Abstract
68.4119 AFONSO, Whitney B. —
State-level income tax policy is a hotly debated topic in both academic and political spheres. Although economic theory and some empirical analyses suggest that larger income tax burdens affect migration decisions, there is also a good deal of empirical evidence showing that tax policy has little to no effect. This lack of consensus in the academic literature is echoed in the political world, where many states are debating whether to eliminate income taxes or reduce rates as a means of spurring economic growth. Connecticut's adoption of an income tax policy in 1991 provides a unique opportunity to analyse the impact of a sizable income tax policy change on migration. The results suggest that Connecticut's income tax deterred movement into the state but had no impact on exit from the state, resulting in a net loss in migration. [R]
68.4120 AGUILAR, Paloma —
It has been abundantly argued that the Spanish transition was based on an implicit “pact of silence” by which the main political forces accepted to leave the thorniest aspects of past behind as the only way to peacefully construct a democratic future. And it has been widely accepted that Spanish society subscribed to this. This article defends a more nuanced version of this state-level agreement by focusing on memory-related initiatives at the local level. By doing so, it poses some challenges to existing literature on the politics of memory in general and the Spanish transition in particular. [R]
68.4121 AHMAR, Moonis —
This paper examines the phenomenon of violent extremism by linking it with the radicalization of youths in Pakistan. It [focuses on] the permeation of extremism in various segments of Pakistani society in the post-1971 Pakistan; the role of the state in not reversing the tide of religious extremism which got an impetus because of the Afghan War and the events occurring in post-9/11 [2001] period. Why the culture of tolerance witnessed erosion in the last four decades and how ethics and values declined particularly among the new generation of Pakistan are also be examined in the paper. [R,abr.]
68.4122 Al-AHSAN, Abdullah —
Like most Muslim nation-states, Islamic ideals inspired Indian Muslims during their struggle against colonialism and potential prejudiced Hindu domination. These Islamic ideals entailed recognition of individual dignity and rights, equality and justice for all citizens in an independent nation. After independence, Pakistan deviated from those ideals and an independent Bangladesh emerged. Although Pakistan survived, jihad movements in Afghanistan and Kashmir gave rise to extremism in the name of Islam which has led to ethnic and sectarian clashes challenging the very existence of the country. This paper examines the significance of Islamic ideas in contemporary Pakistan. [R]
68.4123 AL-ALI, Nadje —
The article discusses sexual violence by ISIS against women in Iraq, particularly Yezidi women, against the historical background of broader sexual and gender-based violence. It intervenes in feminist debates about how to approach and analyse sexual and wider gender-based violence in Iraq specifically and the Middle East more generally. Recognizing the significance of positionality, the article argues against dichotomous positions and for the need to look at both macrostructural configurations of power pertaining to imperialism, neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and localized expressions of patriarchy, religious interpretations and practices and cultural norms on the other hand. Finally, the article reflects on the question of what a transnational feminist solidarity might look like in relation to sexual violence by ISIS. [R]
68.4124 ALIJLA, Abdalhadi —
The informality of the sectarian political system in Lebanon has reached the point where the country has not had a president for more than two years. This paper examines the influence of institutional conditions on the level of generalized trust in a divided society. It conducts a statistical analysis of the Arab Barometer Survey data. It argues that institutions, as well as perceived living conditions — including inequality, the feeling of safety, and the sense of insecurity — in divided societies, are an important source of social (generalized) trust in the long run. The paper suggests that institutions can also easily destroy generalized trust in such societies if they are designed ineffectively and prove to be unfair and unequal. [R,abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “Identity, knowledge, welfare”]
68.4125 ALMANZAR, Tanya; ASPINWALL, Mark; CROW, David —
Transparency guarantees in Mexico presented a serious challenge to its 2007–2012 war on drugs. We use an original database of access to information requests, including both petitions for information and appeals to IFAI. We conduct statistical tests on the databases, finding that transparency is lower on security issues, as expected, but that there are unexpected variations between security agencies, and over time. We then conduct a content analysis of freedom of information requests to determine what drives agency responses, finding that security agencies developed various techniques to deflect petitions for information, such as falsely claiming that information has been provided when it has not, claiming that the information is outside the competence of the agency, that it does not exist, or that it is already in the public domain. Also there are significant differences in transparency between security agencies, possibly explained by their operational roles. [R]
68.4126 ALONSO, Rogelio —
This article responds to the following research questions: How and why have victims of ETA's terrorism in Spain become an interest group with significant influence on the political and legislative agenda of the country. The evolution of the associative movement of victims of terrorism is assessed in order to explain the process by which their influence and impact on the political agenda has gradually grown throughout the years. It analyzes the transition from the isolation suffered by victims of terrorism in the early days of ETA's campaign to the prominent social and political role played at later stages. The factors that motivate and explain their active role as interest groups are looked into, demonstrating different claims and interests with varying degrees of coherence and leverage. [R,abr.]
68.4127 ANDRÉ, Audrey; DEPAUW, Sam —
A key question in representation is how institutional settings bring about particular representational roles among legislators. In this regard, the strategic dilemma that representatives face of whether to represent all people in the district equally or, alternatively, to prioritize some area within the district, has been vastly understudied. Using innovative survey data collected in 12 European democracies, we demonstrate that a striking number of legislators favour representing the interests of their home town over the district as a whole and that the number of representatives elected by the district critically impacts their choice as to whom to represent. As district magnitude increases, an increasing number of legislators will not cater to district opinion but will prioritize the interests of a geographical sub-constituency. [R,abr.]
68.4128 ARIOTTI, Margaret H.; GOLDER, Sona N. —
Although coalition governments are increasingly common in Africa, most studies focus on national leaders, and, thus, we know little about how ministerial posts are divided among cabinet parties. Using an original dataset of coalition governments in Africa from 1990 to 2014, we show that existing theories of partisan portfolio allocation can be successfully applied to African democracies. We find that African parties receive ministerial portfolios in rough proportion to their size, that formateur parties in Africa receive more ministerial portfolios than their European counterparts, and that the “formateur bonus” is greater in Africa's presidential democracies than in its parliamentary ones. Our analyses suggest that scholars can benefit from paying more attention to both coalition governments and legislatures in their analyses of African politics. [R,abr.]
68.4129 ARMINGEON, Klaus; CRANMER, Skyler —
The decisions faced by members of the EU during the sovereign debt crisis focused on fiscal policies in the Eurozone and structural reforms in the countries that experienced fiscal problems. Who sided with whom in these decision processes and why? We posit that states in strong economic positions will minimize the expense of supporting weaker economies because those economically strong states do not see austerity measures for themselves in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, less competitive states seek to avoid austerity measures because, even if an austerity outcome that imposes heavy costs on their state is inevitable, vocal opposition to the measures will minimize the electoral costs incurred by the government. States that are neither competitive nor un-competitive should avoid taking an open position and simply support a majority coalition. [R,abr.]
68.4130 ASAL, Victor; AYRES, R. William —
Why do some ethno-political organizations get support from their diaspora while others do not? There is little analysis that examines why some organizations (both violent and nonviolent) get support. Using data on 112 organizations in the Middle East, we examine how factors like the power of the organization, ideology, political behavior, and government treatment might impact the likelihood of an organization getting support from its diaspora. We argue that contentious political behavior should have the largest impact on such support. We find that those that do the best job of getting attention through visible action get the most support. [R]
68.4131 BAUMANN, Markus —
Most policy-making decisions taken in parliamentary democracies are essentially matters of party competition. Yet, in some policies, the linkage function of political parties is limited by purpose, which is frequently the case in free votes with a morality dimension. This has led to a debate in the literature on the determinants of Legislators’ preferences in free votes. The present research note adds to this debate by analyzing the parliamentary procedure to regulate pre implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in Switzerland. By assessing whether and to what degree MPs based their decision on their personal characteristics and on the preferences of their constituents, the contribution shows that not only are MPs’ voting decisions determined by these individual level factors, but also that these factors have detectable effects on the legislative outcome. [R]
68.4132 BECORPI, Caterina —
Contemporary Sierra Leone arguably demonstrates that divisions originated in pre-colonial African “states” crystallize in postcolonial statehood, within which logics of indirect rule are rebranded as decentralization and chiefs are clients of the state while patrons of their own communities. Conflict-management strategies encompass competencies mirroring evolving theoretical frameworks and justifying principles, whereby the ability of African chieftaincies to juggle ambiguity and contradictions bestows traditional authorities with potential for conflict transformation. Through the case study of Sierra Leone, this article explores controversial dialectics between roles of African traditional leaders and Lederach's approach to conflict-transformation. [R,abr.]
68.4133 BELL, Curtis; KEYS, Patrick W. —
This analysis of drought severity and civil conflict onset in sub-Saharan Africa (1962–2006) uncovers three sociopolitical conditions that influence the link between environmental scarcity and civil conflict: social vulnerability, state capacity, and unequal distribution of resources. Surprisingly, we find drought does not exacerbate the high risk of conflict in the vulnerable, incapable, and unequal states thought to be especially susceptible to increased scarcity. Instead, drought negates the peace-favoring attributes of stable states with less vulnerable populations. During severe drought, states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise favor peace are no less likely to suffer conflict than states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise increase the risk of violence. [R,abr.]
68.4134 BHATIA, Luke G. G. —
This article examines the relationships between the local human rights movement in Bahrain and global human rights movement. In addition, I argue that the post-coloniality of authoritarian governments in the Gulf region has added further complexities to the relationships between the local human rights movements, international non-governmental organisations and international institutions. Post-colonial authoritarian governments, such as that in Bahrain, have learned how to harness human rights discourse for their own ends. By focusing on these disparate actors and their interactions, this article interrogates the complications and dilemmas that the Bahrain human rights movement faces when acting in the transnational context with the global human rights community. [R]
68.4135 BLAIR, Harry —
Part I of this article [See Abstr. 68.2760] traced the experience of India's Bihar state as it shifted in the last decade of the 20th c. from a region dominated by landowning upper castes and plagued by entrenched poverty to one led by newly emergent middle castes. In a two-step process, these groups first attained a significant dignity and self-respect and then it became possible in the 2000s to turn to economic growth and improvement in living standards. Part II makes a case that Nepal, long suffering under conditions similar to those hobbling Bihar until recently, might follow a similar two-stage path of dignity and then development. [R]
68.4136 BRANDT, Cyril Owen —
This empirical article explores how the interaction between two key aspects of state-building (democratization and decentralization) and existing forms of governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo led to a multiplication in numbers of political and administrative brokers. Furthermore, it investigates how these brokers construct their roles well beyond official mandates. Responding to local demands, they circumvent formal procedures in order to obtain decrees accrediting public primary and secondary schools. As a result, the number of public schools has almost tripled since the early 2000s. Building on qualitative and quantitative empirical data, the article thus reveals that democratisation and decentralisation can reproduce clientelist structures. [R,abr.]
68.4137 BRAS, Jean-Philippe; GOBE, Éric —
After Ben Ali's departure from power on 14 January 2011, under pressure from popular protest movements, the various actors involved in the Tunisian revolutionary process chose to write a new Constitution and to elect a Constituent National Assembly. In this scenario including the drafting of an electoral law, the High Authority for the Achievement of the Revolution Objectives, Political Reform and Democratic Transition (HIROR) played a fundamental role in the elaboration of the initial legal and political framework of Post-Ben Ali Tunisia. Studying HIROR allows us to understand how Tunisia has gone from the “revolutionary moment”, when the people-as-an-event tries to exercise its sovereignty directly in a form of self-government, to institutionalizing change by authorities exercising their power in the name of the people. [R,abr.]
68.4138 BRZICA, Nikola —
This article's objective is to categorize potential jihadists in Europe and provide an overview of contemporary methods for their recruitment. Taking into account the ubiquity of the internet and social networking platforms, and the fact that younger generations are spending an ever increasing amount of time using contemporary communication technology, this article focuses on those recruitment methods that make use of social networking platforms and mobile applications for the spread of extremist propaganda, as well as for communication with potential adherents. An analysis of the age structure of individuals involved in the planning and carrying out of terrorist acts in Europe from November of 2015 to September of 2017 supports a hypothesis that contemporary recruitment methods are especially effective in targeting a younger demographic. [R,abr.]
68.4139 BUEHLER, Michael; MUHTADA, Dani —
The Islamization of politics in democratizing Muslim-majority countries is rarely understood as a process that unfolds across space and time. Based on an original dataset established during years of field research in Indonesia, this article analyzes the spread of shari'a regulations across the world's largest Muslim-majority democracy since 1998. It shows that shari'a regulations in Indonesia diffused unevenly across space and time. Explanations put forward in the literature on the diffusion of morality policies in other countries such as geographic proximity, institutions, intergovernmental relations and economic conditions did not explain the patterns in the diffusion of shari'a regulations in Indonesia well. Instead, shari'a regulations in Indonesia were most likely to spread across jurisdictions where local Islamist groups situated outside the party system had an established presence. [R,abr.]
