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Religious politics in Turkey and Iran have strikingly similar courses in the last decade. In both countries, a group of religious politicians who used to have a radical understanding of Islam were transformed into ardent supporters of democracy and enjoyed popular support. Both in Turkey and Iran, the religious politics merge with democratic values despite the fact that religious beliefs and institutional configurations are very different in those countries. Turkey is a secular regime, whereas Islamist ideology is in power in Iran. Why and how do oppositional religious politics evolve in a similar manner in these opposing regimes? This is the ?puzzle?, this paper aims to make intelligible. This paper argues that the rise of Muslim Democrats in these two countries is the combined result of evolution of the mindset of some religious politicians and the dynamics of electoral competition in semi-authoritarian settings. It suggests an alternative to the claims that purely culturalist and historical explanations of contemporary political outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Patterns of Democracy, Arend Lijphart not only contends that democracy is bipolar, but also that consensus democracies are ?kindler, gentler? forms of institutional settings than majoritarian arrangements (Lijphart 1999). Although Lijphart?s analysis shows strong empirical support for his claims, his framework was never applied outside stable democracies. The present paper proposes to cover that gap by replicating Lijphart?s analysis in the post-communist context, therefore testing the relevance of his prescriptions to democratizing states. The proposed study evaluates Lijphart?s theory in two separate ways. First, if his posited split of democracies into two blocs appears in the post-communist world. Second if post-communist states with more ?consensus-oriented? attributes actually enjoy greater political rights and civil liberties, with the following results. The main finding of the paper is that by contrast with older democracies, there is no such thing as a two dimensional map of democracy in the case of post-communist countries: there is no regular pattern of correlations between indicators of consensus-majoritarian democracy in the post-communist context. Nevertheless, empirical verification reveals that some elements included in the consensus democracy framework should be introduced in new constitutions, but perhaps not as the monolithic cluster of basic laws of constitutions like Lijphart originally suggested. Hence this study casts a shadow on the relevance of the majoritarian versus consensus classification of democratic regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether constitutionalism presupposes the existence of a ?people.? After reviewing some of the relevant literature, the paper makes three claims. First, there are multiple varieties of constitutionalism. Only those varieties that aim at self-government presuppose the existence of a people, and not all constitutions need have that goal. Second, there are multiple conceptions of self-government which correspond to different conceptions of what a ?people? is. Third, there is a plausible version of constitutional self-government that presupposes only modest conditions for the existence of a people. In particular, it presupposes the right to travel, a common discourse, and a widely (though not unanimously) shared sense of mission, but it does not presuppose shared values, character, ethnicity, or (except in a very thin sense) heritage. These conditions are probably satisfied within the United States. The paper therefore concludes that it is possible to interpret American constitutionalism as an effort to secure a form of self-government that does presuppose the existence of an American people, but that does not presuppose the existence of shared American values, an American character, or an American ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proponents of globalization contend that European countries are now converging in the model of capitalism. Contrary to this prediction, this paper will show that in Spain globalization and EMU have promoted rather that undermined coordination among economic actors. Unable to escape from economic interdependence the Spanish economic actors have developed coordinating capacities at the macro and micro levels to address and resolve tensions between economic interdependence and political sovereignty, and between monetary and exchange rate policies. In this paper I show that there is at least one more variety than the two--LME and CME--that Hall and Soskice cite and also that it is possible to develop coordination capacities in countries that lack such strong tradition. In particular, this paper analyses the resurgence of national-level social bargaining in Spain in the 1990s. This development was the result of the reorientation of the strategies of the social actors. In a new economic and political context, marked by a process of institutional learning, trade unions have supported social bargaining as a defensive strategy to retake the initiative and influence policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multivariate multinomial logit model of changes to countries’ level of democracy, taking into account growth, development, diffusion through neighborhoods, and the instability of new and inconsistent institutions. To allow interpreting the aggregate effect of these factors, the paper develops a simulation model where the political systems of a set of simulated countries evolve in accordance with the results of the multinomial logit model.The results show a strong tendency for political systems to move toward either full democracy or full autocracy, but find the diffusion effect to be relatively less strong. The simulations tend to produce less dramatic changes in the global average democracy score found in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the Europeanization/EU Integration debates surrounding new modes of governance with a specific focus on the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC), which was introduced as an official tool of ‘soft’ policy coordination along with the Lisbon Strategy at the European Council Summit in March 2000. In contrast to studies focused on one or two OMCs, this paper’s point of departure is to conceptualize the Lisbon Strategy as paradoxically ‘self-reflexive’ political ideology. The Lisbon ‘ideology’ calls for no less than a ‘great transformation’ of Europe’s political, economic, and social landscape, and is now being used to legitimate nearly all of the EU’s economic, social, and environmental policies in its quest to become ‘the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion by 2010.’ European political actors and scholars have highlighted the OMC’s potential for achieving common objectives in sensitive issue areas, via its mechanisms (i.e. benchmarking, target-setting, best practice sharing, and multi-level surveillance) intended to enhance deliberative problem-solving, the pooling of knowledge, transparency, accountability and peer pressure, while leaving the decision-making authority with the states. This paper argues that Lisbon European Council’s call for extending the OMC to several new issue domains (e.g. employment, pensions, social protection, economic policy, education, etc.) has resulted in the emergence of a networked form of governance in which the OMCs have become the institutional ‘carriers’ of the Lisbon ideology. An increasing number of political actors are interacting in an institutional and normative opportunity structure that is ‘charged’ by the Lisbon ideology. This paper argues that there is some evidence that the non-binding coordination processes of the Lisbon Strategy has lead to a further ‘dis-aggregation’ of governmental interests (e.g. Social Ministers have new platforms on the EU stage), while simultaneously putting pressure on governmental actors to improve both horizontal and vertical coordination. Thus, the Lisbon-OMCs have multiplied the combinatorial potential of transnational alliances. Furthermore, there is evidence that the diffusion of the Lisbon-OMC network is gradually nudging the logic of social interaction in the direction of what some call ‘argumentative rationality,’ and accelerated the social selection processes required for the emergence of consensual knowledge. Indeed, the abstract ideas of the Lisbon ideology have quickly become more concrete by the emerging network of OMCs, which have lead to a growing body of normative commitments, common policy paradigms, and a growing body of indicators, benchmarks, and targets. Relying on evidence collected in twenty-five in-depth interviews, official documents, and the secondary literature, the author will argue that there is some evidence that Lisbon-OMCs