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A Deeper Look at the Proportionality—Turnout Nexus
Evidence that turnout is higher under proportional representation (PR) than in majoritarian elections is overwhelming. Yet previous research has largely failed to explain why. One line of argument maintains that higher turnout under PR is a by-product of larger party systems. However, a larger number of parties has been demonstrated to depress turnout. Alternatively, it is argued that majoritar…
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- Volume 42, Number 4, April 2009. pp. 527-548
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Dominant Party Regimes and the Commitment Problem: The Case of United Russia
This article analyzes the formation of a stable dominant party in an authoritarian regime as a commitment problem between two sides: the ruler and other elites. After defining a dominant party regime and outlining the costs and benefits that such a regime entails for each side, the authors examine the efforts made in Russia to establish United Russia as a dominant party and argue that the Kreml…
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- Volume 42, Number 4, April 2009. pp. 501-526
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Supporters or Challengers?: The Effects of Nongovernmental Organizations on L…
How do nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) affect local politics in developing democracies? Specifically, do NGOs have systematic effects on the fortunes of incumbent political parties in local elections? Existing work predicts starkly contradictory political effects: Some scholars claim that NGOs most likely help incumbents by providing services for which politicians can claim credit, whereas…
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- Volume 42, Number 4, April 2009. pp. 479-500
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Learning From Others:The Diffusion of Hospital Financing Reforms in OECD Coun…
The increase in health care expenditures is a major problem of all welfare states. To counter this trend, since the early 1980s, most OECD countries have changed the way hospitals are financed. Although these reforms are certainly linked to country-specific factors, the authors' main argument is that they are in part due to a diffusion process: Policy change in one country is influenced by prev…
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- Volume 42, Number 4, April 2009. pp. 549-573
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Armed Forces and Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Explaining the Role…
Studies of transitions from authoritarian rule have shown that militaries play decisive roles in authoritarian breakdowns. The military possesses coercive resources that can suppress any challenge to authoritarian rule. This article explains why and under what conditions militaries in authoritarian regimes, when faced with popular demonstrations, will support the path of political liberalizatio…
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- Volume 42, Number 5, May 2009. pp. 640-669
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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What Moves Parties?: The Role of Public Opinion and Global Economic Condition…
Do Western European political parties adjust their ideological positions in response to shifts in public opinion and to changing global economic conditions? Based on a time-series, cross-sectional analysis of parties' ideological dynamics in eight Western European democracies from 1976-1998, the authors conclude that both factors influence parties' ideological positions but that this relationsh…
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- Volume 42, Number 5, May 2009. pp. 611-639
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Strategic Targeting: The Effect of Institutions and Interests on Distributive…
Virtually every government provides distributive transfers for electoral purposes. However, the level and form of such transfers vary dramatically across countries. Although transfers take many forms, they can generally be characterized as being either broad (providing benefits to large segments of the electorate) or narrow (targeting benefits only to select groups of voters). Variation in the …
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- Volume 42, Number 5, May 2009. pp. 670-695
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Role of Interfirm Networks in Technological Innovation and Education
This article examines the sociopolitical conditions for preventing market failure in public goods investment. Based on International Social Survey Program data for 17 advanced industrialized countries, the author compares economies with strong and weak institutions of interfirm coordination in how they encourage investment in skills and technological innovation and highlight the inefficiency of…
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- Volume 42, Number 5, May 2009. pp. 587-610
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Insiders, Outsiders, and the Politics of Corporate Governance: How Ownership …
This article argues that differences in the dispersion of corporate ownership help to explain why party positions on corporate governance vary across countries and over time. It shows that British, French, and German political debates over takeover regulation since the 1950s differ significantly along several dimensions, including the pattern of left—right competition and the timing of debate, …
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- Volume 42, Number 6, June 2009. pp. 733-762
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Origins of Social Capital: Evidence From a Survey of Post-Soviet Central …
This article investigates the determinants of social capital by analyzing an original survey of post-Soviet Central Asia. It tests hypotheses derived from two related questions: whether networks, norms, and trust are empirically related and the extent to which four factors—culture, regime type, perceptions of government responsiveness, and development interventions—predict levels of social capi…
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- Volume 42, Number 6, June 2009. pp. 707-732
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Ideological Consistency and Attitudinal Conflict:A Comparative Analysis of th…