68.4140 BUENO, Natália S. —
How do incumbents prevent the opposition from claiming credit for government programs? The received scholarly wisdom is that central government authorities favor copartisans in lower tiers of government to reward allies and punish opponents. Yet this depiction ignores the range of strategies available to incumbents at the center. I argue that another effective strategy is to channel resources through nonstate organizations, thus bypassing the opposition and reducing “credit hijacking.” Using a regression-discontinuity design with data from Brazil, I show that mayors from the president's party receive more resources, but that the election of an opposition mayor induces the central government to shift resources to nonstate organizations that operate in the locality. Original survey data, fieldwork, and data on organizations’ leaders support the claim that opposition mayors do not hijack credit from government spending through nonstate organizations. [R]
68.4141 BUSBY, Joshua W.; WILLIAMS, Michael John —
As we approach the winter of 2017, we now have more than nine months of experience with D. Trump as president of the US. His early actions have cast a shadow over the international order and the direction of US foreign policy. Despite a large departure in rhetoric and rupture in decorum, some analysts see more continuity in the early actions of the Trump administration, given the placement of traditional internationalist stalwarts in positions of authority such as James Mattis as Secretary of Defense. However, with the Trump administration repudiating Obama administration policies on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), there is plenty of evidence to suggest more significant changes are afoot as the US moves to a more transactional, America First concept of US international engagement. [R]
68.4142 CAIRNEY, Paul; FISCHER, Manuel; INGOLD, Karin —
We address a key puzzle in policy studies: why don't major differences in political systems and policy produce major differences in policy processes, outputs, and outcomes? We show why key aspects of fracking policy are similar in the UK and Switzerland despite the UK majoritarian government being ‘all out for shale’ and Switzerland's consensus democracy favouring moratoriums. We use the ‘advocacy coalition framework’ and new survey data to show why differences in UK and Swiss processes are subtle. In both cases, actors cooperate and compete with each other by sharing information within and across coalitions. [R]
68.4143 CANETTI, Daphna, et al. —
This research tested whether chronic or contextually activated Holocaust exposure is associated with more extreme political attitudes among Israeli Jews. [Two] studies found that Holocaust primes increased support for aggressive policies against a current adversary and decreased support for political compromise via an amplified sense of identification with Zionist ideology. These effects, however, were obtained only under an exclusive but not an inclusive framing of the Holocaust. Study 3 replicated these findings and showed that the link between Holocaust exposure, ideological identification, and militancy also occurs in real-life settings. Study 4 demonstrated in a nationally representative survey that Holocaust survivors and their descendants exhibited amplified existential threat responses to contemporary political violence, which were associated with militancy and opposition to peaceful compromises. [R,abr.]
68.4144 CAPPELEN, Christoffer; SORENS, Jason —
What explains contemporary variation in state capacity across African states? Recent research has focused on the possible role played by colonial and pre-colonial institutions. This paper investigates the way in which colonial and pre-colonial institutions interacted to affect the public legitimacy and coercive capacity of African states on independence. A coherent configuration of historical institutions, pre-colonial centralisation combined with colonial indirect rule through traditionally legitimate rulers, contrasts with the incoherent and comparatively illegitimate configurations of pre-colonial decentralisation with traditional rule and pre-colonial centralisation with colonial non-traditional or direct rule. The paper tests the theoretical expectations in a historical instrumental-variables framework. [R]
68.4145 CARDONA, Luz Ángela; ORTIZ, Horacio; VÁZQUEZ, Luis Daniel —
What is the relationship between corruption and human rights? Through a multilevel model and loess, we analyses how the objective corruption (observations of the Federal Audit Office) and subjective (perception of corruption) impact on human rights violations (observed through complaints of the CNDH), civil rights (seen through homicide) and economic and social rights (analyzed through access to health calculated by Coneval). [R]
68.4146 CHAKMA, Anurug —
The decade-long low-intensity armed conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) that surfaced soon after the independence of Bangladesh (1971) due to the failure of the state-building project ended with the CHT Accord which was signed in 1997 between the government of Bangladesh and the Parbattya Chattagram Jana Sanhati Samiti (PCJSS). This study uses qualitative research methods to explore the fundamental research question of who is in the driver's seat of the post-accord CHT peace-building process. A mostly top-down approach to peace-building has been used in the CHT due to an entirely donor-driven peace-building partnership between local and international stakeholders. Under this asymmetric power structure, the marginalization of local ownership is expected to produce unintended results in the peace process. [R]
68.4147 CHANG Kiyoung; LEE Choongkoo —
This article investigates South Korean views on how to deal with the two major security issues regarding North Korea: its nuclear threat and regime instability. The article analyzes the ongoing debate in South Korea over the government's policy toward North Korea in regard to these two issues. It argues that uncertainties about these two major issues are shaping the regional order in East Asia. In particular, the different levels of cooperation between South Korea and the US may affect the regional security order in East Asia. In analyzing policy options available to South Korea, given that the role of China has become the most crucial factor in dealing with North Korea, the most promising strategy would be to reinforce guarantees of extended nuclear deterrence and prompt a soft-landing unification. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.4159]
68.4148 CHAPMAN, Hannah S., et al. —
In this article we consider the trajectory of xenophobia in Russia since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Using survey data from 1996, 2004, and 2012, we examine Russians’ negative attitudes toward seven out-groups over time. We also statistically analyze the degree to which correlates of xenophobia have changed between 1996 and 2012. We find that Muscovites have become more xenophobic toward many groups over time relative to residents of other regions. This change is particularly striking in comparison to 1996, when Muscovites were generally less xenophobic than residents of other regions. Finally, we find that a strong lack of confidence in Russian President Putin is associated with higher levels of xenophobia across time, complicating the perceived link between the Russian government and xenophobic sentiment. [R]
68.4149 CHEEMA, Qamar Abbas; SHAMIL, Taimur —
Pakistan, since its independence in 1947, has been in search of a comprehensive narrative that should suit the fabric of the state. The existing narrative has been unresponsive to the needs of people and becomes outdated for several reasons. A new narrative for identity construction, political maturity, educational growth, strong security, economic prosperity, good governance, religious reorientation, innovative skills, media maturity and ethnic unity is required which can establish a new societal architecture for a strong and resilient state and society. [R,abr.]
68.4150 CHEY Hyoung-kyu; HELLEINER, Eric —
This paper analyses the prominence of civilisational values in Korean political economy debates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries concerning their country's dramatic opening to the world economy at the time. Korean supporters of economic opening saw this policy change as part of a wider embrace of Western civilisational values, while opponents argued that their country's longstanding economic autarchy upheld traditional Neo-Confucian civilisational values that had been imported from China. For international political economy (IPE) scholars interested in the historical relationship between civilisational values and political economy, the analysis shows how these values shaped understandings of international economic relations outside the West in quite distinctive ways. For IPE scholars interested in the diffusion of ideas, the analysis highlights different dynamics involved in the ‘localisation’ of ideas emanating from dominant powers. [R,abr.]
68.4151 CHIKWEM, Francis Chinwe; DURU, John Chikwendu —
The 2016 resumption of hostilities in the oil-rich Niger Delta region that is the mainstay of Nigeria's economy, in a dwindling international oil price, has become a subject of controversy. This analysis, based on empirical evidence from primary and secondary sources, shows a group of militants — the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), selective anti-corruption crusade, the clamp down on federal government structure in the Niger Delta, amnesty time limit to Niger Delta ex-militants, self-determination and the attempt to single out former President Goodluck Jonathan from Niger Delta, among other former presidents for prosecution, as the core drivers of insecurity in the oil-rich region. It is suggested that the Nigerian government should embrace the power of dialogue that has brought relative peace in the Niger Delta region from 2009 to 2015. [R,abr.]
68.4152 COLTON, Timothy J. —
Political scientists often consider post-Soviet Russia, as well as sundry of its Eurasian neighbors, to be governed by a “hybrid” regime that somehow marries elements of democracy and autocracy. Although this approach garners less than unanimous support, I argue that it is the best starting place for inquiry. For the hybridity paradigm to be of maximum use, however, we need more of a conversation about its theoretical underpinnings and empirical manifestations. The essay takes up these matters with reference to the Russian experience since 1991. I urge scholars to apply a pair of criteria for what constitutes a political regime and pay more attention to what we mean by a hybrid regime and to its actual, observable components. [R,abr.]
68.4153 CONINCK, Isabelle De; VAN HECKE, Steven —
This article examines the transposition performance of three regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Scotland. This paper introduces — for the first time — regional internal market scoreboards, mapping their transposition performances in terms of timeliness and conformity in the period 2010–2014. These regional internal market scoreboards are based on systematic transposition reports produced by the regional governments, which were cross-checked against the information provided by the Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU. We then look into a couple of factors that could possibly explain the regional performances and the differences between them by conducting a qualitative study of the transposition processes of a selection of 16 directives. [R,abr.]
68.4154 CÓRDOBA, Diana, et al. —
Scholarship on neo-extractivism agrees that this “post-neoliberal” model of development is founded on an inherent contradiction between the commitment to continue natural resource extraction and the need to legitimize these activities by using their revenues for poverty reduction. Using the cases of the national biofuel policies of the “post-neoliberal” governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this article enquires why and how these policies emerged, how they were implemented, and how the resulting national experiences exemplify the inherent contradictions embedded in neo-extractivist policies. Adopting a strategic-relational approach to analyze state-society interaction, it is argued that the scope of progressive policies is conditioned to a large extent by pre-existing social structures, institutions and state-society interactions. The article shows how progressive reforms intersect with the prevailing interests of agribusiness and state actors. [R,abr.]
68.4155 CRAVEN-MATTHEWS, Catriona; ENGLEBERT, Pierre —
Despite significant reconstruction efforts in the wake of its 2012–2013 collapse, Mali remains mired in crisis: violence is on the rise, institutions are dysfunctional, the military is inefficient, investments are few, and corruption is rampant. We suggest that Mali's reconstruction's failure is but the latest iteration of a general failure at building the Malian state. This failure derives from a sheer lack of resources to sustain statehood and from a systematic tendency to emulate the French state model despite its incongruence with local conditions. As a result, the Malian state is mimicked more than it is built and its reconstruction imagined more than it is implemented. Conflict plays an important role in this production, as it presents Mali with significant opportunities to stage itself, to develop and multiply institutions, and to derive outside support. [R,abr.]
68.4156 DECKARD, Natalie Delia; PIERI, Zacharias —
There is an extensive literature on the ramifications of corruption for economic growth, as well as for democracy. Largely unexplored, however, is how corruption works to lessen government legitimacy and empower violent anti-state movements. In this article, the perception of corruption in Nigeria is considered. Noting that Nigeria must suppress the violent extremist group Boko Haram in order to continue to govern the nation, the connections between Nigerian perceptions of corruption and support for the movement are treated. Until this research, however, there existed no empirical evaluation of this relationship. Using analysis of a survey of over 10,000 Nigerians accomplished in 2012 and 2013, we show that issues of state illegitimacy and endemic corruption have contributed to Nigeria's present security crisis by fomenting support for non-state violent actors. [R]
68.4157 DUPONT, Pascal —
Le Yémen est depuis trois ans confronté au chaos. Le conflit actuel n'épargne personne et s'inscrit dans une rivalité chiites-sunnites alimentée par Riyad et Téhéran. Ce terreau de désolation est favorable au terrorisme islamiste qui peut y trouver refuge et faire du Yémen un sanctuaire pour organiser ses attaques dans le monde. [R]
68.4158 EGELI, Sitki —
Thanks to multi-phased development program, Turkey has recently deployed ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km, whereas development work has been underway on longer-range derivatives. Paying tribute to geostrategic, technological, cost, and foreign policy considerations, the optimum range bracket for Turkey's ballistic missiles appears to be around 800 kilometers. Recent calls for ballistic missiles of much longer ranges (e.g., 2,500 km) do not correspond to Turkey's geostrategic and security circumstances. Rather than being the products of careful cost-benefit analyses, those calls appear to be the outcomes of unarticulated competitive reasoning and instincts. Combined with controversial and puzzling statements coming from the individuals close to Turkey's top decision-making circles, they are seen and treated as further signs of Turkey's latent nuclear weapon aspirations. [R,abr.]
68.4159 EUN Yong-Soo —
This article presents rationales for the special section which analyses South Korea's debates and discourses on crucial issues related to East Asian regional politics. The article opens with a consideration of why attention is drawn to South Korea and particularly to its discourses. Expanding upon constructivist theoretical insights, this article shows how they matter in foreign policy-making and state behavior. In addition, the article clarifies the scope of analysis of this special section. While recognizing that many different actors and issues shape the regional order in East Asia to varying degrees, we hold that the most direct impact on changes and/or continuity in that order comes from state actors in the realm of security (or the security-economy nexus). The article ends on a cautiously optimistic note. [R] [Introduction to a series of articles on “South Korean perspectives on the evolving regional order in East Asia”. See Abstr. 68.3960, 4031, 4147]
68.4160 FELDMANN, Magnus; MAZEPUS, Honorata —
This article evaluates two theoretical approaches to the popularity and resilience of authoritarianism in Russia, namely political culture and social contract theory. These approaches are two of the most important theories of Russian politics and also reflect the general divide in comparative and post-communist politics between political-cultural and rationalist explanations. We demonstrate that these approaches are bound up with different notions of legitimacy. This article suggests that neither framework offers a complete explanation of the Russian case. We develop an alternative framework that bridges these two approaches. Our analysis suggests that the social contract in Russia needs to be analysed as dynamic and conditional. Moreover, leaders can reshape the social contract and gain support in a strategic fashion by choosing appeals related to political culture. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.3528]
68.4161 FENG Huiyun; HE Kai —
This paper introduces an innovative approach to studying the decision making of Chinese leaders during crises. The unique contribution of this paper is to adopt the methodology of operational code analysis to measure the domain of actions of policy makers in the application of prospect theory. We suggest that leaders’ operational code beliefs can help us to identify in which domain of actions (gains or losses) leaders are located during crises. Xi Jinping experienced two notable foreign policy crises in 2014, the ‘oil rig’ crisis with Vietnam and the ‘P-8 crisis’ with the United States, which are examined in detail to illustrate Xi's operational code beliefs and risk-taking behaviour of ‘confident accommodation’ behaviour during crises. Hu Jintao's operational code beliefs and crisis behaviour in 2011–2012 are then compared to Xi's beliefs and decisions in this study of China's crisis behaviour. [R,abr.]
