Published by De Gruyter

Volume 8 Issue 1

September 2012

Issue of World Political Science

Contents
Journal Overview

Article

January 23, 2012

Planting the Seeds of Change Inside? Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance.

Tina Freyburg

Abstract

Is functional cooperation with authoritarian regimes a blessing or a curse for democratization? Scholars predominantly view cooperation with authoritarian regimes as counterproductive in terms of democratization because it helps the incumbent government to remain in power by stabilizing the regime. This article presents evidence to suggest that functional cooperation can also be considered a promising way of yielding subtle processes of democratization that have hitherto been overlooked. It explores to what extent state officials become acquainted with democratic governance by participating in transgovernmental policy networks, notably the Twinning Program, set up by the European Union in order to implement functional cooperation with its Southern neighborhood. The study conducts regression analyses based on original survey data on Moroccan state officials’ attitudes toward democratic governance and complements these analyses with a qualitative comparison of different networks. The findings corroborate an optimistic reading of functional cooperation. By significantly shaping the attitudes toward democratic governance of involved state officials, cooperation appears to be able to plant seeds of change inside authoritarian regimes.

March 6, 2012

The Takeoff after Lisbon: The Practical and Theoretical Implications of Differentiated Integration in the EU

Boglárka Koller

Abstract

Differentiated integration is one of the ‘magic’ concepts of integration theories. Although differentiated integration exists in the European integration since the establishment of the Rome Treaty, only in the last ten years became a new direction of European integration. Supporting this, the evolution of the concept is introduced with special emphasis on the various political, legal and academic interpretations. This paper analyses differentiated integration within the Lisbon Treaty and argues that it is a milestone in the realization of it. The paper further argues that differentiated integration is an approach that reinterprets the existing and so far used ‘big’ theories of European integration (federalist, liberal intergovernmental, neo-functionalist, MLG theories etc) and provides new ideas for the self-definition of the European Union itself and in the same time may serve as a pragmatic way out from the scepticism and incapacity that surrounds the contemporary discourses on the ‘finalité politique’ of the EU.

March 6, 2012

"May the Best Man Win": Local Government Representatives

Osnat Akirav

Abstract

The research asks two questions related to each other. First, why do people who are successful in fields other than politics not want to become more active in politics? Second, what are the preferred characteristics of a political leader? In order to address these questions we conducted an action research involving changes in the patterns of political participation and used Dror’s (2008) model to determine the preferred characteristics of a political leader. The research, the first in its kind in the field of local government field, tried to create professional change and system change. Today, a year after the action research began; it deepens our understanding about how local council members work and allows us to implement changes based on an evaluation process in order to improve the decision-making process in the local government. Eventually, perhaps this process will attract talented people who have previously avoided political participation to engage more with the political process.

March 16, 2012

Party Identification, Leader Effects and Vote Choice in Italy, 1990-2008

Diego Garzia, Federico Viotti

Abstract

Previous studies have portrayed the personalization of politics as a consequence of the changes in the electoral market and the resulting transformations at the party level. However, empirical research has not reached a consensus on the extent to which this process has actually exerted its impact on citizens’ voting calculus. Partisan identifications appear still central in voters’ behavior, whereas party leader evaluations seem to play only a marginal role. This paper tries to examine the electoral consequences of the personalization of politics employing an alternative perspective. In particular, we concentrate on the role played by leader evaluations in shaping voters’ feelings of identification with parties. Our case study focuses on the Italian case, a prototype of personalized parliamentary democracy. In the empirical section, we examine the ways in which leaders have influenced Italian voters’ behavior in the last two decades. The results show that the electoral effect of party leaders (once the mediating effect of party identification is taken into account) has steadily increased during the time frame under analysis.