According to attitudinal theorists, justices on the U.S. Supreme Court decide cases largely on political preferences that fall within one dimension of ideology. The focus of this study is to test whether a unidimensional ideological model explains the voting behavior of Canadian Supreme Court justices (1992—1997). The factor-analytic results in three areas of law, two of which have never been e…
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- Volume 42, Number 6, June 2009. pp. 763-792
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Making of Mavericks: Local Loyalties and Party Defection
By focusing on parliamentary systems, this article presents an argument that legislators who have strong local ties and individual support bases are more likely to be individualistic and so break party unity in parliament. They are simply less dependent on parties for their careers, political and otherwise. The article draws on an original data set of legislators' votes and their biographies fr…
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- Volume 42, Number 6, June 2009. pp. 793-815
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Power Knocks at the Courts' Back Door: Two Waves of Postcommunist Judicia…
In the postcommunist countries' candidate to the European membership, the EU and the Council of Europe exercised a heavy pressure on domestic elite to promote the adoption of institutional guarantees of judicial independence and judicial capacity. Relying on a wide set of interviews with the key actors of the European and domestic institutions, this article will discuss the logic of action of t…
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- Volume 42, Number 6, June 2009. pp. 816-840
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Candidate Selection Procedures, Seniority, and Vote-Seeking Behavior
It has been argued that inclusive and decentralized selection procedures create greater incentives for parliamentarians to enhance their personal reputations. However, while the observable implications of this theory are at the level of individual members, the empirical data often brought to bear on this question to date have been collected at an aggregate level—the partisan bloc or legislative…
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- Volume 42, Number 7, July 2009. pp. 945-970
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- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Europeanization, Education, and School Curricula: The Role of Historical Lega…
One might expect governments to react to deepening European integration since the mid-1980s by updating national school curricula in social science subjects such as history and geography so as to reflect the new realities. France has done so, whereas England has not. This study asks how one explains this variation in outcome. Established explanations for why Britain has been a more reluctant Eu…
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- Volume 42, Number 7, July 2009. pp. 916-944
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- 0010-4140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Risks and Redistribution: An Individual-Level Analysis
Much of the disagreement in the debate about globalization and its present or absent effects on the welfare state stems from competing assumptions about the individual-level determinants of redistributional preferences. This article calls for and provides testing of these causal mechanisms at the individual level. Traditional accounts suggest that risks at the industry level are important deter…
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- Volume 42, Number 7, July 2009. pp. 855-881
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Market Reform as a Stimulus to Particularistic Politics
We know little about how market reform affects political development, especially citizens' behavior. Market reform advocates prescribe that citizens should reduce their reliance on the state, turn to nonstate actors for assistance, and obtain limited state goods and services through their membership in certain social categories, not their particular traits. An analysis of three mass surveys and…
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- Volume 42, Number 7, July 2009. pp. 971-994
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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The Role of Protestantism in Democratic Consolidation Among Transitional States
Previous studies have examined the causal link between Protestantism and democratization, primarily in shaping a nation-state's cultural ethos and its tendency to affect the outcome of democratic politics. Historically, Protestantism has also been linked to generating a political culture that promotes individualism, tolerance, the pluralism of ideas, and civic associationalism. Recent empirical…
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- Volume 42, Number 7, July 2009. pp. 882-915
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Always the Third Rail?: Pension Income and Policy Preferences in European Dem…
Social transfer programs are thought to generate beneficiary groups who will act politically to defend "their" programs from retrenchment. But little empirical research has been conducted to either verify or disconfirm the micro foundations of this hypothesis, which lies at the heart of the "new social risks" thesis as well as many economic analyses of welfare state politics. This article tests…
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- Volume 42, Number 8, August 2009. pp. 1068-1097
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Democracy, Autocracy, and Expropriation of Foreign Direct Investment
Stylized evidence indicates that democracies and autocracies both expropriate foreign direct investment but that democracies do so less frequently. What explains the similarities and differences in expropriation between regime types? An analysis of actual expropriation acts in 63 developing countries from 1960 to 1990 shows that democracies are most likely to expropriate foreign investment when…
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- Volume 42, Number 8, August 2009. pp. 1098-1127
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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