The United States,Japan, and the European Union: comparing political economy approaches to China

Abstract

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US–Japan and US–EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US–Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.     

Personality traits,political attitudes and vote choice: Evidence from the United States

Past studies have documented the significant relationships between personality traits and voter turnout, but we know less about whether personality traits influence individual vote choices. This study examines whether such attitudinal factors as party identification, feeling thermometers toward the candidates, policy preferences and executive approval mediate the effects of personality traits on vote choice in the United States. Using data from ANES 2012, this study finds no direct relationship between personality traits and vote choice. More importantly, the results reveal that through previously mentioned attitudinal factors, higher levels of extraversion, conscientiousness and emotional stability indirectly decrease the probability of voting for Obama, whereas a higher level of openness to experience indirectly increases the probability of voting for Obama. Nevertheless, agreeableness only exerts an indirect, positive influence on vote choice via executive approval. Overall, this study provides insight into the relationship between personality traits and vote choice and makes up for the insufficiency in the study of personality and voting behavior.     

Nonverbal displays and political leadership in France and the United States

Because contemporary theories of politics discuss the appeal of leaders primarily in verbal terms, it is often difficult to go beyond anecdotes when explaining the effects of televized appearances of leaders and candidates. Experimental studies of the way American viewers respond to televized excerpts of leaders were replicated in France shortly before the legislative elections of March 1986, using comparable expressive displays of Laurent Fabius (then Social Prime Minister), Jacques Chirac (Gaullist Mayor of Paris who became Prime Minister), and Jean Marie LePen (head of the Front Nationale). Although the results show striking similarities in the system of nonverbal behavior in France and the United States, there are cultural differences in the role of anger/threat (which elicits more positive responses from French viewers than Americans) as well as variations in the evocative character of the facial displays of individual leaders. These experimental findings clarify recent discussions concerning the evolution of the French party system, providing insights into the role of political culture as well as leadership style in the media age.     

Correcting mistakes: cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States

Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that the act of voting makes people more positive toward the party or candidate they have voted for. Following Mullainathan and Washington (Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 1:86–111, 2009), I test this prediction by using exogenous variation in turnout provided by the voting age restriction. I improve on previous studies by investigating political attitudes, measured just before elections, when they are highly predictive of voting. In contrast to earlier studies I find no effect of voting on political attitudes. This result holds for both Sweden and the United States.     

Strategic retirements: A political model of turnover on the United States Supreme Court

The president's ability to nominate justices to the United States Supreme Court is one of his most powerful tools for advancing his policy goals. To maximize the use of this tool it is important that he be able to determine how reasonable it is to expect a retirement from the Court during his presidency. Prior research is inconclusive as to whether Court retirements are politically motivated. In this study I develop and test a political model of Court retirements. The results from estimating the model using exponential Poisson regression show there to be an identifiable political element relating to the timing of retirements from the Court.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia.     

Rent seeking at 52: an introduction to a special issue of public choice

Public Choice - Regulation of health and safety has placed an unacknowledged burden on low-income households and workers. Billions of dollars are spent every year on regulations that seek to reduce...     

Caregiver credits in France, Germany, and Sweden: lessons for the United States

Recently, analysts in the United States (US) have proposed adopting caregiver credits, or pension credits, provided to individuals for time spent out of the workforce while caring for dependent children and sick or elderly relatives. The primary objective of these credits, used in almost all public pension systems in the European Union, is to improve the adequacy of old-age benefits for women whose gaps in workforce participation typically lead to fewer years of contributions, lower lifetime average earnings, and consequently lower pensions. This article examines caregiver credits in the context of future reforms to the US Social Security system, with attention given to the adequacy of current spouse and survivor benefits and how changing marital patterns and family structures have increased the risk of old-age poverty among certain groups of women. It then analyzes caregiver credit programs in selected countries, with particular focus on design, administration, and cost.     

