Prospects for village self‐governance in China

This article explores the changes in village self‐governance in the reform period. It reflects upon the potential of village self‐governance to contribute towards a broader democratisation process in China. It begins by reviewing rural governance in the pre‐reform period, drawing attention to the factors stimulating change. It then examines the newly emerging system of village self‐governance, focussing on the village committees, village assemblies and village representative assemblies. How this new system is implemented forms the subject of the third section. Finally the article considers the potential contribution of village self‐governance towards democratisation.     

Is the power of a state to impose sales tax in Nigeria fettered by the imposition of value added tax by the federal government?

The imposition of sales tax by some states in Nigeria has been resisted on the grounds either that a state lacks the power to impose taxes under Nigeria’s constitution or that a state cannot validly impose sales tax as long as the Value Added Tax Act, a federal law, remains in force, the Value Added Tax Act having ‘covered the field’. This article contends that none of these grounds is valid under Nigeria’s constitution: a state government can impose sales tax in exercise of its residual powers; and the doctrine of covering the field is inapplicable in the inquiry.     

Exchange Rate Volatility and Democratization in Emerging Market Countries

We examine some of the consequences of financial globalization for democratization in emerging market economies by focusing on the currency markets of four Asian countries at different stages of democratic development. Using political data of various kinds—including a new events data series—and the Markov regime switching model from empirical macroeconomics, we show that in young and incipient democracies politics continuously causes changes in the probability of experiencing two different currency market equilibria: a high volatility "contagion" regime and a low volatility "fundamentals" regime. The kind of political events that affect currency market equilibration varies cross-nationally depending on the degree to which the polity of a country is democratic and its policymaking transparent. The results help us better gauge how and the extent to which democratization is compatible with financial globalization.     

The Regulatory Gift: Politics,regulation and governance

This article introduces the “regulatory gift” as a conceptual framework for understanding a particular form of government‐led deregulation that is presented as central to the public interest. Contra to theories of regulatory capture, government corruption, “insider” personal interest, or profit‐seeking theories of regulation, the regulatory gift describes reform that is overtly designed by government to reduce or reorient regulators’ functions to the advantage of the regulated and in line with market objectives on a potentially macro (rather than industry‐specific) scale. As a conceptual framework, the regulatory gift is intended to be applicable across regulated sectors of democratic states and in this article the empirical sections evidence the practice of regulatory gifting in contemporary United Kingdom (UK) politics. Specifically, this article analyses the 2011 UK Public Bodies Act, affecting some 900 regulatory public bodies and its correlative legislation, the 2014 Regulator's Code, the 2015 Deregulation Act, and the 2016 Enterprise Bill. The article concludes that while in some cases the regulatory gift may be aligned with the public interest – delivering on cost reduction, enhancing efficiency, and stimulating innovation – this will not always be the case. As the case study of the regulatory body, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, demonstrates, despite the explicit claims made by legislators, the regulatory gift has the potential to significantly undermine the public interest.     

The Crime Preventers Scheme: A Community Policing Initiative for Regime Security in Uganda

ABSTRACT

For decades, Uganda has received substantial support from development partners to implement Security Sector Reforms (SSR). Using the crime preventers’ scheme that has been implemented by Uganda Police as an element of community policing, I argue that SSR achievements in the country seem unclear and limited. Based on an ethnographic study I illustrate that the widespread crime preventers’ scheme has had contrasting effects on the Ugandan security architecture. The scheme seems to have reduced the police-citizens social distance and augmented police presence while simultaneously cased operational excesses and is routinely used in regime security strategies. To provide a better conceptualization I ask and answer a number of questions; how and why has the crime preventers’ scheme been initiated? How is the scheme related to community policing as we know it? What is the political role of the crime preventers? What motivates people to become active members of the crime preventers’ scheme? How does the scheme empirically operate?     

Women's Political Participation in China: in whose interests elections?

