Advancing the study of political cleavages through experimentation: Revisiting regionalism and redistributive preferences in Canada

The maintenance of welfare state policies requires citizen support for the provision of a social safety net through taxation and redistribution. Research has shown that a diverse political polity presents a risk to the welfare state; however, Canada bucks the trend and does not see citizen support for economic redistribution decline in response to immigration-based population diversity. Using Canada as our case, we argue that scholars of welfare state politics and redistribution should turn their attention to other sources of population heterogeneity in an effort to better understand how different political cleavages affect citizens’ redistributive preferences. We use an online experimental survey to manipulate the in-group identity of 500 Canadians. The survey enables respondents to identify with other in-group identities along regional, linguistic, income-group, and urban/rural characteristics. Our results find that while Canadians do have a strong baseline preference for redistributive behaviour, regional and linguistic cleavages moderate this outcome.     

What is the Canon in American Politics? Analyses of Core Graduate Syllabi

Many core graduate-level seminars claim to expose students to their discipline’s “canon.” The contents of this canon, however, can and do differ across departments and instructors. This project employs a survey of core American politics PhD seminar syllabi at highly ranked universities to construct a systematic account of the American politics canon. Our results offer valuable insights into the topics and literature that political scientists consider important and on which future scholars base their work. Our article breaks down the literature into a comprehensive list of topics and subtopics, which allows us to identify both an overall field canon and one for each topic, to assess whether some topics receive more attention than others, and to identify which topics are most clearly defined. We explore the extent to which diverse perspectives and methods are (or are not) taught to young scholars, and, although we identify sets of frequently assigned readings and authors within each topic, we also find considerable variation between seminars.     

Making votes count in parliament or government?

Several scholars have sought to elucidate voting strategies in proportional representation (PR) systems. The argument is that the existence of coalition governments forces voters to consider potential alliances and to vote in order to maximize their chances of influencing the outcome. In this paper, we argue that this vision is incomplete as PR, just as single-member district plurality, also creates incentives for voters to desert parties that have little chances of obtaining a seat in their district. We validate this theoretical claim using two different surveys conducted during the 2014 Belgian federal and regional elections. Our results show that both government and district viability have a substantial and distinct effect on vote choice.     

Role perceptions and attitudes toward discretion at a decentralized regulatory frontline: The case of organic inspectors

The complexity of decentralized regulatory contexts can threaten program fidelity, particularly if it results in divergence between program goals and the intents of regulatory inspectors. This paper investigates how inspectors negotiate the conflicting demands of a decentralized program by examining how they perceive their regulatory roles – the primary responsibilities that inspectors ascribe to their functions and the entities to which they feel responsible – and how these role orientations are related to inspectors' attitudes toward the use of discretion. The study findings indicate that in the decentralized administration of United States organic food regulations, inspectors experience multiple, and sometimes conflicting, role orientations. The presence of multiple role orientations, however, does not seem to affect how inspectors approach their responsibilities. The combined strengths of quantitative and qualitative data are leveraged to offer explanations for the study findings and identify avenues for future research.     

Centers of Gravity: Regional Powers,Democracy, and Trade

Classic studies on hegemonic stability and power transition suggest that concentration of capabilities favoring a single state can promote economic cooperation and discourage militarized conflict. However, tests of these arguments have been primarily limited to examining temporal variation in global capability distributions and corresponding levels of system-wide cooperation; few have examined the impact of capability concentration at the region level. In this article, we contend that concentration of regional military capabilities corresponds to lower trade costs for states throughout a region and to an incentive for weaker states to de-prioritize expenditure on the military, freeing resources that can be used to promote trade. As a result, this condition promotes higher levels of trade, particularly within the region. We also argue that democratic regional powers are better able to foster confidence in the sustainability of cooperation; thus, the trade-enhancing impact of concentrated regional capabilities is stronger when the predominant state is more democratic. We find evidence in support of our expectations in statistical models examining state trade between 1960 and 2007.     

Competition and switching in public service markets: Can they reduce inequalities?

Regulatory reforms to public infrastructure services across European Union (EU) countries were aimed at increasing consumer welfare by introducing competition and choice into service markets. However, empirical evaluations have questioned whether these reforms have benefitted all consumers, suggesting that vulnerable groups of service users (especially those with lower levels of formal education), might be locked into poorly performing services. We assess the relationship between the level of competition in electricity and fixed telephony markets in EU countries and evaluate the affordability of these services for different socio‐educational layers. Our findings show that – although in countries where there is a relatively high frequency of switching, inequalities between socio‐educational groups are smaller and eventually disappear – competition as such does not play a part. These results suggest that demand‐side regulation that successfully enables consumer switching has the potential to equalize social welfare, thereby reflecting a possible convergence of regulatory instruments and the central aims of the welfare state in this context.     

The Resource Curse Reconsidered: Cash Crops and Local Violence in Kyrgyzstan

It is often noted in resource curse literature that agricultural economies are less conflict-prone than countries managing mobile, high-value resources. In the vast literature linking resource endowment and conflict, cash crop economies are often considered immune to civil violence, believed to stand apart from the many horrific episodes of violence and civil war centered on “lootable” wealth (such as alluvial diamonds, tin, tungsten, or other conflict minerals). But many incidents of violence—especially local violence—are in fact occurring in cash crop economies. Drawing on newspaper accounts, policy analyses, ethnographic interviews, and in-depth reports by international organizations, I examine an episode of local violence in 2010 in Kyrgyzstan. Through this case study, the article provides a better understanding of local violence in cash crop economies that can apply to other weak states.     

Indicators for economic vulnerability to drought in South Africa

This article identifies and estimates economic drought vulnerability indicators among communal farmers in South Africa, using an economic vulnerability index based on a household survey of 121 communal farmers. The results show that lack of resources, unemployment, price sensitivity, market access, the level of farm debt, output, on- and off-farm diversification, management, and financial safety nets were the main economic vulnerability variables. Farm debt and financial safety provide the bulk of the vulnerability index. The study’s findings suggest that government should reconsider priorities in the implementation of appropriate policy measures in response to drought.     

Commentary on the Newly Published White Paper Concerning the Rule of Law in China

On February 28, 2008, the State Council Information Office published a white paper entitled China＇s Efforts and Achievements in Promoting the Rule of Law. This document is the first white paper published by the government on China＇s rule of law. It contains eight chapters and six appendices to review China＇s achievements on the road to practicing the rule of law in a compre- hensive way, and to expound the official Chinese policy and position on this is- sue. With some essential points inside, the publication of this white paper is of great significance, especially this year, to China＇s rule of law, human rights prog- ress, and its communication and dialogue with the international community.