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Political Parties, Clientelism, and Bureaucratic Reform
The challenge of public administration reform is well known: Politicians often have little interest in the efficient implementation of government policy. Using new data from 439 World Bank public sector reform loans in 109 countries, we demonstrate that such reforms are significantly less likely to succeed in the presence of non-programmatic political parties. Earlier research uses evidence fro…
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- Volume 48, Issue 14 December 2015, P. 1942-1973
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Conceptualizing and Measuring Citizenship and Integration Policy Past Lesson…
Research on immigration and citizenship has become one of the fastest growing areas in political science, with one trend being the boon of comparative citizenship and immigration policy indices. This article discusses methodological concerns with this enterprise. The first half addresses issues with policy indices, including (a) concept validity and boundary maintenance and (b) measurement, com…
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- Volume 48, Issue 14 December 2015, P. 1905-1941
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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European Welfare States and Migrant Poverty The Institutional Determinants o…
In almost all European welfare states, immigrants face a higher risk of poverty than natives, but the gap between the two groups varies. In examining this variation, our article contributes to the nascent literature on the impact of welfare states on immigrants. We hypothesize that whether immigrants benefit from welfare generosity depends on three intervening factors: immigration policy, labor…
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- Volume 48, Issue 14 December 2015, P. 1879-1904
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Power and Institutional Change Re-Reforms of Latin American Pension Systems …
During the final decade of the 20th century, many Latin American countries enacted sweeping market-oriented pension reforms, introducing, at least partially, private pension system based on defined contributions and individual capitalization. Lately, however, many of these nations have witnessed shifts in the reformed pension schemes. Why have these “re-reforms” occurred? Why have they taken di…
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- Volume 48, Issue 14 December 2015, P. 1847-1878
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Shaping Politics at Home Cross-Border Social Ties and Local-Level Political …
The dramatic rise of democratic regimes around the world has coincided with an equally significant increase in migration, characterized by an unprecedented movement of people from emerging to established democracies. Through analysis of survey data from six Latin American countries, we offer an empirical evaluation of theoretical mechanisms through which migration can shape the political behavi…
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- Volume 48, Issue 11 September 2015, pages 1454-148
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Brussels Bound Policy Experience and Candidate Selection in European Elections
Parties in list systems must select candidates to best accomplish their electoral, organizational, and policy goals. In particular, parties must balance nominees’ policy-making potential against other aspects of candidate quality, such as electoral viability. We exploit the unique variation in candidates and parties in European elections to study this trade-off. We develop a statistical ranking…
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- Volume 48, Issue 11 September 2015, P. 1421-1453
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian S…
Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are thought to uniformly rely on distributing excludable benefits to co-ethnics, rather than on providing public goods to all. We argue that ethnic parties can vary substantially in how they mobilize support and behave in office. Much of this variation depends on the…
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- Volume 48, Issue 11 September 2015, P. 1389-1420
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Elections in the Arab World Why Do Citizens Turn Out?