68.4162 FERLAND, Benjamin —
The article examines the impact of visible minorities on support for the Charter of Values and the ban of religious symbols for civil servants among Francophone Quebecers. Building on group conflict theory and contact theory, we expect that the proportion of visible minorities in a region will have a positive effect on support for the Charter of values and the ban of religious symbols among sovereignists while to have a negative effect among federalists. Our results show that the presence of visible minorities decreases support for the ban of religious symbols, except among those who are very supportive of Quebec sovereignty. [R]
68.4163 FFORDE, Adam; HOMUTOVA, Lada —
This paper [examines] the Vietnamese term “authority” (uy) and its relationship to power. Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan serves as a reference to the notion of authority in Vietnam and is compared to data: what the Vietnamese thought their word best translated as authority meant. The paper concludes that in the “two-way street” of social contracts, the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) actually has little authority. This helps to explain the chronic problems the VCP has faced in securing state capacity and generalized ability to implement policy. It highlights gaps between the current anachronistic use of Soviet-style power in Vietnam and what could be done if the regime deployed new powers based on authority. [R,abr.]
68.4164 FINNBOGASON, Daniel; SVENSSON, Isak —
Why has there been no jihadist civil war in Southeast Asia? So far, there have been no systematic comparisons of the frequency and nature of the Islamist violence in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. This study therefore contributes by exploring the empirical trajectories in the region and situating Southeast Asia to global developments, utilizing new and unique data on religiously defined armed conflicts 1975–2015. We find that whereas the number of people killed in Islamist violence has increased in the rest of the world, it has decreased in Southeast Asia. We argue that Southeast Asia has prevented outbreaks of jihadist civil wars, and contained and partially resolved ongoing Islamist conflicts before they have escalated, due to three interrelated factors: the lack of internationalization of Islamist conflicts in the region, the openness of political channels for voicing Islamist aspirations, and government repression. [R,abr.]
68.4165 FISH, M. Steven —
What has Russia become? The regime is best characterized as a conservative populist autocracy. It eschews all transformational visions, be they restorative or progressive, while pursuing elite appropriation and reproduction of the political status quo as overriding aims. The ruler relies for legitimation on populist appeals to great power nationalism and traditional folk morality, but he eschews the ethnocentricity often found in populism of the right. His judicious populist politics and skillful campaign to centralize and concentrate power have helped forge a stable, popular autocracy that yields bounty for the ruler and his favorites. But the predatory economic model and the extraordinary personalization of authority create vulnerabilities that may jeopardize system's durability. [R]
68.4166 FORRAT, Natalia —
This article uses the case of the 2012 presidential election in Russia to reveal a new mechanism of authoritarian resilience, which it calls infrastructural. This mechanism complements the currently dominant explanation of authoritarian resilience focused on material redistribution. The article argues that public sector organizations may significantly increase the ability of an autocrat to implement political decisions on the ground. This mechanism can partially explain Vladimir Putin's strong performance at the 2012 election, which was achieved through the engagement of schoolteachers, who frequently served as members of precinct-level electoral commissions, in agitation and electoral fraud. The article finds that if the factors contributing to the pressure on teachers were eliminated, Putin might not have won the election in the first round. [R]
68.4167 FRANTZ, Erica —
The developing world currently loses more money via capital flight than it receives through foreign aid and foreign direct investment combined. This “leakage” of capital produces many pernicious consequences for developing economies. What factors influence capital flight? I argue that it follows an electoral cycle. Greater uncertainty prior to elections incentivizes those in the business sector to take their money elsewhere. Using data from thirty-six African countries from 1971 to 2009, I find support for my argument: capital flight is higher during election years than it is otherwise. [R]
68.4168 FRIDELL, Mara —
This study of neoliberal inclusion politics and policy in 21st-c. Sweden investigates how conservative-liberal tactics target, and dismantle, the institutionalization of relatively resilient socialist-feminist small-state governance. Analyzing authoritative conservative-liberal discursive tactics, particularly how they construct a state of moral emergency out of population change (immigration) within the high-capacity state and society, exposes their political target: how the state's capacity to include semi-sovereign labor, to relieve the economic and geopolitical limits upon citizenship, is girded by the state's internalization of social reproduction, particularly its capillary connections through female employment in a welfare state oriented to substantive rationality. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.3234]
68.4169 FRIĐRIKSDÓTTIR, Guórún Sif —
In both academic literature and policy discourse, ex-combatants are at times depicted as a threat to peace rather than agents of positive change. However, many of my ex-combatant interlocutors in Burundi were working actively on conflict-resolution and peace-building projects. In addition, their experience and knowledge of combat was frequently stated as a deterrent for going back to such a situation. Though it may seem contradictory, the reasons my informants gave for having joined the war sounded remarkably similar to motivations for social activism. They usually expressed it as a desire to contribute to a better, more just, community. I argue that ideology played an important part in motivation to join armed groups during the war and carries over in participation in social activism today. [R,abr.]
68.4170 FU Tsung-hsi; HWANG Gyu-Jin —
Despite the fact that Korea and Taiwan are often cited together to have shared a common path, their post-democratization developmental trajectory shows a diverging pattern. Taking the case of public pension reform, we argue that the changing nature of political competition and its impact on pension reforms are key, particularly in relation to the ways in which the existing structure of old-age protection influences the configuration of pension politics. The arrival of democratic governance itself does not tell us much about the possible reform agendas and trajectories. Nor does it provide us with a clear understanding of the distributional implications of public policies as institutions. Instead we see growing prominence of the policy dynamics around the question of how the early decisions and choices shape the emerging interest formation. [R,abr.]
68.4171 FUJISAKI, Ichiro —
This article discusses four commonly-held myths about the Trump Administration and explores whether the assertions made by political commentators and critics are based on fact. [R]
68.4172 GAINSBOROUGH, Martin —
Through a case study of Vietnam, the article explores the view that there is a tendency to overstate the degree to which there is a coherent central body, namely the state, directing the country. Exploring this myth, it argues that there is a tendency to reify the state, even in writing which is attentive to localism and the diversity of societal actors at play in Vietnamese political life. The article argues that the myth of the central state endures because there are domestic and foreign political interests that depend on it. However, more fundamentally, the myth endures because of the power of the state to colonize our minds such that even when the empirical data do not fit with the idea of the state, we make them fit. [R,abr.]
68.4173 GANGULY, Sumit; MENON, Rajan —
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is merely the champion of a larger movement that seeks to push India in a more nationalist direction. [R]
68.4174 GILLMAN, Anne —
Even under many formally democratic regimes, large swaths of the citizenry experience alienation from states with uneven presence throughout the national territory. Addressing a gap in scholarship that has examined why rather than how states establish new modes of engagement with subaltern groups, this article documents concrete mechanisms by which the Brazilian state built new state-society relations through a particular cultural policy. By recognizing and funding artistic initiatives in underserved communities, the program aimed to expand their access to the state and validate their role in the polity. On the basis of in-depth fieldwork in three Brazilian states, the article argues that new relations actually were forged through state-society encounters around the program's administrative procedures. [R,abr.]
68.4175 GOLA, Ardian; SELACI, Gëzim —
Building on the post-secularist theory, this paper argues for a need to rethink secularism in the case of contemporary Kosovo in a context of “return of religion”. Political secularism as an inevitable fact and political norm, in the sense of “structural differentiation” of the religious institution from other institutions, could be upheld in Kosovo. However, social secularism concerning values, practices, social habits and everyday life, or public sphere in short, poses a problem in a global post-secular context from which Kosovo is not isolated. Moreover, rather than a principle of state's equidistance from the different worldviews competing in the public space, secularism in Kosovo is used as an identity tool or an instrument of identity politics aiming at distancing its society from religion as a way to affirm its “western orientation” and secular tradition. [R,abr.]
68.4176 GORMAN, Brandon —
Many scholars argue that politics in majority-Muslim societies are marked by deep polarization: dominated by struggles between secularists and Islamists who hold fundamentally divergent ideological positions. Yet, this finding is likely a result of scholarly focus on Islamist organizations and political parties rather than their constituencies. Using Tunisia as a case study, this article investigates attitudinal polarization between secularists and Islamists at the individual level using a mixed-method design combining statistical analyses of survey data with content-analyses of in-depth interviews. Statistical results indicate that Islamists are no different from non-Islamists in attitudes about excommunication (takfir), popular sovereignty, women's rights, or minority rights, though they are more skeptical of democracy and express less religious tolerance. [R,abr.]
68.4177 GYÁRFÁŠOVÁ, Ol'ga; HENDERSON, Karen —
Slovakia has had the lowest turnout in every European Parliament election since it joined the EU. Voting patterns do not match many characteristics considered typical for second-order elections: ruling parties do not poll weakly, and small radical parties do not do well. Popular Slovak explanations of low turnout, such as voter fatigue following the presidential elections, insufficient knowledge about the elections and the EU or the low number of Slovak seats in the parliament also have limited explanatory power. It appears more likely that it is the incoherence of party stances on EU issues and a passive attitude towards the EU that depress turnout. [R] [See Abstr. 68.3528]
68.4178 HALE, Henry E. —
Contingent events, including the initiation of conflicts that trigger “rallying-'round-the-flag,” can generate long-lasting public support and hence stability for authoritarian regimes, yet such effects remain poorly understood. The present study builds on the core logic of leading explanations of rallying in democracies to develop theory on how rallying works in authoritarian contexts. Unpacking the surge in President Vladimir Putin's popularity after Russia annexed Crimea, an original survey experiment finds that authoritarian rallying obtains partly through the activation of patriotic sentiment, but that, counterintuitively, the strongest rallying effects occur among those who watch the least television news. Potential sources of private information on the Crimea annexation's costs — including negative personal economic experiences and usage of social media — significantly dampen its positive effect on support for Putin. [R]
68.4179 HATAB, Shimaa —
What accounts for the failed transition and restructuring of authoritarianism in Egypt after a fleeting rupture in 2011? How did the dominant statist party lose its iron grip on power? Why did the collapse of the dominant party not bring about significant democratic transformation and generate power-sharing pacts? The article aims to go beyond the question of the importance of either authoritarian resilience or the transition paradigm to offer a two-layered analytical framework based on leverage level and the coherence of pro-democracy forces’ demands to account both for the timing of one-party collapse and the consequent dynamics of authoritarian revival. I allow room for complex and strategic interactions between different components of pro-democracy forces and the old ruling class to elucidate the contingent political trajectory after the time of disintegration. [R,abr.]
68.4180 HAWES, Daniel P. —
This article examines the differential effects of social capital on policy equity in state outcomes. Specifically, it explores the relationship between social capital and incarceration rates in the American states paying particular attention to racial disparities in incarceration rates. Building on work by R. Hero, I present a theoretical explanation and empirical support for how social capital operates differently under different racial contexts. I argue that social capital enhances social empathy in homogeneous contexts and social controls in diverse contexts. Using state-level longitudinal data on the contiguous states, I find that social capital is positively associated with incarcerations, but only for African-Americans. Furthermore, the effects of social capital appear to be conditional on racial context where this relationship is stronger as minority group size increases. [R]
68.4181 HIGUCHI, Toshihiro —
The successful test of a US thermonuclear weapon in 1954 raised a compelling question as to the worldwide dispersion of radioactive fallout. This article reexamines the Eisenhower administration's test-ban policy in the context of global radioactive contamination. To explain the shifting public discourse of the global fallout hazards and its impact on the test-ban debate, the article focuses on epistemic frictions, seeking to demonstrate how a variety of expert bodies evaluated scientific uncertainty and moral ambiguity concerning the biological effects of fallout from different sets of concerns, and how the resulting incongruence both within and between the scientific advisory committees fueled the fallout controversy and affected the Eisenhower administration's test-ban policy leading toward the test moratorium in 1958. [R]
68.4182 HOERING, Uwe —
China is actively working for the renaissance of the legendary “Silk Road”. Its new project aims to impart new impetus to the commercial relations between Asia, Europe and Africa. The author points out that the new silk road will concern not only economic cooperation. Beijing intends to restore the old greatness of the People's Republic and visibly endeavors towards a dominant geopolitical position. [R, transl.]
68.4183 HOULE, Christian; KENNY, Paul D. —
While populist rule has become increasingly prevalent in the developing world, much of our knowledge about its implications remains anecdotal and contradictory. In this article, we conduct the most comprehensive large-N cross-national test of the consequences of populist rule to date. Using data on 19 Latin American states, we find that populism's implications are mostly negative: (1) populist regimes tend to erode institutional and legal constraints on executive authority; (2) participation rates are not higher under populist governments or for populist campaigners; and (3) populist rule, even under left-wing populists, is not associated with more redistribution than non-populist democratic rule. [R,abr.]
68.4184 HUANG Dongya —
State-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms have typically been considered the result of bargaining under China's fragmented bureaucratic structure. This study uses the case of the CNR-CSR merger to investigate the latent changes that have recently occurred in the policy-making structure of SOE reforms. This study demonstrates that ‘top-level design’ — in the context of a strengthened political authority and centralised political power — dominates SOE reforms and changes the pattern of fragmented interest bargaining among government departments and SOEs. In this context, the national strategy can be implemented with little resistance, contradicting scholarly predictions of fragmented authoritarianism. [R,abr.]
68.4185 HUMPAGE, Louise; GREAVES, Lara —
This article explores the relative strength of public support for ascriptive and civic aspects of national identity to assess the boundaries of ‘inclusion’ or ‘exclusion’ within New Zealand's national imaginary. Data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on citizenship in 2015 provide a unique window into public understandings of what characteristics are associated with ‘truly being a New Zealander’ in the 21st century. Although New Zealanders have relatively inclusive attitudes overall, those with low education and those who sit on the political Right or vote New Zealand First were more likely to relate to ascriptive views, while female and Maori respondents were more likely to associate with civic notions of New Zealandness. Older respondents were more likely to associate with both ascriptive and civic views about truly being a New Zealander. [R,abr.]
68.4186 IDLER, Annette —
This article explores how transnational borderlands matter for conflict-prevention and, in particular, so-called upstream engagement, which aims to reduce threats to global stability and security that arise from the world's increasing interconnectedness. Accounting for transnational borderlands in vulnerable regions is crucial for conflict-prevention as pursued by the defence and security sector because borderlands are catalysts of the negative side of global interconnectedness: they are business hubs for transnational organised crime, sites of retreat for conflict actors, and safe havens for terrorists. The border areas’ prone-ness to impunity and the ability of violent non-state actors to govern these spaces illicitly contribute to the emergence of these characteristics. [R,abr.]
