Durable Governors as Political Leaders: Should We Limit Tenure?

"Durable governors," that is, governors who have had more thaneight years of continuous service and won three or more electionsin the past four decades, are of major importance for debatesover limits on gubernatorial tenure. This study examines hypothesesregarding the socioeconomic, political, and individual characteristicsassociated with the emergence of durable governors and theirdegree of political success during their later terms of office.Major differences exist between states which have produced durableDemocratic governors and states which have produced durableRepublican governors. Surprisingly, however, durable governorsdo not emerge more frequently in less competitive states. Thelevel of success which the durable governors have had in maintainingelectoral support and partisan legislative majorities giveslittle indication of a general decline of performance duringlengthy tenure. The performances of the durable governors andthe conditions which have facilitated their emergence lend supportto the movement away from constitutional limitations on gubernatorialreelection.     

Fertility,family planning,and development: Indirect influences

This paper focuses on the indirect influences on changing fertility and on the direct and indirect influences on family planning effort. Complete data on the variables under consideration were gathered from a variety of sources for 65 developing countries. The results here should be generalized only to high fertility, high mortality, low education, and low per capita gross national product nations. 1) Some social variables, like education, are more important than others for explaining fertility and family planning effort. The treatment of social setting as a single variable obscures the importance of lower level education (literacy, primary, and secondary school enrollment) for fertility and family planning. 2) Ignoring the indirect influences on fertility may lead us to understimate the importance of some variables on fertility, and perhaps to overestimate the importance of others. When both direct and indirect effects (the latter through family planning effort) are examined, the impact of education increases to nearly equal that of family planning effort in 3 of the 4 models developed here. 3) Program effort can be explained at least as well with a single variable (literacy or female school enrollment) as with the composite variable "social setting." 4) In addition to its importance in explaining fertility, education may also be important in explaining mortality. 5) It appears that the absolute and relative status of women may be an important variable which has not yet been adequately measured. Overall, the results of this study lend additional support to the position that, in addition to family planning effort, education may play a more crucial role than is obvious in fertility reduction in developing countries.     

Federalism and the Strong-State/Weak-State Conundrum: Canadian Economic Policymaking in Comparative Perspective

The areal dispersion of power and constitutional division ofresponsibilities in federal arrangements are generally feltto limit the ability of federal systems to improve economicperformance. Examining Canada within a comparative framework,we assess "the federations as weak states" hypothesis as wellas the utility of the "strong-state/weak-state" model itself.Although some aspects of the Canadian federal system—namelythe combination of federal with parliamentary traditions andthe resulting adverse policy styles—inhibit the adoptionof effective economic adjustment policies, these features arenot necessarily found in other federal arrangements. Comparisonswith Switzerland, Austria, and West Germany suggest that, undercertain circumstances, federal power sharing may be conduciveto bringing about broad agreement on both goals and policiesamong national, regional, and local governments and major economicactors.     

Reviews

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