The Consequences of Electoral Institutions for Careerism

Although electoral institutions have been shown to have a variety of effects, scholars have not investigated if certain voting rules enable politicians to enjoy longer legislative careers. I took advantage of a natural experiment—a sudden transition from a semiproportional voting rule to single‐member districts with plurality voting (SMDP)—to measure the effect of electoral institutions on careerism. My analysis revealed that voting rules have a profound influence on the dynamics of legislative careers: politicians elected under SMDP are far less likely to suffer electoral defeat or to retire than those elected via cumulative voting. The findings of this study not only provide additional insight into the seat safety of politicians elected in first‐past‐the‐post systems, but moreover offer new criteria by which to evaluate the choice of electoral institutions.     

Going Down on Good Neighbours: Imagining América in Hollywood Movies of the 1930s and 1940s (Flying Down to Rio and Down Argentine Way)

During the Good Neighbor Era of the 1930s and 1940s, the USA sought to normalise relations with Latin America in order to promote hemispheric unity, particularly so after the outbreak of the Second World War, which provoked anxiety about transatlantic trade routes and South American attitudes towards the Axis. An Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs was established, which in turn set up a Motion Picture Division. The Division pressed for a Latin American specialist to monitor and control representations of Latin America via the Production Code Administration. The attempt to promote positive portrayals of Latin Americans assisted a boom in musical comedies dealing with North Americans visiting their southern neighbours. This article examines an early precursor, Flying Down to Rio (1933), and a full-blown Good Neighbor movie, Down Argentine Way (1940). The article uncovers, behind the optimistic projection of neighbourliness, hidden tensions and deep-rooted anxieties about American identities.     

Empowerment of Whom and for What? Financial Literacy Education and the New Regulation of Consumer Financial Services

Financial regulators in many states recently have obtained statutory mandates to enhance consumer financial literacy. This paper investigates the development of policy pursuant to such mandates in the UK and Canada to identify how national regulators represent the role of the literate consumer in the financial market place. It finds that regulators in both countries represent financial education as empowering consumers but that each embeds in its policy an implicit normative ordering of responsible consumer behavior. The paper relates the tension between empowerment and responsibilization aspects of literacy enhancement to policy goals of expanding financial markets and assisting financial regulators to manage consumers' expectations of protection. It raises questions about regulators' use of consumer education to responsibilize consumption of financial products and calls for further research on the international growth of financial literacy education as a regulatory project.