Essays
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Alternative Polities - McIntosh, Roderick J.
The prehistoric landscape has exploded with examples, just recently recognized, of alternative polities—heterogeneous communities of interaction, of variable territorial and demographic extent, in which the constituent individuals participate in unifying networks of economic or political obligations or share commonalities of beliefs. Archaeologists are no longer constrained to look for the emergence of complex society in a framework of sequential, evolutionary stages the essential elements of which were defined ethnographically (neo‐evolutionism). We can now begin to appreciate the enormous variability in the courses taken, and in the circumstances leading to more and more people living together and interacting in ever more complex ways. -
Causes of Fiscal Crises in State and Local Governments - Kogan, Vladimir
Financial insolvency is a rare occurrence in American state and local governments. However, when it does happen, as in the case of Detroit's historical bankruptcy filing in 2013, the consequences for vital city services, public employees, and taxpayers can be devastating. This essay reviews existing and emerging research on the causes of government fiscal crises, paying particular attention to how social, economic, and legal constraints interact with the electoral incentives faced by public officials to create financial distress. It concludes by identifying a number of open questions that should guide future research, to help identify potential institutional and political reforms that can help avert future problems before they occur. -
Constitutionalism - Whittington, Keith E.
Constitutionalism is the practice of regulating politics with a constitution. The means by which constitutions attempt to regulate politics are various, ranging from the design of political structures to the judicial enforcement of constitutional law. These constitutional features have given rise to robust literatures approaching the subject from both normative and empirical perspectives. Normative debates have focused on the purpose, content, methods, and authority of constitutionalism. Empirical investigations have taken into account both the development of particular constitutional institutions and practices within particular polities and broader questions of constitutional design -
Corruption and Electoral Accountability: Avenues for Future Research - De Vries, Catherine E.
The vast majority of people across the globe lives in countries characterized by high levels of corruption, commonly defined as the public misuse of private gains. Although the exact costs of corruption are difficult to estimate, research suggests that corruption is bad for economic and social development. Not only has corruption been shown to have a detrimental effect on a country's economy, the ability to generate tax revenue and social equality, the political effects of corruption are also considerable. Owing to its association with weak state capacity, corruption may damage the ability of governments to craft and implement policies in areas in which continued intervention and investment is needed and their capacity to respond quickly and effectively to sudden shocks. Owing to these undesirable outcomes, elections are supposed to curb corruption because voters will throw the rascals out. Recent research, however, suggests that more often than not corruption goes unpunished at the ballot box. This essay sets out possible research avenues to find out why this is the case. -
Deliberative Democracy - Fishkin, James
At the center of the idea, deliberative democracy is that the “will of the people” should be based on the consideration of competing arguments about their merits of each policy choice. Despite this, partisanship and electoral campaigns are designed to win elections, not promote citizen deliberation. The focus of most modern research on deliberation by ordinary citizens rather than by representatives or office holders raises interesting questions about who deliberates, what is the policy context, what rationale is used, and what criteria should evaluate deliberative processes. Access to accurate information, relevant arguments, and a representative sample are necessary for good conditions. Some criteria for evaluation include demographic and attitudinal representativeness, sample size, the opportunity to engage in arguments for and against proposals, and the elimination of distortion (e.g., misleading information). -
Democracy that Excludes: Persistent Inequalities and the Future of Democratic Governance - Kelly, Nathan J.
Democracy is often reduced to the presence of a particular set of institutional rules and practices. We argue that democracy also implies a promise of more just outcomes, and define systems that are institutionally democratic but fail to fully incorporate all citizens as exclusionary democracies. We argue here that the practice of exclusionary democracy may produce broad and mostly negative implications for the future of democratic governance. In particular, we explore how variation in political and economic exclusion in institutionally democratic states may shape a variety of political attitudes and behavior, including political participation, democratic values, tolerance, and trust in government. -
Distributive Politics: Federal Outlays - Gordon, Sanford C.
We provide an interpretive review of theoretical and empirical research on the distribution of federal outlays in the United States and their political antecedents. We argue that the foundational scholarly research on the subject to date can be classified to a great extent according to the perspectives it takes respecting legislative organization, political parties, and the executive branch. After reviewing theoretical and empirical research in these areas, we discuss some cutting‐edge research in this area of research. One of the most exciting trends in the study of distributive politics is a much greater focus on issues of causal identification in empirical tests of theories concerning the allocation of federal resources. Finally, we describe five questions that we believe ought to motivate future research in this area. These questions concern the relationship between entitlement and discretionary spending; how to integrate research on distributive politics with research on political business cycles; how best to measure executive discretion in specific assistance programs; how to understand the relationship between spending in an area and support for that spending; and how to capture the mechanism relating spending and electoral benefits. -
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? - Turner, Ian R.