The debt wish: Rent seeking by business groups and the structure of corporate borrowing in India

Business groups play an important role in emerging economies. The transactions cost perspective, which has dominated our understanding of such groups, argues that the emergence of business groups is a natural response to market failures in developing countries. In this paper, we propose an alternate theoretical perspective – the rent-seeking view – that takes these groups as engaging in coordinated lobbying for the capture of rents created by governments. We develop and implement an empirical strategy to test for the rent-seeking view drawing from the property rights theory of corporate finance. We find strong empirical support for the rent-seeking view using a large cross-sectional data-set of firms in India.     

Avian influenza: the political economy of disease control in Cambodia

Abstract In the wake of avian flu outbreaks in 2004, Cambodia received $45 million in commitments from international donors to help combat the spread of animal and human influenza, particularly avian influenza (H5N1). How countries leverage foreign aid to address the specific needs of donors and the endemic needs of the nation is a complex and nuanced issue throughout the developing world. Cambodia is a particularly compelling study in pandemic preparedness and the management of avian influenza because of its multilayered network of competing local, national, and global needs, and because the level of aid in Cambodia represents approximately $2.65 million per human case-a disproportionately high number when compared with neighbors Vietnam and Indonesia. This paper examines how the Cambodian government has made use of animal and human influenza funds to protect (or fail to protect) its citizens and the global community. It asks how effective donor and government responses were to combating avian influenza in Cambodia, and what improvements could be made at the local and international level to help prepare for and respond to future outbreaks. Based on original interviews, a field survey of policy stakeholders, and detailed examination of Cambodia's health infrastructure and policies, the findings illustrate that while pandemic preparedness has shown improvements since 2004, new outbreaks and human fatalities accelerated in 2011, and more work needs to be done to align the specific goals of funders with the endemic needs of developing nations.     

Citizenship,identity and transnational migration: Arab immigrants to the United States

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the changing relationships between identities, citizenship and the state in the context of globalisation. We first examine the ways in which scholars discuss changes in the ways in which citizenship and political identity are expressed in the context of international migration. We argue that much of the discussion of transnationalism and diaspora cling to an assumption that citizenship remains an important—though not defining—element of identity. Our position, by contrast, is that migration is one of a number of processes that transform the relationship between citizenship and identity. More specifically, we argue that it is possible to claim identity as a citizen of a country without claiming an identity as ‘belonging to’ or ‘being of’ that country, thus breaking the assumed congruity between citizenship, state and nation. We explore this possibility through a study of Arab immigrants in the US. Our findings, based on interviews with activists and an analysis of Arab American websites, suggest that concerns with both homeland and national integration are closely related to each other and may simultaneously inform immigrants' political activism. These findings indicate a need to identify multiple axes of political identification and territorial attachment that shape immigrants' sense of political membership. We argue for the importance of thinking about transnationalism as a process—and perhaps a strategy—as migrants negotiate the complex politics of citizenship and identity.     

Poorhouse to Warehouse: Institutional Long-Term Care in the United States

Nursing homes in the United States are a product of Americanfederalism and reflect the complexities and variabilities ofthat system. Over time, institutional long-term care for frailelders has shifted from local government funding and administrationto state-level oversight and support to a shared federal-stateconcern. The unsystematic American approach produces haphazardresults in terms of quality, equity, and efficiency. The grayingof the American population will increase the demand for long-termcare, resulting in pressure for a more coherent policy response.     

The political economy of swarming in honeybees: Voting-with-the-wings,decision-making costs,and the unanimity rule

The political economy of bee swarming offers a fascinating study of collective action in biological systems. Various aspects of the organization of swarming have been explained in this paper as devices bees have evolved to economize on information and decision-making costs associated with the economics and politics of establishing a new nest site.     

A theory of entangled political economy, with application to TARP and NRA

The recent financial crisis has provoked a raft of contending claims as to whether the cause of the crisis is better attributed to market failure or political failure. Such claims are predicated on a presumption that markets and polities are meaningfully separate entities. To the contrary, we argue that contemporary arrangements create an entangled political economy that renders theorizing based on separation often misleading. Within this alternative framework of entangled political economy, we illuminate both the recent Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) and the New Deal??s National Recovery Administration (NRA).