Remittances,Regime Type,and Government Spending Priorities

Previous work suggests that remittances enable governments to reduce spending on public services and divert resources to serve their own interests. We argue this need not occur. Building on recent work which shows that the impact of remittances is contingent on the domestic environment in remittance-receiving countries, we hypothesize that (1) remittances are more likely to increase government spending on public services in democracies than in autocracies and (2) remittances are more likely to finance activities that deter political competition in autocracies than in democracies. Using a sample of 105 developing countries from 1985 through 2008, we find strong support for our hypotheses when examining the impact of remittances on public education, health, and military spending. We also provide suggestive evidence for the mechanism underpinning our results: micro-level evidence on remittance recipients’ preferences and political engagement.     

Between Euroscepticism and Eurosupport: The Attitudes of Urban and Rural Populations in Poland 2000–2008

Three main factors explain public support for EU membership: utilitarian expectations, the role of values and ideas, and class partisanship. In the Polish case, public opinion polls and issues more specific to Poland, such as the role of the Catholic Church, populist political parties and profound Euroscepticism among farmers, suggest that although these theoretical explanations overlap, each of them has a different explanatory value. The economic approach remains the best predictor of support for EU membership, and whereas values and identity are closely linked to and dependent upon economic expectations, the impact of national politics appears largely decoupled from Polish Euroscepticism.     

Hungary

European Journal of Political Research -     

Gendering Justice in Humanitarian Spaces: Opportunity and (Dis)empowerment Through Gender‐Based Legal Development Outreach in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Why have women in eastern DR Congo increasingly turned to domestic courts in the aftermath of sexual violence, despite the fact that the state has consistently failed to provide basic goods and services to its citizens? Moreover, how do victims of violence interpret their first encounters with state law in an environment characterized by institutional fragility and humanitarian governance? This article analyzes the experiences and reflections of 50 self‐reported victims of sexual violence in eastern DR Congo. We find that human rights NGOs have served as critical mediators in persuading victims of violence to pursue legal remedy for sexual crimes. However, rather than being socialized to prioritize formal accountability mechanisms in precisely the ways that the architects of legal outreach programs intended, we find that victims of violence have turned to the law for a combination of material and ideational factors. Some appear to have internalized emerging norms of punitive criminal justice, while others have adopted the language of law instrumentally, in order to access crucial socio‐material benefits. We identify a paradox of opportunity and disempowerment, therefore, that characterizes our interviewees' experiences with the law.     

Comparative political corruption: Issues of operationalization and measurement

As with other areas of comparative political inquiry, analyses of political corruption must carefully negotiate around numerous methodological issues. In this article, we focus primarily on problems of operationalization and measurement of corruption. We evaluate the major examples of cross-country measures of corruption that have recently emerged and review research that has incorporated the new measures. We end with a discussion of an alternative method for the cross-national measurement and analysis of corruption, one that might also facilitate the goal of establishing universal principles and causal claims about political corruption. Thomas D. Lancaster is associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. His research and teaching interests include comparative politics, with a specialization in western and southern European politics, and the logic of comparative political inquiry. Gabriella R. Montinola is assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Davis. Her current research focuses on economic development, interest representation, and the causes and consequences of political corruption. She is the author or co-author of articles in various journals, includingWorld Politics, Journal of Democracy, andBritish Journal of Political Science. The authors would like to thank Richard Doner, Robert Jackman, and the editor and referees ofSCID for their helpful comments.