March 16, 2012

Study of Volatility and Party System Transformation in the 2010 Election of the Czech Chamber of Deputies

Jakub Šedo

Abstract

The paper deals with measuring volatility in the election of the Chamber of Deputies in the Czech Republic, calculated for both national and regional levels (the latter being the level of electoral constituencies). The main aim of the paper is to identify the link between the gains and losses of parties, and the volatility of a region. In comparison with the 2006 election, an overall increase in volatility was recorded in 2010, but most of the more volatile regions remained the same in both elections compared. Volatility on the regional level is strongly connected with the losses of the previously governing parties (in office 2006-9) and with the gains of the strongest new party, TOP09. We also compare three possible calculations of volatility involving the category of “other” parties. In calculating volatility we could not recommend the omission of “other” parties from the numerator without a corresponding change in the denominator. As for the remaining two methods (“other” parties calculated as one bloc, or “other” parties omitted both in the numerator and the denominator), future comparisons would be required.

September 10, 2012

Neo-liberalism, Semi-clientelism and the Politics of Scale in Mexican Anti-poverty Policies

Lucy Luccisano, Laura Macdonald

Page range: 1-27

Abstract

This article examines the implications of the multi-scalar politics of Mexican anti-poverty policy for the long-term process of democratization. The federal anti-poverty policy, Progresa/Oportunidades, was designed to eliminate traditional clientelistic practices. While more obvious practices of pork-barrel politics have been eliminated in poverty alleviation programs, continued practices of top-down processes of program design and implementation strategies have resulted in the emergence of semi-clientelism. Argued in this paper is that municipal and state political actors have responded to these federal policies in ways that may or may not promote deeper levels of democracy, and which have led to the reconstitution of semi-clientelism. The paper draws upon recent revisionist approaches to political clientelism, and introduces a multi-scalar approach borrowed from political geography. Based on this theoretical approach, the article examines the role of state and municipal authorities in the delivery of federal anti-poverty benefits within the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program.

September 10, 2012

Women’s Substantive Representation in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives: Testing the Added Value of a ‘Claims-making’ Approach

Silvia Erzeel

Page range: 28-47

Abstract

Studies of women’s representation have often explored the link between women’s descriptive and women’s substantive representation in parliament, analyzing whether female representatives bring a unique – and often feminist– contribution to the representation of women’s interests. Recent studies however propose to apply a claim-based framework, leaving open how, why and by whom women’s substantive representation occurs (Celis et al. 2008). In this article, we put this new claim-based approach to the empirical test. More in particular, we consider its added value by studying the variety of claims made about women in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (1995–2007). We conclude that a claim-based framework indeed brings additional actors and perspectives to the fore, but that there are limits as to which claims can be formulated and by whom.

September 10, 2012

A “New” Anarchism? – On Bifurcation and Transformation of Contemporary Anarchist Thought and Praxis

Žiga Vodovnik

Page range: 48-69

Abstract

The article reflects main discrepancies between basic coordinates of classic anarchist thought and coordinates of contemporary anarchism, as it developed within the “post-Seattle” alter-globalization movement. The article ascertains that the anarchist renaissance within the alter-globalization movement is not fostered only by classical anarchism, but also by ideational currents that in the past had represented its main counterpoint. The question that the author addresses is therefore: Is it possible to talk about a “new” anarchism? Following a thorough examination of the alter-globalization movement, its genealogy and the main ideational currents within the movement, the author concludes, that a “new” or “post-ideological” anarchism does not offer important innovations only on the level of political praxis, but also on the level of theoretical paradigms. In the last part of the article, the author affirms these findings with an outline of redefinition of violence, political power, nation state and democracy within (contemporary) anarchism.

September 10, 2012

Did the Financial Crisis Save the Red-Green Government in the 2009 Norwegian Election – the Dissatisfaction with Rising Expectations Superseded By a Grace Period?

