Search

Abstract:We argue that there is a similar situation between today Russia and Weimar Germany because similar factors lead from a defective electoral democracy to an electoral autocracy. We demonstrate that a structural explation with socio-economic factors is not appropriate to explain democratic breakdown in the "crucial cases" of Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia. We show that 1. a considerable lack of democrats on the elite level as well as on the population level and 2. an ill-defined form of government, that allows the president to rule without the parliament in combination with an nondemocratic actor which gets elected for president are sufficient reasons for a country to experience an authoriarian regression. In the second and third part of the paper we take a look on the question, when an electoral semiautocracy is in danger to get a fascist ideocracy. In the second part we show that there is fertile ground for fascism in Russia today. We demonstrate that as in Weimar Germany we can find in today Russia strong fascist actors and a widespread nationalism among the population. But in the third part we we will show, that all in all, ironically, in current Russia, in distinction to Germany 1. a manipulated party system and a underdeveloped third sector, 2. a strong semiautocratic president make it difficult for the country to become a liberal democracy, but make it also improbable that the Russian regime will transgress into a fascist autocracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AAs the ideological gap between political parties' narrows and party identification decreases, parties need new strategies to attract voters. Politicizing political corruption is one option and this paper explores to what extent and with what results political parties have used the issue of corruption in European parliamentary elections between 1983 and 2007. 171 electoral campaigns in 32 European democracies are analyzed and the main results are that politicization of corruption is correlated with the level of corruption. Moreover, the issue is rather under than over politicized, implying that it is not a used as a populist strategy to win votes. Rather it is established mainstream parties that are the main champions of anti-corruption. Finally, the results show that corruption allegations quite substantially increase the likelihood of governmental turnover in medium and highly corrupt countries, whereas corruption is not politicized at all in low corrupt countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rising literature on voting behavior emphasizes a “two step” model (originally argued by Dominguez and McCann in Democratizing Mexico), where a voter first examines their attitudes toward the dominant party and then towards their personal economic or personal interests. However, there are divergent findings from tests of this model, and there are methodological differences that limit our ability to make consistent conclusions. In this paper, we reexamine the validity of the “two-step” argument using data from the 2000 Mexico and 2006 Paraguay elections and employ methods we argue are more appropriate for these tests: 1) a mixed logistic estimation and 2) statistical backwards induction. From the mixed logistic regression, we conclude that voters in nations with hegemonic parties confer greater importance to the image of the dominant party, confirming the “two step” model. From the statistical backwards induction analysis, we confirm that the existence of the two steps respond to strategic considerations of voters. These findings have relevant implications for transitions to a multi-party democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Connolly is one of the foremost exponents of the trend of "Left Nietzscheanism." In this paper, I critique Connolly's appropriation of Nietzsche both hermeneutically and normatively, and suggest the outlines of a liberal alternative. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do political parties in some nominally democratic systems support militant wings? What effect does violence have on the distribution of voter preferences and consequent party platforms. In this paper I assume that parties care about policies. These parties can utilize violence to escape the median voter's preferred policy as well as effect their probability of winning an election. If parties are relatively immoderate, then supporting a militant wing will deter moderate voters, effectively changing the distribution of voters and allowing at least one of two parties to adopt policies closer to their ideal point. Asymmetric distributions of voters provide both ideological and electoral incentives to initiate violence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While whether economic development determines transition to democracy has been studied and retested several times, the relationship of economic development and semi-democracies has been understudied. Does economic development and semi-democracies have any relationship? Why have they not been fully democratized while their economies have performed well? This paper studies whether economic development has an impact on semi-democracies in terms of whether economic development has a significant impact on semi-democratic regimes and how semi-democracies are related to economic development. It hopes to find the answer of whether economic development can lead to transition to full democracies in semi-democratic regimes. To examine whether there is a significant relationship between economic development and semi-democracies, it uses the economic development and political regimes of Malaysia and Singapore as the case study. The finding is that economic development does not have significant impact on semi-democracies and there seems to be no significant between economic development and semi-democratic regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the proper way in which to meet injustice? To answer this question, I introduce a distinction between monist as opposed to dualist conceptions of justice. Monist conceptions of justice, of which Rawls' conception of justice as fairness is a representative example, claim that one set of normative principles apply to both ideal and nonideal circumstances, either because of the identity between both sets of principles or, more generally, because the latter, in a sense to be explained, can be derived from or reduced to the former. Dualist conceptions of justice, by contrast, maintain that the two practical problems of ideal and nonideal theory require, at the fundamental level, two different sets of normative principle: one set of principles for ideal circumstances and one set of principles for nonideal circumstances. My aim in this paper is to examine the difficulties posed by monist conceptions of justice, and, in particular, to assess whether it is possible to derive guidance for responding to injustice from principles designed for the regulation of a perfectly just society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for variation in support for democracy among religious organizations? This paper explores the importance of institutional factors in determining support for democracy among church authorities in Latin America from 1970-2005. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using worldwide cross-sectional time series data, this study compares the consequences of the type of executive for democracy and stability. After presenting a new classification, the paper tests the potential consequences of each type. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 1950-2000 this paper investigates whether IOs use a hypothesized mechanism to promote democracy within their member states. I test the effects of net characteristics of IO membership on the probability of democratic transition. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a twoâ€"stage model of religiousâ€"democratic change from Italy, this paper argues that friendly religion-state arrangements might be useful for democratic transitions in countries who host a religion that is seemingly hostile towards democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the government/business nexus, highlighting the conflict between communities and the Wal-Mart Corporation, with a particular focus on the role of municipal and county governments in mediating this conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the emergence of the Democratic Party in southeast Kansas as the leaders of this nascent movement drew on the anti-slavery rhetoric of pre-Civil War republicanism to construct a new identity for the party in the 1870s. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses original survey data from national elections in Russia in 2000 and 2004 to explore the sources of electoral support for Putin, an example of a strong hybrid regime leader. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that previous literature has focused too narrowly on the institutional limitations to democratic responsiveness, to the neglect of the cultural-identity concerns raised in democratic theory. I provide and test a framework for conceptualizing identity, and noting its determinants, which takes into account a variety of factors previously addressed in the literature on EU support. Eurobarometer survey data is utilized in a multi-level model, allowing for the simultaneous consideration of both individual-level and state-level theories of identity formation. Identity development is found to be primarily influenced by diffuse elements of policy support and latent socialization mechanisms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer a starting point for building an understanding of the factors that influence public confidence in the courts of nations that are undergoing a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer insight into the potential and limits of civil society as a vehicle for deepening democratic values in newer democracies. I analyze a large cross-national survey of Latin American citizens in 18 countries to examine the question: Is civil society in Latin America nurturing democratic values or breeding authoritarian sentiments? A multidimensional analysis of civil society brings nuance to our understanding of the relationship between civil society and democratic values. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to develop and test hypotheses about how nations compare in their use across e-government and e-democracy dimensions, and assess the factors that lead to high use of various aspects of these broad initiatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the structure of the representative relationship and evaluates the treatment of representation in contemporary democratic theory with the aim of developing a normative theory of transnational democratic representation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a systemic-level analysis of the determinants of armed great power conflict between 1870 and 1913. It finds that globalization and the spread of democracy were the most important causes of rising military conflict in this period. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematizes arguements which suggest that post-communist states should strive towards liberal and procedural democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass’s understanding of the virtues proper to citizens of a free society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper posits that contrary to modernization theory, economic progress does not lead to democratization, rather it leads to a process of de-democratization. A Latin American case study is used demomstrating this thesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks to Hobbes's use of representation to recover the constitutive capacity of representation. It provides resources for addressing the challenges that emerging transnational political actors present to modern representative democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theoretical account of government obedience to constitutional courts, and of judicial review as an instrument of popular sovereignty. It argues that the power of a constitutional court in a democracy lies in its ability to unleash the power of the people. The threat of popular retaliation unleashed by the courts encourages governments not only to obey the courts, but also to refrain from exceeding their proper bounds in the first place.Courts perform monitoring, signaling, and coordination functions that mitigate the principal-agent problem that lies at the heart of democratic government. In democratic systems, the people as collective principal delegate power to the government as agent. The terms and conditions of this delegation of sovereign power make up a country's constitution. The government is supposed to exercise that power consistent with these terms and conditions, and in the best interests of the people who delegated it. However, the interests of principal and agent may diverge: the government may usurp power, for example, or turn against the people. The people, acting in concert, are capable of revising the terms of their relationship with the agent, or of replacing the agent outright. A constitution ordinarily sets forth mechanisms both for selecting and replacing agents, and for revising the terms of the principal-agent relationship. There are, however, significant potential obstacles to the effective exercise of power by a collective principal over its agent. First is an information problem: a principal cannot respond to bad behavior by the agent if they remain unaware of the agent's bad behavior. First is a collective action or coordination problem: even if the people acting together are capable of toppling the most recalcitrant government, such action may require widespread coordination that can be difficult to achieve. Constitutional courts alleviate these obstacles to the exercise of popular control over government by providing accessible, trustworthy, low-cost information to the people about whether their government has overstepped the bounds of its delegated power. An official judicial finding of unconstitutionality provides a focal point that coordinates popular response to government action. It is therefore backward to argue that judicial review is countermajoritarian. Judicial review is, instead, an institutional mechanism that facilitates the exercise of popular sovereignty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the assumptions of the emerging literature on global justice and show how some of the debates are distorted by inappropriate ideas borrowed from the domestic social contract theories out of which they grow. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two institutional settings in federal states, namely direct democratic institutions and institutionalised intergovernmental cooperation, and analyses how they affect policy diffusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the health of local democracy by analyzing the structure and content of citizen discourse at town council meetings held to discuss the merits of Wal-Mart development in cities and towns of varying size around the country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impacts of participation in a deliberative democracy process on minorities’ perceptions of internal and external political efficacy, and examines the impacts of diversity and social inclusion on external political efficacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the decline in Democratic macropartisanship among men and women to better understand the dynamics underlying macropartisanship and the gender gap. Analysis is conducted on yearly time series of macropartisnhip, 1953- 2003. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exams levels of correct voting -- i.e., voting in accord with one's own preferences and values -- across 32 established and emerging democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how political events affect elites' beliefs in foreign policy values. It examines the impact of 9/11 and the Iraq war on elites' beliefs in humanitarianism and democracy promotion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores comedy as a form of public discourse within democratic Athens through an examination of Aristophanic comedy and Platonic political philosophy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines those factors, both international and domestic, that are most influential in a state’s decision to adopt a legislative gender quota, including diffusion patterns and regime-type. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the theory and practice of participatory democracy in recent, current, and future contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the strength of the relationship between democracies and the protection of property rights, focusing on the role of institutions of horizontal exchange (or accountability). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the paradoxical endurance of non-consolidated non-performing democracies focusing on the identification of factors contributive to social consent (or political absenteeism) that fill the gap between the stage of institutionalization of a non-consolidated democracy and that of fully consolidated democracies. It utilizes the understanding that consolidation requires the routinization of and a normative commitment to democracy (Diamond 1999), and proposes that to secure democratic continuity the incomplete fulfillment of those requirements demands consummate performance legitimacy, the absence of which must be mitigated by counterbalancing factors. The plausibility of this framing of the endurance of non-consolidated non-performing democracies is tested by examining Brazil's democratic regime. The findings support the instrumentality of the framework of analysis and suggest that counterbalancing factors allowing democratic endurance may in fact preclude consolidation and substantive socioeconomic advances. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the place of youth in the public sphere, and expands the Habermasian conception beyond the bourgeois. It explores the obstacles to youth participation and the resources available for negotiating their place in a democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the origins of development-promoting property rights institutions. Specifically, I focus on democracy and veto players as key political foundations of property rights institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interdependencies between policy areas: how do positions on one issue constrain the choice of positions on other issues? Expert survey data from established democracies is used to explore this question. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interactive effect of direct democracy and racial diversity on social trust. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of voluntary associations on democratization in the Middle East. It analyzes the role of professional associations and labor unions in fostering democratic ideals and virtues in Jordan and Egypt. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the United Nations General Debate speeches by Islamic country leaders at the opening sessions of the UN in autumn 2005, 2006 and 2007. It assesses levels of support for rule of law, good governance, electoral democracy, political participation, religious freedom, human rights, and economic freedom, and considers them against established benchmarks of political, civil and economic freedom. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines William Graham Sumner's views on plutocracy and democracy, tensions within those views, and their relationship to his understanding of liberalism, in an effort to better inform contemporary political-philosophical discourse. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the traditional approaches that political theory has taken towards questions of loss. It then presents a critique of these approaches, and suggests an alternative understanding of loss informed by the concept of sacrifice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptually advances notions of democratic governance in Ohio by melding Braybrooke and Lindblom’s partisan disjointed incrementalism with the institutional categories of March and Olsen. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chooses Japan's top two largest newspapers and examine their coverage patterns of China. It seeks to offer a contextualized and nuanced picture of how reporters from a democracy deal with and are dealt with by an authoritarian government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the survival of liberal societies depends on their citizens' understanding of the uses and misuses of violence in the service of freedom. An awareness of the contingency of liberal political life is essential in this regard. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the question of who are eligible to participate in the democratic decision making processes should be determined in the forever-open deliberation among those who share loyalty to democratic procedures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that ideology played a minor role in the early Cold War by demonstrating that containment was initially directed to halt the expansion of a potential hegemon rather than the expansion of a socio-economic system of government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]