have been causally related to a cognitive & normative ‘convergence’ and that this has lead to certain patterns of institutional and policy change both in the EU and in member states. The tentative conclusions drawn in this paper have emerged from the first phase of research into the question of whether we are witnessing the institutionalization of a paradoxically ‘self-reflexive’ Lisbon ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the prospect of cosmopolitanism contributing to the project of democratic theory construction in a global context. Toward this end, I identify two tensions in cosmopolitan theory. The first is the tension between a personal/moral cosmopolitan and an instituional cosmopolitan position. The second is the tension between cosmopolitanism with universal foundations and cosmopolitanism with particular, or "rooted" sources. These two schisms lead to four potential configurations of cosmopolitanism, which are discussed in turn, with particular attention to their possible contribution to (and potential imcompatibility with) a global democratic theory. The paper concludes that the most promising site of cosmopolitan theory is the institutional/particular one, although that is the least theorized of all the approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the connection between the concepts of courage, freedom and patriotism in classical and early modern republican political thought? What, if anything, remains of the language of courage in contemporary political thought? In particular, what remains of its conceptual connections with freedom and patriotism? This paper argues that courage, freedom, and patriotism are intimately connected in the writings of major republican political thinkers, including Cicero and Machiavelli. Indeed, these three concepts form a tight circle in both theory and practice, a circle that republicans themselves might call virtuous. The paper will conclude that this theory, while potentially dangerous in its original ‘virtuous’ form, is even more susceptible to abuse in its bastardized or "vicious" forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug policy poses a fundamental challenge to American democracy. Nowhere is this more evident than in its impact on marginalized communities. To be sure, scholars have noted the social problems associated with the implementation of drug laws of the 1980’s, including: continued drug use and addiction; increased incarceration; and spread of drug-related illnesses. Additionally, civil rights activists attack the individual rights’ restrictions central to drug policy. Still, less attention has been paid to other ways in which drug policy harms citizens’ democratic experiences, particularly those of marginalized community members. The focus of this paper will be to examine the effects of contemporary drug policy on the political expressions and experiences of African Americans. Using Harlem as a case study, this paper confirms the argument that a racial gap exists across Americans’ perceptions of the drug problem. Factors influencing this cognitive divide include: 1) the disparate impact of drug legislation; 2) the symbolic messages communicated by political leaders about drug victims and culprits; and 3) the distrust and suspicion of the political motives of the government by African Americans. This study uses interviews, contextual and survey data to explore the democratic implications of these racial disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against certain features of one prominent account (by John Rawls) of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. The paper also argues for an alternative account. Rawls argues in his later writings (well after A Theory of Justice) that to set out some basic conditions for constitutional democratic legitimacy, we need an account of justice appropriate for the "domain of the political", we need "an overlapping consensus" of "reasonable comprehensive doctrines" about what is just, we need need citizen endorsement of "constitutional essentials" as described in the account of justice. On a Rawlsian view, religious, philosophical, or moral comprehensive doctrines that try to say what is generally valuable in human life cannot be enforced without the oppressive exercise of state power. I argue that a better philosophy would be more qualified about comprehensive doctrines, more empirical and disconfirmable, not so Kantian. Rawls is right that the legal enforcement of religion is likely to require the oppressive exercise of state power but wrong to say that enforcing philosophical and moral comprehensive doctrines can be ruled out across the board as involving the oppressive exercise of state power. This depends on the "comprehensive doctrine". I question Rawls’s rejection of what he calls "comprehensive doctrines’ that would enforce the ideal of autonomy (e.g., some of Joseph Raz’s views). Only if we defend the possibility of some philosophical and moral doctrines being used in correcting the societal consensus on "constitutional essentials", and effectively advocating constitutional reform, can we avoid political dogmatism about the nature of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. I offer some empirical and political confirmation of my view by drawing on what Cass Sunstein argues about socioeconomic rights embedded in the South African Constitution among many others, an arrangement that could be drawn on to criticize the American Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at measuring the process of democratization, subdivided into the liberalization of the autocratic regime, the mode of transition, and the consolidation of democracy. The ca. 30 countries included in the study are situated in different regions in the world, mainly Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Republics, and Latin America. Most of them have experienced transitions away from different types of autocracies since 1974. However, we also include some countries from the Middle East and Northern Africa, which are, at best, in an embryonic stage of liberalization. The concepts will be measured in the form of a scalogram. Two coders assign scores for 27 indicators measured on an annual basis. Thus, the data provides a comparative measure of the level of liberalization and consolidation each country has achieved at any point in time over the period 1974-2000. In addition to this, each country’s mode of transition can be identified. The major task of our paper consists in exploring this cross-sectional, time series data to reveal their ‘patterns’. Such an investigation will be mainly guided by the question of how the different aspects of the complex processes of liberalization and consolidation are related to each other over time and space. One main finding is that our data both on liberalization and consolidation has a one-dimensional structure. Based on this finding, we can create scales of liberalization and consolidation. We find that most countries from Central and Eastern Europe perform comparatively well. Not only do they reach the same high levels of liberalization and consolidation like the Southern European cases, but they also do so in a much shorter time span than Spain, Portugal, Greece, or any of the Latin American cases in the 70s and 80s [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular participation in the electoral process plays a very important role in enhancing the legitimacy of democratic regimes. However, democracies differ widely in the degree to which voters exercise their franchise. This paper examines the effect of political institutions on electoral turnout in the new democracies of East Central Europe (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia). The paper considers a number of hypotheses. First, electoral turnout should increase with the proportionality of the electoral system (Blais and Carty 1990, Cox 1999). Second, electoral turnout should be greater where concurrent elections are held to multiple political offices, such as a strong presidency or a second chamber. Conversely, nonconcurring elections should reduce voter turnout. Finally, the party system may also have an impact both on electoral turnout as well as the magnitude of the effect of political institutions: the more competitive the party system, the higher the turnout and the stronger the impact of the political institutions are expected to be. The selection of the four cases from a well defined geo-political region allows to control the comparison for a number of sociological and historical variables. At the same time, the institutional diversity among the four new democracies provides for an excellent laboratory to test the above hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a great deal written in contemporary political theory about ‘relationships’ of power, particularly since Foucault’s radical