This article takes up the issue of women's political participation in village committees in China. Of interest is the decline in and continuing low level of women's political participation in village governance structures in the reform period, and particularly following the widespread introduction of competitive village elections since 1988. The dominant explanation given for women's numerical under-representation in village committees, and in politics more generally, focuses on women's lack of self-confidence, which inhibits them from standing as candidates, and on the enduring drag of ‘feudal’ attitudes, which construct women as inferior to men, and therefore not capable of leadership. These two factors combined have in turn a material effect, as son-preference advantages boys in access to basic schooling, who thus, particularly in poorer rural areas, end up with higher levels of education, and greater opportunities in waged employment. The common solution adopted by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), China's largest women's organisation, lies in a two-pronged attack: first in the ideological realm, targeting men and women's sexist attitudes and concomitantly promoting a discourse of equality, and second, in the material realm by raising women's skills. It is argued here that this dominant text on women's under-representation in village committees masks a more complex conjuncture of variables that shape women's position in local politics. Social practices, economic structures, institutional norms and procedures, and political culture all prey on, revitalise and reproduce gendered notions of the appropriate place of women and men in political life.     

Politics at the margins: alternative sites of political involvement among young people in Cameroon

This paper analyses young people’s political discourses and experiences, highlighting their disillusionment with the postcolonial state. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with young people in the city of Bamenda, the article argues that young people’s perspectives and discourses on politics constitute alternative forms of political involvement and resistance. Their actions, inactions and discourses about politics and political personalities are informed by their specific identities and positionalities. However, taken collectively, these voices reveal current national anxieties about the postcolonial state whose legitimacy is widely believed to have eroded.     

Spatial Econometric Models of Cross-Sectional Interdependence in Political Science Panel and Time-Series-Cross-Section Data

Jude C. Hays Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801 e-mail: jchays{at}uiuc.edu e-mail: franzese{at}umich.edu (corresponding author) In this paper, we demonstrate the econometric consequences ofdifferent specification and estimation choices in the analysisof spatially interdependent data and show how to calculate andpresent spatial effect estimates substantively. We considerfour common estimators—nonspatial OLS, spatial OLS, spatial2SLS, and spatial ML. We examine analytically the respectiveomitted-variable and simultaneity biases of nonspatial OLS andspatial OLS in the simplest case and then evaluate the performanceof all four estimators in bias, efficiency, and SE accuracyterms under more realistic conditions using Monte Carlo experiments.We provide empirical illustration, showing how to calculateand present spatial effect estimates effectively, using dataon European governments' active labor market expenditures. Ourmain conclusions are that spatial OLS, despite its simultaneity,performs acceptably under low-to-moderate interdependence strengthand reasonable sample dimensions. Spatial 2SLS or spatial MLmay be advised for other conditions, but, unless interdependenceis truly absent or minuscule, any of the spatial estimatorsunambiguously, and often dramatically, dominates on all threecriteria the nonspatial OLS commonly used currently in empiricalwork in political science. Authors' note: This research was supported in part by NationalScience Foundation grant no. 0318045. We thank Chris Achen,Jim Alt, Kenichi Ariga, Neal Beck, Jake Bowers, Kerwin Charles,Bryce Corrigan, Tom Cusack, David Darmofal, Jakob de Haan, JohnDinardo, Zach Elkins, John Freeman, Fabrizio Gilardi, KristianGleditsch, Mark Hallerberg, John Jackson, Aya Kachi, JonathanKatz, Mark Kayser, Achim Kemmerling, Gary King, Hasan Kirmanoglu,James Kuklinski, Tse-Min Lin, Xiaobo Lu, Walter Mebane, CovadongaMeseguer, Michael Peress, Thomas Pluemper, Dennis Quinn, MeganReif, Frances Rosenbluth, Ken Scheve, Phil Schrodt, Beth Simmons,Duane Swank, Wendy Tam Cho, Craig Volden, Michael Ward, andGregory J. Wawro for useful comments on this and/or other workin our broader project on spatial econometric models in politicalscience. Bryce Corrigan, Aya Kachi, and Xiaobo Lu each providedexcellent research assistance and Kristian Gleditsch, Mark Hallerberg,and Duane Swank also generously shared data. We alone are responsiblefor any errors.