Towards the scientific understanding of nationalism and national development: the crucial contribution of Stein Rokkan

Abstract. This article is the text of the Stein Rokkan Memorial Lecture delivered at the ECPR Joint Workshops in Freiburg in 1983. It critically evaluates the historical development of studies of nationalism, and then shows how the research strategy developed by Stein Rokkan was an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of earlier approaches.     

Environmental Policy as Democratic Proclamation and Corporatist Implementation: A Comparative Study of Environmental Taxation in the Electricity Sector in the Nordic Countries as of 1994

The Nordic countries generally rank as one of the forerunners of environmental policies and figure in the front line with the most ambitious policy goals in international fora. However, since effective environmental action, for instance through environmental taxation, generally puts a burden on industry, a unilateral introduction of environmental measures by one or a few nations may seriously affect their industrial competitiveness, given an open and competitive economy. Given their persistent and often unilateral avant-garde environmental engagement, the paper discusses how the Nordic countries deal with this dilemma. Theoretically, the paper seeks an answer by recursion to Rokkan's famous distinction between functional and electoral/numerical politics. Empirically the paper finds support for the Rokkan perspective through a systematic analysis of Nordic environmental taxation policies, documenting that the two channels of policy making do indeed produce different results that are compatible with a dual-policy solution to the prisoners' dilemma of avant-garde environmental politics.     

Countries in comparative European politics

Abstract. This article reviews the place which the comparative study of European countries has occupied in the development of political science as an academic discipline, and discusses how single country studies can contribute towards the construction of new models for cross-national research. Particular attention is paid to the contribution made by the late Stein Rokkan to this development.     

当政治遇上历史:比较历史分析方法(CHA)介绍

当代西方比较政治研究由于过分迷信大样本计量统计和形式模型而忽视了许多人类社会生活中的实质性重要问题。作为一种有着深厚学术传统的研究范式,比较历史分析是部分西方学者对这一方法论危机的重要回应。相对而言,比较历史分析的研究特别致力于为大规模社会结果提供有历史深度的社会科学因果解释。它们不仅关注宏大的历史问题,而且试图为这些问题提供因果性解释;不仅运用案例间的比较确定历史问题的因果效应,同时重视案例内的分析探寻背后的因果机制;不仅热衷于追寻经济社会结果的长历史原因,同时强调历史时序的重要性。尽管国内政治学界一向擅长历史的研究,但由于缺乏规范的方法意识而鲜有比较历史分析的佳作。借助比较历史分析方法,中国学者不仅可以对本土政治问题开展跨国性的比较,同时可以整合不同研究方法的长处,繁荣中国的比较政治研究。     

The Comparative Historical Analysis of Public Management Policy Cycles in France,Italy, and Spain: Symposium Introduction

In recent studies of public management reform in France, Italy, and Spain inspired by historical institutionalism, the Napoleonic tradition is cast as a causal factor whose overwhelming strength explains how these countries' reforms proceed and finish. This symposium pursues the same research interest in the politics of public management reform and goal of understanding how reforms begin, proceed, and finish in these countries. However, the features of this research project include (1) a focus on instances of public management policymaking, (2) original research on public management reform episodes in each country, and (3) explanatory research arguments that place causation within events. Based on a comparison of explanatory research arguments developed in each case study, the symposium's conclusion extends earlier institutional processualist accounts of causal tendencies of public management policymaking and offers a critique of the historical institutionalist studies mentioned earlier.     

拓展历史编纂学研究之方法论思考

中国历史编纂学是正在建设的一门学科。拓展这一领域的研究,关键所在是不能将之视为单纯的技术问题,而亟须加强对其哲理层面的思考,深入发掘史学名著的成就,认真总结中国历史编纂学的优良传统和人文精神。当前尤应深入探索以下四项有效的研究途径:第一,贯彻发展观点,将创始时期的特征与以后的纵向发展联系起来考察;第二,确立整体观念,深入总结史学名著所蕴涵的深邃哲理与高度审美价值;第三,贯彻“历史主义”的观点和方法,克服偏颇之见;第四,运用比较研究方法,阐释传统史学精华在历史变局面前所具有的应变力。     

From “New Institutionalism” to “Institutional Processualism”: Advancing Knowledge about Public Management Policy Change

Research on public management reform has taken a decidedly disciplinary turn. Since the late 1990s, analytical issues are less often framed in terms of the New Public Management. As part of the disciplinary turn, much recent research on public management reform is highly influenced by the three new institutionalisms. However, these studies have implicitly been challenged by a competing research program on public management reform that is emphatically processual in its theoretical foundations. This article develops the challenge in a more explicit fashion. It provides a theoretical restatement of the competing “institutional processualist” research program and compares its substantive findings with those drawn from the neoinstitutionalisms. The implications of this debate about public management reform for comparative historical analysis and neoinstitutional theories are discussed.     

