Fairness and qualitative portfolio allocation in multiparty governments

How do political parties divide coalition payoffs in multiparty governments? Perhaps the most striking answer to this question is Gamson’s Law, which suggests a strong fairness norm in the allocation of office payoffs among coalition partners. Building upon recent advancements in portfolio allocation research, we extend this approach in three important ways. First, we study fairness with regard to the allocation of policy (rather than office) payoffs. Second, we introduce measures to assess the fairness of the division of policy payoffs following two norms: envy-freeness and equitability. Third, we explore why some allocations of ministerial portfolios deviate from fairness norms. Based on an original data set of party preferences for individual portfolios in Western and Central Eastern Europe, we find substantial variation in the fairness of policy payoffs across cabinets. Moreover, coalitions are more likely to arrive at envy-free and equitable bargaining outcomes if (1) these fair allocations are based on an allocation of cabinet positions that is proportional to party size and if (2) the bargaining power is distributed evenly among government parties. The results suggest that fairness is not a universal norm for portfolio allocation in multiparty governments, but in fact depends on the cabinet parties’ bargaining positions.

     

Durable Democracy? Economic Inequality and Democratic Accountability in the New Gilded Age

Political Behavior - Scholarship in the U.S. provides mounting evidence of a linkage between economic inequality and inequality in representation and policymaking. In response, this article...     

The development of interest groups in the Balkans: Background and contemporary characteristics

Understanding the political development of the Balkans can be challenging even for historians and social scientists. This is particularly the case with the region's past and present interest group systems as virtually no research is available on the subject. With this in mind, this article provides basic background on the region and its fledgling interest group system as a foundation for approaching the analysis in the 7 country articles that follow. The topics considered include an overview of the common elements of the 7 group systems and their differences, developments that shaped these systems, and an initial look at the role of interest groups in consolidating the region's pluralist political systems.     

Interest groups and public affairs in the contemporary Balkans: Project overview and preliminary explanations

This comprehensive coverage of public affairs and interest group activity in the Balkans has 2 objectives. One is to produce the first study focusing solely on interest groups in each of the 7 countries of the former socialist Yugoslavia. The second is to compare developments across the region to assess the extent to which this study reflects existing research and what it can add to this knowledge. To achieve these objectives, this article explains several aspects of the methodology used by all contributors. These include common use of terms, an explanation of the topics covered, and the survey instrument.     

Mozambique’s post-war success story: Is it time to revisit the narrative?

Over the past years since the signing of the Rome peace Accords, Mozambique has generally been regarded as an exemplary African post war success story. However, events in the last four years illuminate something different. This article will show that the low intensity but violent clashes between FRELIMO government forces and former rebel group RENAMO are not just a mere manifestation of Mozambican’s government inability to consolidate post war gains. These clashes could be framed and located within the broader context of complexities associated with transforming a peace Accord into a genuine and sustainable postwar peace dividend. It seems the success was largely registered in terms of reducing direct violence by creating negative peace. Even though negative peace was good, it was unfortunately not adequate. This article also argues that the success narrative lulled many including Mozambicans into ignoring fissures in the area of structural violence which effectively limited the country’s ability to progress towards positive peace. Despite all this, however, this article will concur with the belief that an outright full scale war is still highly improbable, but not impossible because RENAMO is still capable of spoiling and eroding the registered post war gains.     

Preserving Community Assets: Do Foreclosure Sales Need to Negatively Impact the Neighborhood?

Research has linked concentrated foreclosures with negative neighborhood outcomes; for instance, increased crime and decreased property values. These outcomes drain community asset holdings and impact the longer term trajectory of the neighborhood. However, data reported in this article from a Boston study challenge the assumption that negative neighborhood outcomes are a foregone conclusion in the face of foreclosures. Analysis of interviews with real estate agents and other foreclosure professionals, neighborhood ethnographic observation, and citywide sales and foreclosure sales documents demonstrate that the distinct nature of the foreclosure sales process creates market disruptions heightening the risk for documented negative neighborhood outcomes. Attempts by the seller to reduce financial risks in the sale increase the likelihood of vacancy and create a market oriented toward investor–buyers. Understanding the risk preferences of key decision makers in the foreclosure sale process reveals new intervention points—such as intervening at the short sale, or expanding and updating foreclosure laws to reflect current foreclosure sales markets—to reduce market disruptions and preserve community assets in the face of foreclosures.     

The Changing Relationship Between Housing and Inequality, 1980–2010

Inequality in both income and wealth has grown rapidly in the United States since the 1970s. Over the same period, homeownership rates increased in step with expansionist government policies and the development of subprime and other exotic loan products, and housing affordability challenges emerged as the most prevalent housing problem for owners and renters alike. The subprime lending and foreclosure crises of the 2000s stretched households financially, threatening the traditional economic benefits of homeownership, bringing into stark relief the ways in which housing and inequality mutually influence one another, and implicating homeownership, housing affordability, and subprime lending in the widening gap between the rich and the poor. This article examines the changing roles of homeownership, housing affordability, and subprime lending in contemporary U.S. inequality by, first, describing trends in county inequality and housing characteristics and, second, modeling inequality as a function of the previous decade's housing characteristics over the period of 1980–2010. We build upon past models of county inequality by more explicitly considering causal order, place characteristics, and state and regional fixed effects. The results confirm that homeownership, affordability, and subprime lending not only reflect existing inequalities but also perpetuate those inequalities over time. Homeownership promotes equality, affordability problems undermine it, and subprime lending has the potential to ameliorate inequality in certain contexts, but these effects shift significantly over time, particularly as a result of widespread foreclosures and economic recession. Our analysis establishes the importance of housing in explaining contemporary inequality, highlights how place characteristics and causal ordering may improve county inequality models, and provides a foundation for future studies examining inequality in light of the Great Recession and the foreclosure crisis.     

Comment on Vreeland (2011): Foreign aid and global governance: Buying Bretton Woods��the Swiss-bloc case

This comment discusses highlights of Vreeland's excellent analysis of how Switzerland was able to use foreign aid to secure its election to provide the executive director to the IMF from its group of countries. This sheds light on a little understood aspect of the governance of the IMF. The comment goes on to argue, however, that the formal role of the executive directors in the operation of the IMF has been substantially diminished over time and that inclusion of more representatives from emerging market countries in the IMF's senior management team is a more important way of substantively increasing the influence of these countries on the behavior of the IMF.