In this essay we address the puzzle that exists in American politics based on the tension of convergence to the electoral mean because of the MVT (mean voter theorem) and the studies showing divergence in candidate positioning. We provide a model in which voters and states are not treated equally because of vast regional differences. In contrast with the MVT, candidates who campaign in each state may converge to the national electoral mean while adopting diverging positions in different states, as they take differences in voter preferences and valences across states into account. At the state level, we show that while candidates give maximal weight in their policy position to pivotal voters, they give minimal weight to those voting for them with almost certainty; and that in their national position while candidates give maximal weight to swing states they give minimal weight to nonpivotal states. Something that remains hidden when differences across states are ruled out as they are in MVT. Then we adapt the variable choice set logit model of Gallego et al. (2013) to study the 2008 Presidential election and find that even though Obama's and McCain's position in swing states differs from the national electoral mean, their national position are close but on opposite sides of the national mean. Given the differential treatment candidates give voters and states in their national position, incorporating the Electoral College vote in the model, the “one person, one vote” principle may fail to obtain in the 2008 US Presidential election when candidates' valences and campaign spending differ across states. -
Domestic Political Institutions and Alliance Politics - Mattes, Michaela
Military alliances are one of the most important tools states can use to counter international threats, exert influence over other countries, and accomplish broad foreign policy goals, including peace and stability in the international system. Alliance scholarship can provide valuable insights to policy‐makers by answering questions such as which states are likely to ally, when alliances will be upheld, and whether they will be effective. Traditional alliance research focused on international considerations rather than domestic politics as drivers of alliance politics. More recently, however, scholars have shifted their attention to uncovering the ways in which domestic political institutions affect alliance behavior. The main questions underlying this research include: Are states with similar regime types, especially democracies, more likely to ally? Are democracies more reliable alliance partners? Do wartime coalitions involving democracies have a higher chance of victory? Do domestic institutional changes affect alliance maintenance? While the literature has provided conclusive answers to some of these questions, others are characterized by mixed findings. Recently published work has taken on unresolved issues and provided new and original insights. Future research should take these efforts further by unpacking the concepts of “domestic politics” and “alliance politics”. -
Domestic Politics of Trade Policy - Aklin, Michaël
Domestic politics shape international trade policy, but exactly how and why remains an open question. We explore the cutting‐edge literature that focuses on how agents' interests are formed, whose interests are organized, and how those interests interact with each other via domestic political institutions to generate both trade policy and international cooperation over trade more broadly. In turn, trade policies operate as a feedback loop. International cooperation generates information via international organizations, treaties, and more informal regimes, which affects the domestic politics conflict in substantive ways. We explore each of these topics and suggest future research paths. -
Economic Models of Voting - Anson, Ian G.
The economic vote provides a widely available tool for gauging electoral accountability. Yet in many cases, this search for electoral accountability appears elusive. A large literature has yielded conflicting and unstable empirical results. While there appears to be an association between the economy and citizens' voting behavior, we are unsure of its foundation. Do citizens reflect on the performance of the economy when choosing between candidates in democratic elections? What determines the existence and size of the economic vote: individual attributes, the wider politico‐economic context, or messages received from trusted elites? Scholars have unearthed some answers by turning outward to consider context, theorizing the cross‐national, individual‐level, and temporal conditions under which economic voting is likely to be strongest. In addition, more recently, researchers have turned inward to reassess the mechanism that drives the link between economic performance and voting behavior. Future scholarship must continue to interrogate core theoretical questions in an effort to better understand how citizens' subjective economic evaluations are reflected in their decisions as voters. -
Electoral Authoritarianism - Schedler, Andreas
Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the national level, yet violate liberal‐democratic minimum standards in systematic and profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of comparative politics, summarizes cutting‐edge research on regime trajectories and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research. -
Emerging Trends in the Political Economy of Taxation - Kiser, Edgar
This essay briefly summarizes recent work and suggests future directions in the study of taxation. We analyze the determinants of total tax revenue, tax structure, tax administration, and the relationship between taxation and spending. In the section on total tax revenue, we look at the effects of democracy, debates a possible ceiling on total revenue, and whether less developed and Asian countries will catch up with revenue extraction in the developed west. The section on tax structure suggests that the era of progressive taxation may be ending and that taxes intended to serve social purposes, such as sin taxes and carbon taxes, are on the rise. Our discussion of tax administration focuses on the determinants of taxpayer compliance and whether less developed countries are developing centralized bureaucratic administrations. We conclude by looking at the relationship between taxation and spending, first exploring the increase in deficit spending and second looking at attempts by both sub‐state and supra‐state political units to get more control of taxation relative to national states. -
Government Formation and Cabinets - Golder, Sona N.