The Norwegian Storting: The Central Assembly of the Periphery*

The overall impression of Norway given by Rokkan and Urwin in their classification of state-building and nation-building processes in western Europe is characterized by the domination of a strong centre over weak peripheries. In a comparative perspective this may be the most conspicuous tendency. The influence of the Norwegian periphery, however, is quite substantial. The aim of this article is to contribute to a more nuanced picture of centreperiphery relations in Norwegian politics. It takes a closer look at the representation of the periphery in the Norwegian parliament, and at the impact of geography on policy-making and other activities of MPs.     

历史政治学的功能分析

历史政治学的提出引发了中国政治学界的广泛关注。作为一种新型研究路径的历史政治学不但具有客观的分析主义特征,而且和其它政治理论的研究路径一样,还具有鲜明的功能主义特征。历史政治学首先回答了政治理论的知识来源问题,从而为建构中国自主性政治学知识体系提供了可能。基于政治学取向的政治史研究有助于避免因“文化转向”而导致的历史研究的碎片化问题,这意味着历史政治学研究既追求“真相”也关怀“真理”。历史政治学的知识功能自然有其政治实践价值,那就是为治国理政提供历史解释与现实论述,并为认识合法性政治提供一套不同于理性人假设的历时性方案。     

Party politicisation of local councils: Cultural or institutional explanations for trends in Denmark, 1966–2005

Local government party systems are not necessarily copies of the national party system. In many countries, local party systems have come to resemble the national one more and more – a process Rokkan termed ‘party politicisation’. The traditional expectation has been that the take‐over of local politics by political parties, through a gradual process of societal modernisation, would eventually be complete. More recently, however, it has been suggested that reorganisations of the institutional set‐up – that is, amalgamations of municipalities – could entail developments in the degree of local party system nationalisation. This article investigates cultural and institutional explanations for party politicisation by analysing the Danish case from 1966 to 2005 – a period that witnessed both major amalgamation reforms and periods of stability in the local government structure. The data suggest that dramatic party politicisation does not lend itself to cultural explanations, but originates exclusively from changes in the institutional set‐up. Party politicisation is not a gradual process, but comes – at least in Denmark – in leaps coinciding with major reorganisations of the local government structure.     

Conflict,choice or geography? Explaining patterns of democracy in continental Europe

The ‘character’ of democracy is regularly summarised using political‐institutional measures of, for instance, ‘consensus’ or ‘majoritarian’ democracy. Yet, there is little quantitative‐comparative research on the origins of such configurations. Drawing on literature on endogenous institutions and constitutional design, this article proposes a model for the explanation of empirical patterns of democracy. Using a novel database of 26 continental (neighbouring) European democracies and Bayesian spatial modelling, the results indicate that while today's empirical patterns of democracy in terms of proportional power diffusion can be traced back to waves of democratisation rather than historical partisan power configurations, decentral power diffusion can partially be explained by socio‐structural factors, and spatial dependencies exist for all variants of power diffusion.     

Bernard Crick: citizenship and democracy in the United Kingdom

Bernard Crick's contribution to citizenship studies can be regarded as part of the tradition so ably represented by T.H. Marshall. I want to argue in this brief article on Crick that on the one hand he is part of the ‘golden age’ of political philosophy that has flourished in the English-speaking world over the last two or three decades, but on the other his work also shows the limitations of that tradition, at least from the perspective of comparative and historical studies in political sociology. His work was unquestionably ‘local’ in its focus on the subject of Scottish independence and the viability of the British Isles under the governance of a multi-national state.     

The Welfare Conventions Approach: A Comparative Perspective on Social Impact Bonds

Abstract

The Social Impact Bond (SIB) is a new funding mechanism for welfare programs. It is supposed to create savings for the public sector from which private returns can be deducted. Presented as a purely technical solution, SIBs discard their political morality. The Welfare Convention Approach (WCA) is designed for studying SIBs as disputed and versatile welfare apparatuses. It is claimed that elements from diverse historical welfare conventions (the philanthropic, communitarian, civic, market, full employment, entrepreneurial, financial, and behavioral) reveal the diverse institutional conflicts and compromises of SIBs at the time they are implemented. In so doing, the WCA informs comparative research on SIBs.     

Comparing federal institutions: Power and representation in six federations

The study of comparative federalism is often hampered by the diverse range of federal institutional arrangements in practice, as well as the ambiguity surrounding the concept of federalism. This article identifies three main conceptual approaches to federalism – sociological, constitutional, and governmental – then proposes a revised governmental approach that takes account of the institutional effects of federalism, for application in comparative politics research. Minimally defined, all federations are products of institutional rules that create separate territorial spheres of authority. This article compares Canada, the United States, Australia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland along two key institutional dimensions that structure politics in the federal state: resource allocation, and the representation of constituent units in federal-level decision-making.     