68.4187 IVANKOVIC, Željko —
Initially, cronyism was considered to be specific to Asian countries. Further analyses recognized characteristics of crony capitalism all over the world. According to the model presented, crony capitalism emerges in circumstances of political instability as a solution for the problem of economic growth. The model enables the analysis of cronyism in Croatia and an investigation into the question whether features of crony capitalism were a consequence of privatization and the transition from socialism. The paper concludes that cronyism is primarily a political phenomenon and that crony capitalism cannot be reduced to its economic effects. Growth serves as a justification for the system of privileges. [R,abr.]
68.4188 JAIN, Ritika —
Regular payments or contributions to states’ exchequer funds are mandated for state level public sector enterprises (SLPEs) in most states in India. However, in the absence of a regular mechanism to ensure timely payments, the contributions are abysmally poor. In most SLPEs, the situation is driven by the presence of soft budget constraints and strong financial support from the state governments. The current study analyses the effect of political factors on the contribution that SLPEs make to the state governments’ exchequer funds. Using different econometric methods, the study finds that SLPEs located in assembly constituencies that are politically aligned with the state government, make frequent and larger contributions to the exchequer funds. [R,abr.]
68.4189 KANG, Alice J.; TRIPP, Aili Mari —
We provide new theory and evidence of the role of domestic women's coalitions in the adoption of gender quotas. Previous research has shown the importance of women's movements to policy change. We show that specific types of mobilization, often multiethnic in character, are a more precise way of describing these influences. Using a new dataset of coalitions in 50 countries in Africa (1989–2014), we first examine where coalitions are likely to emerge. Controlling for factors that correlate with their formation, we find that when domestic women's organizations form a coalition for quotas, governments are more likely to adopt them and do so more quickly. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.3850]
68.4190 KAVESHNIKOV, Nikolay Yu. —
Today, the EU is in a systemic crisis. The main challenges are well known: the Euro-crisis underlined by insufficient competitiveness of the EU economy; migration crisis, which is feeding Euroskepticism and ultra-right radicalism; Brexit referendum that highlighted all the defects of the EU political system, primarily those related to the ideology of integration and identity issues. These external shocks have provoked a systemic crisis because, over the last ten years, the institutional and political system of the EU have considerably degraded. This article attempts to identify key negative trends in the development of this system which took place in the past decade. [R,abr.]
68.4191 KENTIKELENIS, Alexander E. —
The economic crisis in Greece resulted in high unemployment and the dismantlement of social protection policies. How does society respond to the collapse of both welfare-state and market mechanisms? I examine these issues through the study of one working class community in Athens over 2012–2013. Since the onset of the crisis, my informants experienced a simultaneous drop in living standards, loss of social status, and debasement of their symbolic construction of reality. To respond to these pressures, they relied on a combination of material survival strategies, the reconfiguration of social resources, and the reconstruction of cultural imaginaries. To explain these findings, the article draws on Karl Polanyi's analysis of counter-movements to marketization and commodification. [R,abr.]
68.4192 KHEIFETS, Viktor L.; KHADORICH, Llliya V. —
Modern Venezuela has nothing to do with stability and development. Caracas run into debt, is suffering diplomatic defeats one after another. Political and economic crisis captured the country, and the government seems to be incapable of retrieving the situation. The opposition between the government and the National Assembly creates the threat of unconstitutional or even military actions. Yet the international community, including the major multilateral blocks like UNASUR involved in peaceful settlement, lacks adequate means as well as political will either to help the country in crisis-resolution, or to prevent the internal institutional conflict from influencing regional processes. However, the question is whether the Venezuelan crisis affects regional integration, or has become just an indicator of the deadlock of innumerable Latin America integration models. [R,abr.]
68.4193 KIM Sunhyuk; JEONG Jong-Ho —
We provide a historical overview of the development of Korea's civil society since its transition to democracy in 1987. After a theoretical review of civil society focused on the comparison between the East and the West, we analyze seven governments of Korea since the democratic transition in 1987 in terms of the change in civil society and its engagement with the state, underscoring the continued role of civil society in democratic consolidation and deepening. Then, we discuss some prominent characteristics of Korean civil society in the post-transitional period, such as the diversification of the modes of state-civil society relationship, politicization and ideological polarization of civil society, “political societization” of civil society, the widened gap between central and local civil societies, and financial dependency of civil society on the state. [R,abr.]
68.4194 KRANENDONK, Maria; VERMEULEN, Floris; VAN HEELSUM, Anja —
The identity-to-politics link assumes that individuals who share a certain demographic feature also share common political pursuits. This article critically examines that presumed relationship by analyzing how voting probability is affected by social identification in combination with other elements — namely, perception of shared grievances and group resources. Tallying responses from Muslim immigrants in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK via surveys conducted for the European research project EURISLAM, this study supports the assumption that social identification affects voting in specific circumstances. The results show that identifying with the origin country decreases voting probability among Muslim immigrants in Europe. Another finding was the context-specific effect of social identification. [R,abr.]
68.4195 KRAUDZUN, Tobias —
Drawing on interviews with borderland people, this article discusses the convergence of Tajikistan's strong claim but weak support for sovereignty, with the daily life of the borderland people. It will show how — given the Pamirs’ special status as a border district — far-reaching sovereign authority of state agents, aiming to provide security at the border, has been translated into arbitrary actions ensuring individual benefits and has been hidden by intransparency. The article argues that the lack of adequate support from the central government encourages state representatives at the border to reinterpret the sovereign power assigned to them in order to serve their own individual benefits and purposes. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.3245]
68.4196 KRISHNAN, Simantini —
Engineering education at the service of economic growth has long been regarded as a policy imperative for developing countries. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of how the ascendancy of engineering education, particularly in post-liberalization India, has played a role in consolidating middle-class narratives of economic liberalism and social conservatism. It shows how a focus on apolitical problem-solving in engineering disciplines can feed into hegemonic discourses on apolitical good governance and meritocracy, propagated by political parties such as the ruling BJP. This assumes significance in light of recent comparative scholarship that educated and professionally oriented middle classes in India and other developing countries, unlike their Western counterparts, tend to be socially illiberal and politically authoritarian. [R]
68.4197 KROOK, Mona Lena —
At the end of 2017, millions of women used the #MeToo hashtag to draw attention to widespread sexual harassment and assault around the world. In British politics, female politicians, staff members, and journalists opened up about their own experiences, provoking the resignation and party suspension of a number of male Cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament. This article explores how this issue got on the political agenda, what features of politics might foster harassment and discourage reporting, and what solutions might be pursued to tackle this problem. It argues that sexual harassment should be understood as a systemic, cultural problem, rather than a question of problematic individuals. Ignoring the issue of sexual harassment in politics, the article concludes, has serious consequences for gender equality — as well as for democracy itself. [R,abr.]
68.4198 KUK, John Seungmin; SELIGSOHN, Deborah; ZHANG Jiakun Jack —
Mounting import competition from China has increased unemployment in manufacturing and suppressed wages in local labor markets around the US. This article investigates the political effects of this China trade shock, using a unique dataset of the district-level economic impact of Chinese imports to the US. The liberalization of trade following China's accession to the WTO increased political polarization among American voters and encouraged legislators in economically hard-hit districts to take positions hostile to China. The result is that Congress is even more hostile towards China today than in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre. After 2003, members of Congress who voted against China were more likely to come from districts that were adversely impacted by import competition, controlling for ideology and partisanship. [R,abr.]
68.4199 KULIK, Jeffrey M.; ERMASOVA, Natalia —
This paper analyzes the impact of TELs on different types of state expenditures. This study provides comparison analysis of different types of TELs on state level and aims to evaluate the effect of TEL policy on state expenditure structures. Using panel data analysis, this work finds that states with Tax Expenditure Limitations (TELs) — in addition to financial factors — are associated with higher level of state expenditures for corrections and lower levels of state expenditures for police, parks, natural resources, and highway expenditures. Looking at 50 states from 2006 to 2011, this relationship is both statistically and substantively significant. [R]
68.4200 KULL, Michael, et al. —
Brazil is an example of a challenging governance context par excellence: continental size, multi-leveled governance structures and diverse administrative cultures meet with ambitious, large-scale policy needs and objectives. The multilevel governance approach is applied here to analyse implementation and governance coordination of the Bolsa Verde Programme (BVP). Through a close reading of the narratives told by three programme officials — and zooming in on jointly exercised governance functions known from the metagovernance approach — we analysed how BVP's programmatic governance coordination was made sense of. The analysis showed that our interviewees were well aware of the shortcomings of the governance coordination in BVP, understood as rather hierarchical, centrally driven and often tackling challenges of vertical multi-actor coordination in a reactive ad-hoc manner. [R,abr.]
68.4201 KWARTENG, Charles —
Ghana's political landscape changed dramatically in 2017, with the election of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo as president. Ghana's political transition in 2017 raises new insights into presidential recruitment and politics in Ghana. This article examines the 2016 elections within the spectrum of the politics of Ghana's presidential recruitment. It discusses the hurdles that were surmounted by the opposition New Patriotic Party, in unseating the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) party. The author coins the term “the John Syndrome” to highlight the mythology held by some commentators that Akufo Addo could not be elected president, because his name is not “John”. Discussions about intra-party squabbles that resulted in the loss of NDC's incumbency are provided. [R,abr.]
68.4202 LEAL, David L., ed. —
Articles by David L. LEAL, “Blame Canada! An occasionally serious overview of US-Canada relations”, pp. 697–700; Harold D. CLARKE, et al., “Like father, like son: Justin Trudeau and valence voting in Canada's 2015 federal election”, pp. 701–707; Stephen E. WHITE, “Canadian ethnocultural diversity and federal party support: the dynamics of liberal partisanship in Immigrant communities”, pp. 708–711; Randall HANSEN, “Why both the Left and the Right are wrong: immigration and multiculturalism in Canada”, pp. 712–716; Jennifer WALLNER, “Ideas and intergovernmental relations in Canada”, pp. 717–722; Bartholomew SPARROW and Diane SUN, “The expansion of the Canadian federation: terms of territorial growth”, pp. 723–727; Mebs KANJI and Kerry TANNAHILL, “Digging into dissatisfaction with democracy: the case of Quebec”, pp. 728–734; Munroe EAGLES and Nik NANOS, “Stronger together? Support for political cooperation in Canada and the United States, 2005–2016”, pp. 735–740.
68.4203 LEE Han Soo; MIN Hee; SEO Jungkun —
Legislative responses to social changes signify how representative democracy works. Yet research is still needed to find out whether and how representatives in new democratic countries address the constituents’ interests and demands. We revisit the 18th National Assembly in Korea (2008–2012) to examine legislative activities surrounding the issue of economic inequality. To understand how lawmakers in the new democracy like Korea respond to the demands of redistributive policies, we turn to representatives’ co-sponsorship behaviour. We find that Korean lawmakers do respond to constituents’ preferences. More specifically, Korean lawmakers representing conservative districts tend to care less about economic inequality than other representatives while controlling their partisanship. [R]
68.4204 LEE, Tony C. —
The paper argues that groupthink caused the Chinese leadership group's low quality crisis-management and unsettled the social upheaval during the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. It employs a content-analysis for systemically studying the evidence of groupthink. The content-analysis performed yields a conclusion: while Den Xiaoping is usually portrayed as the “butcher of Tiananmen”, all members of the CCP leadership group should bear the same culpability, as they fell prey to groupthink and manifested symptoms such as self-censorship, self-appointed mind-guards, the pressure towards unanimity, illusion of invulnerability, and stereotype of out-group. [R]
68.4205 LÉGARÉ, Kathia —
When civil wars end, political institutions are the main topics of conflict. The implementation of peace settlements often stall, and foreign sponsored initiatives might be put in place to build the state as to strengthen peace. This article aims to explain their impact. It proposes that post-conflict reconstruction follows a cycle, which alternates between phases of status quo, debate, and crisis. It argues this process is powered by the struggles between coalitions of political forces, including foreign parties, promoting their own understanding of the peace deal. It compares two cases of deeply divided societies located in a complex geopolitical environment: Lebanon and Bosnia-and-Herzegovina. The analysis focuses on the interrelations between foreign and domestic parties and their evolution by tracing the formation and collapse of transnational coalitions. [R,abr.]
68.4206 LOWANDE, Kenneth S.; JENKINS, Jeffery A.; CLARKE, Andrew J. —
Research on presidential distributive politics focuses almost exclusively on federal domestic spending. Yet, presidential influence on public policy extends well-beyond grant allocation. Since the early 20th Century, for example, the president has had substantial discretion to adjust tariff schedules and non-tariff barriers “with the stroke of a pen.” These trade adjustments via presidential directive allow us to test the logic of presidential particularism in an area of policy understudied among presidency scholars. We examine unilateral adjustments to US trade policies between 1917 and 2006, with a detailed analysis of those made between 1986 and 2006, and find that presidents strategically allocate trade protections to industries in politically valuable states. In general, states in which the president lacks a comfortable electoral majority are systematically more likely to receive protectionist unilateral orders. [R,abr.]
68.4207 LYNCH, Marc; RYAN, Curtis R.; VALBJØRN, Morten, eds. —
Symposium introduced by Marc LYNCH and Curtis R. RYAN, pp. 643–646. Articles by Morten VALBJØRN, “Strategies for reviving the international relations/Middle East nexus after the Arab uprisings”, pp. 647–651; Pinar BILGIN, “Inquiring into others’ conceptions of the international and security”, pp. 652–655; Waleed HAZBUN, “The politics of insecurity in the Arab world: a view from Beirut”, pp. 656–659; Bassel F. SALLOUKH, “Overlapping contests and Middle East international relations: the return of the weak Arab state”, pp. 660–663; Erin A. SNIDER, “International political economy and the new Middle East”, pp. 664–667; Sarah Sunn BUSH, “Varieties of international influence and the Middle East”, pp. 668–671; F. Gregory GAUSE, III, “Ideologies, alignments, and underbalancing in the New Middle East Cold War”, pp. 672–675; Ewan STEIN, “Ideological codependency and regional order: Iran, Syria, and the axis of refusal”, pp. 676–680.
