policy challenges imposed by European integration and the globalization of financial markets. Partisan differences only emerge if economic problems are moderate, while intense economic, particularly fiscal, problems foreclose differing partisan strategies.     

Europeanisation,Public Goals and Group Interests: Convergence Policy in Greece, 1990-2003

After prolonged stagnation in the 1980s and early 1990, Greece during the past decade or so has experienced a change from its post-war statist economic policy paradigm towards a liberal model. Focusing on political and political-economic aspects, this article gives an account of the reform of state interventionism in the 1990s. Different hypotheses are consistent with explaining distinct aspects of this policy change. The general interest and Europeanisation hypotheses are mainly borne out by macroeconomic stabilisation measures, but they cannot explain failure or delay in structural adjustment. The latter are better understood on the basis of public choice institutionalism and approaches emphasising uncertainty.