reformulation of the concept. However, in this paper I want to focus, not on the relationship of power, although this will inevitably come into it, but rather its symbolic ‘place’ - the place of power. What do we mean by the place of power? From its beginnings, political theory has always conceived of power as emanating from a central symbolic place in society. For Hobbes power was centered in that body of absolute sovereignty, whose temporal authority was preferred to the ‘rapine savagery’ of war. The Hobbesian legacy has persisted for centuries - we have continued to see power as being centralized in a State apparatus or in a series of political institutions. However, since Foucault’s critique of the ‘juridico-discursive’ sovereign image of power, we have been forced to look at power in an entirely differently way. Rather than seeing it as emanating from a central institution or being embodied in a formal figure of sovereignty, we now see power as radically diffused throughout society, in a multitude of different, localized institutions, strategies and practices. However, this ‘decapitation’ of the sovereign figure of power has had serious implications for radical politics. The political field can no longer be seen in Manichean terms, as a struggle between an oppressive political power and a subject, uncontaminated by it and radically opposed to it. This paper will examine the effect that this absence of a central place of power has had on political theory. I will argue that this presents us with a seemingly irresolvable theoretical quandary - while we have to accept the radical diffusion in contemporary societies of both power and identity, we still need some notion of ‘place’ if we are to have any sense of democratic sovereignty, or indeed any notion of ‘the political’ at all. I will try to find some solution to this paradox central to contemporary political theory, through the ideas of Claude Lefort and Ernesto Laclau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Race has been a constant but unstable concept in US history, and the work of racial formation has taken place within institutions as well as in broader society and culture (as detailed by Omi and Winant, among others). This paper, part of a larger project, considers late twentieth and early twenty-first century efforts to address the legacy of racial discrimination in the law. It confronts the various strands of racial erasure advocated from different corners of the political spectrum. One element of this is the move to formal color-blindness in law spurred by interpretations of Warren Court precedents on race by the Rehnquist Court. The paper explores the roots of color-blindness in legal doctrine and critiques its current conservative application. Another related but less explored element is the political movement to erase racial references from state constitutions. In the last five years, several states have considered and passed initiatives and referenda that remove racially discriminatory language from their state constitutions. The paper considers this movement in Alabama and the meaning of these votes in the context of modern legal commitments to color-blindness. Ultimately, the paper argues that the process of racial formation continues in the modern era and that the historical legacy of racial formation cannot be erased. The paper ends with an analytical and political critique of efforts to deconstruct whiteness. It offers instead a qualified constructivist reading of racial formation as a simultaneously institutional and ideological process that leaves some room for agency and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine the growing influence of the Christian right on American foreign policy, particularly its role in promoting U.S. unilateralism. The paper consists of the three sections. The first examines the roots of Christian right unilateralism in the history of the American right, opposition to social policies promoted by the UN, and in religious prophecy. The second section analyzes the factors that have allowed the Christian right to play a more influential role in U.S. policy making: a sympathetic President, the Christian right’s growing grassroots electoral strength, and an alliance with neo-conservatives foreign policy elites. The final section argues that progressives interested in countering the Christian right’s influence should not approach it as an "extremist" group, but instead see it as part of a dominant foreign policy alliance. That alliance’s influence can best be countered by exploitning the contradictions within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a human right to democracy? Such a right is asserted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in several canonical works of democratic theory. Yet some political thinkers have denied that democracy is a human right, arguing that it lacks the moral primacy or urgency of rights such as freedom from torture and freedom from starvation. Engaging this controversy provides an opportunity to look again at the meaning of both human rights and democracy. The first part of this paper examines the meaning of human rights, the core ideas on which they are based, the connections that exist between them, and the reasons why socio-economic rights should be included along with civil and political rights in the human rights catalogue. I next turn to the paper’s central question. I argue that there is a human right to democracy, but only on a conception of democracy that makes respect for human rights intrinsic to its meaning. I argue further against two commonly expressed views: that human rights receive their legitimacy, wholly or in part, from democracy; and that the content of human rights is to be determined by democratic consultation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Nash, the subject of Nasar’s (1999) A Beautiful Mind, affected political science in important ways. His equilibrium concept and variants of it are the inferential foundation for many of game theory’s contributions to the study of politics. But do political actors have beautiful minds? We ask this question to focus attention on whether people, such as voters, think about politics in ways that popular equilibrium concepts imply. We argue that many people do not reason in these ways. Our paper examines the cognitive underpinnings of commonly used equilibrium concepts. In the process, we offer Fudenberg and Levine’s (1993) self-confirming equilibrium concept as more appropriate for an important class of political actors. We close the paper with a model of electoral competition that leverages this equilibrium concept’s substantive possibilities. We conclude that political science can increase the range and depth of its contributions by expanding its repertoire of solution concept [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A legislature in an authoritarian system usually is portrayed as a "Rubber Stamp". That is, it only has symbolic meaning, and no substantive functions. However, if an authoritarian system has been undergoing democratic change, the functions of its legislature must have also been transforming from being very weak (a rubber stamp) to being quite strong (a roaring lion). How has this transformation process developed? This is the main focus of this paper. This paper tries to explicate the relationship between legislatures and democratization from a dialectical perspective. This means that neither can a legislature alone promote democratization in a given system, nor should a strong legislature solely arise as an effect of democratization. The changing relationship between legislatures and the political systems they establish should be cumulative, on the one hand. That is, the systems must have been constantly undergoing some democratically oriented changes with their legislatures thus correspondingly reflecting those changes. On the other hand, the changing relationship between the two should result from both institutional influence and individual force. That is, the institutional arrangements of a given system should establish the foundation for its legislature’s being able to realize democracy. However, if individual efforts both from inside and outside of the legislatures are not focused on pursuing democracy, the institutional mechanism can not be fully utilized to fulfill its given functions. Based upon the foregoing theoretical propositions, this paper will employ Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan as a case to study its role change linked to Taiwan’s democratic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few concepts have witnessed as much sustained attention over the last decade as democracy and collective memory. Despite the oft-cited relationship between the two, however, the respective literatures have developed largely in isolation, have not theorized sufficiently the connections between them and are characterized by very different methodological approaches, heightening the lack of needed dialogue. In contrast to the many advacnes made in the field of democratization, work on memory has been overwhelmingly interpretive and theoretically underdeveloped. These shortcomings mean that vital questions–like how, why or even if memory matters for political life and democracy in particular–have not been addressed. This paper addresses these shortcomings. First, it constructs a useable social scientific framework that I call memory regimes. The concept consists of dominant collective memories, supportive discourses, narratives concerning the causes for the generative historical events and the history of the memory since the historical antecedents, implied values and derived ‘lessons.’ Elite opinion and attitude leadership that links memories and political values, and discursive competition aimed at political cultural dominance are central dynamics. Secondly, the paper turns to an empirical examination of the German case, one in which memory of past crimes is said to influence markedly values in a pro-democratic direction, showing both that and how memory matters. Indeed the statistical analyses of an original representative survey of Germans show that controlling for a variety of factors, memory is an independent force affecting political values and that the direction of the relationship is clearly and powerfully in the expected direction: the still-dominant memory of the Holocaust results in much more ‘progressive,’ pro-democratic political values. The paper concludes by addressing the question of why memory matters. It examines the recursive but complex relationships between memory and democracy, looking, for example, at the importance of memory for communal reconciliation, human rights and re-building trust, and, most importantly, at the issue complex regarding congruence, legitimacy and transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the role of free speech doctrine and American political culture in constituting a cultural politics of spatial location. In this mode of politics participants seek positions in the "center" of a public sphere, while placing opponents on the "margins." The paper traces this mode of politics to cultural practices emanating from law and multiple, overlapping strands of political culture--liberalism, republicanism, and protestantism. The implications of this mode of cultural politics for democratic practices are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the figure of Cassandra, a character from ancient Greek myth and tragedy, to frame an investigation into a range of interlocking issues of importance to political thought. It draws on the representation of Cassandra utilized by Aeschylus in his Oresteia trilogy, a work which presents a mythologized account of the establishment of democracy in the Athenian polis. Different readings of the Oresteia have been used by liberal, Marxist, feminist and post-modern theoretical positions in order to support particular claims about the theory and practice of politics. By revealing Cassandra as a figure who simultaneously defines and transgresses the boundaries of what is considered political, this paper demands that we re-examine our assumptions about both what constitutes the political realm, and who may take part in political conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis of this paper is that widely prevalent reductionist conceptions of the state weaken and undermine contemporary theories of both the state and democracy notwithstanding two decades of emphasis upon upholding the autonomy of the state to correct just that problem. The paper has suggested that the effects of doing so have been to submerge the importance of both citizen acquiescence in theories of state formation and strengthening and the role of democratic participation in formation of stable states upon which democracy in theory is generally presumed to depend. These important elements of interdependence between the state and democracy that both theories tend to overlook takes on existential importance in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where nascent post-Cold War democratization and chronically weak states are juxtaposed. A tentative and fragmentary review of available quantitative data suggests the possibility that where this theoretical interdependence is recognized in practice, it may be constructively exploited to strengthen both democracy and the state more expeditiously than in other settings. This tentative empirical finding merits further exploration [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will consider the general question of what we are to make of Emerson’s claims about the nature, significance, and possibilities of democracy, given his assessment of the problems inherent in democratic society. Upon close examination of his work, we find that Emerson continually reiterated his belief that democracy provided the greatest possibility for human advancement, even though he also saw certain key problems manifested in it, including the emergence of mass society, with the ensuing difficulties of conformity, withdrawal, weakening of the individual, and the increasing burdens on humanity of the dead weight of custom and history. In noting the problems inherent in democratic society, he mirrored the thought of many of the prominent cultural critics of his day; in his repeated assertions of the positive possibilities of democracy itself for providing the solutions to those problems, however, he showed himself to be at odds with much prevailing thought of the 19th century. The general thesis of this paper is that Emerson’s account of democracy arises from his central concern, namely, developing a right understanding of the relationship between the mortal world and the transcendent. In wrestling with this question, he arrives at the idea that is at the core of his thought; the crucial virtue that is necessary for each individual to develop is self-reliance. For, it is Emerson’s contention that without the capacity for self-trust, we will continue to seek out, and attempt to follow, the false models of society and convention that, in turn, will draw us away from God. The grave danger that he believes we face, therefore, is the perennial temptation of idolatry; the answer to the problem can only be found in strengthening the individual self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With over half of all households in the United States online, the Internet has become an essential enabling technology for social, economic, and political life. Scholars of the "digital divide" have focused on demographic groups that lag in their adoption of the Internet. Equally profound, but previously unrecognized, are disparities in usage between those with different political attitudes. This paper demonstrates that self-identified liberals are more likely to engage in capital-building activities online, and to seek out political information, news, and government Web sites. Liberals are more likely to believe that the Web plays an important role in forming their political attitudes, and to report that the Web has made them sign a petition or attend a political meeting. These findings problematize current conceptions of the digital divide, and raise important questions about the long-term political impact of the medium. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to get beyond legal rhetoric to the political arguments that originally framed our contemporary church-state constitutional discourse. By focusing on the thought and deeds of George Washington and James Madison, I show that sharp and significant disagreement existed among the leading founding fathers over church-state matters. These differences, I suggest, follow from competing prudential judgments about the political utility of religion. The paper begins by documenting Washington’s and Madison’s policy differences. I then attempt to explain these differences in light of Washington’s favorable and Madison’s skeptical reflections about religion’s role in supporting republic government. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of Washington’s and Madison’s relevance for contemporary church-state political questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the public choice school, which has dominated the debate on metropolitan governance since the 1980s, is facing new intellectual challenges. Like the reformers during the first half of the 20th Century, many urban scholars and practitioners are again demanding more integrated governance structures for sprawling metropolitan areas. There are also fundamental differences between the early reformers and the current advocates of a new regionalism in metropolitan areas. The new conceptions can be seen as the latest step in a dialectic development of governance paradigms. Whereas the early reformers adopted a technocratic, "steering" perspective and proposed a consolidated regional city, the public choice advocates relied on an individualistic "choice" approach to propose decentralized and (territorially or functionally) fragmented government structures. The latest turn of the debate goes beyond a pure instrumentalist view on political institutions which is embodied in both traditions. Social constructivists understand the attempts for "boundary (re)drawing", which is at the core of all metropolitan reform plans, primarily as a process of constructing/ constitutionalizing individual and collective identities. This paper presents an analysis of distinct definitions of fundamental governance goals and the corresponding proposals for institutional design. Very different understandings of "democracy" can be described in Abraham Lincoln’s terms: Early reformers based their plans on a top-down perspective on democracy as "government for the people", rational choice advocates stress the bottom-up concept of "government by the people" and social constructivists focus their attention on "government of the/of what people" - an aspect which is gaining center stage in a world where socio-economic and cultural spaces of flows are superposing traditional spaces of place. The formula for economic success has changed from focusing on effectiveness (a concept based on welfare theory) over efficiency (based on political economy) to competitiveness (based on trade theory). Dominant definitions of social justice have been transformed from equality over equivalence to equity/difference. The paper uses those different definitions of core values and the corresponding proposals for institutional design to analyze the discourse on institutional reform in metropolitan areas in the United States from the 1950s to the year 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a phenomenon that is almost invisible in the political science literature on Congress but quite common in actual congressional behavior - roll calls in which a coalition of left and right ideological extremes votes against a coalition of the centrists or moderates. By a conservative measurement strategy, such votes occur about 20 percent of the time in the House and somewhat more often in the Senate. This paper develops an empirical measure of the incidence of votes of a Coalition of the Extremes, applies it to more than 26,000 roll call votes from 1947 to 1998, and investigates factors that make such voting more or less likely. The general conclusion is that the Coalition of Extremes voting pattern shows that ideology, as distinct from partisanship, is a more important force in Congress than is generally recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do authoritarian institutions affect the conflict propensity of these states? This paper examines this question using a new institutional typology of authoritarian states, which separates authoritarian states on two axes (organization and procedures). This paper hypothesizes that autocracies using party organizations are likely to be more domestically constrained than those that use military organizations. Similarly, autocracies using collective decision making procedures are likely to be more constrained than those using individual decision making procedures. These constraints should lead to a decreased likelihood of dispute involvement with other similarly constrained states. These hypotheses are tested on all dyads from 1950-1992. Party based autocracies were found to be less likely to have disputes with other party based states and democracies, providing evidence for the autocratic constraints argument. Some evidence was found that collective decision-making autocracies were more peaceful towards each other only. Generally, this paper finds that the organizational aspect of an autocracy imposes domestic constraints and affects an autocracies likelihood of being involved in a militarized dispute. Autocracies that rely on parties as their main organization are more constrained and empirically less likely to be in disputes with each other first and democracies second. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I draw the link between three developments in advanced Western democracies: the decline in voter turnout, the decline in political knowledge and attention to politics, and the depoliticization of youth. After summarizing what we know of these phenomena, I then, using both comparative and Canadian data in particular, investigate the extent to which the first two can be understood as outcomes of third. If, as I try to show, this is significantly the case, it places challenges on policy makers and political scientists alike, challenges I address in the conclusion of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper distinguishes between two dimensions of corporatism: as a particular structure of the interest representation system, characterized by monopolistic, centralized, and internally non-democratic associations, and as a particular policy-making process, also known as "concertation" or "social partnership." While the former dimension of corporatism is more or less "dead," having exhausted its predictive and explanatory capacities, the latter is very much "alive" and captures much of what is going on in various countries, mostly (but not exclusively) European. By focusing on the Irish and Italian cases, the paper shows that concertation is perfectly compatible with a non-corporatist structure of the interest representation system and that organizational coordination can be equally effectively achieved through alternative mechanisms relying on democracy and discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on post-authoritarian transitional justice (TJ) often argues with passion and ?beguiling simplicity? that the prospects for democracy will be seriously helped or endangered by the decisions governments make about TJ. This black-or-white contrast, upon empirical investigation, turns out to be simplistic and ultimately misleading. While there are good reasons to expect that there is a relationship between consolidation and TJ, it is a more complex and less dramatic one than many suggest. This paper delineates exclusionary, educational, and symbolic functions that are crucial to the process of consolidation, and for which TJ policies are useful tools. It then argues that all new regimes, democracies or not, must undertake similar activities to establish their own authority, and TJ policies are efficient tools to undertake this founding. While new democracies found themselves under different constraints, the founding itself is not fundamentally different from what happens in any new regime. In short, instead of studying TJ as a set of policies that either brings about or derails the consolidation of democracy, they are more properly seen as tools of regime foundation, capable of signaling a wide range of new norms. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the view that state neutrality and the politics of recognition don?t mix. This might seem a difficult task, for the claim appears to be true almost by definition. The politics of recognition requires the state to affirm certain national, cultural or other group identities - the exact thing that state neutrality seems designed to preclude. The paper is divided into two distinct parts. The first half of the paper focuses on the idea of state neutrality, explaining both why neutrality should matter and what it means for a state to be neutral. I argue that the idea of justificatory neutrality, or public reason, is ultimately what makes a state neutral in the right way. The paper presents two conceptions of public reason: the restrictive and permissive views, and argues in favour of the latter. In the second half of the paper, I advance an argument that connects the principle of neutrality to the politics of recognition in a positive sense. Far from being incompatible with one another, I argue that one of the most influential current theories of neutrality, Rawls’s, actually needs the politics of recognition in order to succeed. Finally, the paper examines and rejects three potential objections to the compatibility of state neutrality and the politics of recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an inherent tension between democracy, as the self-rule of everyday people, and the institutions that serve it. The balancing act between the need for non-democratic administrative institutions that form who we are and the need to let ordinary people decide for themselves how to live their own lives is a daunting one. At the same time, democracy would be meaningless as a form of government if it only allowed people to choose who would rule over them. We need the institutions of representative democracy - they limit