Anders Todal Jenssen, Åshild Male Kalstø

Page range: 70-100

Abstract

According to much of the voluminous literature on economic voting, governments are rewarded or punished for their economic policies as a consequence of economic changes. Economic problems decrease the chance of re-election, whereas good times improve the incumbent’s chances. The last three national elections in Norway give evidence to the contrary. In the 2001 and 2005 elections all economic indicators pointed upwards, but the governments were nevertheless voted out of office. In 2009 the international financial crisis challenged the Norwegian economy, but the government was still re-elected. We argue that this must be explained by introducing two new factors into the economic voting argument: the role of the media and the role of popular expectations. According to the sociotropic voter argument, voters assess the national economy, rather than their personal economy, when they decide how to vote. We argue that sociotropic voters rely heavily on the media as their source of information. In a complex economy, the voter’s personal experience is of little relevance when it comes to assessing the government’s economic policies. The media also form people’s expectations. In 2001 and 2005 expectations exceeded the economic output, whereas in 2009, the public’s expectations were well below the government’s ability to deliver, creating a rare grace period for the governing parties. A content analysis of two major newspapers demonstrates that the financial crisis dominated the media agenda for more than three months, and that the tone in the coverage was positive towards the government during this period. A significant change in party support in this period is demonstrated through auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling of a time series based on opinion polls.

September 10, 2012

Historical Institutionalism and Comparative Federalism

Jörg Broschek

Page range: 101-128

Abstract

With some exceptions, efforts to systematically apply a historical-institutionalist framework to the study of federalism have been few and far between. This paper argues, however, that historical institutionalism lends itself particularly well for addressing two important research questions in the field of comparative federalism: the origins of federal systems and their dynamics. It is suggested that a historical-institutionalist framework can significantly contribute to encourage theoretical cross-fertilization within the field of comparative federalism.

September 10, 2012

Principals or Beginners? The Regions and the Local Railway System (1997–2011)

Marco Di Giulio

Page range: 129-158

Abstract

This article analyzes the implementation of the Italian railway reforms, with a focus on the process of regionalization started in 1997. Indeed, this sector represents a relevant challenge for the Italian legacy in the field, traditionally regulated by the bureaucratic structure of the Italian Railways, under direct ministerial control since 1905. However, after 10 years of implementation, Regions seem to have not yet enough financial resources and administrative capacity to deal with this policy. In addition, the national incumbent (FS) initiated a successful lobbying campaign to restrict the market condition at regional level in order to protect its own domain. As a result, the regionalization process appears to be dominated by national actors and highly politicized dynamics which undermine the creation of a stable and accountable regulatory framework.

September 10, 2012

Decision Costs and Welfare Effects of Democratic Voting Rules: an Experimental Analysis

Ulrich Glassmann, Jan Sauermann

Page range: 159-183

Abstract

What impact do majority rule and unanimity rule have on welfare and decision costs? According to Buchanan and Tullock ([1962] 1999) the unanimity principle must be regarded as a democratic norm, because it guarantees Pareto-efficient welfare effects. We present experimental results from a public goods game, which demonstrate in contrast to this assumption that majority rule can produce greater welfare effects than unanimity rule. This result suggests a critical revision of theoretical approaches which narrow the legitimacy of majority rule in this respect.

September 27, 2012

Raising the Stakes. Passing State Budgets in Scandinavia

Flemming Juul Christiansen

Page range: 184-200

Abstract

State budget reforms in Sweden and Norway have increased the political importance of annual parliamentary state budget votes. Informal changes of the process in Denmark have had a similar effect. This article analyzes state budget agreements in the Scandinavian countries over the last 35 years. Its results indicate that the governments of the three countries have become more prone to commit themselves to binding coalitional arrangements with other parties. In these countries with frequent minority governments, this involves institutionalized incorporation of support parties and legislative accommodations in securing a majority for the state budget.

September 27, 2012

European Governance: On the Relationship Between Democratic and Non-democratic Deliberation Within the European Multi-level System

Hans-Jürgen Bieling

Page range: 201-216

Abstract

A few scholars regard the European Union and its specific forms of governance as an experimental ground for the development of democratic structures and processes beyond the nation-state. Over the past years, the debate has been strongly affected by representatives of a theory of deliberative democracy who – often following the conceptual reflections of Jürgen Habermas – emphasize the communicative potential of reason inherent to European networks of deliberation and decision-making. The present article addresses the question of whether or rather to what extent the theory of deliberative democracy conceives and interprets the non-democratic character of the forms of European network governance in an appropriate way. The article argues that this is only partly the case. On the one hand, the developed theoretical perspective is instructive to focus on the procedural political-institutional embeddedness of deliberative policy-making; on the other hand, the theory of deliberative democracy is analytically too weak in order to identify the political economic and political sociological causes of the non-democratic quality of European network governance.

