Bibliography of Recent Publications on Africa

This bibliography covers publications noticed between June andAugust, 1954. It has been compiled with the co-operation ofProfessor T. Heyse (lately of the Belgian Ministry of Colonies)and Miss Ruth Jones(International African Institute).     

Welfare state structures and the structure of welfare state support: Attitudes towards social spending in Canada, 1993–2000

Abstract.  The comparative welfare state literature contends that different welfare state structures engender different structures of welfare state support. The argument is that social welfare regimes that distribute their benefits selectively tend to produce patterns of support graduated by the likelihood of accessing these selective (or 'targeted') social benefits, especially as indexed by social class. Where benefits are universally distributed, by contrast, support is expected to be more consensual and to cut across class and related cleavages. This article empirically tests this 'interest-based' account and extends it by adding a 'values-based' component. The authors find that the impact of both interests and values – specifically, orientations toward the capitalist system – on welfare state support is conditional on welfare state structures. It is argued that these results help to resolve a paradox in the comparative welfare state literature: strong evidence for differentiation in social welfare support by program type, but weak evidence for differentiation in class effects by program type. Data for the analysis come from the Canadian Election Studies of 1993, 1997 and 2000.     

The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures: A New Survey of the 50 States

Term limits on legislators were adopted in 21 states during the early 1990s. Beginning in 1996, the limits legally barred incumbents from reelection in 11 states, and they will do so in four more by 2010. In 2002, we conducted the only survey of legislators in all 50 states aimed at assessing the impact of term limits on state legislative representation. We found that term limits have virtually no effect on the types of people elected to office—whether measured by a range of demographic characteristics or by ideological predisposition—but they do have measurable impact on certain behaviors and priorities reported by legislators in the survey, and on the balance of power among various institutional actors in the arena of state politics. We characterize the biggest impact on behavior and priorities as a “Burkean shift,” whereby term‐limited legislators become less beholden to the constituents in their geographical districts and more attentive to other concerns. The reform also increases the power of the executive branch (governors and the bureaucracy) over legislative outcomes and weakens the influence of majority party leaders and committee chairs, albeit for different reasons.