The Catalytic Effect of IMF Lending: Evidence from Sectoral FDI Data

Our study contributes to the search for the elusive catalytic effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending on inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). Recent scholarship has found that the catalytic effect is conditional on political regime and program stringency. We contribute to this literature by developing and testing a theory which describes how the catalytic effect also varies by economic sector. This is a departure from existing studies, which have tended to focus on aggregate FDI flows after crises. Our findings corroborate previous research, which finds that in general IMF lending has a substantial and negative effect on FDI. However, we find that the negative effect is concentrated in sectors that are highly dependent on external capital and have low sunk costs in the host country. Our findings are robust to several alternative explanations common in IMF literature, namely the importance of IMF program design and the ability of governments to make credible commitments to reform. Substantively, our findings suggest that investors are more likely to use IMF lending as an escape hatch in countries where FDI is dependent on external capital and has low sunk costs.     

Discourses on countering violent extremism: the strategic interplay between fear and security after 9/11

This article explores the construction of extremism in media discourse, the factors driving specific constructions and the implications of these constructions for counterterrorism policy. We contend that extremism has predominantly and increasingly been framed as a security issue. This article explores the implications of this practice through the framework of securitisation. We measure the average intensity of security framing in 38,616 articles found in three major US newspapers, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, between 20 January 1993 and 19 January 2017 comprising the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies, and look at factors influencing the shift in intensity over time. Through our analysis, we show that it is possible to return to a pre-9/11 discourse but that the confluence of real-world events and the strategic choices of political actors have so far prevented this from fully occurring. We then explore the effect of securitisation on public perceptions of the threat from terrorism, finding that increases in the intensity of security framing artificially increases the public’s worry about becoming a victim of terrorism. We conclude by discussing implications for the communication of counterterrorism policy and the requirements for an after, after 9/11 approach     

Implementing European case law at the bureaucratic frontline: How domestic signalling influences the outcomes of EU law

This article analyses the implementation of European case law at the bureaucratic frontline of European member states. Theoretically, insights from street‐level implementation studies are combined with judicial impact research. Empirically, we compare how EU rules on free movement and cross‐border welfare are applied in practice in Denmark, Austria and France. We find that when applying EU rules in practice, street‐level bureaucrats are confronted with a world of legal complexity, consisting of ambiguous rules, underspecified concepts and a recent judicial turn by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In order to manage complexity, street‐level bureaucrats turn to their more immediate superiors for guidance. As a consequence, domestic signals shape the practical application of EU law. Despite bureaucratic discretion and many country differences, domestic signals create uniform, restrictive outcomes of EU law in all three cases. Thus we show that there is considerable room for politics in EU implementation processes.     

Wasted Words? The Limitations of U.S. Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy

For America's foes in Afghanistan and the Middle East, triumph on the battlefield is less important than winning the battle of perceptions. In response, the United States has turned to Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy (SC-PD) to engage key audiences in ways that advance U.S. interests and to win the political-ideological contest for domestic and international legitimacy. But are these strategies effective? While winning hearts and minds is politically important, SC-PD—even at its best—is much less effective than other well-crafted and mutually supportive policies and strategies. Moreover, there are structural obstacles that greatly limit the effectiveness of SC-PD.     

A Profile of Violent Offenders in Spanish Prisons

In Europe, it is relatively uncommon to find studies that investigate the criminal profiles of violent offenders, especially infrequent are those that pay special attention to offenders’ mental health/substance use disorders and histories of violence during childhood. The current research explores whether inmates who are incarcerated for violent offenses (n = 536) in Spain are different in terms of the aforementioned factors as compared to inmates incarcerated for non-violent offenses (n = 536). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that violent offenders, as compared to their non-violent counterparts, were more likely to be younger, younger at the time of their first arrest, single, use alcohol, receive treatment in prison for anxiety or schizophrenia, and report physical abuse during childhood.     

Flesh of the Same Flesh: A Study of Voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 Federal Election

Using the 2017 post-election German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), this article examines the voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 German federal election. We show that AfD voters in 2017 were truly ‘flesh of the same flesh’ of the mainstream German political parties, with the AfD drawing its voters from across the political party spectrum as well as from previous non-voters in 2013. In contrast to previous scholarship, we find that in most respects AfD voters in 2017 did not differ demographically from voters for all other parties, be that in terms of gender, education, employment status, and union membership. Furthermore, we find that AfD voters were not driven by anxiety about their own economic situation: they are no ‘losers of globalisation.’ Instead, AfD voters in 2017 were driven solely by two factors: their attitudes towards immigrants/refugees and anti-establishment sentiment/satisfaction with democracy in Germany.     

State Capitalism in Time: Russian Natural Gas at the Service of Foreign Policy

This article explores the phenomenon of the enduring state control over the Russian natural gas sector. We suggest that explanations of the underlying motives can be classified under two broad theoretical categories: idealism and utilitarianism. Thus, we argue that state capitalism in the Russian natural gas industry can be understood through the idealistic claims of state power and of serving the national interest, which underpin the dominant perception of natural gas resources as a foreign policy tool. Moreover, we contend that although this perception is often considered as a product of the last decade, in fact it is rooted in history, as a legacy of the Soviet era.     

Was ist Rechtspopulismus?

When a new type of party labelled ?right-wing populist“ by political scientists and journalists, arrived on the political scene in Western Europe thirty years ago, many observers thought that it would only be a short-lived manifestation of political protest. Today these parties are present in almost all European countries. Building on an introductory definition, the contribution will assess the root causes of right-wing populism, its ideological and programmatic features, its organizational traits and ways of adressing voters as well as its effects on party systems, governmental policies and the democracy in general. Concluding thoughts offer a number of recommendations how the challengers—which will in all likelihood not disappear in the near future—could be politically contained.     

The Investment Approach to Public Service Provision

The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers.     

Call me Caitlyn: making and making over the ‘authentic’ transgender body in Anglo-American popular culture

A conception of transgender identity as an ‘authentic’ gendered core ‘trapped’ within a mismatched corporeality, and made tangible through corporeal transformations, has attained unprecedented legibility in contemporary Anglo-American media. Whilst pop-cultural articulations of this discourse have received some scholarly attention, the question of why this ‘wrong body’ paradigm has solidified as the normative explanation for gender transition within the popular media remains underexplored. This paper argues that this discourse has attained cultural pre-eminence through its convergence with a broader media and commercial zeitgeist, in which corporeal alteration and maintenance are perceived as means of accessing one’s ‘authentic’ self. I analyse the media representations of two transgender celebrities: Caitlyn Jenner and Nadia Almada, alongside the reality TV show TRANSform Me, exploring how these women’s gender transitions have been discursively aligned with a cultural imperative for all women, cisgender or trans, to display their authentic femininity through bodily work. This demonstrates how established tropes of authenticity-via-bodily transformation, have enabled transgender to become culturally legible through the wrong body trope. Problematically, I argue, this process has worked to demarcate ideals of ‘acceptable’ transgender subjectivity: self-sufficient, normatively feminine, and eager to embrace the possibilities for happiness and social integration provided by the commercial domain.