68.4208 MABON, Simon —
This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extremism in the Middle East. The article argues that ISIS builds citizenship in two ways: first, by developing asabiyya — group feeling — among Sunni and second, by securitizing the Shi'a threat. Identifying and engaging with the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship helps to develop much stronger policy responses. [R]
68.4209 MADUEKE, Kingsley L. —
Jos, a central Nigerian city engulfed by deadly violence in September 2001, offers a unique case study for exploring what happens when a modern metropolis lacks the institutional capacity to regulate its competing groups, and latent rivalries ignite into widespread, systematic brutality. Emerging from combined political and cultural dynamics radically different from those of better-known examples, such as Jerusalem and Belfast, Jos provides fresh insights into the roles of group concentration and conflict framing in engendering territoriality and violence in the city. As this paper shows, Jos’ colonial history in tin mining, waves of migration, and an urban policy of socio-spatial differentiation have shaped and intersected with the contemporary politics of ethnicity to foster explosive relations between Christians and Muslims. [R,abr.]
68.4210 MANGLA, Akshay —
This article analyzes India's recent enactment of universal primary education. This programmatic policy change is puzzling given the clientelistic features of Indian democracy. Drawing on interviews and official documents, I demonstrate the catalytic role of committed state elites, who introduced incremental reforms over three decades. These officials operated beneath the political radar, layering small scale initiatives on top of the mainstream school system. Following India's globalization in the 1990s, support from the World Bank gave committed officials the political opportunity to experiment with new programs in underperforming regions, which they progressively extended across the country. These incremental reforms supplied the institutional blueprint for India's universal primary education program. Along with state initiative from above, civil society mobilized from below, using the judiciary to hold the state legally responsible for policy implementation. [R,abr.]
68.4211 MATHIEU, Félix —
If the 1997 New Labour's winning election seems to correlate with an upsurge in both the political arena and in public favor for multiculturalism in the UK, the overall decade and a half that ensued took the very opposite path. For example, Prime Minister David Cameron declared in 2011 that state multiculturalism was a failure. I question the impact of such declarations onto the UK's immigrant multicultural policy. In particular, using and updating the Multicultural Policy Index, I show evidence of the evolution, between 2000 and 2015, of the UK's multicultural policy. In turn, this provides a satisfactory framework for having a clear understanding of the public policy dynamic in matters of multiculturalism in the following of David Cameron's declarations concerning the failure of state multiculturalism. [R,abr.]
68.4212 MATZ, Wolfgang —
On 7 May 2017, E. Macron won the second round of the French election and became the President of the Republic. He caught the wave of opportunity: he created his own party, En marche, and applied as a candidate when both right-wing UMP (Union for a Popular Movement, which has been since renamed and succeeded by Les Républicains) and the Socialist party were going through existential crises, while the far-right Front National's popularity increased. Macron's victory has turned France's traditional political scenario upside down, particularly the two-party system characterized by alternance and cohabitation. One of the main questions concerning Macron's five-year term is whether the ideological frontier between left and right will be definitively erased.
68.4213 McCARTHY, Michael C. —
Aux États-Unis, la compatibilité entre liberté académique et identité religieuse des universités est une question délicate. L'expérience des établissements jésuites montre qu'un dialogue est possible, qu'il peut contribuer à bâtir une société démocratique. La condition est que la liberté académique soit rapportée à l'horizon plus large du “bien commun”. [R]
68.4214 McEWEN, Nicola —
This article addresses the territorial dimension of the Brexit referendum and its consequences, especially with respect to devolution and the independence debate within Scotland. The convincing Scottish majority vote for Remain alongside the UK vote to leave the EU has exposed the difficulties in reconciling rival self-determination claims. The Brexit vote has also raised again the issue of Scotland's place within the UK, and for some justifies reconsideration of the decision the Scottish electorate made to remain within the UK by rejecting independence in 2014. The article considers the explanations for the Remain vote in Scotland, and the reactions of the Scottish and UK Governments to the competing preferences north and south of the border. It argues that the ‘one nation’ nationalist rhetoric of the UK Government in the aftermath of the vote is at odds with the plurinational character of the UK. [R,abr.]
68.4215 McFAUL, Michael —
Russia's present system of government did not result inevitably from historical structures, that is from cultural, geographic, or socio-economic inheritances from the Soviet or tsarist past. Russia's hundreds of years of autocratic traditions made democratic consolidation in the 1990s harder, but not impossible. Rather, individual choices at pivotal moments in time pushed Russia towards a more autocratic path in the 2000s and then produced a reordering of preferences and power in favor of continuity with this new autocratic arrangement. Actors, not structures, were the drivers of these changes, first towards democracy and then away from it. [R]
68.4216 MISHALI-RAM, Meirav —
Foreign fighters arrive in Syria from across the Muslim world, yet the configuration of their countries of origin remains a puzzle. Examining alternative explanations for joining transnational jihad, the article draws insights from the cases of Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, two major countries of foreign fighters’ origin, compared with Egypt, from where limited figures of volunteers have joined the Syrian war. The article shows that the sources of volunteering fighters may be well understood in combined terms of religious sentiments and national politics. Foreign fighters come largely from Muslim countries where restrained state-Islamists relations channel Islamic grievances to transnational arenas. [R]
68.4217 MOHAMEDOU, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould —
The self-capacitation of the new non-state armed groups is expanding the spatial dimension of international relations. These emerging actors illustrate in particular the increasing transnationalisation of the Middle East. In such a context, the rise of the Islamic State partakes of a wider trajectory initiated earlier by another organisation, namely Al Qaeda. However, micro-narratives on the two groups focus on their leaderships and theatrical religiosity have concealed the deeper insights that can be garnered as regards the history of political violence. [R]
68.4218 MORAITIS, Alexis B. —
Deindustrialisation is taking an increasingly prominent place in public French discourses and has raised the question of the state's capacity to spur the country's industrial rejuvenation. This article views with scepticism the possibility for a state-led reindustrialisation as it finds that deindustrialisation has historically constituted an industrial strategy endorsed by French policy makers themselves. This article argues that deindustrialisation is an industrial strategy that involves a state-sponsored disengagement from specific manufacturing activities in order to rationalise the sector and render it apt to confront international competition. This strategy, as it is argued, is conditioned by two main factors: the scarcity of resources that can potentially be distributed to industrial firms and secondly the resistance of workers and businesses in declining sectors that threaten the political legitimacy of governments. [R,abr.]
68.4219 MORENO LEÓN, Carlos Enrique —
This article examines the circumstances [in] which civilians, using protests as a mechanism, alter the strategic use of violence by armed actors (rebels and state forces). By examining the civil war in Colombia between 1988 and 2005, this study finds that combatants decrease their attacks against the population when civilians protest against the enemy. Combatants interpret such demonstrations as costly signals of loyalty. Furthermore, when insurgents are the target of the protests, insurgents increase repression against civilians as rebels get stronger. In contrast, state forces (and paramilitaries) compensate for their weakness in the area by multiplying civilian victims. Both state forces and rebels, however, are likely to decrease violence against civilians when civilians protest against both parties in contested zones. [R,abr.]
68.4220 NASEEMULLAH, Adnan —
This article argues that different types of politically motivated violence in South Asia are associated with different forms of governance and relationships between society and the state. This variation in local governance in turn is the product of unevenness in state formation across the political geography of India. It classifies conflict events in India in 2015 and 2016 into conceptual categories of sovereignty-neutral and sovereignty-challenging, theoretically reflecting the commonsense distinction between riots and rebellion. It presents evidence that different categories of state-society regimes at the district level are associated with different patterns of sovereignty-neutral and -challenging violence. [R,abr.]
68.4221 NAVRÁTIL, Jirí; HRUBEŠ, Milan —
This article focuses on anti-communist activism in the post-communist context. It follows political process theory in order to analyse the basic characteristics and trend of anti-communist protests in the Czech Republic between 1990 and 2011 and attempts to propose various paths through which the frequency of these protests has increased. First, it differentiates between the dynamics of anti-communism in the transition and post-transition periods and shows that anti-communism has become a stable political phenomenon in Czech politics. Second, it defines two modes of anti-communist activism and describes their basic characteristics: while anti-communist claim-making is mostly driven by political parties, anti-communist framing has become a more widespread tool of political activism. Finally, it combines the concepts of political space and political threats to identify conditions supportive of heightened anti-communist protest. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.3528]
68.4222 NGUENA DJOUFACK, Arsène Landry —
Le continent africain se caractérise, entre autres, par une prolifération d'organisations internationales et plus précisément d'organisations d'intégration qui, au lieu d'être séparées et spécialisées, se recoupent ou se chevauchent, à divers égards. Ce contexte, qui conduit à émettre des réserves sur l'unité même du continent africain, invite à rechercher des solutions pour une coexistence pacifique entre les organisations internationales africaines. La survie et l'efficacité de l'intégration en Afrique en général, et en Afrique occidentale en particulier, en dépendent incontestablement. [R]
68.4223 NJIRU, Roseanne —
This article foregrounds the overlapping continuum of local to global fault lines that structure the human security experiences of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. Drawing on data from the 2007–2008 electoral violence-induced displacement of ethnic minorities in the Rift Valley region, the article discusses how the intersections of ethnicity, national politics, land rights, and global humanitarian politics on displacement positioned IDPs as outsiders in their own nation and how this shapes their ability to live secure lives. By so doing, the study transcends nation-state border focused forced migration to question the relevance of dichotomizing IDPs and refugees, which shapes their protection. [R,abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “Migration, migrants, and human security”]
68.4224 NORKUS, Zenonas —
This paper contributes to cliometric research on the economic output of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia between 1913 and 1938. According to an optimistic estimate, Lithuania's GDP per capita was below all-Russian mean in 1913, but was not less than USSR level in 1938, while Gediminas Vaskela's pessimistic estimate of the 1938 Lithuanian GDP implies its GDP growth underperformance. Using new sources, the first estimates of Latvia's output for the 1913–1938 period in cross-country and cross-temporally comparable measurement units are substantiated. Under optimistic estimates of Lithuanian GDP growth, this country was on par with Finland in terms of annual growth rates, with Latvia following next and Estonia displaying the weakest growth performance. [R,abr.]
68.4225 O'BRIEN, Thomas —
Protest is a tool that social movements can use to express discontent and present claims to those in power. In New Zealand, campaigns around native forest protection, genetic engineering, mining and offshore oil exploration have mobilised numerous participants, forcing the state to acknowledge public concerns and, in some cases, effect change of course. However, impact of the ideological orientation of the governing party on environmental protest behaviour is less well understood. This paper identifies how political opportunities and threats in the protest arena are shaped by changes in the electoral arena. The methodology of protest event analysis is used to identify environmental protest under the left-wing Labour (1999–2008) and right-wing National (2008–2017) governments. Findings suggest that the orientation of the governing party is important in shaping opportunities. [R,abr.]
68.4226 OLSEN, Gorm Rye —
This paper asks why Kenya invaded Somalia in October 2011. It scrutinises five possible explanations as to why Kenyan decision-makers decided to invade neighbouring Somalia. The explanations are inspired by different theoretical frameworks. Some are inspired by theories developed to analyse Western societies, whereas others are inspired by theoretical reflections aimed at understanding politics in Africa. I conclude that the decision to invade Somalia was made because of the institutional and ‘bureaucratic’ interests of the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) advanced by a limited number of men of Somali-Kenyan origin who pursued their own interests. Security and economic concerns did play a role, while the paper dismisses that the invasion can be understood as a consequence of the Kenyan government pursuing an ‘international image management strategy’. [R,abr.]
68.4227 ONGUR, Hakan Ovunc —
This study argues that the understanding of politics that prevails in contemporary Turkey resonates with Ernesto Laclau's perspective on Turkish politics of the 1930s. Adapting Laclau's antagonistic politics to the analysis of contemporary Turkey produces a critical counter-narrative that reveals in effect a continuation of an authoritarian tradition, between the socio-political discourses of the 1930s CHP and the present AKP. Accordingly, discourses of both political movements are fundamentally inspired by the same logic of difference, one that reduces the role of the construction of equivalential chains among different pre-existing political demands to a pragmatist game of hegemony. Their authoritarianisms, however, differ from one another in terms of the symbolic frameworks within which each respective regime is sustained. [R,abr.]
68.4228 ORDÓÑEZ, Sergio; SÁNCHEZ, Carlos —
Within the context of a new capitalistic phase of development, some South American countries undertook until recently a search process of an alternative path of development to neoliberalism, or “neo-developmentalism” experiences. In neo-developmentalist countries, the states’ inner action was complemented with the use, at the supranational scale, of the states’ external power to further a geo-economic and political realignment with China, Russia, the BRICS and the Global South, and, thus, a distancing from US and its hegemonic system of states. Centered on state action, to which we provide a set of theoretical foundations related to capitalistic phases of development from a Gramscian perspective, we explore neo-developmentalism experiences (particularly Brazil's and Argentina's), their supranational realignment and the possible consequences to multi-polarity, including the recent setbacks suffered by the progressive governments. [R] [See Abstr. 68.3234]
68.4229 PANKE, Diana; STAPEL, Sören —
European states have not only joined several regional organizations (ROs) over time, but ROs’ policy competencies have also broadened in scope. As a result, states are exposed to overlapping regionalism, defined as the extent to which ROs share member states and policy competencies at the same time. First, this article identifies patterns of overlapping regionalism in Europe. In second step, it sheds light on consequences from overlapping regionalism for RO effectiveness, more particularly non-compliance. We argue that an increase in the extent to which a member state is exposed to overlapping regionalism increases its probability for violations of RO norms and rules, which reduces RO effectiveness. [R,abr.]
