Succession,power-sharing and the development of representative institutions in medieval Europe

Historians have documented that in medieval Europe, bargaining over the loyalty of lay magnates and high clergy was most intense during successions and that this often forced monarchs to give political concessions. We argue that matters related to succession predict short-term power-sharing concessions by rulers but that – because they do not permanently alter the balance of power between ruler and elite – they only trigger lasting changes of political institutions if these changes are in the mutual interest of the ruler and the elite groups. It follows that successions are unlikely to have long-term effects on representative institutions but that they may consolidate the rules regulating succession (the succession order). Using the natural deaths of monarchs as an instrument for successions, we confirm these claims with a new dataset that includes fine-grained data on succession and parliament-like assemblies in 16 European polities between 1000 and 1600. These findings shed new light on the development of representative institutions in medieval Europe, on the changes in succession orders that brought about clear rules about primogeniture and on the political leeway of legislatures in authoritarian regimes more generally.     

女性制度主义的发生路径、焦点议题与意义评析

女性制度主义作为女性主义政治学与新制度主义政治学相互融合的产物,在跻身新制度主义前沿领域的同时,还为制度分析增添了性别维度。发端于女性主义第二波浪潮与社会性别理论的女性制度主义研究动向,在新制度主义异军突起的理论背景和性别平等举措全面开展的现实背景下确立为重要的分析途径,日益得到众多具有制度分析取向的女性主义学者的积极推动,并在多领域与多学科的交织脉络中不断发展演进。女性制度主义将浸染社会性别特征的政治制度作为研究起点,致力于协调现实政治生活的结构性要素与能动性要素,通过阐释性别体制、制度变迁以及制度性抵制的复杂关系,对性别化的权力体系及其动力机制予以深入探讨。基于女性制度主义所涉及的学术身份认同、学理资源汲取、学派交流融汇、学科议题嬗变,可以对该分析途径的贡献、不足以及前景进行系统审视。     

The hazard rate of political regimes

We present a preliminary study on the stability of political regimes. In a longitudinal data set we study the effect of some observable economic and political conditions on the hazard rate of different types of political regimes. We find that economic development has a stabilizing effect in countries with democratic political institutions, but rich autocracies do not show a lower hazard rate than less developed autocracies. While the stability of autocracies is not affected by their degree of economic development, it is greatly associated with the degree of popular discontent. Widespread discontent with leaders in autocratic regimes highly increases their hazard rate. This relationship is much weaker for regimes with democratic institutions. We also find a non-monotonic time dependence pattern for the hazard rate of political regimes. Political regimes are found to be at an increasing risk of collapse during the first years, with their hazard rates reaching a peak around the fourth year.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Regime Type,and Labor Protest in Developing Countries

We explore the relationship between FDI, regime type, and strikes in low‐ and middle‐income countries. We argue that FDI produces social tensions and opportunities for protest that can result in higher levels of industrial conflict. However, the effect of FDI is moderated by regime type. While democracies tend to have higher levels of protest overall, they are better able than authoritarian regimes to cope with the strains arising from FDI. We cite two reasons. First, political competition forces regimes to incorporate workers, which shifts conflict from industrial relations to the political arena. Second, democracies provide workers with freedom of association rights, which facilitate institutionalized grievance resolution. We test the argument using a new dataset of labor protest in low‐ and middle‐income countries for the period 1980–2005.     

Tinpots,Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights

Ronald Wintrobe (1990, 1998) has recently provided atheoretical foundation for estimating equations that attemptto explain the dependence of civil liberties and politicalrights in non-democratic regimes on the history of economicgrowth. This theory suggests that data from different kinds ofnon-democratic countries should not be pooled without allowingcoefficients to vary with regime type. It also placesinteresting restrictions on the signs of the coefficients ofeconomic growth in equations explaining freedom in the typesof regimes Wintrobe identifies. In this paper, we employ theserestrictions to test Wintrobe's theory. Some additionalhypotheses about the difference between democratic andnon-democratic regimes and about the role of education, notconsidered by Wintrobe, are also investigated.The results indicate clearly that the relationship between thedegree of freedom – as measured by the sum of the Gastilindexes of civil liberties and political rights – andeconomic growth varies significantly across all types ofregimes. Totalitarians (that attempt to maximize power) areclearly different than tinpots (that just attempt to maintainpower) in this respect, and non-democratic regimes differ fromdemocracies. Other aspects of the theory are partiallyconfirmed. In particular, in totalitarian regimes, positivegrowth reduces freedom, and negative growth increases it insome specifications. The theory predicts the opposite patternfor tinpots, and we do find that negative growth reducesfreedom in tinpot regimes. However, positive growth in tinpotsalso appears to reduce freedom in some cases, which is not inaccord with the theory. Secondary schooling has a positive effect on freedom, as inprevious empirical work, a result that is shown here to holdeven when each type of regime is considered separately. Butthe effect of primary schooling is different: in tinpot andtotalitarian regimes, but not in democracies, primaryschooling is associated with reduced freedom.     

