Repression as a Double‐edged Sword: Resilient Monarchs,Repression and Revolution in the Arab World

The Arab world shows a puzzling variation of political violence. The region's monarchies often remain quiet, while other autocracies witness major upheaval. Institutional explanations of this variation suggest that monarchical rule solves the ruler's credible commitment problems and prevents elite splits. This article argues that institutional explanations neglect the role of repression: increasing the scope of repression raises the costs of rebellion and deters rebels. However, the deterrence effect disappears if repression is used indiscriminately. If remaining peaceful offers no benefits, repression creates new rebels instead of deterring them. A time‐series‐cross‐section analysis of repression and political violence in the Middle East and North Africa corroborates our argument and shows the u‐curve relation between repression and violence. Once we control for repression, monarchies have no special effect anymore. Thus, our article addresses the discussion about monarchical exceptionalism, and offers an explanation why repression deters as well as incites political violence.     

Churches as Societal Veto Players: Religious Influence in Actor-Centred Theories of Policy-Making

The article argues that the study of western democracies benefits from a conceptualisation of Christian churches as societal veto players characterised by three features: their power, which depends on their potential for mobilisation; their preferences, which can be deduced from churches' official statements and which are often outside the political spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. Conceptualised as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centred theories of policy-making. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church–state relations and religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches' behaviours. A comparative study of churches' roles in stem-cell policies illustrates the use of the concept. The study shows that the Catholic Church is a ‘stronger’ veto player than protestant churches, but that this stronger role can have paradoxical effects on the resulting policies and the policy process.     

‘When I find myself in times of trouble …’ : The conditional effect of international organisations on policy convergence

Most quantitative analyses of policy convergence treat transnational communication in international organisations and domestic economic problems as additive factors. By contrast, this article argues that domestic economic problems motivate governments to search for successful policies, while international organisations offer channels for policy learning. Thus, both factors interact, magnifying each other's effects. The argument is corroborated by a quantitative analysis of the privatisation of telecommunications providers in the Western OECD world. A dyadic logit model shows that joint membership in international organisations increases the likelihood of policy convergence if governments face budget deficits. The argument of the article builds a bridge between theories of international organisations and domestic theories of policy making. Theories of the former gain an important scope condition specifying the conditions under which transnational communication works, while exploring the latter gains a theory specifying where new policy ideas come from.