68.4230 PAPACONSTANTINOU, George —
A decade has passed since the Greek economy started shrinking; eight years since the first-ever bailout of an EU member-state; six years since the largest debt haircut in history; and two years since a disastrous referendum almost cost Greece its place in the Eurozone. Greece's former finance minister (2009–2011) highlights the reasons that led to this development, the obstacles encountered along the way and the outlook for the country in the years to come. While major budgetary and structural adjustments have been achieved, the challenges Greece continues to face are numerous, including its momentous sovereign debt, the trust deficit vis-à-vis its European partners and ongoing domestic political polarization. For Greece to generate growth, jobs and prosperity for its citizens, it needs to change dramatically in order to attract foreign investment. [R,abr.]
68.4231 PARTIS-JENNINGS, Hannah —
I draw on a feminist approach to hybridity to explore interview data and observations from my field research in Afghanistan. I argue that there is a logic of masculinist protection influencing the affective environment of the peace-building project there. The combination of a perceived patriarchal context in Afghanistan and security routines protecting civilian internationals (and Afghan elites), which rely on hypermasculine signifiers, help to create and perpetuate the conditions in which the female (for both internationals and Afghans) is marked with insecurity. I point to hybridity between the foreign and female experience, as well as resistance and reflexivity within my research. I explore fragments of power hierarchies that cut through the meaning of gender, rendering the female state a disempowering one, always referenced in some uncertain, hybrid way as protected or in need of protection. [R]
68.4232 PELLIKAAN, Huib; LANGE, Sarah L. de; VAN DER MEER, Tom W. G. —
Like many party systems across Western Europe, the Dutch party system has been in flux since 2002 as a result of a series of related developments, including the decline of mainstream parties which coincided with the emergence of radical right-wing populist parties and the concurrent dimensional transformation of the political space. This article analyses how these challenges to mainstream parties fundamentally affected the structure of party competition. On the basis of content analysis of party programmes, we examine the changing configuration of the Dutch party space since 2002 and investigate the impact of these changes on coalition-formation patterns. We conclude that the Dutch party system has become increasingly unstable. It has gradually lost its core through electoral fragmentation and mainstream parties’ positional shifts. The disappearance of a core party that dominates the coalition-formation process initially transformed the direction of party competition from centripetal to centrifugal. [R,abr.]
68.4233 PERAZA, Arturo —
The first months of 2017 have witnessed Venezuela's dangerous authoritarian drift. The Supreme Court deprived the Parliament of its powers and on July 30th a National Constituent Assembly was created, which contravened both the Constitution in force and the will of the people of Venezuela. Despite several mediation attempts, from the Holy See in particular, the government in office does not seem ready to renounce to an increasingly authoritarian regime. Meanwhile, the country is plunging into a situation of poverty and violence. [R, transl.]
68.4234 PIATTONI, Simona; VERZICHELLI, Luca; WAGEMANN, Claudius —
This introduction justifies the decision to focus on Italo-German relations — and in particular on the way in which prejudices and stereotypes affect them — in light of a long history of parallel political and economic development of the two countries and the central role that they are likely to play in the next phase of European integration. After briefly presenting the chapters that compose the special issue, the introduction dwells on the importance of analysing both bilateral and transnational relations at EU level as they reciprocally influence the role that these two major EU member states may play in Europe. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue on “Amici come prima? Italy and Germany in times of crisis”. See Abstr. 68.3432, 3913, 4066, 4100]
68.4235 POLLARD, Stacey Erin; POPLACK, David Alexander; CASEY, Kevin Carroll —
We analyze IS's competitive advantages through the lens of two defining structural conditions in the Middle East North Africa (MENA): failure of state institutions and nationhood. It is commonly understood that the MENA faces challenges associated with state fragility, but our examination of state and national resiliency shows that Syria and Iraq yield the most deleterious results in the breakdown of the nation, suggesting that the combined failure of state and nation, as well as IS's ability to fill these related vacuities, is a significant reason IS thrives there today. Against this backdrop, we provide a model of IS's state- and nation-making project, and illustrate IS's clear competitive advantages over all other state and non-state actors in both countries, except for Kurdish groupings. [R,abr.]
68.4236 POTRAFKE, Niklas —
This paper describes the influence of government ideology on economic policy-making in the US. I review studies using data for the national, state and local levels and elaborate on checks and balances, especially divided government, measurement of government ideology and empirical strategies to identify causal effects. Many studies conclude that parties do matter in the US. Democratic presidents generate, for example, higher rates of economic growth than Republican presidents, but these studies using data for the national level do not identify causal effects. Ideology-induced policies are prevalent at the state level: Democratic governors implement somewhat more expansionary and liberal policies than Republican governors. At the local level, government ideology hardly influences economic policy-making at all. [R,abr.]
68.4237 PRICHARD, Wilson —
Studies of political budget cycles in developing countries have generally sought to inform understanding of short-term fiscal dynamics, but can also offer unique insight into broader political dynamics in developing countries. This article correspondingly employs markedly improved data in order to study the impact of elections on tax collection, and draw broader lessons. It shows that while elections as a group have had no significant effect on tax collection, the subset of competitive elections has had a significant negative impact on pre-election tax collection; while this effect appears to be largest where incumbents are particularly unpopular. This provides powerful evidence that the impact of elections on political incentives in developing countries is conditioned by the existence of an electorally competitive opposition. [R,abr.]
68.4238 QUAYLE, Linda —
Why does Indonesia, whose role as primus inter pares is readily acknowledged by its peers, struggle to translate that position into an unambiguous, consistent, and effective regional presence? This article argues that such a role is exercised not in a vacuum, susceptible to measurement against a set of fixed criteria, but in the context of its respective region's unique and constantly evolving profile. Drawing on the English School's concept of institutions, and focusing on three areas within the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (migration, disaster preparedness, and the environment), the article argues that the paradox of Indonesia's powerful-but-not-powerful position reflects the kind of “great-power management” that is to be expected in the restrictive context of regional international society, and is profoundly influenced by the uneven interplay of institutions embedded at different levels in the regional experience. [R,abr.]
68.4239 RATELLE, Jean-François; SOULEIMANOV, Emil Aslan —
This article posits that the remnants of archaic sociocultural norms, particularly the honour-imposed custom of retaliation, play a crucial role in the process of insurgent engagement in Russia's autonomous republic of Dagestan. Through a series of interviews with former insurgents, this study outlines two retaliation-centred mechanisms: “individual retaliation” and “spiritual retaliation” in order to explain the microcosm of motives behind insurgent activity in Dagestan. In doing so, this study problematizes the role of Salafi/Jihadist ideology as the main impetus for insurgent violence. Reversing the traditional causal link between violence and religion, this study also demonstrates that the development of Jihadist ideology is a by-product of insurgent mobilization rather than its cause. [R]
68.4240 RATTANASENGCHANH, Phimmasone Michael —
From 2003 to 2013, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen benefitted politically from promoting nationalism through the Preah Vihear dispute between Cambodia and Thailand. In contrast, Thai conservatives had mixed results when they laid claim to Preah Vihear and tried to use the temple to bolster their political positions. When it came to media coverage of the temple and border issue, Thailand's domestic and foreign politics, rather than Cambodia's, dominated the narrative. As a result, both countries engaged in a war of words and several military clashes between 2008 and 2013. Thailand was widely viewed as the instigator and Cambodia as the victim. However, a closer look at Cambodia's reactions to Thailand's provocations reveals an important part of the story. These quarrels and conflicts seemed to arise before major elections in Cambodia. [R,abr.]
68.4241 REMINGTON, Thomas F. —
This article considers Russian income inequality in relation to the trend toward rising inequality in the US and in most parts of the world. Income and wealth inequality in Russia has been rising, and wealth inequality is now highest in the world. The analysis shows that inequality trends in Russia share some characteristics with other developed and developing economies, including technological change, increased integration in the global economy, and the capitalization of rent streams. Financialization and dependence on natural resource extraction contribute strongly to both cross-sectional and cross-regional inequality in Russia. The absence of institutions for aggregating broad competing social interests — whether corporatist or partisan — restricts the capacity of the political system to set agreed rules governing the distribution of the burdens and benefits of economic growth. [R,abr.]
68.4242 RENAUDIE, Maxime —
Taking the French public university system as a case study, this paper offers a legal analysis to interpret the conflicting perspectives regarding the recent evolution of university management and academics’ traditional working organization. The progressive implementation of new public management reforms gives university managers a strategic role. However, the rise of managerial authority faces recurrent criticism from academics claiming it threatens their traditions and freedoms. After reviewing the most decisive university reforms, we reassess the unique legal features of the French academic organization. We particularly focus on the civil servant status, decision-making procedures such as faculty recruitment, and legal protections such as the principles of academics’ independence. [R,abr.]
68.4243 RODON, Toni; GUINJOAN, Marc —
We complement previous works by showing that the relationship between identity and support for secession changes as a function of the context in which an individual interacts, an effect particularly important among those with mixed national and regional identities. The first stage of our empirical analysis is based on a pool of 22,000 individuals in the context of Catalonia. Findings confirm that dual-identity individuals are especially affected by their immediate surroundings: the probability to vote in favor of independence among them substantially increases when the percentage of people speaking Catalan increases. On a second stage, we explore the existence of a social interaction mechanism by employing a survey that measures the preferences of people's close networks. [R,abr.]
68.4244 RODRIGUEZ CUADROS, José Dario —
The next elections will be a fundamental test for sustaining the peace agreement signal in 2016 between the Colombian government and FARC, putting an end to 50–years-long armed conflict. [R, transl.]
68.4245 ROSA, Paolo —
The IR literature has not produced a systematic typology of the different models of strategic cultures. This study aims to close this gap and contribute to the development and refinement of the concept of strategic culture by elaborating a typology that is based on current studies and researches. The typology is employed to analyse the strategic culture of the Italian political elite in the 21st c. Using an empirical analysis of the belief systems of the Italian party and bureaucratic elites, the study determines whether the model of Italian strategic culture, which has remained dominant since WWII, persisted during the post-Cold War period and the extent to which the current leadership has an image of international politics and strategic preferences consistent with this model. [R]
68.4246 ROZENAS, Arturas; SADANANDAN, Anoop —
A rich theoretical literature argues that, in contradiction to Duverger's law, the plurality voting rule can fail to produce two-party system when voters do not share their common information about the electoral situation. We present an empirical operationalization and a series of tests of this informational hypothesis in the case of India using constituency- and individual-level data. In highly illiterate constituencies where access to information and information-sharing among voters is low, voters often fail to coordinate on the two most viable parties. In highly literate constituencies, voters are far more successful at avoiding vote-wasting — in line with the informational hypothesis. At a micro-level, these aggregate-level patterns are driven by the interaction of individual information and the informational context. [R,abr.]
68.4247 SÁ GUIMARÃES, Feliciano de; TAVARES DE ALMEIDA, Maria Hermínia —
This article uses the concept of entrepreneurial powers to discuss how and [in] what circumstances Brazil successfully accomplishes its goals in international crises. The concept of entrepreneurial power focuses on systematic evidence of middle-power behavior and its relation to foreign policy tools. Brazil resorts to three agency-based foreign policy tools that are the substance of its entrepreneurial power. These instruments are always mediated by a structural condition, the dominant power pivotal position in the crisis. This study applies qualitative comparative analysis methodology to 32 international crises since the early 1990s in which Brazil played a role. [R,abr.]
68.4248 SAIYA, Nilay —
This article examines the effect of blasphemy laws on Islamist terrorism in Muslim-majority countries. Although passed with the ostensibly noble purpose of defending religion, I argue that blasphemy laws encourage terrorism by creating a culture of vigilantism in which terrorists, claiming to be the defenders of Islam, attack those they believe are guilty of heresy. This study empirically tests this proposition, along with alternative hypotheses, using a time-series, cross-national negative binomial analysis of 51 Muslim-majority states from 1991–2013. [R,abr.]
68.4249 SAJEDI, Amir —
The author argues that the change of tactics by the US and President Trump's ensuing policy which shows the desire of his administration to renew the era of US adventurism in a hotspot such as the Middle East, has made the Syrian crisis far more complex. An analysis of his actions in Syria is accomplished through the prism of security and political complexities in the region and the interwoven roles of regional players. [R]
68.4250 SALE, Giovanni —
On 21 December 2017, after a lively and unusual electoral campaign, regional elections took place in Catalonia: a phase, albeit important, but certainly not the end of a conflict that for several months has been opposing the so-called “separatists” and the unionists. To win the elections, it was the “blocking” independents, that is, the three political forces that governed the outgoing Catalan Parliament, which will have to rebuild the internal divisions. The fact remains that half of the Catalan voters are not in favor of independence. [R]
68.4251 SANOVICH, Sergey; STUKAL, Denis; TUCKER, Joshua A. —
We introduce a novel classification of strategies employed by autocrats to combat online opposition generally, and opposition on social media in particular. Our classification distinguishes both online from offline responses and censorship from engaging in opinion-formation. For each of the three options — offline action, technical restrictions on access to content, and online engagement — we provide a detailed account for the evolution of Russian government strategy since 2000. To illustrate the feasibility of researching online engagement, we construct and assess tools for detecting the activity of political “bots,” or algorithmically controlled accounts, on Russian political Twitter, and test these methods on a large dataset of politically relevant Twitter data from Russia gathered over a year and a half. [R]
68.4252 SATO, Yuko —
In China during the Cultural Revolution (CR), physicist Albert Einstein became one of the main targets of criticism. Why did China criticize him, while it was developing nuclear weapons based on his theories? This article argues that basic research in China then was entangled in power struggle, which contained a controversy over China's handling of intellectuals and its conception of the West. Even during the CR, however, scientists’ struggle for building a high-energy accelerator continued. Zhou Enlai supported it for his own power struggle as well as China's nuclear development. The Lin Biao incident and the Sino-US rapprochement provided Zhou and his group opportunities to undermine the CR's logic. Thus, this article argues that rebuilding of basic research in China was intertwined with both domestic and international politics. [R]
68.4253 SCHMÄLTER, Julia —
Although human rights treaties offer neither positive nor negative incentives, a majority of EU member states fully comply with civil liberties. This article seeks to identify the conditions able to clarify this paradox. Current EU compliance research struggles to provide a comprehensive explanation since (a) there is a lack of studies on practical implementation and (b) it rarely takes into account policy-specificity. The author suggests that a two-level theory based on capability and willingness is a useful approach for analyzing practical implementation when complemented with policy-specific conditions. Using fuzzy-set analysis, the author confirms that capability, namely judicial capability, executive capability or democratic experience, and willingness, namely a solid system of checks and balances, a strong civil society and an active participation in international organizations, are individually necessary. [R,abr.]