Institutions,governmental performance and the rise of political newcomers

This article analyses the institutional and contextual factors that facilitate the election of political newcomers as heads of government in democratic regimes. Using data from 870 democratic elections between 1945 and 2015, it is found that political newcomers are more likely to be successful in presidential systems, in new democracies and when party systems are weakly institutionalised. The election of politically inexperienced candidates is also related to governmental performance. Political newcomers are more successful when the economic performance of the government is bad and when the government engages in high‐level corruption.     

The politics of economic adjustment policy in Argentina,Brazil, and Mexico: Experiences in the 1980s and challenges for the future

During the debt crisis of the 1980s, new democratic governments in Argentina and Brazil experimented with heterodox approaches to economic stabilization, whereas Mexico's dominant party regime adopted a far more orthodox line of adjustment. None of these approaches had led to a sustained recovery by the end of the decade. Difference in policy choices are attributable to goals and beliefs of top decisionmaking officials and to the way the institutional features of their respective political regimes structured time horizons and vulnerability to domestic distributive pressures. Converging economic outcomes are attributable to underlying structural problems that cut across these distinctions: political constraints on the management of fiscal deficits, and international power asymmetries impeding significant reductions in the external debt burden.     

From Gastarbeiter to “Ausländische Mitbürger”: Postnational Citizenship and In-Between Identities in Berlin

The recent condition of complexity within nation-states, triggered by the visibility of transnational communities and by the political demands of cultural identities, indicates that the traditional tools of national narratives with respect to articulations of identity and membership are exhausted. The debate on postnationalism suggests that unbounding citizenship from its national narrative would create the conditions in which the contentious issues of cultural recognition and representation could be resolved without resorting to the narrow confines of national narratives. This paper argues that that even though the postnationalism debate makes an important contribution in terms of indicating alternative forms of citizenship that are not tied to national discourse, it seriously underestimates the deep political connection between citizenship regimes and national narratives. By separating citizenship from national discourse, the postnationalism debate overlooks the ways in which transnational, ethnic, religious, sexual and other cultural identities interact with national narratives to negotiate their citizenship rights. More importantly, this assumed separation of citizenship rights from national discourse fails to acknowledge that the particular forms of citizenship rights, such as political representation and cultural recognition, and how they are exercised, are intertwined with the cultural hegemony of national narratives. Finally, the tension between citizenship regimes and national narratives provides the political space within which formerly marginalized groups and identities can invoke otherness to negotiate the cultural boundaries of nation-states. In other words, the politics of citizenship invoked by marginalized groups and identities is not simply about legal claims but also includes political attempts to reconfigure national narratives.     

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Nationalist Emulation during the COVID-19 Pandemic

As COVID-19 rapidly spread across the globe, every government in the world has been forced to enact policies to slow the spread of the virus. While leaders often claim responses are based on the best available advice from scientists and public health experts, recent policy diffusion research suggests that countries are emulating the COVID-19 policies of their neighbors instead of responding to domestic conditions. Political and geographic considerations play a role in determining which countries imitate one another, but even among countries that are politically or geographically distant, nationalist regimes seem to favor certain approaches towards the pandemic. We investigate why this is the case by examining whether countries that embrace a nationalist ideology are more likely to emulate the COVID-19 policies of similarly nationalist regimes. We demonstrate that, even after controlling for domestic circumstances and linguistic, trade, geographic, and political connections, nationalist countries are emulating each other’s responses. These results are robust and shed light not only on new mechanisms of policy diffusion but also on the growing international cooperation of nationalist regimes and leaders.

     

Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800–2000

This article examines how political institutional structures affect political instability. It classifies polities as autocracies or democracies based on three institutional dimensions: election of the executive, constraints on executive decision-making authority, and extent of political participation. It hypothesizes that strongly autocratic and democratic regimes will exhibit the greatest stability resulting from self-enforcing equilibria, whereby the maintenance of a polity's institutional structure is in the interest of political elites, whether through autocratic or democratic control. Institutionally inconsistent regimes (those exhibiting a mix of institutional characteristics of both democracy and autocracy) lack these self-enforcing characteristics and are expected to be shorter-lived. Using a log-logistic duration model, polity survival time ratios are estimated. Institutionally consistent polities are significantly more stable than institutionally inconsistent polities. The least stable political systems are dictatorships with high levels of political participation. The most unstable configuration for polities with an elected executive is one where the executive is highly constrained, but the electorate is very small.     

