Search

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are a cornerstone of democracy in Europe. Nonetheless, "civil society" and "political society" should not be equated as membership-based organizations are not necessarily politically engaged. This paper theorizes and empirically examines which membership-based CSOs engage in interest representation through sustained advocacy activity. We propose an incentive-theoretical framework on CSO investments in advocacy activities—a collective, non-exclusive incentive from which also non-members can profit—by organizations fundamentally dependent on member support. Theorizing how CSOs' own structural characteristics, resource dependencies, and government demand for CSO input affect how CSOs reconcile selective and collective incentive provision, we test our hypotheses using new data from four recent surveys conducted in four European democracies. In line with our framework, CSOs organizing individual citizens rather than corporate actors and those pursuing member interests are less likely to engage in advocacy, while CSO professionalization and state funding access enhance CSOs' propensities to do so. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the former structural CSO characteristics are similarly relevant for CSO advocacy across distinct country settings, while the role of resource variables is mediated by institutional context revealing an important source of inequality in democratic interest representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complementing the existing partisanship and income distribution literature that focuses on the earnings of all employees, this paper examines the effect of left government partisanship on top managers. Drawing on firm-level top executive compensation data across thirteen advanced industrialized countries, the paper shows that left government partisanship principally leads to lower CEO compensation, either through laws that enhance workers' collective bargaining power vis-à-vis management or laws that allow shareholders to cast proxy votes on executive compensation (i.e. say-on-pay laws). Furthermore, I show that left government partisanship reduces CEO pay more heavily in those firms that more strongly favor labor's competing stakeholders. In particular, left partisanship reduces executive compensation more heavily in firms that set aside more revenue for shareholders, managers, or creditors, that is, firms with higher asset return, stock return, or debt. These findings highlight how the macro-politics of rising top income inequality at the national level interacts with the micro-distributive conflicts at the firm level. In particular, financialization, such as the rise of the shareholder value revolution, may accentuate the impact of partisan politics against top income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do ethnic and racialized minorities have lower trust? While previous research emphasizes individual factors such as the national and cultural origins of ethnic groups, this paper draws attention to the ethnic majority-minority relationship. We argue that ethnic differences in trust are a function of the power dynamics underlying this relationship and that these dynamics are particularly salient in democratic political systems. To test this argument, we develop new measures of ethnic majority-minority status, which for the first time allows for global cross-national comparison of heterogeneous ethnic groups at the micro level. Using the World Values Survey, we test the majority-minority argument, showing that, while democracy increases generalized trust across the board, it also leads to a gap in trust that favors the majority group. This gap remains even after the inclusion of controls for country differences in factors such as ethnic diversity and GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing body of research on participatory democracy and the literature on associational democracy by exploring the impact that institutional reforms have on local-level configurations of civil society. In the 1980s a wide range of participatory experiments were initiated in Brazil, most notably Participatory Budgeting in municipal governance. Municipios that adopted PB in principle devolve much or all of the decision making on new investments to decentralized participatory forums. In this paper we consider the results of an eight-city matched-pair analysis conducted in 2004. in which we selected municipios that adopted PB in 1997-2000, and matched them with a similar municipio that did not in the same period, drawing from the full sample of municipios over 20,000 inhabitants. Building on relational theories of civil society, we show that PB has clear but limited effects on civil society. It moves civil society practices from clientelism to associationalism, but does not contribute to the capacity of civil society to self-organize, at least in the time-frame considered. We also show that this democratizing effect on civil society practices and networks is conditioned by pre-existing state-civil society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that globalization is not the panacea that will contribute to the solution or amelioration of social, economic, and health problems. What seems to be clear is that the outcome of globalization has been the exacerbation of poverty and inequality. If globalization is the long-term answer or solution to the world's problems, then it seems that we will be taking a long walk to freedom, democracy, and the fulfillment of human rights and social justice. It is also important to note that as this process of globalization continues, many of our human rights will continue to be negatively impacted by diverse economic, political, and military forces. Despite the aforementioned circumstances, it is necessary to understand that globalization is a fact in today's societies and appears to be an irreversible process. Therefore, we must analyze, explore, and generate concrete initiatives that will address many of the problems and issues presented throughout this paper. It is quite evident, however, that we do not need additional laws, legislation or public policies aimed at alleviating poverty, providing access to adequate health care and educational benefits, or aimed at enhancing women's rights vis-à-vis their male counterparts. What we actually need is the fulfillment or the implementation of the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights or their Millennium Development Goals or the 1995 ICPD Action Plan.