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Theories of Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Brazil
Brazil's democratic constitution granted municipalities responsibility to design and implement social policies, allowing for tailored programs to meet local constituent demands. Yet instead of pursuing local diversity, many governments chose to emulate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains the diffusion of social programs across Brazil? This article investigates whether policy mak…
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- Vol. 41, No. 2, February 2008. Page 193-216
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes: How Welfare Regimes Influence P…
Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes so reluctant to support welfare policy? And why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support welfare policy? This article seeks to give an institutional account of these cross-national differences. Previous attempts to link institutions and welfare attitudes have not been convincing. The empirical studies ha…
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- Vol. 41, No. 2, February 2008. Page 145-168
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Agrarian Tenure Institution Conflict Frames, and Communitarian Identities: Th…
Drawing on a survey of more than 4,000 respondents, this article argues that contrary to claims by the 1994 Zapatista insurgency, indigenous and nonindigenous respondents in southern Mexico have been united more by socioeconomic and land tenure institution variables than by ethnic identity. Based on statistical models, it concludes that in rural southern Mexico, ethnicity alone is less importan…
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- Volume 42, Number 1, January 2009. pp. 82-113
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Economic Origins of Electoral Support for Authoritarian Successors: A Cross-N…
This study explores how economic performance prior to democratic transitions affects the fate of successors to authoritarian rulers in new democracies. It investigates 70 founding election outcomes, finding that successful economic performance under an authoritarian regime increases the vote share of successors. It also finds that the past economic performance of authoritarian rulers decr…
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- Vol. 41, No. 3, March 2008. Page 362-388
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Legitimacy and institutional change: the case of China
What explains the nature of institutional change in post-1989 China? Dominant theories of institutional change focus on economic-rationalist, sociopolitical, or historical causes. Yet they have trouble explaining the pattern of institutional change in China. An alternative legitimacy-based perspective is proposed here that provides a more parsimonious and general theory of institutional change …
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- Vol. 41, No. 3, March. Page 259-284
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Constraints and Choices: Electoral Participation in Historical Perspective
Participation in electoral politics is not a fully voluntary act. Suffrage rules regulate who can participate, whereas institutional arrangements affect incentives to vote by shaping the consequences of the voting act. The secular increase of electoral participation in the world during the past two centuries was largely due to extensions of suffrage rather than to increased turnout of those eli…
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- Volume 42, Number 1, January 2009. pp. 4-30
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women: Evidence From the L…
This study uses district-level data from national legislative elections in 19 Latin American countries to evaluate the effect of gender quota legislation, in concert with other electoral rules, on the election of women legislators. Well-designed quota legislation has a profound positive impact on the election of women, regardless of the type of party list (closed or open). Where quota legislati…
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- Volume 42, Number 1, Jabuary 2009. pp. 56-81
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The local connection: local government performance and satisfication with dem…
In light of extensive decentralization in much of the world, analyses of citizen satisfaction with democracy that treat citizens as subjects of their national governments alone are incomplete. In this article,the author uses regression analysis of unique survey data from Argentina to explore the relationship between local government performance and citizen satisfaction with democracy. She demon…
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- Vol. 41, No. 3, March 2008. Page 285-308
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Who Knows Best what the People Want: Women or Men?:A Study of Political Repre…
The notion of representation lies at the heart of liberal democratic thinking, and over the years considerable effort has gone into defining and measuring the concept. The least common denominator in the voluminous literature is that in a representative political system there should be a certain amount of attitudinal congruence between masses and elites. One much-debated strategy for obtaining …
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- Volume 42, Number 1, January 2009. pp. 31-55
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Logic of Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences
Historical explanations seek to identify the causes of outcomes in particular cases. Although social scientists commonly develop historical explanations, they lack criteria for distinguishing different types of causes and for evaluating the relative importance of alternative causes of the same outcome. This article first provides an inventory of the five types of causes that are normally used i…
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- Volume 42, Number 1, January 2009. pp. 114-146
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Ethnic Diversity and Generalized Trust in Europe: A Cross-National Multilevel…