us, but without them our lives would be infinitely more difficult - but at the very moment the well-being of the institutions becomes more important than the ordinary person’s right to author her own life, we no longer live in a democracy. An administered life is not free. In this paper, I explore the tension between democracy and its institutions, arguing that if democratic institutions become too strong, they might very well smother democracy itself. (Institutions that are too weak can also threaten democracy, but that is not the focus of this paper.) They do this by eliminating disturbances, by ensuring that democratic procedures run smoothly and efficiently. But it is difficult to have a meaningful democracy when the picture of reality one is asked to accept does not contain any disturbing elements, and it is even more difficult when one is deprived of the possibility of being disturbing. One cannot be disturbing in a shopping mall or a theme park - the only public spaces to which an increasing number of us now have access. If the local, spontaneously created public spaces in which everyday citizens can come together as citizens, rather than as consumers or private individuals, are discouraged (or even taken away) because they interfere with the smooth functioning of the democratic institutions, then those institutions have defeated democracy itself. What is the value of a democracy that is so strong that it can ignore the people? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Manu code stands for Nietzsche as an example of a good lawbook. This paper looks to Nietzsche's discussion of the Manu code not to deduce a theory of legislation, but to ask after his understanding of law. Nietzsche's answer is: law is, in its essence, the positive manifestation of the will to power in a work of art. Law, in other words, is positive law, a command that erects itself as worthy of obedience through what might be called the art of legislation. As a work of art, the art of legislation is raised above truth as a stimulant to life; the inquiry into law, in other words, raises the essential Nietzschean question of art as the antidote to Nihilism. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses deployments of the terms secrecy and publicity since September 11th. The secret serves as a form to hold out the possibility of a public. It is that missing legitimacy or credibility always rupturing the public. Furthermore, under conditions of communicative capitalism, publicity no longer promises universality. Thus, the paper argues that the notion of the public is no longer beneficial to democratic thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to deal with extremists has been one of the main problems of mass democracies, both historically and in recent years. While constitutional lawyers and political theorists have dealt variously with the dilemma of the "tolerance for the intolerant", in general taking some intermediary position between the two poles of "no freedom for the enemies of freedom" and "real freedom is freedom to dissent", the empirical consequences of the above-mentioned dilemma for the practice of politics in democratic systems have been relatively underresearched. In particular, comparative analyses of the politics of legal-institutional reactions to extremists have been rare, and thus comparative politics is still a long way from achieving a systematic knowledge of the problems connected to the determinants and consequences of institutional and political strategies of "defense of democracy". The existing literature, by and large confined to case studies focusing on a few countries (mainly Germany and the US), needs to be complemented in at least two respects. On the one hand, a systematic typologization of anti-extremist reactions needs to be elaborated. On the other hand, the analysis should be expanded beyond the narrow set of the best known cases to less-researched democratic regimes that present interesting features in this respect. This paper aims to contribute to the latter exigency of this large research program, by illustrating the political-institutional reactions of the democratic rulers against extremist parties in the case of the First Czechoslovak Republic, created after the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire and lasted until 1938. Czechoslovak democratic forces resorted to different strategies to fight political extremism -mainly, but not only, Sudeten German nationalism- among which tendencies to the "integration" of radical dissent, and to accommodation, played an important role. However, a particularly important weapon in their hands was the passing and enactment of repressive anti-extremist legislation, on which the paper focuses. Two reasons make the Czechoslovak case a particularly interesting one for this analysis: first, it presents a very elaborate system of anti-extremism legislation, covering several areas and introducing severe limitations to extremist activities; second, such a system was passed and occasionally implemented in presence of strong extremist challenges, certainly much stronger than in any of the political systems which have been object of attention of the literature so far. Thus, the analysis of the Czechoslovak case has the potential to correct eventual biases in the comparative knowledge of this phenomenon, by showing that -contrary to cases such as Germany and the US- a strong and elaborate system of special legislation can be passed and implemented even when extremists represent a strong systemic threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does ?ethnofederalism,? a federal political system in which component territorial governance units are intentionally associated with specific ethnic categories, tend to promote state survival or collapse? Comparative findings have been mixed, with cases like the USSR and Yugoslavia pointing to collapse but others like India and Switzerland suggesting survival. This paper identifies an institutional logic that explains some seemingly contradictory findings of other studies: Ethnofederal states are more likely to collapse when they contain a core ethnic region, a single ethnic federal region that enjoys dramatic superiority in population. Such regions tend: (a) to promote the rise of ?dual power? situations that are frequently found to lie at the heart of state breakdown and revolution; (b) to increase the potential for ethnic security dilemmas; and (c) to facilitate the collective imagining of a core-group nation-state separate from the union state. Conversely, in ethnofederal countries where one group dominates in population but where that group is divided up into a number of separate federal regions rather than united in one core ethnic region, the dominant group faces major obstacles to collective action that inhibit it from creating the most serious dual power situations, that reduce the threats underlying ethnic security dilemmas, and that hinder the efforts of political entrepreneurs to promote the collective imagining of an independent core nation-state. A study of all world ethnofederations since World War II finds that all such regimes that have collapsed have possessed core ethnic regions. Likewise, not a single ethnofederation lacking a core ethnic region has ever collapsed. A discussion of key cases, including Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, the USSR, and Yugoslavia, provides strong evidence that the logical mechanisms specified in this paper were in fact at work in producing the collapse or supporting the survival of these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of post-communist democratization needs to be better connected theoretically and empirically to fundamental political questions such as the character and legitimacy of state-society relations. Focusing on Russia and China in the 1990s, this paper finds that the legitimacy of national state institutions has declined in both countries, although the decline appears to be less steep in China while the current level of legitimacy appears to be comparatively lower in Russia. The paper also draws upon different kinds of data to show that the decline in legitimacy is not a function of a growing "longing" for democracy that has been stifled under an authoritarian Chinese state and a "superpresidential" Russian state. In spite of a high level of support for ?democracy? in the abstract in Russia, in neither country does the preference for specific features for democracy appear to weigh in significantly in evaluations of the state, and illiberal and undemocratic attributes of the state are not only tolerated but welcomed if they promise to deliver political order, economic well-being, reduced crime and corruption, social justice, and a coherent national identity emphasizing historical distinctiveness and cultural particularism. As an alternative to arguments