‘Going institutional’ to overcome obstruction: Explaining the suppression of minority rights in Western European parliaments, 1945−2010

When and why do parliamentary majorities in Europe suppress parliamentary minority rights? This article argues that such reforms are driven by substantive policy conflict in interaction with existing minority rights. Government parties curb minority rights if they fear minority obstruction due to increased policy conflict and a minority-friendly institutional status quo. Empirical support is found for this claim using comparative data on all reforms in 13 Western European parliaments since 1945. A curbing of minority rights is significantly more likely under conditions of heightened policy conflict and these effects are stronger the more the institutional status quo favours opposition parties. Contrary to frequent claims of consensual rule changes from single-country studies in Europe, these findings demonstrate the importance of competitive strategies in explaining institutional reform in European parliaments. The conditional impact of the status quo provides interesting theoretical links to historical institutionalist arguments on path dependence.     

Innovation Policy in Italy (1993–2002): Understanding the Invention and Persistence of a Public Management Reform

The literature on the politics of public management reform in Italy broadly contends that the country's legalistic administrative tradition suppresses reform. This article questions and qualifies this line of argument on the basis of a newly reported case of public management reform that endured for more than 10 years. The study tracks and explains the emergence of the policy issue of “government innovation” and its persistence on the specialized policy agenda of the Ministry for Public Administration. The initial emergence of the government innovation policy in Italy and its directional stability is explained by applying event‐centric approaches to historical analysis, together with the institutional concept of policy subsystems. The article shows the need for modifying central arguments—both substantive and theoretical—about the politics of public management reform in Italy.     

Democracy and Interest Groups

This article analyses the differences in institutional design in national parliamentary control over European Union affairs among EU member states. It proceeds from a preference-based perspective, drawing on the principal–agent framework, and a time-based perspective, inspired by the historical institutionalist approach. The article involves a qualitative comparative analysis of strong control and a quantitative, correlation analysis of variation in the degree of control. It argues that time-based factors provide a more persuasive overall explanation for the differences in control than preference-based factors.     

How can interactions among interdependent structures,institutions, and agents inform financial stability? What we have still to learn from global financial crisis

How national financial systems can avoid costly banking crises is a persistent and intriguing question for institutional scholars and policymakers worldwide. In this context, although considerable research has recently focused on structural, institutional, and agency-level factors in explaining the global financial crisis, it mostly offered each of these explanatory factors in isolation, thus leaving interactions among these interrelated factors incomplete. Building on a deviant case study on Australian exceptionalism examined in a comparative perspective, this paper introduces an integrative framework that views financial stability as a function of these interactions that reinforce prudent financial behavior. In doing so, it offers an insight into the previous research on institutional complementarity and how to guard against similar crises in the future. It suggests that financial stability (instability) is more likely when interactions among structural and institutional complementarities and agents reinforce conservative (opportunistic) banking.     

Social or political cleavages? A spatial analysis of?the?party system in post-authoritarian Chile

Lipset and Rokkan??s (Party system and voter alignments: cross national perspectives, Lipset and Rokkan eds., New York: Free Press, pp. 1?C64, 1967) sociological model of cleavages and the so-called ??freezing hypothesis?? dominate theorizing about party system formation. Torcal and Mainwaring (Br. J. Polit. Sci. 33:55?C84, 2003) show the relevance of a purely political cleavage for structuring the party system in the case of Chile, challenging the freezing hypothesis??s claims. They also dispute case-specific research that argues Chile??s party system still reflects a ??three-thirds?? division between Left, Right, and Center. Revisiting this debate, our study employs spatial maps of the party system. Such political-economy models are rare in studies of Latin American politics. The application here supports a democratic/authoritarian political cleavage in Chile.     

Delegation of Clinical Authority,Administrative Culture and Policy Adoption: A Comparative Analysis

Numerous countries have adopted reforms that allow medical personnel other than physicians to engage in tasks that traditionally were exclusively performed by physicians. This policy is controversial because it challenges the medical profession’s traditional boundaries. This study is an exercise in comparative policy research based on the experience of 18 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. It evaluates the contribution of different structural factors – socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional – to policy adoption. Based on both quantitative analysis and an examination of how delegation unfolded in Israel, the role of administrative culture is highlighted: a category that combines cultural legacies and institutional properties in explaining policy adoption. It is argued that because, in entrepreneurial administrative cultures, administrators are more likely to possess a managerial mindset than in Rechtsstaat cultures, and also have more institutional leeway for action, delegation is more likely to be adopted in the former.