The government in a parliamentary (or semi‐presidential) democracy refers to the prime minister and the other cabinet ministers, whereas the government in a presidential democracy refers to the president's cabinet. The members of the government cabinet determine national policy and arguably hold the most important political positions in their country. Most governments comprise two or more parties, which means that the government formation process requires coalition‐building. During this process, party elites bargain over who gets which ministerial position and over policy; they can reach an agreement quickly and take office, or the bargaining can break down and take months to resolve. This essay discusses the different types of governments that can form as well as how they form in parliamentary, semi‐presidential, and presidential regimes. Recent research on government formation and cabinets has introduced new theoretical arguments, and the implications of these arguments are being tested with new data and new statistical methods. For example, analyses of European democracies now include the post‐communist Eastern countries (not only the Western ones), and more scholars are studying coalition governments in Latin America. Future research might include more work on cabinets in developing democracies in regions such as Africa and Asia, as well as analyses of the political and economic consequences of bargaining delays and the partisan composition of the government. -
Intervention and Regime Change - Owen IV, John M.
Regime promotion constitutes a distinct category of foreign intervention that includes any effort by an intervening state or coalition to create, preserve, or alter political institutions or governments within a target state. Although a common tool of statecraft, regime promotion has received relatively little scholarly attention. We discuss foundational and cutting‐edge research that addresses three questions: What causes states or governments to try to change or preserve domestic institutions of other sovereign states? What modes or tools of statecraft do they employ? What are the consequences for the intervening power, the target state, or the international system? We conclude with six recommendations for advancing regime promotion research: (i) expand research beyond its United States and great‐power focus to consider how regional actors and small states employ regime promotion; (ii) conduct comparative studies of forcible regime promotions with non‐forcible and covert means; (iii) isolate the fundamental motivations—domestic and/or systemic—that propel states to attempt regime promotion despite significant costs and risks; (iv) examine further the role of regime‐type in regime promotion; (v) increase research into the consequences of regime promotion by emphasizing long‐term efficacy as well as the comparative success of non‐democratic interveners and democracy promoters; and (vi) focus additional attention on the relation of regime promotion to international hegemony or hierarchy. -
Money in Politics - Milyo, Jeffrey
There is a disconnect between the popular understanding of the role of money in American politics and the lessons from social science research. The foundational research in this field finds that campaign spending has at best negligible impacts on election outcomes. Similarly, decades of research reveal very little evidence that campaign contributions or even lobbying has significant effects on the content of public policy. These findings are corroborated by cutting edge research on the effects of campaign finance reforms both at the federal level and in the states. -
Neoliberalism - Centeno, Miguel Angel
What is neoliberalism and how do we account for its policy dominance over three decades? We analyze the rise and power of neoliberalism from three different perspectives: economic, political, and cultural. We argue that cultural analysis of policy preferences and success is critical to understanding the appeal and staying power of neoliberalism. -
Participatory Governance - McNulty, Stephanie L.
Efforts to engage new actors in political decision‐making through innovative participatory programs have exploded around the world in the past 25 years. This trend, called participatory governance, involves state‐sanctioned institutional processes that allow citizens to exercise voice and vote in public policy decisions that produce real changes in citizens' lives. Billions of dollars are spent supporting these efforts around the world. The concept, which harks back to theorists such as Jean‐Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill, has only recently become prominent in theories about democracy. After presenting the foundational research on participatory governance, the essay notes that newer research on this issues falls into three areas: (i) the broader impact of these experiments; (ii) new forms of engagement, with a focus on representation, deliberation, and intermediation; and (iii) scaling up and diffusion. The essay concludes with a research agenda for future work on this topic. -
Party Organizations' Electioneering Arms Race - Aldrich, John H.