that conflate levels of democracy and legitimacy, we offer some tentative hypotheses that combine elements of currently popular and previously respected theoretical projects and that provide a partial explanation for both the decline in state legitimacy in post-communist Russia and China, and the comparatively higher level of legitimacy in the latter. We contend that the most relevant legacy inherited from the communist era in examining attitudes towards democracy and the state have to do with the stable, widely acknowledged dualism of formal and informal norms and practices that allowed ordinary citizens to incrementally improve their immediate situations outside of the officially sanctioned system of political control, economic exchange, and social organization. We also suggest that two features of the post-communist state -- the extent to which it is identified with familiar institutional practices and the extent to which it permits regularized channels of communication and exchange between state-connected elites and locally emergent networks -- affect the patience of the citizenry in evaluating the legitimacy of state institutions in the midst of transition. On both counts, China has fared better than Russia thanks to its incremental strategy and the separation of political and economic reform: the survival of recognizable state institutions has provided Chinese citizens with a sense of continuity and stability while limiting the attentuation of various tiers of connectivity linking local communities to state institutions and state-connected elites, while the more radical transformation in post-Soviet Russia has brought disorientation and detachment among Russians, while concentrating power and wealth in the hands of ?oligarchs? who are far fewer in number and far less connected to local actors than was the old Soviet nomenklatura elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes the theoretical insights from the literature on transitional justice to address issues of racial justice (pertaining to African Americans) in the United States. The title is a bit misleading, as I say little about racial reconciliation as such. A more appropriate title would be something like "Racial Justice as Transitional Justice." Still, I do want to examine what would be required for a just resolution to a wide range of political issues involving race in the contemporary United States. The general argument is that much of the racial injustice in this country can be traced to the incomplete nature of the transition that took place during the civil rights era. More recent regime transitions in various parts of the world have taught us a great deal about what is necessary to make a just transition from a human rights-abusing regime to a human rights-respecting regime. In light of these more recent transitions, and the theorizing to which they have given rise, our own transition to democracy looks very incomplete. It therefore remains incumbent upon us to complete this transition in order to become a (more) racially just society. The argument proceeds in three main stages. I first discuss the range of views among theorists of transitional justice, and defend what I take to be a moderate position on the requirements of a just transition. These requirements include a strong prima facie presumption in favor of certain backward-looking measures such as prosecution, reparation, and acknowledgement. Next, I argue that the civil rights era in the United States was a regime transition, analogous to more recent transitions, and thus can be evaluated in light of the normative standards that have emerged from reflection upon recent transitions to democracy. By the standards I defend in the first section, our transition to democracy with respect to equal citizenship for African American was not just, or at least is so far incomplete. The country certainly did not undertake the measures that are prima facie required for a just transition, and it seems that the conditions that could rebut the presumption in favor of those measures did not obtain. The third section of the paper suggests a range of issues that should be considered in an effort to complete our transition to a nonracist liberal democracy. These include policies designed to implement a program of black reparations and symbolic and cultural issues related to the acknowledgement of the injustice of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the political consequences of the electoral system of the Federal Republic of Germany, recently taken as a model for electoral reforms -or proposal for reform- in several democracies. In the analysis, particular attention is devoted to the political conditions typical of the different phases of evolution of the party system after 1949, with the purpose of inserting the ‘mechanical’ and ‘psychological’ effects of the electoral system in the broader political context. In fact, although the manipulative impact of the electoral system per se on the party system is undeniable in some historical circumstances, exogenous factors proved to be of great importance in enhancing the capability of the electoral system to give shape to the party system. Among such factors could be mentioned the strategies of the bigger parties vis-?-vis the smaller ones during the 1950s, with the parallel implementation of electoral reforms and the formation of ‘strategic’ alliances, as well as the repressive politics against extremists in the same years, the internal changes in the larger parties a few years later, the ‘learning’ process of the effects of the electoral law by the electorate in the subsequent years, etc. The historical analysis is of crucial importance for the correct understanding of the current phase of the German party system and the role of the electoral system in the near future, to which the second half of the paper is devoted. The national reunification of 1990 has brought about higher levels of electoral and parliamentary fragmentation, as well as an increased territorial differentiation of voting behavior, which stand in stark contrast with the stability and defragmentation of the German party system in the previous three decades. In this situation, the electoral system has regained political importance, both for its actual and potential manipulative effects, and for the revitalization of some of its features that had fallen into irrelevance during the previous decades, such as the alternative threshold and the surplus seats mechanism. The analysis of the post-reunification phase of the German party system against its historical background shows however that in the near future the electoral system is unlikely to contain, let alone to reverse, the current fragmenting trends of the party system, should these continue in their present form. The political conditions for electoral manipulation (strength of the PDS and existence of the alternative threshold, opposition of the Constitutional Court to a higher threshold of exclusion, increased influence of the surplus seats on the political equilibrium, etc.) are remarkably different now from those of the past, which leads to think that the near future for Germany will either be one of continuing party system fragmentation and more complicated coalition-building, or of sweeping electoral reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature that has sought to explain the affects of the economy on voting is extensive. However, these findings are for the most part based on Western democratic models. Consequently, political scientists have failed to take advantage of the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe to see if these models are robust. Given the changes over the past decade, this paper tests the extent to which extant theories can be used to explain election outcomes in this region of the world. In this particular study, Polish monthly public opinion data is utilized to determine more accurately whom the electorate holds accountable during periods of economic stress in semi-presidential systems?the president or the prime minister. The findings in this paper suggest that a strong determinant of electoral accountability and the allocation of blame are dependent upon whether the government is unified or divided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the term American exceptionalism is presented which was prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, from August 30-September 1, 2012. The paper discusses topics including the true character of American exceptionalism and shallow portrayals of U.S. policies by media outlets both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

A conference paper about progressivism and American exceptionalism is presented which was prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, from August 30-September 1, 2012. The paper discusses topics including U.S. President George W. Bush administration's decisions to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American acquisition of the Philippine Islands in 1900.

