Electoral Competition, Globalization, and Subnational Education Spending in Mexico, 1999–2004

This article examines the determinants of primary education spending among 29 Mexican states from 1999 to 2004. There is wide variation in spending despite expectations of policy convergence due to market forces associated with globalization, and in spite of the unique potential of education spending to complement economic strategies in achieving equitable growth. This study exploits significant advantages of subnational analysis in exploring political and economic variables that have been useful in explaining spending levels cross-nationally. Consistent with these studies, this article shows that greater electoral competition leads to increased spending. In contrast to other work, however, this study finds that exposure to the global economy has distinctly mixed effects on education spending. These findings thus further highlight the positive returns to higher "quality" democracy, while underscoring the need to examine the effects of many different aspects of globalization representing a wide variety of strategies employed by governments in engaging the international economy.     

Party systems and the dynamics of government support: Britain and Germany, 1960–1990

Abstract. This paper examines the impact that one feature of a country's institutional context -the party system - has on public support for governing parties in two West European democracies, Germany and Great Britain. Specifically, it argues that models of government popularity need to take politics and institutions into account, and need to do so in a systematic fashion. Using measures of party system fractionalization and public opinion data spanning the period from 1960 to 1990, the paper demonstrates that the effects of economic conditions on government support are mediated by the choices available to citizens to express discontent with the ruling party. The greater the effective number of parties in a system, the stronger the effects of macro-economic performance on support for the government.     

Political Science Research in Sweden 1960–1975: An Overvie

Swedish research on politics during the fifteen year period 1960–1975 has not been confined to the departments of political science in Sweden. Research of this kind has also occurred in other university departments as well as outside the universities. However, the major portion of the country's political research has taken place within the framework of political science.     

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.     

Jeremy Wallace,Cities and Stability: Urbanization,Redistribution, and Regime Survival in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

The Effects of Capital Mobility, Trade Openness, and Democracy on Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–1999

Empirical studies measuring the impact of globalization on social spending have appeared recently in leading journals. This study seeks to improve upon previous work by (1) employing a more sophisticated and comprehensive measure of financial openness; (2) using a more accurate measure of trade openness based on purchasing power parities; and (3) relying on social spending data that are more complete than those used by previous studies on Latin America. Our estimates suggest that several empirical patterns reported in previous work deserve a second look. We find that trade openness has a positive association with education and social security expenditures, that financial openness does not constrain government outlays for social programs, and that democracy has a strong positive association with social spending, particularly on items that bolster human capital formation.     

I Respectfully Dissent: Consensus, Agendas, and Policymaking on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1888–1999

Scholars have been intrigued by the abrupt change in the rate of nonconsensual opinions that the Supreme Court has published over time, which substantially increased beginning with the battles concerning the court's New Deal transition in the 1930s. Notwithstanding, none of the prior studies on this topic has made any link, whether theoretical or empirical, between the Supreme Court's issuance of these special opinions and the justices’ policy preferences. We utilize fractional cointegration to examine the relationship between consensus, agendas, and decisionmaking on the Supreme Court. We find that there is a systematic interrelation between the justices’ policy preferences and their issuance of nonconsensual opinions that is dependent upon the policy agenda before the court. In turn, this connection influences the court's policy outcomes, demonstrating that the justices’ behavior regarding nonconsensual opinion writing is a classic example of judicial policymaking.     

Convergence or divergence?: change in welfare effort in OECD countries 1960–1980

Abstract. This paper examines changes in welfare effort from 1960 to 1980 and two intervening periods. Analysis of data on 17 OECD countries indicates that there is increasing divergence in welfare effort, as reflected in expenditure and policy orientation, although this statement masks important nuances relating to measures of welfare effort and time periods. The findings illustrate the importance of considering the elements of welfare effort. The patterns of variation in social transfer and government civil consumption expenditure differ as do the explanations of these patterns particularly those relating to the impact of working class mobilisation variables. These variables are positively and relatively strongly associated with change in consumption expenditure in both the 1960–73 and 1973–80 periods but only weakly associated with change in social transfer expenditure. This has implications for findings relating to the widely used ILO measure of welfare effort. Since it is skewed towards social transfer payments and includes only a small part of consumption expenditure, the impact of working class mobilization variables is not evident. Finally, the standardization of change in welfare effort for average annual change in real GDP results in interesting insights relating to the impact of independent variables on 'real' as opposed to nominal change in welfare effort.