Democratic Transitions

Przeworski et al. (2000) challenge the key hypothesis in modernization theory: political regimes do not transition to democracy as per capita incomes rise, they argue. Rather, democratic transitions occur randomly, but once there, countries with higher levels of GDP per capita remain democratic. We retest the modernization hypothesis using new data, new techniques, and a three-way rather than dichotomous classification of regimes. Contrary to Przeworski et al. (2000) we find that the modernization hypothesis stands up well. We also find that partial democracies emerge as among the most important and least understood regime types.     

Elite politics and the fourth generation of chinese leadership

The personnel reshuffle at the 16^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is widely regarded as the first smooth and peaceful transition of power in the Party’s history. Some China observers have even argued that China’s political succession has been institutionalized. While this paper recognizes that the Congress may provide the most obvious manifestation of the institutionalization of political succession, this does not necessarily mean that the informal nature of politics is no longer important. Instead, the paper contends that Chinese political succession continues to be dictated by the rule of man although institutionalization may have conditioned such a process. Jiang Zemin has succeeded in securing a legacy for himself with his “Three Represents” theory and in putting his own men in key positions of the Party and government. All these present challenges to Hu Jintao, Jiang’s successor. Although not new to politics, Hu would have to tread cautiously if he is to succeed in consolidating power. The authors are grateful to the two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the paper.     

The labour of identity: performing identities,performing economies

Recent analyses of workplace organization have stressed that the self-identify of workers constitutes a key resource in new regimes of accumulation. Morever, this significance of self-identify has been understood to form part of an aestheticization of work since the techniques involved in the performance of identity are widely conceived as aesthetic or cultural practices. However, in this article we suggest that in these assumptions the questions of a person's relation to self-identity and of how the labour or work of identity may contribute to the political organization of production remain hidden. Through looking not just at the kinds of self-identity available to and performed by workers but also at the terms and conditions of their performance. We show that a person's self-identity is a key site of conditions of their performance, we show that per' self-identity is a key site of contestation in the struggle that maps out production. In particular, and through a focus on issues of gender and the body, we illustrate the ways in which workers may be denied authorship of their identities and the ability to claim their identity performances as occupational resources. Our analysis indicates that self-possessing workers with performable identities should not be universalized by theorists of the economic and, moreover, that considerations of the aestheticization of work need to be sensitive to what we term socio-cultural regimes of accumulation in which the implications of particular processes of aestheticization for the relation between self and identity and of both to production are explored rather than assumed.     

The politics of vice-presidential selection in Latin America

It has become common for presidential candidates in Latin America to pick running-mates from outside of their own political parties in the form of political independents or politicians from other parties. As witnessed in several recent cases, this has added a new dynamic to Latin American presidentialism, not least in situations of political crisis. Drawing on a new database, the present paper enquires into the factors that may lead prospective presidents to select such “external vice-presidents”. The findings show that the logics behind selecting either a politician from another party or a political independent as running-mate differ. While the size of the presidential candidate's own party explains the decision to select vice-presidential candidate from another party, the choice of an independent is determined by the fragmentation of the party system. Furthermore, there is evidence that previous experiences of vicepresidential succession makes the selection of an independent running-mate more likely, possibly as a attempt to guard against challenges to the future presidency. Generally, presidential hopefuls tend to pick external running-mates who lack a strong political following, which also indicates that electoral logic is often mitigated by concern for the stability of the eventual presidency.     

Learning and re-learning regime support: The dynamics of post-communist regimes

Abstract. The political support of citizens of new democracies reflects two sets of experiences. Initially, people are socialized into an undemocratic regime; then, they must re-learn political support in relation to a new regime. In an established democracy, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of early socialization and current performance because both refer to the same regime. However, this is both possible and necessary in countries where there has been a change in regime. Critical questions then arise: When, whether and how do citizens determine their support for their new regime? At the start of a new regime past socialization should be more important but, after a few years, current performance should become more important. We draw on 47 Barometer surveys between 1991 and 1998 in ten more or less democratic post-communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to test the relative importance of early socialization influences, the legacy of the communist past, and the political and economic performance of new regimes. We find that economic and political performance explains the most variance in support and, secondarily, the communist legacy. Early socialization is insignificant. However, contrary to economic theories of voting, the impact of political performance is greater than the impact of economic performance in post-communist countries – and its impact is increasing.     