September 27, 2012

Political Development of Lithuania: A Comparative Analysis of Second Post-communist Decade

Zenonas Norkus

Page range: 217-251

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to put into focus and explain distinctive features of the political developments in Lithuania during second post-communist decade, comparing them with other Baltic States (Latvia and Estonia) and those Central European countries with political systems which resembled most closely Lithuania (Poland and Hungary) by the end of the first post-communist decade. In all these countries, second post-communist decade witnessed the rise of the new successful populist parties. The author argues that this populist rise is the proper context for understanding of Rolandas Paksas’ impeachment in Lithuania in 2003–2004. His Order and Justice Party has to be classified together with the Kaczynski twins Law and Justice Party and its even more radical allies in Poland, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Gábor Vona’s Jobbik in Hungary, Juhan Part’s Res Publica in Estonia and Einars Repše’s New Era in Latvia. They all were right-wing populist parties, proclaiming in their anti-establishment rhetoric the war on corruption of the (ex-communist) elite and the coming of new politics. While the rise of right-wing populism did not change the political system in Estonia and Latvia, its outcome in Hungary and Poland was the breakup of the ex-communist and anti-communist elites pact which was the foundation of the political stability during first post-communist decade. The Kaczynski twins founded Rzecz Pospolita IV (4th Republic of Poland), grounded in the thorough and comprehensive lustration of the ex-communist cadres. Fidesz leader Orban used the two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament to promulgate a new constitution. Lithuania is unique in that the ex-communist and anti-communist elites pact was not abolished, but preserved and consolidated thanks to the collaboration of all, by this time, established and left-of-center populist parties during the impeachment proceedings. The impeachment of Paksas can be considered as the stress test of the young Lithuanian liberal democracy just on the eve of the accession of Lithuania to the European Union and NATO. An unhappy peculiarity of the stress tests is that they sometimes break or damage the items tested. Preventing the transformation of liberal post-communism into populist post-communism in Lithuania, the impeachment as stress test was a success. However, against the expectation of many observers, it did not enhance the quality of democracy of Lithuania. The legacy of impeachment are disequilibrium of the balance of power between government branches in favor of the Constitutional Court, strengthening of the left-of-centre populist political forces and the interference of secret services into Lithuanian politics with the self-assumed mission to safeguard Lithuanian democracy from the perils of populism.

October 18, 2012

The Normalization of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations in 1964 and the Formation of the “One-China” Principle: Negotiations over Breaking French Diplomatic Relations with the Republic of China Government and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the Sole Legitimate Government

Madoka Fukuda

Page range: 252-271

Abstract

This article examines the substance and modification of the “One-China” principle, which the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) pursued in the mid 1960s. Under this principle, a country wishing to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC was required first to break off such relations with the Republic of China (ROC). In 1964 the PRC established diplomatic relations with France. This was its first ambassadorial exchange with a Western government. The PRC, in the negotiations over the establishment of diplomatic relations, attempted to achieve some consensus with France on the matter of “One-China”. The PRC, nevertheless, had to abandon these attempts, even though it demanded fewer conditions of France than of the United States (USA), Japan and other Western countries in the 1970s. The PRC had demanded adherence to the “One-China” principle since 1949. France, however, refused to accept this condition. Nevertheless, the PRC established diplomatic relations with France before the latter broke off relations with the ROC. Subsequently, the PRC abandoned the same condition in negotiations with the African governments of the Republic of Congo, Central Africa, Dahomey and Mauritania. After the negotiations with France, the PRC began to insist that the joint communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations should clearly state that “the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China”. However, France refused to insert these words into the communiqué. Afterwards, the PRC nevertheless insisted on putting such a statement into the joint communiqués or exchanges of notes on the establishment of diplomatic relations with the African countries mentioned above. This was done in order to set precedents for making countries accede to the “One-China” principle. The “One-China” principle was, thus, gradually formed in the process of the negotiation and bargaining between the PRC and other governments.