This article examines the determinants of voting in competitive authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. In contrast to scholars who view elections in the Arab World purely as patronage contests, we argue that citizens also care about policy outputs and use turnout as a way to signal their approval or disapproval with the regime. We draw on the literature on economic voting in democratic regime…
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- Volume 48, Issue 11 September 2015, P. 1355-1388
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Workers or Consumers? A Survey Experiment on the Duality of Citizens’ Inter…
What determines the attitude of citizens toward international trade in advanced industrialized nations? The question raises an intriguing paradox for low-income citizens in developed economies. Increasing imports pose the most severe threat to job security for low-income citizens, who, on the other hand, reap the greatest benefits from cheaper imports as consumers. This article considers the ro…
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- Volume 48, Issue 10 September 2015, P. 1293-1318
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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How Economic Integration Affects Party Issue Emphases
The economic dimension has typically been considered the primary dimension of political party competition. However, parties often rally voters on the basis of non-economic issues. In this article, we argue that integration into global markets and into the European Union (EU) constrains parties’ abilities to credibly differentiate themselves on economic issues. Given these constraints, and voter…
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- Volume 48, Issue 10 September 2015, P. 1227-1259
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Executive Power and Media Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe
Political executives often influence how effectively citizens can monitor them, yet the link between executives and government transparency is not well developed in the literature. I begin filling that void by illuminating the relationship between media freedom—one dimension of transparency—and executive power. I theorize that politicians prefer to avoid monitoring and negative publicity, and t…
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- Volume 48, Issue 10 September 2015, P. 1260-1292
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Preferences for Inter-Regional Redistribution
What explains individual support for inter-regional redistribution? Few studies examine support for regional redistribution, even though such issues are politically salient in many democracies. We test models that hypothesize that such preferences are affected by regional and individual income, as well as other arguments beyond the traditional political economy framework. We focus on informatio…
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- Volume 48, Issue 10 September 2015, pages 1318-135
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Durability of Presidential and Parliament-Based Dictatorships
Many scholars have examined the durability of parliamentary versus presidential regimes in democracies, but the process by which authoritarian leaders are (nominally) elected is generally assumed to be irrelevant. However, even if the electoral outcome is not in doubt, the executive selection process may affect outcomes such as regime durability. I argue that, when opposition parties are allowe…
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- Volume 48, Issue 7 June 2015,915-948
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- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Government Turnover and the Effects of Regime Type How Requiring Alternation…
Incumbents voluntarily leaving office after losing elections is a hallmark of democracy. Hence, the most prominent binary democracy measure (Democracy–Dictatorship/Alvarez–Cheibub–Limongi–Przeworski [DD/ACLP]) requires observed alternation in power to score regimes democratic. Such “alternation rules” may, however, lead to underestimating democracy’s effect on economic growth. As strong economi…
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- Volume 48, Issue 7 June 2015, 882-914
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- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Incorporating Marginal Citizens and Voters The Conditional Electoral Effects…
In this article, we study how social assistance shapes election results across Latin America. Case studies in several countries have found electoral effects, yet it remains unclear whether and how effects vary cross-nationally, and whether electoral effects are due to mobilization or persuasion. We theorize that programs mobilize non-voters and convert the opposition simultaneously, but that th…
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- Volume 48, Issue 7 June 2015, 854-881
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Credibility Versus Control Agency Independence and Partisan Influence in the…
There is a natural tension between theories of party government and theories of regulatory politics. Whereas effective party government requires that politicians have firm control over public policy, the need for credible commitment in regulation stipulates that policy-making capacities are delegated to independent agencies. While the theoretical dimension of this tension is well established, t…
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- Volume 48, Issue 7 June 2015, pages 823-853
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Foreign Aid, Time Horizons, and Trade Policy
Although there are theoretical reasons to expect foreign aid to promote trade liberalization, empirical research has found no relationship. Without disputing this general nonresult, we argue that foreign aid can incentivize liberalization under certain conditions. In the absence of aid, the incentive to liberalize trade depends on government time horizons: Far-sighted governments have incentive…
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- Volume 48, Issue 6 May 2015, pages 788-819
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- 0010-4140
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- Comporative Political Studies
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Random Walk or Planned Excursion? Continuity and Change in the Left–Right P…
Implicit in theories of democratic elections is the idea of change—or at least the potential for change. Elections provide the opportunity for citizens to change their party preferences and thus alter the course of government. In addition, political parties can change their programmatic positions to attract new voters. Our research asks how much parties change their Left–Right positions between…
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- Volume 48, Issue 6 May 2015, pages 759-787
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Elections, Information, and Policy Responsiveness in Autocratic Regimes
The responsiveness of policy to election results is a central component of democracy. Do the outcomes of autocratic elections also affect policy choice? Even when the threat of turnover is low, I argue that autocratic elections influence policy by allowing citizens to signal dissatisfaction with the regime. Supplementing existing work, this study explains how this opposition is communicated cre…
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- Vulome 48, Issue 6 May 2015, pages 691-727
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Deliberate Indiscretion? How Political Corruption Encourages Discretionary Po…
This article reports the first empirical evidence that politicians delegate to trusted bureaucrats to diminish political responsibility for policy. Political science has been perennially concerned with why political leaders delegate authority to bureaucrats, but this work’s focus on advanced democracies has overlooked how corruption and political influence over bureaucrats can turn delegation i…
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- Volume 48, Issue 6 May 2015, pages 728-758
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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