Party organizations are the electioneering arms of political parties. In the United States, the Democratic and Republican organizations are constantly changing as they try to one‐up each other in a political arms race set against an ever‐evolving institutional and technological context. In this essay, we discuss the history of political parties over the past century to illustrate how changes to party organizations set the groundwork for new, cutting‐edge contributions to political science with an eye toward teaching young researchers where we think the next big thing might come from. We go on to discuss more recent changes to the environment in which today's party organizations operate and speculate about the kinds of questions that young researchers may want to consider asking. -
Political Advertising - Fowler, Erika Franklin
Political advertising provides a key link between the politician and the public. The concern over massive manipulation through political propaganda that drove early empirical research on the subject has subsided; however, newer research concludes that advertising can have nontrivial but short‐lived influence on voter preferences. Furthermore, increasing levels of negativity and concerns over the consequences of such negativity spawned a heated debate in the literature over whether negative ads stimulate or depress turnout at the polls with the most recent evidence suggesting that it is the timing of negativity that determines its effect. Although advertising is intended to persuade, research suggests the medium yields important informational benefits, especially for citizens who do not pay a lot of attention to politics, and there is little to suggest that negativity has large negative effects on the health of democracy. Although the 2012 election was a record‐shattering year for political advertising, campaigns are shifting to multi‐platform communication strategies, which will bring new challenges for researchers. -
Political Science: Political Ideologies - Carmines, Edward G.
The past 50 years of research into political ideology has left scholars with a contested paradigm. One side, founded on the research of Philip Converse, argues that the mass public is distinctly nonideological in their thinking. The other side argues that ideological thinking is not, in fact, beyond the public and can be found in forms similar to that of political elites. The way forward for research in political ideology does not lie in rehashing this debate but in moving forward in two new areas of work. The first considers the role that values and principles play in determining the political and ideological thinking of individuals. The second questions the current measurement standards of political ideology. Rather than considering ideology as occurring along a single spectrum, ideology among the mass public is formed by positions along two separate spectrums. In this essay, we summarize the major arguments of Converse, his supporters, and his critics. Then, we discuss recent research on principles and values and the measurement of ideology. -
Popular Protest, Nationalism, and Domestic‐International Linkages in Chinese Politics - Weiss, Jessica Chen
The study of Chinese politics has become increasingly specialized, reflecting broader trends in social science that favor islands of knowledge that can be defended with rigor. Yet many phenomena of interest in Chinese politics are located at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, where the two levels are connected and strategically linked. Nationalist, anti‐foreign protest is a good example, as Chinese officials must choose whether to repress or tolerate nationalist demonstrations based on domestic and international considerations. In turn, the decision to allow or stifle street demonstrations affects the degree of popular influence on Chinese foreign policy, constraining the government's diplomatic options or enhancing its flexibility. Ongoing research into the subnational patterns of Chinese nationalism and popular protest offers a promising avenue of inquiry. Combined with close qualitative assessments to identify mechanisms and processes, meso‐level investigations can provide additional leverage in the study of Chinese nationalism. Future research should aim to bring nationalism back into the mainstream study of state‐society relations in China, bridging the gap between nationalism and other varieties of social mobilization and political contestation. -
Postsocialism - Cullen Dunn, Elizabeth
Postsocialism is not just the study of the period after the end of Communism. Like postcolonialism, it is an analytic, a way of looking at societies in both East and West that were shaped by state socialism and the Cold War. Focusing on capitalism's alter ego, postsocialism looks at how production, consumption, identity and sovereignty were shaped by the experience of one party rule and central planning, and it reflects critically on the enduring effects of socialist ideas about the role of state and market in social life. While the countries that were once grouped by their affiliation with Communism are now diverging, future research focuses on the reorganization of the “Second World” into donors and receivers within a new international order based on humanitarianism and development, on the role of bureaucratic governance in integrating former socialist countries into the EU, and on the crucial standpoint that socialist ideologies continue to provide outside neoliberal capitalism. -
Rulemaking Pursuing a Policy Agenda - Waterman, Richard W.
Rulemaking is a difficult process that involves interpreting legislation, often vaguely written, by legislators into formal rules of action for bureaucratic implementation. The process is highly political and often confrontational, with varied interests attempting to influence the behavior of the bureaucratic experts involved in writing rules, regulations, and setting standards. The end result is often delay, during which time the bureaucracy gets the blame. Even under the best of circumstances, however, rulemaking is a difficult process. -
States and Nationalism - Herzfeld, Michael
Nationalism, especially in the form that links national identity and statehood, is in its present form a relatively recent but highly successful and pervasive invention. Grounded in metaphors of shared blood and collective inheritance (including the idea of national culture as patrimony or heritage), it still displays unexpected staying power despite concern over its negative history as “ethnonationalism” and as the translation of superficially benign ideologies into doctrines of violent exclusion and genocide. Modern nation‐states, also unexpectedly, often encapsulate segmentary models of collective identity; nationalism may appear in everyday (“banal”) activities, the less respectable of which—as intimate zones of sociability—it may seek to hide behind official images of cultural and genetic homogeneity. Current research focuses on the practices that link idealized national identity to their realization and subversion in social and bodily experience and performance.