Liberal Democracy Series I, 1972–1988: Definition, measurement, and trajectories

The purpose of this paper is to provide the definitional and empirical background to the Liberal Democracy Series I Index of democracy that is available in Bollen (1998) but whose rationale has not been published. More specifically, the paper (1) gives a definition of liberal democracy that has guided the formation of this index, (2) describes measures that correspond to this definition, (3) provides a measurement model that links the indicators of democracy to the latent variables that represent the concept, (4) explains the construction of the Liberal Democracy Series I Index, and (5) compares the Series I democracy measure to two other widely used democracy measures in a latent curve model. The Liberal Democracy Series I Index provides a simple unweighted measure of liberal democracy that minimizes the bias in expert ratings, is highly reliable and highly correlated with the latent liberal democracy variable. The evidenced reviewed here suggests that its measurement properties are superior to the Polity and Vanhanen democracy indices with the exception that it is available for a more limited period of years than these latter two.     

论村民委员会作为乡村社会维权性组织的可能与路径

“三农”问题的实质是农民权益问题,作为村民自治组织的村民委员会应成为维护乡村社会权益的组织依托;当前在我国乡村治理的实践中,乡村自治性组织的维权性功能存在着缺位、错位和异化的现象,这是由诸多原因造成的;在社会主义新农村建设中应着力构建以保障农民权益为根本的乡村治理新机制,推进乡村自治组织的社会性复归;通过政治环境的发展、制度机制的重构、文化观念的培育,挖掘和塑造村民自治性组织作为村民群众维权性组织的组织资源和实践能力。     

农民专业合作社利益联接机制研究

农民专业合作社已被确立为引领农民参与国内外市场竞争的现代农业经营组织。但利益分配问题是合作社不可避免的难题,它关系到合作社的存亡和发展。所以,健全合作社的利益联接机制是规范和发展农民专业合作社的核心。     

日本、印度金融支持农村基础设施建设的经验及启示

日本、印度两国在农村基础设施建设过程中,有多种金融机构提供多样化的金融服务,如日本的农协、农林渔业金融公库,印度的国家农业和农村开发银行等,为农村基础设施建设提供了贷款、担保等服务,确保了农村基础设施建设的金融需求。日本、印度的金融支持农村基础设施建设的实践给我国提供了有益的启示。     

试析中日农产品贸易摩擦

随着全球经济一体化,各国之间的经贸关系日趋密切,我国对外贸易迅速发展,贸易摩擦逐年升温,特别是中日农产品贸易摩擦此起彼伏.本文以近年来中日农产品贸易摩擦实例为依据,从经济和政治两方面分析产生贸易摩擦的原因,而后提出缓解贸易摩擦的措施.随着中日双方的相互协调和经济发展,中日农产品贸易将在摩擦中继续发展.     

美国工会应对经济危机的政策措施及启示

经济危机给美国工人阶级带来重大影响。美国工会视危机为创新工会工作和发展工会的大好时机,积极从国家层面和地区层面上采取措施积极应对经济危机以保护工人权益,虽然在宏观上收效甚微,但是其在地区层面上采取的策略和方法收效较好,值得我国工会借鉴。     

Regime type versus patronal politics: a comparison of “ardent democrats” in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Kazakhstan is home to the longest serving ruler in post-Soviet Eurasia while Kyrgyzstan is among the region’s most competitive polities. Do these regime differences correspond to divergence in political attitudes, as an extensive body of literature posits? Are Kyrgyzstanis more likely to strongly support democratic ideals? Are Kazakhstanis less likely? Contrary to expectations, data reveal the two populations to be attitudinally indistinguishable when it comes to strong support for practices associated with democracy. Whatever country differences we find are minor or statistically insignificant. We explain this convergence by shifting focus away from the political features that distinguish the two nascent democracy versus consolidated authoritarianism to those that they hold in common. Notwithstanding major constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, politics there, as in Kazakhstan, remains fundamentally patronal, or patronage- based. Mass attitudes, we argue, align in many ways with the countries’ shared patronal politics, rather than with their contrasting regime types.     

Agricultural commercialisation models,agrarian dynamics and local development in Ghana

The renewed commitment of African states to modernising agriculture has reignited longstanding debates about different models of agricultural commercialisation. Which forms of commercialisation models will reduce land dispossession and the impoverishment of smallholders, and transform smallholder agriculture and the wider economy? Of the three broad models of agriculture commercialisation in this debate – plantation, contract farming and medium-scale commercial farming – contract farming has been identified as central to the future of Africa’s commercial agriculture. This paper provides empirical evidence from Ghana on the impacts of these three models on land, labour/employment, livelihoods and local economic linkages. Our findings show that the plantation and the commercial farming areas have highly commercialised land relations, land scarcity and high land prices, compared to the outgrower area where traditional systems of accessing land still dominate, enabling families to produce their own food crops while also diversifying into wage labour and other activities. Food insecurity was highest in the plantation area followed by the commercial area, but lowest in the outgrower area. Here, semi-proletarianised seasonal workers combine self-provisioning from their own farms with wages, and this results in better livelihood outcomes than for permanent workers in plantations and commercial farms. Due to the processing units in the plantation and the outgrower models, they provided more employment. However, the casualisation of labour and gender discrimination in employment and access to land occur in all three cases. All three models generated strong economic linkages mainly because they combined attributes such as processing, provided markets for nearby farmers, induced state infrastructural development and diffused technology in competitive ways. The effects of the models on household and local development are coproduced by their interaction with pre-existing conditions and wider national economic structures.     

Land and agricultural commercialisation in Meru County,Kenya: evidence from three models*

What are the relative pros and cons of different pathways of agricultural commercialisation in Africa? This paper examines aspects of three commercial farming cases, each of which represents one of the three most dominant models of commercial agriculture – small-scale outgrowers, medium-size commercial farms and a large estate – in the high-potential area of Meru County in Kenya. The paper provides a comparative perspective across the cases, examining their outcomes in terms of land relations, labour, livelihoods and local economic linkages. The study used a mixed-methods approach, including a household survey and a range of qualitative methods including detailed life histories. We find diverse dynamics across our cases: increasing land consolidation spurred by the rising class of commercial coffee farmers, but also land fragmentation as a result of population pressure and prevalence of inheritance as a pathway to land acquisition in the case of horticultural outgrowers. The plantation generates relatively better paid employment for permanent skilled workers, while the commercial farms create employment for casualised, insecure and poorly paid seasonal labour. These labour regimes are highly gendered. The outgrowers combine family and hired labour. Across the three cases, farmers diversify income between on-farm and off-farm sources. The commercial and outgrower farms are dynamically integrated into the local economy, while the estate is less so. These features of the three models generate processes of social differentiation, which are reshaping the agrarian structure and rural economy in Meru County.