While most current research documents a negative relation between ethnic diversity and generalized trust, it has to be acknowledged that these results often originate from one-country analyses in North America. In this article, attitudinal measurements from the European Social Survey are combined with Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development data on migration patterns, thus examin…
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- Volume 42, Number 2, February 2009.pp. 198-223
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change
Incumbent political leaders risk deposition by challengers within the existing political rules and by revolutionary threats. Building on Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, and Morrow's selectorate theory, the model here examines the policy responses of office-seeking leaders to revolutionary threats. Whether leaders suppress public goods such as freedom of assembly and freedom of information t…
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- Volume 42, Number 2, February 2009.pp. 167-197
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Do Electoral Rules Matter?: Political Institutions and Foreign Direct Investm…
Despite the growing importance of domestic institutions in the political economy literature, few studies explore the effects of disaggregated measures of political institutions, specifically electoral rules and systems, on foreign direct investment (FDI). Building on institutional accounts, this articles tests the effects of electoral rules on FDI inflows for 16 Latin American countries from 19…
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- Volume 42, Number 2, February 2009.pp. 224-251
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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How Do Ideas Matter?: Mental Models and Attention in German Pension Politics
How do ideas affect political decision making? Despite much evidence that ideas matter, relatively little is known about the specific mechanisms through which they influence actors' beliefs, goals, and preferences. Drawing on psychological findings, the article elaborates a cognitive mechanism through which ideational frameworks shape political elites' preferences among options. It argues that …
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- Volume 42, Number 2, February 2009. pp. 252-279
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Government Responsiveness and Political Competition in Comparative Perspective
Governments in democratic systems are expected to respond to the issue preferences of citizens. Yet we have a limited understanding of the factors that cause levels of responsiveness to vary across time and between countries. In this article, the authors suggest that political contestation is the primary mechanism driving policy responsiveness and that this, in turn, is mediated by politi…
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- Vol. 41, No. 3, Page 309-337
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Understanding Cleavages in Party Systems: Issue Position and Issue Salience i…
There has been considerable debate about the characteristics of political cleavages underlying post-Communist Central and Eastern European party competition, with views ranging from no structure, to unidimensionality, to structured diversity, to entirely sui generis country-specific approaches. Much of the disagreement, the authors argue, results from the failure to take seriously the distincti…
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- Volume 42, Number 2, February 2009. pp. 280-313
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Are Parliamentary Systems Better?
The institutional differences between presidential and parliamentary rule are well known, yet the practical effects of these divergent constitutional arrangements within democratic polities have received scant attention. This article employs a global data set to test the relationship between a historical measure of parliamentary rule and 14 indicators ranging across three policy areas: politica…
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- Volume 42, Number 3, March 2009 327-359
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Constructing Tolerance: How the Welfare State Shapes Attitudes About Immigrants
Over the past 30 years, the hitherto rather homogeneous welfare states in Europe have been experiencing a dramatic influx of immigrants, making them much more diverse. The central purpose of the early development of the welfare state was twofold: to bridge class divisions and to mollify ethnic divisions in the vast multiethnic empires of 19th-century Germany and Austria. This research examines …
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- Volume 42, Number 3, March 2009. pp. 437-463
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Global impact of quotas: on the fast track to increased female legislativ…
Quotas have become an important mechanism through which women today are entering legislatures worldwide. This study shows that the introduction of quotas has helped overcome constraints on women's representation posed by economic underdevelopment, cultural influences, and even electoral systems. This study also demonstrates that the introduction of quotas offers the most explanatory power for w…
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- Vol. 41, No. 3, Page 338-361
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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In the Shadow of Democracy Promotion: Strategic Manipulation, International O…
International efforts to promote democracy can have unanticipated effects. International election observation is perceived to increase domestic confidence in the electoral process and reduce fraud. Conversely, election boycotts are perceived to be more likely as electoral fairness decreases. The authors document a puzzling relationship between monitored elections and opposition party boycotts: …
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- Volume 42, Number 3, March 2009. pp. 392-415
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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