Does Welfare Provision Promote Democratic State Legitimacy? Evidence from Brazil's Bolsa Família Program

Conditional cash transfer programs may boost the electoral fortunes of incumbents among beneficiary groups, but do they also influence recipient attitudes toward state legitimacy? This article examines the relationship between Brazil's Bolsa Família program and recipients’ sense of the Brazilian state's political legitimacy, from 2007 to 2014. Using AmericasBarometer data and propensity score matching, this study provides evidence that targeted cash benefits correlate with citizens’ views of the state, but that this relationship is limited to increasing trust in core state institutions, local government, and incumbent political actors. Diffuse dimensions of regime legitimacy, including recipients’ sense of political community, support for regime principles, and retrospective perceptions of national economic performance, are largely unaffected by the receipt of targeted benefits. Over time, the evidence also suggests that the impact of program receipt on these measures of support remains largely unchanged.     

Apathy and its Discontents: Social Capital and Social Awkwardness in American Life

ABSTRACT

The transformation of the state in the neoliberal era has characterized the debate in international/comparative political economy and political science scholarship. Many of such accounts, however, often assume a static and reified vision of the state. In contrast, this study, by focusing on the dimension of political agency in the state, provides for a qualitative analysis of the transformations of the Italian state during the consolidation of neoliberalism (1988–2009). Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of the political economy of Italian governments, the article tests two main hypotheses. First, similar discursive strategies of legitimation of neoliberal reforms and permanent austerity are found across the party-system. Second, these strategies occur, with no significant variations, throughout the period considered by our study. The aims of the article are three. First, to emphasize the relevance of political agency in the state to the imposition of neoliberalization; second, to explore how the neoliberal idea of state is redefined within a constellation of collateral discursive strategies; third, to emphasize the importance of the analysis of context-based discursive strategies of neoliberalization. While the empirical analysis confirms the cross-party and longitudinal extension of neoliberal political economy, the conclusions discuss the relevance of these findings to understand contemporary democratic crisis.     

Accessibility to infrastructure and disability rights in Nigeria: an analysis of the potential of the discrimination against persons with disability (prohibition) act 2018

A viable way to establish a sense of inclusion for the physically challenged in Nigeria like elsewhere is to provide a sustainable infrastructural plan that integrates the utility concerns of the disabled. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers. This paper examines the right of persons with disability to public vehicular and infrastructural use. It focuses on the recently enacted Discrimination against Persons with Disability (Prohibition) Act, 2018 as well as other international human rights instruments from which Nigeria derives her international obligations. It is observed that the Nigerian society is still unfriendly to the disabled as public infrastructure is constructed without considerations for the disabled.     

Applying Rasch modeling to the validity of a control balance scale

Classical test theory approaches to measurement are based upon a number of fairly restrictive assumptions. The nature of these assumptions is such that scales designed to operationalize latent constructs are treated with little regard for the interaction between the human subject and the items that compose the measurement scale. A competing measurement approach, the Rasch model, has been advanced to improve upon the limitations of classical test theory. In this article, the Rasch model was applied to a scale designed to measure Tittle's control balance ratio. Analysis suggests that the original scale and response category options do not meet fundamental measurement. In particular, several items exhibited misfit (and were thus removed from the scale), response category options were reduced from eleven to four, and the scales that form the control balance ratio exhibited very little gender bias. An alternative control balance scale that retains the original items is presented, but this scale no longer summarizes the control balance ratio as one overall score. The implications of these results are addressed.