Tinpots,Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights

Ronald Wintrobe (1990, 1998) has recently provided atheoretical foundation for estimating equations that attemptto explain the dependence of civil liberties and politicalrights in non-democratic regimes on the history of economicgrowth. This theory suggests that data from different kinds ofnon-democratic countries should not be pooled without allowingcoefficients to vary with regime type. It also placesinteresting restrictions on the signs of the coefficients ofeconomic growth in equations explaining freedom in the typesof regimes Wintrobe identifies. In this paper, we employ theserestrictions to test Wintrobe's theory. Some additionalhypotheses about the difference between democratic andnon-democratic regimes and about the role of education, notconsidered by Wintrobe, are also investigated.The results indicate clearly that the relationship between thedegree of freedom – as measured by the sum of the Gastilindexes of civil liberties and political rights – andeconomic growth varies significantly across all types ofregimes. Totalitarians (that attempt to maximize power) areclearly different than tinpots (that just attempt to maintainpower) in this respect, and non-democratic regimes differ fromdemocracies. Other aspects of the theory are partiallyconfirmed. In particular, in totalitarian regimes, positivegrowth reduces freedom, and negative growth increases it insome specifications. The theory predicts the opposite patternfor tinpots, and we do find that negative growth reducesfreedom in tinpot regimes. However, positive growth in tinpotsalso appears to reduce freedom in some cases, which is not inaccord with the theory. Secondary schooling has a positive effect on freedom, as inprevious empirical work, a result that is shown here to holdeven when each type of regime is considered separately. Butthe effect of primary schooling is different: in tinpot andtotalitarian regimes, but not in democracies, primaryschooling is associated with reduced freedom.     

The dragon as demon: images of China on Capitol Hill

In congressional debate on China‐related issues, alliances of partisans of single issues of high symbolic significance to some Americans insist vocally on strongly negative views of China that often caricature a complex society and foster unconstructive moralizing rather than analysis of the problems that they address. By demonizing China they obstruct the formulation and maintenance of a coherent American policy toward China and weaken Congress' contribution to making US policy. Members of Congress who favor engagement and look to a future in which they hope economic and political reform will grow in a China benefited by trade, foreign investment, and a peaceful international environment cannot display the moral certainty affected in congressional debates by the most outspoken critics. A variety of reasons underlie the demonizing of China in Congress, including some ignorance (willful or not) and reliance on lobbyists and poorly informed staff. Distorted images deform the contribution that Congress makes to the formulation of US China policy and cloud the perceptions of China held by some members and, derivatively, by many of their constituents among the American people.     

The multi-level process of trust and learning in university–industry innovation collaborations

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Successful university–industry collaborations require high levels of trust among participants, yet achieving this goal is complex. In this study, we...     

Re-storying Laws for the Anthropocene: Rights,Obligations and an Ethics of Encounter

Law and Critique - The Anthropocene prompts renewed critical reflection on some of the central tenets of modern thought including narratives of ‘progress’, the privileging of the nation...     

Big Data,intelligence, and analyst privacy: investigating information dissemination at an NSA-funded research lab

The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS) at North Carolina State University, funded by the National Security Agency, is a collaborative, long-term research enterprise focused on improving intelligence analysis using Big Data. In its work, LAS has recently begun dealing with the trade-off between the collection, storage, and use of large unclassified data-sets and analyst privacy. We discuss particular privacy challenges at LAS, analyze privacy principles in the life cycle of LAS unclassified data-sets, what intelligence analysts themselves think about these privacy concerns, and recommend possible best practices potentially applicable to LAS, as well as future Big Data laboratories and research centers that collaborate with intelligence communities.     

Reflexivity,participatory art,and the failures of monist representation

ABSTRACT

This essay engages in a dual-disciplinary theorizing of reflexivity as response to crises of democratic representation. We trace this crises through the parallel lenses of democratic theory and art history. As political theorists explore alternative representations of ‘the people,’ contemporary artists have developed their own responses to the crisis of monist representation. In both state institutions and in participatory art – and in the theorizing of both – we find the rejection of monist representations of ‘the people’ and the embracement of pluralist, partial, and proximate representations. These public reflexive spaces give voice to new, partial publics, and call attention to past and present exclusions.