Towards a management renewal of the United Nations—Part I

This article addresses the hitherto largely neglected subject of administrative reform of the United Nations—without which, the capacity of the Organization to carry out its increasingly critical global mandates effectively and efficiently, is severely constrained, with efforts in this direction being for the most part incremental, indecisive and ineffectual. The problems arise partly from the originating and continuing model for the UN's organization and culture, which predate the advent, for example, of modern automated systems of personnel and financial management. Other elements of the problem arise from the UN's system of governance—the oversight committees, senior staff nominations by Member States, allocation of funds or approvals for critical management and administrative reforms. As at the national level, impactful UN reform also requires internal management leadership, follow-up, the continuity and UN experience of top officials, capacity to design and implement measures, and budget flexibility to procure outside expertise. In a second, concluding, part of the article, the authors will suggest a strategy for UN reform and a process for carrying forward a ‘renewal exercise’ to equip the Organization for its role beyond the year 2000. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mariano Arista and the 1850 Presidential Election in Mexico

Abstract – This article examines the 1850 presidential election in Mexico. It is divided into five sections: party political background, electoral regulations, candidates, campaign, results. General Mariano Arista was the successful candidate in what was the first genuinely contested presidential election since independence.     

Institutionalising electoral uncertainty and authoritarian regime survival

Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By ‘institutionalisation’, it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete-time event-history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.     

Changing the Boundaries but Keeping the Disproportionality: The Electoral Impact of the Fifth Periodical Reviews by the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions for England and Wales

Parliamentary boundary reviews in the UK are undertaken to remove — as far as is practicable — inter-constituency variations in the number of electors. Their impact has almost invariably favoured the Conservative party — largely because population shifts between reviews tend to favour Labour with the movement of electors away from the inner cities and old industrial areas. That has been the case again with the Fifth Periodical Reviews conducted by the Boundary Commissions for England and Wales. The next general election will thus be slightly easier for the Conservatives to win than if the boundaries used for the 2005 contest were to be retained. But not much easier. Recent elections have seen very substantial biases operating in the translation of votes into seats favouring Labour. The biases are the result of the interaction of several geographies — of constituency size, abstentions and party support- only one of which (size) is directly tackled by the reviews. Unless those other geographies are changed the next two or three UK general elections are likely to see a continuation of these marked biases.     

Municipal Communications Tax Revenue Reliance and Fiscal Impact of Possible Federal Preemption

This paper presents empirical evidence of the extent to which municipal governments might be affected by federal preemption in the communications sector in light of the substantial variation in municipal governments' reliance on communications tax revenues. The results suggest that the federal preemption would have a negative fiscal impact on the majority of municipal governments, and the extent of the impact would vary substantially. The analysis also indicates that it would be challenging or legally impossible for some city governments to make up for the magnitude of revenue loss due to the states' constraints on municipal revenue‐raising capacity.     

The Four Predicaments of American Liberalism: Challenges and Opportunities in a Presidential Election Year

The presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have indicated an apparent resurgence in American liberalism. More significantly, they have underlined both the highly problematic nature of the liberal legacy within the Democratic Party and the difficulties of mobilising liberal themes in the battle of ideas that characterises the conduct of politics in the United States. The article examines the difficulty of the issue by reference to four predicaments that persistently condition the status and deployment of liberal themes. In analysing the problems of strategy, historical narrative, political positioning and ideational engagement, the study analyses the negative connotations of contemporary liberalism, the multiple limitations of liberal reform, and liberalism's deficiencies in the politics of America's core ideas. A revived liberal prospectus will depend upon the ingenuity of liberal forces in challenging the conservative ascendancy in ideational competition, and in renegotiating a public settlement of their own with the central strands of political legitimacy.     

THE FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT: ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUES

A good part of Western Europe has been united in a military alliance for more than 50 years, and grown into an economic union with a single market and a new, common currency. The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) is adding another facet of coordination and cooperation among countries which are already highly integrated. Defense and security have lagged behind other areas of integration, with arms procurement and production particularly fragmented. One of the new instruments for increased integration related to ESDP development, is the Framework Agreement, which regulates important aspects of joint arms production among major Western European producers.     

A stable popularity function? Cross‐national analysis

A considerable body of work explores the relationship between the economy and governmental popularity. These ‘popularity functions’ exhibit a good deal of instability in the economics coefficient, leading some to question its very existence. It is argued in this article that this instability is apparent, rather than inherent. Improvements in model specification, measurement, sample size and estimation reveal a strong and stable economic effect. In particular, fixed and random effects models on pooled time‐series (from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States) are estimated here. The impact of national economic perception on popularity emerges as statistically and substantively significant, across this sample of countries.