68.4254 SCHMID, Dorothée —
The Arab Spring has shaken dysfunctional states were built upon the recurrent use of violence. However, it has also brought about reforms in those states that have held out, as well as leading to the rediscovery of the virtues of effective states in countries that have initiated democratic transition, including attention to the demands of minorities. The West is ill-prepared for this renewal of demands upon the state, which should firstly involve the reconstruction of societies. [R]
68.4255 SELIM, Yvette —
The shift to adopting holistic approaches in transitional justice indicates an intention to pay (greater) attention to politics in transitional justice. However, transitional justice actors frequently encounter difficulties in doing so, misread politics and misconstrue where to locate it in post-conflict contexts. Using research from Nepal I argue that there is considerable political activity taking place that challenges transitional justice on multiple scales. This research demonstrates that actors frequently seek to advance their interests and make claims utilizing the process, institutions and language of transitional justice. [R,abr.]
68.4256 SENNINGER, Roman; BISCHOF, Daniel —
We examine how policy issues addressed by political parties travel across the national and European legislative arena. We define ‘party policy issue transfer’ as the articulation of similar issues in the work of political parties at different parliamentary venues in short distance of time and argue that issues particularly transfer within the same party. This is mainly so for three reasons: exchange of information between parties across levels, national parties’ attempts to influence European Union policies, and career incentives of representatives at the supranational level. We test our theoretical framework using unique data on parliamentary questions asked by Danish representatives (the Folketing and the European Parliament, 1999–2009) and a dyadic data structure. Our results show that parties’ policy issues transfer across the national and European levels on a regular basis. [R,abr.]
68.4257 SHAD, Muhammad Riaz —
The principal question of this research is: what has led Russia to perceive NATO-EU expansion to the post-Soviet region as a zero-sum-game and undertake coercive tactics to obstruct it? This study concludes that the post-Cold War European security order, founded on the centrality of the EU and NATO, was a great success in terms of post-communist stabilization of Eastern and Central Europe. However, it failed to accommodate Russia as an equal partner. [R,abr.]
68.4258 SHAH, Kriti M. —
As the US war in Afghanistan enters its 16th year, the Taliban insurgency shows no signs of waning; therefore it is worth deliberating aspects of the movement that have been ignored or forgotten by the West. Pashtuns, many of whom are loyal Taliban members, are an integral part of the instability that has wracked Afghanistan for generations. This paper seeks to understand the Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, exploring their role in any resolution to the war. [R]
68.4259 SHAPAROV, Aleksandr E. —
This paper examines immigration policy-making between the EU member states and EU institutions during the European migrant crisis. A significant dilemma in terms of culture clash consists in often conflicting values that immigrants from traditional Third World countries bring to Europe, a really downright hatred they often display towards liberal values and what is perceived as the decadence of the Western civilization. The EU has considerable experience in immigration, refugee policy and selection of suitable settlers. The implementation of Schengen Agreements and the Dublin Convention most visibly indicates that the European integration process is a difficult problem. The Visegrad Four states (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic) have been resisting mass immigration policies in the face of stern criticism from leading EU nations such as Germany and France. [R,abr.]
68.4260 SHIRLOW, Peter, ed. —
Articles by Peter SHIRLOW; John NAGLE; Brendan MURTAGH; Claire PIERSON.
68.4261 SHISHELINA, Lyubov N. —
The analysis follows the evolution of the Visegrad Group in the context of the changing international situation and transformation processes that spread over this part of Europe after the collapse of the socialist system. The author traces the whole chain of transformation processes — economic, political, ideological — the role of convergence with the EU and NATO, the influence of these factors on establishment and development of the union of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic as well as on shaping of its modern image. Special emphasis is laid on the common foreign policy-making of the Four, the impact of world economic crises and current international political problems, such as civil war in Ukraine and the flood of migrants from Asia and Africa. [R,abr.]
68.4262 SIMAN, Maíra; SANTOS, Victória —
This article approaches the Brazilian military involvement in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti and the pacification program undertaken in Rio de Janeiro favelas under the name of “Pacifying Police Units” (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora) in order to understand the forms through which a specific security-development nexus is mobilized in those security practices, as well as the policies and priorities which are legitimated by such mobilizations. It is argued that these engagements are marked by a conception of such nexus in which the first element, security, is constructed as the production of public order; and the second one, development, is constantly postponed as a goal, in spite of official discourses which construct it as a priority in Brazilian internal and external engagements. [R,abr.]
68.4263 SIMANGAN, Dahlia —
Several scholars have previously demonstrated that unresolved tensions from international-local encounters result in a negative hybrid peace in which political and social hierarchies are preserved and conflict and violence persist. To add to existing analyses on the local turn in peace-building, this article analyzes some of the causes and consequences of negative hybrid peace using the case of Timor-Leste. Exclusive and superficial local involvement, political cleavages within the local leadership, and unresolved tensions from international-local encounters were roadblocks in Timor-Leste's post-conflict peace-building. These characteristics prelude a return to a status quo dominated by the local elite and plagued with governance and socio-economic issues. [R,abr.]
68.4264 SINHA, Samrat —
The northeastern region of India has witnessed several armed movements that have sought to achieve a variety of political goals ranging from secession to limited autonomy for specific ethnic groups. In seeking to limit the violence perpetrated in the course of these contemporary subnational insurgencies, a multilayered approach has been developed by the Government of India and, more specifically, by the Ministry of Home Affairs in coordination with the provincial (or state) governments. [R,abr.]
68.4265 SONNICKSEN, Jared —
The article addresses the EU as system of government in order to identify one appropriate path of democratisation. It first revisits separation of powers and the typology of parliamentary and presidential government to delineate criteria for categorising horizontal (i.e., between branches) division-of-powers arrangements. To this end, it elaborates in particular the criteria proposed by Steffani which allow for a more parsimonious differentiation between types of governments. Subsequently, the EU polity (e.g., its structure and functioning of separation of powers and “checks and balances”) is assessed regarding its conformity to a government type. Finally, I discuss implications for identifying a more certain point of reference for an approach to democratise EU government that is not only institutionally compatible, but also ‘demos-enabling’. [R,abr.]
68.4266 SORIA ROMO, Rigoberto —
This paper estimates the cost of insecurity and crime (CID) in Mexico at a state level for 2013. The accounting approach is used, classifying costs as follows: anticipation, consequence or remedial, and response. Each of these is measured in terms of the state's GDP and per capita. National average for CID in 2013 was 5.69 per cent of GDP. The average CID per capita is 6,799 Mexican pesos. It is observed that the richest states are the ones that spend the most. This relation deserves further discussion. We conclude that if the expenditure in public security were oriented to prevention of insecurity, social expenditure, infrastructure or some other area that may impact cultural change, economic growth and job-generation, this would allow to boost greater social equality and opportunities. [R]
68.4267 SOUTOU, Georges-Henri —
The notion of empire took shape in Europe by way of a complex history, stemming from the break-up of the Roman Empire, through to the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to that of the czars. Empires can promote peace by internalizing conflicts, but they can also be factors of war, as in the 20th c. Their dissolution often leads to instability, but their pre-national mode of operation can also help to envisage the post-national. [R]
68.4268 STANDRING, Adam —
The relationship between the Euro crisis and austerity policies is often understood in terms of broadly deterministic explanations centred around economic imperatives and, in the case of bailed out countries, the conditionality of international lenders. Applying a multi-lens framework of depoliticisation to the case of Portugal between 2011 and 2015, this article instead refocuses analysis on the discourse employed by national politicians, in their construction of crisis narratives, to build the political authority to pass reforms. The Portuguese case is particularly effective at demonstrating how depoliticisation, ‘relocates politics and the political rather than annihilating it’. [R]
68.4269 STEINHARDT, H. Christoph; LI, Linda Chelan; JIANG Yihong —
This article addresses the challenges of understanding, measuring and explaining political identities in post-1997 Hong Kong. It shows that national and local identities are better conceptualized as two distinct attitudes and captured with separate scaled items than as opposite poles of one attitude measured in a single categorical item. This approach reveals that the key shift occurred not in local identity, but in nationalistic sentiments, which have initially increased but have been on a downward trend since 2008. It also shows that national and local identities were perceived as robustly compatible for most years since 1997, but have begun to drift apart in recent years. Considering competing accounts to explain national identity strength, trust in the central government stands out as the dominant factor. [R,abr.]
68.4270 STENT, Angela —
Review essay of Alexander COOLEY and John HEATHERSHAW, Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (2017); Anna SANINA, Patriotic Education in Contemporary Russia: Sociological Studies in the Making of the Post-Soviet Citizen (2017); Steven PIFER, The Eagle and the Trident: US-Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times (2017); Svetlana ALEXIEVICH, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (2017); Dmitri TRENIN, What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East? (2018).
68.4271 STOCKWIN, Arthur —
This article is based on the assumption that the Japanese political system is fully comparable with the systems of other major systems, and that its analysis may afford useful insights for the understanding of political systems more generally. Its focus is upon five successive transformations of the system since the late 19th c. that, in sequence and taken together, have created the present system. These are: (1) the revolutionary changes of the Meiji period (1868–1912), leading to modernization, militarism, and ultimate defeat in war; (2) occupation, democracy, economic resurgence and single-party dominance (1945–1990); (3) low growth, electoral reform and neo-liberalism (1991–2006); (4) Liberal Democratic Party decline and the opposition in power (2006–2012); and (5) authoritarian leadership with weak opposition (2012 onwards). [R,abr.]
68.4272 SUR, Serge —
Since the 1990s, Europe has undergone a process of fragmentation, and its oldest states are currently subject to secessionist enticements. Furthermore, the integrity of several territories has been shattered, with globalization triggering and increase in the number of state structures. Empires not quite lost, or even resurgent, are casting a pall over several new states, whose proper functioning is not assured by their secession. [R]
68.4273 SZENT-IVÁNYI, Balázs; VÉGH, Zsuzsanna —
The article examines the democracy aid practices of the Czech Republic and Poland in Georgia. These two countries have recently emerged as promoters of democracy, and have argued that their own transition experience puts them in a unique position to support democratization and the consolidation of democracy in the European Union's eastern neighbourhood. The article evaluates how these two countries provide democracy aid to Georgia along three criteria, derived from the aid effectiveness literature: supporting locally driven change, learning from results, and coordination. The results indicate that both countries have plenty of space to improve the way their democracy aid is delivered. Neither country has formal systems in place to ensure that they actually support Georgian priorities. [R,abr.]
68.4274 TEO, Sarah —
This paper explores the middle-power identities of Australia and South Korea during the Kevin Rudd/Julia Gillard (2007–2013) and Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) administrations. Considering the problems in the existing position, behavior, impact and identity-based definitions of middle powers, examining how self-identities middle powers have constructed such an identity would offer useful insights into the middle power concept. Relying on a framework that captures an identity's content and contestation, this paper argues that while Australia and South Korea have assumed a middle power identity, their visualizations of this identity are slightly different. Australia has understood its middle power identity in both economic and security terms, whereas South Korea appears to have connected such an identity more with the economic dimension. These differences affect how they envision their respective middle power roles in international affairs. [R]
68.4275 THOMSON, Jennifer —
In recent years, several decisions have been made regarding the devolution of abortion laws from central government at Westminster to the devolved regions of the UK. This article considers the decision to devolve abortion law to Scotland. It addresses Westminster debates from the time, employing a discursive analysis to examine the arguments made for this legislative move. It argues that the debate was largely a proxy argument for the broader question of Westminster-Edinburgh relations and Scottish independence. It further argues that utilising abortion in this way is problematic, and politicises an area which is better seen as an issue solely of women's rights. [R]
68.4276 TICHÝ, Lukáš —
The aim of this article is to analyze the main characteristic features of the security culture of the Russian Federation (RF) during Medvedev's presidency in the context of the Russian foreign and security policy in the period 2008–2012. The second aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the continuity of the main features of the Russian security culture represents a possible starting point for understanding the reasons for the current Russian military intervention in Crimea. The main features of the Russian security culture will be searched for on three levels: firstly, the level of key foreign and security strategic documents of the RF; secondly, that of the Russian position toward military interventions; and finally, that of Russia's relations with the West. [R]
68.4277 TVEIT, Andreas Kokkvoll —
Norway, previously an international frontrunner concerning reductions of transboundary air pollution, fell far short of its 2010 target for nitrogen oxides (NOx) under the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol. In this article I show that leading international compliance theories cannot explain much of this noncompliance. While little evidence supports the management school's explanations, Norwegian policies are also inconsistent with the enforcement school. Albeit too late to meet the deadline, Norway imposed a NOx tax in 2007. Moreover, the resulting emissions reductions were deeper than in a business-as-usual scenario, despite no international enforcement. That the NOx tax was imposed only after an environmentalist party gained considerable influence over NOx policies in 2005 supports an office-incumbent hypothesis. However, as emissions also declined significantly in many other European countries after 2005, the explanation is likely structural. [R,abr.]
