The bigger the better? Evidence of the effect of government size on life satisfaction around the world

This paper empirically analyzes whether government size is conducive or detrimental to life satisfaction in a cross-section of 74 countries. We thus provide a test of the longstanding dispute between standard neoclassical economic theory and public choice theory. According to the neoclassical view, governments play unambiguously positive roles for individuals' quality of life, while the theory of public choice has been developed to understand why governments often choose excessive involvement in – and regulation of – the economy, thereby harming their citizens' quality of life. Our results show that life satisfaction decreases with higher government consumption. For low, middle income, and male people, this result is stronger when the government is leftwing, while government consumption appears to be less harmful for women when the government is perceived to be effective. Government capital formation and social spending have no significant impact on life satisfaction.     

Science at the service of government: California tries to exploit an unnatural resource

An inquiry is made into California's efforts to utilize the blessings of science and systematic analysis in formulating public policy. Four alternate sources of scientific and analytic help have received the State's attention: profit-seeking firms, not-for-profit research organizations, universities, and in-house scientific staffs or advisory boards. Potentialities and limitations of each of the four sources are reviewed.     

Macron and the world

Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron, while inexperienced in international affairs, is inclined to return France to a de Gaulle/Mitterand tradition of national assertiveness. At the same time, his native prudence, as well as the geostrategic realities of the early twenty-first century, suggest more continuity than change.     

From ideology to program to policy: Tracking the Carter human rights policy'

The Carter human rights policy was grounded in American historic oscillation between pragmatism and idealism. It represented a major change, yet was prefigured in congressional initiatives, which continued thereafter. After an initial honeymoon, human rights like all “new” policies became a contentious bureaucratic and diplomatic issue, was modified to fit changing realities, and was eventually obscured by crises in Iran and Afghanistan. Criticized from left to right abroad and at home, the Carter human rights policy illustrated the impossibility of avoiding inconsistency in global policies-but also the certainty that, given the American tradition, it will continue to emerge on the policy stage.     

Continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy: Carter and reagan on el salvador

In attempting to understand continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy, analysts have tended to place too much emphasis on the importance of process and too little on that of values, interests, and strategies. In formulating policies toward the conflict in El Salvador, both the Carter and Reagan administrations were constrained by some enduring moral and political factors in the U.S. civic culture and by some fundamental processes of decision-making, which together account for the similarities in policy between administrations. Despite such factors, each administration's remaining space for choice produced a decidedly different set of policies with different outcomes.     

Living in the world risk society

Abstract

In a world risk society, we must distinguish between ecological and financial dangers, which can be conceptualized as side effects, and the threat from terrorist networks as intentional catastrophes; the principle of deliberately exploiting the vulnerability of modern civil society replaces the principle of chance and accident.     

Electoral accountability in the developing world

Do citizens of the developing world behave as economic voters? Do they blame and reward incumbent governments for their perceived economic performance? In addressing these questions, the current paper fills an important void left by the extant literature by adopting a large-n approach with the use of public opinion survey data and by focusing on emerging democracies of the developing world. The proposed analysis develops a series of incumbent support models to assess the impact of economic assessments. It relies on the use of public opinion survey data from countries of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, and the Arab world. The paper contributes to the extant literature at the empirical, methodological, and theoretical levels. Empirically, it provides a unique and systematic account of the phenomenon through a large-scale comparative approach. Theoretically, it contributes to the debate on the value of economic voting to explain electoral behavior in the developing world. Methodologically, it shows that using presidential approval is a fair alternative to vote choice and that a full model specification is not absolutely necessary to estimating the economic effect.     

Overcoming the deadlock in world trade

The WTO's Ninth Ministerial Conference is a serious opportunity to break a five-year deadlock in the Doha Round of trade negotiations. Failure to do so could reinforce a growing tendency among major trading powers to focus on regional and inter-regional trade agreements beyond the WTO.