The Difficult Art of Classifying Regimes: The Case of Paraguay

This article deals with the difficult art of classifying political regimes. Such classifications are important since they lay the ground for a central field of research in political science, namely the causes and consequences of regime changes. The article focuses on Paraguay. which has experienced a process of transition from authoritarian to democratic rule over the past five years. Four criteria of democracy are used to evaluate the state of democracy in this country in early 1994: competitive elections and universal suffrage. broad and autonomous political participation. political freedoms and accountability of elected organs. The investigation of the Paraguayan case highlights the problems involved in using a dichotomous regime variable in empirical research. Paraguay is a democracy when it comes to freedom of speech, but hardly in term of the political situation in the countryside. It also demonstrates that the widely used Schumpeterian definition of democracy is risky in the sense that it may conceal more than it reveals about the regime under study. Finally, the article sheds light on the need for in-depth case studies for the classification of political regimes.     

中国共产党破解历史周期率难题的路径选择——从民主、法治到治理的历史演进

历史周期率是我国历史上封建王朝、封建政权摆脱不了的宿命。历代封建王朝盛极而衰、农民起义军先胜后败,一个共同的也是极其重要的原因,就是自己解决不了自己的问题。中国共产党在破解历史周期率难题的艰辛探索中,终于找到了破解这一难题的根本出路:既要靠民主,又要靠法治,还要靠治理,从而形成了“从民主、法治到治理”这样一条切实可行的政治发展路径。可以说从整体上实现了政治合法性与政治有效性两方面的有机统一。并且,这一发展路径既体现了发展的阶段性,即不同历史时期在处理合法性与有效性关系问题上侧重点的不同,同时又体现了历史的延续性,即不同发展阶段之间并非相互替代而是逐步递增的过程。而从实践维度看,则表现在新的时代背景下对执政党的执政理念也有了新的要求,那就是适应新的时代发展需要,在推进民主法治建设的同时大力突出治理的重要性,于是,提高执政党科学执政、民主执政、依法执政水平的要求便势在必行。     

Dictators, development, and the virtue of political instability

A large body of literature stresses the benefits of regime stability for economic growth in poor countries. This view, however, discounts the gains from threats to regime security when populations living under dictatorial regimes cannot benefit from the disciplining of political competition available to voters in democracies. This paper applies a model of economic growth to study the sources of the differences in economic performance and repression policy among dictatorships as well as the parallel in dictatorial regimes of the benefits achieved through political competition in democracies. Threats to the security of dictatorial regimes are shown to be a means of benefiting the population through the responses of the regime.     

Similar Ends, Differing Means: Contractualism and Civil Service Reform in Denmark and New Zealand

State sector reform was an integral component of the radical economic and social policy changes enacted by New Zealand governments between 1984 and 1991. This reform replaced the traditional tenured public service with a contractual regime. Through a comparison with Denmark, it is shown that New Zealand's reforms were not unique. Similar reforms were enacted in Denmark. But contrary to what occurred in New Zealand, the Danish reforms had already begun in the 1960s, and have since been gradually expanded. The parallel contractual regimes introduced in the two countries are accounted for by an increasing demand among politicians to secure a civil service that is responsive to political executive demands. However, because of institutional differences and diverging regulatory regimes, the strategic approaches in the two countries have been different. Whereas the New Zealand approach was dominated by an appeal to a coherent and sophisticated body of theoretical knowledge, combined with strict formalization, the Danish strategy has been based on political bargaining with the civil service unions. In both cases the reforms rest on critical assumptions regarding their positive and negative implications.     

The Power of Money: Global Capital and Policy Choices in Developing Countries

Extant studies of the impact that international phenomena have on policy choices, and those focused on the political economy of exchange-rate regimes in particular, are incomplete because they do not consider the effect that reliance on global capital has on the policy preferences of domestic groups. Consequently, they cannot explain why some newly emerging market countries pursue fixed exchange regimes under political and economic conditions—such as recently completed elections, uncompetitive export sectors, and poor national economic performance—in which others have altered their policies. I argue that reliance on different types of foreign capital generates distinct capital-specific policy preferences. Furthermore, rather than simply mimicking the preferences of foreign investors, domestic groups are likely to promote policies that reduce their capital-specific risks and vulnerabilities. Panel logit models of exchange-rate regimes in emerging market countries from 1973 through 2000 demonstrate that higher levels of democracy bolster these effects .