A conference paper about popular sovereignty and the prospects for good government in ancient Athens and America is presented which was discussed at the American Political Science Association's 2012 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, from August 30-September 2, 2012. The paper focuses on topics including the history of Athenian democracy and the collected works of philosopher Xenophon.

Recent findings show that deliberation outcomes can be vulnerable to manipulations by moderators. However, what makes moderators influential over deliberation outcomes and how to minimize the chance of manipulation have not been investigated yet. To address this issue, this paper presents a lab experiment which tests one of the mechanisms through which moderators can affect deliberation outcomes. This study investigates how perceived expertise of a moderator conditions the moderator's potential to persuade participants of deliberation. Subjects are asked to deliberate on whether to expand the subsidized jobs program of New York State or not. The result suggests that participants of deliberation are more susceptible to moderator's influence when they perceive the moderator having expertise on the policy issue than not. The empirical evidence of this paper contributes not only to the existing literature on deliberative democracy but also provides broader implications to studies on leadership effects in a group discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the diffusion of human rights norms among domestic state actors after a state has formally endorsed these norms, with a focus on the right to be free from torture. The findings reveal the ways in which lack of trust in legal and political processes in India contributes to Indian law enforcement officers' resistance to human rights that protect suspects from torture. I argue that flaws in the legal and political context inform the way these officers interpret these rights as well as the normative arguments that are available to them to justify violations. The findings suggest that it is not only formal political structures and national "culture" that inform norm diffusion, as other scholars have argued. Nonformal aspects of the political context and state actors' perceptions of this context can matter as well for whether and how norms diffuse after formal state endorsement has occurred. The paper is based on twelve months of in-depth fieldwork in India with law enforcement officers who are participating in human rights education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inconsistency of the beliefs citizens have about political issues is neither a new nor a surprising finding for political scientists (Converse 1964). Still at least from a normative point of view attitude constraint is a desideratum that is important for the quality of electoral decisions and ultimately for the quality of democracy (Friedman 2006). Under these circumstances it is not surprising that several studies examined the constraint between the attitudes of the citizens (Converse 1964; Converse and Pierce 1986; Peffley and Hurwitz 1985; Zaller 1990; 1992 Sturgis, Roberts and Allum 2005; Granberg and Holmberg 2006). One factor that is especially important is the level of political knowledge, more informed voters should have higher levels of attitude constraint as they are better able to identify their preferences (Althaus 1998; Carmines and Stimson 1980; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Lau and Redlawsk 1997; 2006; Downs 1957; Dahl 1989; Converse 1964). But at the same time as most voters are politically ignorant, a simple heuristic such as having a party ID might help them have consistent political attitudes, compensating for lower levels of political knowledge (Lupia 1994; Popkin 1994; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Zaller 2004). This paper will further investigate the determinants of attitude/issue constraint with an emphasis on political knowledge and party ID, as a simple heuristic. Its major contribution is that it will go further than the single country environment in which this was studied before. Using the 2009 European Election study, will also allow me to bring context into the picture by analyzing how the level of attitude constraint varies across the institution rich environment provided by the 27 member states of the EU. Two contextual factors are chosen to explain the cross country variation of the consistency between citizens' attitudes: elite constraint and ideological polarization. By combining a simple correlation approach with a bayesian approach the paper that indeed political knowledge and partisanship, both at an individual at a macro level, have an overall positive role on attitude/issues constraint. Also while no evidence was found to support that polarization has any effect of attitude constraint, elite consistency was shown to have a consistent effect across issue domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the state of debate about political reform in democracies around the world today. Using data from a case study of contemporary reform debates in Ireland and a broad cross-national expert survey that includes evidence from (so far) 45 countries, it examines whether the wave of democratic reforms identified by Cain, Dalton, Scarrow, and colleagues a decade ago continues and how the ongoing economic crisis that has afflicted much of the world since 2007 has affected these debates. It concludes that the wave of democratic reforms is continuing and, indeed, that economic crisis may have caused it to intensify further. The paper also considers whether responses to economic woes have been constructive or populist, finding evidence for both mechanisms. The research presented here is preliminary and a number of questions for further inquiry are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a polarized political climate that sets religion and irreligion in ever more antagonistic opposition, there is heightened pressure on the American state constitutional provisions known as 'Blaine Amendments' or 'No-Aid Provisions' which were passed between 1835 and 1959 to prohibit public aid to religious schools. Judgements about No-Aid Provisions have largely been made by scholars on an ad hoc basis using narrative-based historical accounts, emotive language and without clear classificatory criteria. Using content analysis this paper constructs the first quantitative scale of No-Aid Provision strength and subjects it to statistical treatment to explain why some prohibitions are much stronger than others. It finds that larger Catholic populations, Republican dominance and Federal Enabling Acts make No-Aid language more strident. In so doing this paper adjudicates between competing explanations for No-Aid Provision strength and undermines the absolutist language of Church/State separation prevalent in American public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the role of presidents in the politics of redistribution in developing democracies? Do other political actors, such as legislators and governors, influence redistribution? Is redistribution shaped by political (that is, partisan) factors or do programmatic criteria play also a part? Redistribution in very unequal developing countries is a divisive issue. Most researchers recognize a crucial role of the state in redistributive politics. Despite this, there is little we know about the factors that shape government redistribution. This paper studies political and economic factors that affect the allocation of interregional redistributive transfers in Argentina and Brazil, two highly unequal countries in Latin America (the world's most unequal region). The focus is on funds with high redistributive impact and over which the central government may have large discretion: public infrastructure. Using original data on federal infrastructure spending for the 24 provinces in Argentina and the 27 states in Brazil (for the period 1999-2011), this paper shows that redistributive politics (in particular, the distribution of infrastructure funds) in developing federations is fundamentally determined by executive politics. The main claim is that presidents use redistributive transfers as a tool to build up sizeable and secure political support. We also found large variation in the relevance of Congress and programmatic criteria across cases, and that legislative overrepresentation is not always a relevant factor to explain redistribution, contrary to findings in the literature on the US and the European Union. We discuss some possible reasons for these results and the implications of these results for the broader comparative debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]