Comparative Political Studies

Administrative and political decentralization have emerged as high developmental priorities in Africa and elsewhere. Although the possible benefits of such reforms have been well theorized, the actual politics of decentralization are not well understood. Often there are large gaps between reform rhetoric and governments'real commitment to decentralization. And often legal changes have not produced decentralization's supposed political and administrative benefits. These dynamics have been especially clear in rural Africa, where a decade of decentralizing reforms has produced generally disappointing results. When do regimes pursue state-building strategies that involve real devolution of political and administrative prerogative? This article addresses this question and proposes an answer for rural West Africa. The author employs a political economy approach to propose a model of regional variation in the political capacities and interests of rural societies and rural notables and argues that these differences shape the institution-building strategies governments choose trying to entrench their power.

The relationship between economic development and democratization offers a central focus in linking comparative and international politics. Analysts agree that economic development facilitates democratization but that the relationship is considerably less than perfect. Should advocates of the democratic peace argument prove to be correct in emphasizing the role of regime type in pacifying international politics, an obvious question becomes, What else drives democratization besides economic development? In this article, the authors explore the relationship between domestic development, in the form of economic growth and democratization, and international conditions. They suggest that a number of international factors, such as external threat, conflict, and trade openness, can aid or abet democratization and economic growth. To systematically analyze one facet of this proposition they use both robust regression and generalized estimating equations and find that the international environment significantly alters democracy. External threats from other states tend to decrease democracy.

In the literature on democratic survival, theories of democratic consolidation assume that new democracies are more vulnerable to breakdown. Theories of democratic honeymoons, however, claim that new democracies are less vulnerable to breakdown. This article addresses this seeming contradiction. Using an original data set that includes all democracies from the period 1951 to 1995, the authors use discrete-time duration analysis to determine if there is evidence for a period of enhanced survivability in new democracies. Using both continuous and discrete specifications of a honeymoon period, they test whether new democracies experience an absolute honeymoon (whether newness in itself makes them less prone to breakdown) or a relative honeymoon (where newness insulates them from the effect of poor economic performance). The results suggest that there is a short-lived absolute honeymoon, but that new democracies are actually more vulnerable to effects of poor economic performance prior to their third legislative election.

Methodological problems associated with selection bias and interaction effects have hindered the accumulation of systematic knowledge about the factors that explain cross-national variation in the success of extreme right parties. The author uses a statistical analysis that takes account of these problems to examine the effect of electoral institutions, unemployment, and immigration on the support for these parties. The data set used in this analysis is new and spans 19 countries and 165 national elections. There are four substantive conclusions. The first is that it is important to distinguish between neofascist and populist parties on the extreme right because their fortunes depend on different factors. The second is that populist parties do better in countries where the district magnitude is larger and more seats are allocated in upper tiers. The third is that although immigration has a positive effect on populist parties irrespective of the unemployment level, unemployment only matters when immigration is high. Finally, there is evidence that the permissiveness of the electoral system mediates the effect of immigration on populist parties.