68.4278 URAS, Alessandro —
This article investigates the nationalistic rhetoric disseminated by the Chinese political elite regarding the South China Sea, exploring how this political discourse contributed to building a collective consciousness of the sea among Chinese citizens and to creating a new maritime province. [R]
68.4279 VAN GYAMPO, Ransford Edward —
Following Ghana's December 2012 elections, there was a protracted election petition process at the nation's Supreme Court challenging the declaration of the winner as the duly elected presidential candidate. Even though the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the declared winner, it made several recommendations that paved the way for numerous interventions aimed at putting together proposals for electoral reform to fine-tune Ghana's electoral processes. Several such reform proposals were submitted to the Electoral Commission by the end of 2013. Nevertheless, these were not implemented to guide the 2016 general elections. The successful conduct of the 2016 elections has therefore been described as a “miracle”. [R,abr.]
68.4280 VIJGE, Marjanneke J. —
This article provides theoretical and empirical insights into the effects of transparency on civil society empowerment by analyzing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Myanmar. It identifies three processes through which the EITI (dis)empowers civil society: constituting, using, and debating transparency. Whereas most transparency literature focuses on the effects of information disclosure — (using transparency) — the empowering effects of constituting and debating transparency are, for the EITI in Myanmar, much greater. While civil society organizations (CSOs) hardly use the EITI report as it lacks actionable information, the EITI has given CSOs a previously unimaginable role through their involvement in designing and implementing the EITI — i.e., in constituting transparency — and in EITI-related awareness-raising activities and debates, or debating transparency. [R,abr.]
68.4281 WAGEMAKERS, Joas —
Over the last decade, a rift has emerged among Jihadi-salafis in Jordan between the “Zarqawiyyun” — who see Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi as their model and concentrate on combat — and the “Maqdisiyyun” — who want more scholarly guidance, emphasize the establishment of an Islamic State and follow Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. The conflict in Syria, however, offered options for both: a jihad against a reviled regime and the possibility to set up an Islamic state. It thus had the potential to unite the “Zarqawiyyun” and the “Maqdisiyyun.” This article analyzes why this did not happen. [R]
68.4282 WEERARATNE, Suranjan —
This research investigates the dramatic expansion of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria in the last few years. Militant activity has expanded in terms of frequency and severity of attacks, geographic scope, target selection, and strategies used. The evolution of the group and the trajectory of violence are best explained through four overlapping theoretical strands. These include the growing fragmentation of the movement, development of strategic ties with Al Qaeda affiliates, strong-armed counterterrorism operations that further radicalized the movement, and exploitation of the porous border area that separates Nigeria from its northern neighbors. [R]
68.4283 WENGLE, Susanne A. —
Rising global prices for agricultural commodities have led to the inflow of capital to rural economies and to transfers of land ownership to new agricultural operators (NAOs) in developing and post Soviet countries. How capital inflows affect rural communities is often explained with the variable of institutional strength, an explanation aligned with the good governance approach to economic development: Capital inflows have positive developmental effects, if strong domestic institutions vet land deals and regulate NAOs. Contra the focus on institutional parameters as exogenous variables, this article highlights the role of political projects in shaping local outcomes and driving institutional change. Evolving political priorities are important to understand domestic rural transformations because they lead to interventions that privilege some actors as agents of change, while others are sidelined — hence transforming local economies. [R,abr.]
68.4284 WERNER, Cynthia Ann; EMMELHAINZ, Celia; BARCUS, Holly —
This article explores issues of citizenship and belonging associated with post-Soviet Kazakhstan's repatriation programme. Beginning in 1991, Kazakhstan financed the resettlement of over 944,000 diasporic Kazakhs from nearly a dozen countries, including Mongolia, and encouraged repatriates to become naturalised citizens. Using the concept of ‘privileged exclusion’, this article argues that repatriated Kazakhs from Mongolia belong due to their knowledge of Kazakh language and traditions yet, at the same time, do not belong due to their lack of linguistic fluency in Russian, the absence of a shared Soviet experience, and limited comfort with the ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that characterises the new elite in this post-Soviet context. [R]
68.4285 WIMER, Christopher; COLLYER, Sophie; KIMBERLIN, Sara —
This article provides estimates of the potential anti-poverty impacts of eight proposals presented in this double issue of RSF. Using the 2016 Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey and the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Supplemental Poverty Measure, we first discuss the simulation approach taken for each proposal and then provide a consistent set of poverty estimates across proposals that include reductions in the poverty and deep poverty rates and the poverty gap; demographic differences; and net direct government costs. Anti-poverty impacts are largest for the most costly proposals, but less costly and more targeted proposals still have substantial potential impacts for key subgroups. [R]
68.4286 WOLFF, Jonas —
Since President Morales took office in Bolivia in early 2006, the country has undergone a complex political transformation. This profound process of change is, however, hardly reflected in established democracy indices, which by and large paint a picture of institutional continuity. The article compares qualitative and quantitative assessments of Bolivia's contemporary political regime and argues that existing measures of democracy largely miss one key dimension that is crucial when it comes to analysing (changes in) the quality of democracy: the issue of political incorporation. Specifically, the case of Bolivia shows that democracy indices mostly ignore important changes in terms of descriptive representation, party incorporation, and non-electoral participation. Privileging an individualist conception of liberal democracy, democracy measures downplay the extent to which different social groups are or are not incorporated into the political system. [R,abr.]
68.4287 WOODWARD, Richard —
The UK's ongoing political turbulence has prompted a reprise of debates from the 1970s when many concluded the country was ungovernable. Then, the most influential diagnosis conceptualised the UK's governance problem as one of ‘overloading’ caused by the electorate's excessive expectations. This article argues that these accounts overlooked another phenomenon besieging UK governance during this period. This phenomenon was freeloading: the withering of government capacity deriving from the ability of actors to enjoy the benefits of citizenship without altogether contributing to the cost. In the interim, these problems have become endemic, not least because of the unspoken but discernible policy of successive governments to turn the UK into a tax haven. High profile scandals have reinforced the perception that the UK's political system is geared towards the rich and the powerful at the expense of the marginalised majority. [R]
68.4288 WOźNIAKOWSKI, Tomasz P. —
This paper shows that the emergence of the federal power to tax is the result of a sovereign debt crisis at the state level. I analyse the fiscal history of the early US to demonstrate how the institutional flaws of the Articles of Confederation, mainly the central budget based on contributions from the states, so-called ‘requisitions’, led to a sovereign debt crisis on the state level, which triggered taxpayers’ revolts in 1786/1787. This social unrest, in turn, was perceived by the political élite as an endogenous threat to the union and paved the way for the fiscalization of the federal government, i.e., the creation of a fiscal union with the federal power to tax based firmly in the Constitution of 1789. This analysis concludes with four insights for the EU. [R]
68.4289 WU Fengshi —
This special volume attempts to enhance the understanding of a seemingly paradoxical pair of patterns in contemporary Chinese politics, namely, the resilience of the Communist regime and the robustness of social autonomy. The papers, while contributing to the central theme from different sectors/subfields, converge on the aspect where the agencies of the Chinese state and the society interact and exert influence on each other. Instead of simply giving away summaries and revealing intricate findings, this introduction focuses on the overall scope and shared analytical perspective of all the papers included, and the interlinkages across them in order to facilitate the reading of the whole volume. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title. See Abstr. 68.698, 3733, 3811, 3851, 4292]
68.4290 XIANG Lanxin —
Review essay of Kurt M. CAMPBELL, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia (Twelve, 2016); Tom MILLER, China's Asian Dream: Empire Building along the New Silk Road (U. Chicago Press, 2017); Andrew L. OROS, Japan's Security Renaissance: New Policies and Politics for the Twenty-First Century (Columbia U.P., 2017); LE HONG Hiep, Living Next to the Giant: The Political Economy of Vietnam's Relations with China under Doi Moi (ISEAS, 2017); KIM Byung-Yeon, Unveiling the North Korean Economy: Collapse and Transition (Cambridge U.P., 2017).
68.4291 YAGCI, Alper H. —
This article surveys the political economy of coups in Turkey, examining both their economic causes and the economic consequences they seem to generate. Military intervention attempts tend to follow already troublesome economic times: Before the 1960 and 1980 coups, 1971 and 2007 memoranda, as well as the failed coup attempts in 1962 and 2016, economic growth slowed down compared to a previous five-year period. This is in line with global trends about coups becoming likely following slower economic growth. Furthermore, students of Turkish politics have noticed a more specific economic policy-making pattern centering on currency devaluation during episodes preceding coups. This article discusses whether such a pattern may be taken as a ‘local theory’ of Turkish coups while discussing its limitations. [R,abr.]
68.4292 YAN Xiaojun; JIE Huang —
Communist Party branches in private enterprises. This article examines such efforts with specific reference to the campaign initiated in 2012 in Anhui province, once of the most recent initiatives undertaken by the party-state to infiltrate the country's huge and still-growing private sector. The article examines the emerging and dynamic institutional links between provincial party-state apparatus and local private businesses in Anhui and highlights the four key methods used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to extend its control over the increasingly powerful and influential private sector. These mechanisms are establishing new official institutions to coordinate CCP affairs related to the private sector. [R,abr.] [See Abstr. 68.4289]
68.4293 YASHLAVSKII, Andrei E. —
The rise of the terrorist group “Islamic State” amidst conflicts in Syria and Iraq has aggravated a crisis inside the Al Qaeda depriving it of the “terrorist group number 1 in the world” status. Nevertheless, this terrorist network still exists and is active. Moreover, Al-Qaeda was able to adapt to ever-changing conditions, and its affiliates in different parts of the world act as powerful actors in regional conflicts (e.g. “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula”, “ Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb”, “Al-Shabaab” in Somalia, etc.). Syrian civil war has generated a split of the former Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda (“Islamic State of Iraq”) and Al-Qaeda's Arab veterans into two major rival groups (ISIS and “Al-Nusra Front”). The rivalry of these groups in Syria has resulted in an antagonism between the “Islamic State” and Ayman al-Zawahiri's “historical” Al-Qaeda. [R,abr.]
68.4294 YILMAZ, Ozcan —
This article analyzes the identity dimension of the foreign policy of Turkey and its relationship with the West. It argues that analyses which gave a decisive place to the identity factor, hence to the Westernization of the country, lead to an “essentialization” of its foreign policy by explaining it through the relationship of two exclusive categories with the West, namely the Kemalists’ supposedly unconditional pro-Occidentalism and the Conservatives/Islamists’ supposed anti-Occidentalism. However, this binary reading fails to address the complexity of Turkish foreign policy and the complex relationship of these categories with the West. [R]
68.4295 ZIELINSKI, Lea-Sophie —
Since the funding of the UN, the US has been strong and continuous supporter of the UN's international human rights mechanisms. However, every US administration has also shown exceptionalism and ambiguity in its human rights policy: non-ratification of core treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), prioritizing security concerns at the expense of absolute human rights in the aftermath of 9/11 [2001], or severe limitations of human rights on the ground, not to mention the bleak situation of economic, social, and cultural rights in the US itself. Yet, the US administration under D. Trump will take ambiguity and violation of human rights to another level. [R]
68.4296 ZOHLNHÖFER, Reimut; ENGLER, Fabian; DÜMIG, Kathrin —
Why have advanced democracies experienced a retreat of the interventionist state since 1980? This article provides evidence that in all relevant policy indicators (spending, subsidies, state-owned enterprises, regulation, capital taxation) government intervention has been scaled back across the OECD. An overview of the results of 130 quantitative studies analysing at least one of these indicators is provided. Focusing on five main explanatory variables — globalization, Europeanization, learning and emulation, socio-economic problems, and political parties — only limited agreement in the literature is found. The reasons for this disagreement are discussed. Ways forward are suggested for the theoretical models on which studies are based. [R,abr.]
68.4297
Articles by Colson WHITEHEAD; Ibram X. KENDI; Michael HOCHGESCHWENDER; Britta WALDSCHMIDT-NELSON; Jens KASTNER; Ousmane POWER-GREENE; Christopher VIALS; Christian WERTH-SCHULTE; Astrid FRANKE.
68.4298
Introduction by Oktay F. TANRISEVER. Articles by Nevzat SIMSEK, Cengizhan CANALTAY and Hayal Ayça SIMSEK, “Trade relations between Turkey and Kazakhstan on the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan's independence”, pp. 7–28; Arastu HABIBBEYLI, “Reconsidering Azerbaijan's foreign policy on the 25t anniversary of restore independence”, pp. 29–48; Halil Burak SAKAL, “A quarter-century pursuit of independence: politics of trade, energy, and economic development in Uzbekistan”, pp. 49–90; Firat PURTAS, “Cultural diplomacy initiatives of Turkic republics”, pp. 91–114; Ercan DURDULAR, “Parliamentary assembly of Turkic-speaking countries (RurkPA): beyond parliamentary diplomacy”, pp. 115–142.
68.4299
Articles by Aletta MONDRE and Annegret KUHN; Christopher ZIMMERMANN and Nadine KRAFT; Johanna KRAMM and Carolin VÖLKER; Ulrike KRONFELD-GOHARANI; Michael PAUL; Günter WARSEWA; Felix SCHÜRMANN.
68.4300
Introduction by Jonathon W. MOSES, pp. 122–127. Articles by Peo HANSEN, “Asylum or austerity? The ‘refugee crisis’ and the Keynesian interlude”, pp. 128–139; Rainer BAUBÖCK, “Europe's commitments and failures in the refugee crisis”, pp. 140–150; Virginie GUIRAUDON, “The 2015 refugee crisis was not a turning point: explaining policy inertia in EU border control”, pp. 151–160.
68.4301
Articles by Basil KERSKI; Klaus BACHMANN; Michal SUTOWSKI; Marta BUCHOLC; Krzysztof MAZUR; Piotr BURAS; Kai-Olaf LANG; Wolfgang TEMPLIN.
68.4302
Articles by Thomas WIDMER; Klaus ARMINGEON; David NATALI; Martin ELING; Silja HÄUSERMANN; Thomas KURER; Michael PING-GERA; Denise TRABER; Pascal SCIARINI.
68.4303
A symposium. Articles by Sarah Elise WILIARTY; Ed TURNER; Charles LEES; Jonathan OLSEN; David F. PATTON; Jasmin SIRI