February 15, 2013

Towards a Representative Bureaucracy: Promoting Linguistic Representation and Diversity in the Swiss and Canadian Federal Public Services

Daniel Kübler, Émilienne Kobelt, Stephanie Andrey

Page range: 272-296

Abstract

Drawing on the concept of representative bureaucracy, this article examines how two multilingual states – Canada and Switzerland – deal with issues related to the participation of different linguistic communities in the federal public service. Following a political mobilization of the linguistic cleavage, strategies to promote multilingualism in the public service have been adopted in both countries. The Canadian strategy focuses on equal treatment of Anglophones and Francophones in the public service. In Switzerland, adequate representation of the linguistic communities is the primary goal. These differences are explained by the characteristics of the linguistic regimes in each of the two countries as well as by the peculiarities of consociational democracy in Switzerland. In both countries, the linguistic origins of public administration staff, overall, mirrors the proportions of the linguistic communities in the wider society. Within administrative units, however, linguistic diversity is hampered by the logics of language rationalization, where minorities are under pressure to communicate in the language of the majority.

February 15, 2013

Liberalism, Social Justice, and Individual Responsibility

Álvaro de Vita

Page range: 297-329

Abstract

The study examines the contemporary normative debate on social justice from the perspective of the normative political theory of “egalitarian liberalism”. Contrary to an anti-egalitarian liberal political theory, or “libertarianism”, the argument is that a notion of “effective freedom”, and not negative freedom, is central to egalitarian liberalism. Additionally, in contrast to a theoretical current of egalitarianism known as “luck egalitarianism”, the article further argues that although egalitarian liberalism assigns special importance to individual responsibility, it does so (unlike luck egalitarianism) without implying any concession to the conservative critique of egalitarianism and the state’s redistributive action.

February 15, 2013

The Effects of Economic Performance on Infrastructure Spending at the State and Local Levels

Suho Bae

Page range: 330-349

Abstract

Economic development and growth may induce infrastructure investment and service provision by the public sector. This article investigates to what degree economic performance affects infrastructure spending at the state and local levels. For further elaboration, it examines the differential impacts of economic performance on state and local spending on different types of infrastructure. For that purpose, infrastructure is classified into two types: knowledge infrastructure and physical infrastructure. Methodologically, it uses the time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) data from 1977 to 2000 in 50 states of the USA. To correct the complex error terms in TSCS data, it uses the ordinary least square estimation using the Prais-Winsten procedure and panel-corrected standard errors. Some endogeneity issues are also corrected. Research finds that economic development and growth contributes to the increasing infrastructure spending on a per capita basis by state and local governments; however, its magnitude is not large. When infrastructure spending is disaggregated, economic performance also contributes to the increasing state and local spending on both knowledge and physical infrastructures. In particular, the magnitude of the positive effects on physical infrastructure spending is approximately two times as large as that on knowledge infrastructure spending. However, economic performance has no significant effects on the proportion of infrastructure spending out of the total state and local spending, regardless of whether infrastructure is aggregated or disaggregated. In short, there are level effects of economic performance, but there are no compositional effects. This finding implies that state and local governments increase infrastructure investment and its service provision in responding to the economic growth; yet, they do not consider it as a top priority in comparison with other types of functional areas.

February 15, 2013

Toward a Liberal Theory of Punishment: Locke, Property, and Individualism

Alfonso Donoso

Page range: 350-366

Abstract

By offering a critical analysis of Nicolás Maloberti’s recent theory and justification of punishment, this article accounts for a series of principles and considerations that any liberal and Lockean theory of punishment must take seriously. This article contends that Locke’s conception of the state – an institution grounded on the right to punish violators of natural rights – and the basic character of the right to property within Locke’s scheme of rights are elements that should lead us to affirm that no genuine liberal theory of punishment can dispense with the political character of the right to punish.

About this journal

The journal World Political Science (WPS) has ceased publication and no longer publishes with DeGruyter Publishing.