From corruption to extortion: Conceptualization of post-communist corruption

Moral outrage and lack of comparison distorts the understanding of the natureand politically determined functions of governmental corruption in post-communist transition. As post-communist societies move towards open market systems and corruption is no longer limited to the public sector, politics is transformed into a potent tool for illegal transactions. The political structureitself creates corrupt practices that become a structural feature of transition societies. This article offers first a critical discussion of both moral theories of corruption and the thesis that posits a link between corruption and democracy deficit in post-communist countries. Subsequently, it sketches a neo-functionalist approach that puts corruption in a specific social context.With respect to East/Central Europe, corruption is presented as a betrayal ofpublic trust that serves specific requirements of an emerging ``extortioniststate.' These requirements relate to the expansion of extortion opportunitiesand their institutionalization into a semblance of a Tule of law system.     

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on differences between the sexes in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at a lower rate in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of gender on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects lower levels of interest in politics among women and their lower levels of knowledge about politics when it comes to second-order elections.     

From Bandung to Brasilia: IBSA and the political lineage of South–South cooperation

This article aims to trace South–South cooperation political lineages connecting the Non-Aligned Movement and the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Forum. In order to determine whether IBSA could be considered the ‘heir’ to Bandung's principles, we analyse the concepts of ‘Third World’ and ‘Global South’ as well as their current applicability, the interpretations provided by existing literature on the IBSA grouping, and its member countries' shared views on different issues of the international agenda. The article also considers the historical evolution of ‘Southern’ diplomatic thought and actions. IBSA's actions and history, as well as its members, are studied to grasp how they are related to the Third World movement in the Cold War.     

Coalition Erosion and Presidential Instability in Ecuador

This article advances the idea that coalition formation and maintenance in highly fragmented presidential regimes is not only crucial to overcoming policy deadlock, but in some cases, critical to ensuring government survival. To advance this argument, the article looks at the formation and demise of legislative coalitions in Ecuador between 1979 and 2006. The empirical data suggest that paradoxically, government coalitions became more difficult to sustain after the adoption of institutional reforms intended to strengthen the president's legislative powers. The adoption of those reforms, it is argued, undermined the legislative incentives to cooperate with the government and helped to accelerate coalition erosion. Not only did the reforms fail significantly to avoid policy deadlock, but in some cases they contributed to the early termination of presidential mandates. This article contributes to the study of coalition survival and how it is linked to policymaking.     

Analysing credit risk in large local governments: an empirical study in Spain

In governments throughout the world, bank lending excesses, solvency issues and worsening credit ratings have all contributed to raising risk premiums and impeding access to credit, thus provoking a major financial problem in the public sector. Accordingly, tax authorities and regulators need to analyse the causes of public sector bank debt, doing so through the joint study of idiosyncratic and systematic variables, an area that has been neglected in previous research. This paper examines idiosyncratic and systematic factors that may influence local government credit risk through an empirical study of the performance of 148 large Spanish municipalities during 2006–2011. We identify individual factors relevant to the probability of local government default (such as dependent population, per capita income and debt composition) and also determinants associated with macroeconomic developments, such as gross domestic product and the risk premium.     

Judicial alignment and criminal justice: evidence from Russian courts

This paper investigates the effect of informal ties between judges (as represented by regional court chairpersons) and prosecutors on the repressive implementation of criminal justice in Russia in the area of fraud convictions. The authors utilize criminal law statistics of Russian regional courts for 2006–2010 to determine the alignment between chairpersons and prosecutors by measuring the length of their mutual career paths. The informal ties have a strong impact on trial outcome, which, however, changes over time. During periods of high bureaucratic risks and uncertainty, regions with a higher extent of informal ties between judges and prosecutors exhibit more repressive law enforcement. If external risks decrease, informal coalitions seem to increase the independence of the courts, insulating them from bureaucratic pressures and limiting their repressiveness.