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Are Diverse Political Networks Always Bad for Participatory Democracy? Indiff…
Political discussions within interpersonal networks not only help communicate political information that is otherwise too costly to obtain, but they also expose people to political views that are not necessarily congruent to their own predispositions. In exploring consequences of exposure to political disagreements, existing literature finds an interesting dilemma: Although political disagreeme…
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- Vol. 37 no. 5 September 2009 pp. 879-898
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532673x
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- Series Title
- American Politics Research
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Connected Coordination: Network Structure and Group Coordination
Networks can affect a group’s ability to solve a coordination problem. We use laboratory experiments to study the conditions under which groups of participants can solve coordination games. We investigate a variety of different network structures, and we also investigate coordination games with symmetric and asymmetric payoffs. Our results show that network connections facilitate coordination i…
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- Vol. 37 no. 5 September 2009 pp. 899-920
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532673x
- Collation
- -
- Series Title
- American Politics Research
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Competitive Assimilation or Strategic Nonassimilation?: The Political Economy…
This article tests the competitive assimilation and strategic nonassimilation models, using district-level data from Latvia. Unlike the coordination dynamic of the competitive assimilation game, the strategic nonassimilation game highlights the strategic interaction between Russian and Latvian players. Russian parents do not look to other Russian parents when deciding to send their children to …
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- Vol. 41, No. 7, July 2008. Page 947-970
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
- Collation
- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Squeaky Wheels and Unequal Policy: Executive Authority and Education Reform i…
The World Bank has been increasingly involved in reforming Latin America's education systems. However, compliance with World Bank directives varies greatly. Recent scholarship has made significant progress in fashioning an explanation for this variation by focusing on the presence of democracy. This article takes the literature a step further by identifying the mechanism by which democracy matt…
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- Vol. 41, No. 7, Page 921-946
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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To Invest or Insure?: How Authoritarian Time Horizons Impact Foreign Aid Effe…
In this article, the author argues that the time horizon a dictator faces affects his incentives over the use of aid in three ways. First, dictators have a greater incentive to invest in public goods when they have a long time horizon. Second, dictators with short time horizons often face the threat of challengers to the regime; this leads them to forgo investment and instead consume state reso…
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- Vol. 41, No. 7, Page 971-1000
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Integration and the Structure of Public Spending
The voluminous tax competition literature suggests that increased economic integration leads to reduced tax rates and suboptimal levels of government spending as countries compete for mobile factors of production. Integration may influence not only the size of the government but also the structure of public spending. Comprehensive studies analyzing the effect of integration on the overall struc…
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- Vol. 41, No. 7, Page 1001-1027
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Interdependence, Density Dependence, and Networks in Politics
This article addresses the theoretical and methodological challenges that arise due to the interdependence of actors within political processes. Networks of communication and association provide a resolution to the micro—macro problem in political analysis—they provide a vehicle through which individual behavior is reciprocally connected to behavior in the aggregate. A central argument of the a…
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- Vol. 37 no. 5 September 2009 pp. 921-950
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532673x
- Collation
- -
- Series Title
- American Politics Research
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Social Networks and American Politics: Introduction to the Special Issue
This article overviews the special issue on “Social Networks and American Politics.” The authors explain that social network analysis is a multimethod set of approaches to examining the pattern of connections that are created among individuals and institutions when they engage in their daily activities. It is especially valuable when research problems are about (a) the flow of information; (b) …
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- Vol. 37 no. 5 September 2009 pp. 727-741
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532673x
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- -
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- American Politics Research
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The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems: Party System Polarization, Its…
Previous research claims that the number of parties affects the representation of social cleavages in voting behavior, election turnout, patterns of political conflict, and other party system effects. This article argues that research typically counts the quantity of parties and that often the more important property is the quality of party competition—the polarization of political parties with…
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- Vol. 41, No. 7, Page 899-920
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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The Social Utility of Informal Institutions: Caucuses as Networks in the 110t…
This article challenges the existing state-of-knowledge about legislative caucuses by arguing that the caucus system reflects and reinforces formal organizing institutions, such as parties and committees, rather than counterbalancing them. We argue that legislators engage in the caucus system to maximize the social utility of their relationships. Using a social network framework, we develop and…
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- Vol. 37 no. 5 September 2009 pp. 742-766
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- 1532673x
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- -
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- American Politics Research
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Ethnic Defection in Civil War
The study of ethnicity is dominated by constructivist approaches, yet empirical studies of civil war have been oblivious to their insights. In this article, the author examines the relationship between ethnic identity and civil war and points to several empirical instances of fluidity in the behavioral expression of ethnic identities within civil war. The author identifies two processes that ar…
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- Vol. 41, No. 8, August 2008. Page 1043-1068
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Political Leadership and the Emergence of Radical Mass Movements in Democracy
The perception of liberal democracy as a solidly institutionalized system in which opposition forces moderately compete with legitimate authority is so fixed that people are often surprised when mass radicalism emerges. Why, when, and how do radical mass movements emerge in pluralist (or semipluralist) political systems? The article, by linking radical action at the mass level with strategic ch…
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- Vol. 41, No. 8, Page 1117-1140
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Adopting Direct Democracy: Tests of Competing Explanations of Institutional C…
Why was direct democracy adopted in some U.S. states and not others? In this article, we sort through the various arguments advanced in the predominantly historical literature by using event history analysis. Among other factors we identify the importance of popular support for Populists and Socialists as well as the constraints imposed by state constitutions. We also find that the demographic …
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- Vol. 37, No. 6, November 2009.pp. 1024-1047
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532-673x
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- -
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- American Politics Research
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Unstable Politics: Fiscal Space and Electoral Volatility in the Indian States
What explains variations in electoral volatility? The authors argue that fiscal space—availability of financial resources to enact policy initiatives and provide public programs—possessed by governments can explain the level of electoral volatility. Where governments have fiscal space, citizens reward incumbent parties with their continued support. But when fiscal space is constrained, the incu…
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- Vol. 41, No. 8, Page 1069-1091
- ISBN/ISSN
- 0010-4140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Incompetence, Alienation, or Calculation?: Explaining Levels of Invalid Ballo…
This article focuses on the casting of invalid ballots and voting for extra-parliamentary parties. Drawing on evidence from more than 200 elections in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas during the 1980-2000 period, it tests how well four sets of factors serve as explanations for the extent of such behavior in parliamentary contests. The main finding is that the structure o…
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- Vol. 41, No. 8, Page 1141-1164
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Sovereign Bond Ratings and the Democratic Advantage: Portfolio Investment in …
As developing countries expose portfolio investors to potential high risk, it is expected that investors will follow the advice of credit rating agencies (CRAs) before sending capital abroad. Controlling for political and economic explanations in the literature, the authors use panel data for 50 developing countries from 1987 to 2003 to determine if changes in CRA ratings affect portfolio flows…
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- Vol. 41, No. 8, Page 1092-1116
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Assessing Variation in Civil Society Organizations: China's Homeowner Associa…
Theories of civil society set high expectations for grassroots associations, claiming that they school citizens in democracy and constrain powerful institutions. But when do real-life organizations actually live up to this billing? Homeowner organizations in the United States and elsewhere have sparked debate among political scientists, criticized by some as nonparticipatory and harmful to the …
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- Vol. 41, No. 9, Page 1240-1265
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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Economic Judgments, Party Choice, and Voter Abstention in Cross-National Pers…
This article proposes and applies a unified model of economic voting. The central claim of this article is that economic judgments affect the decision of whether to vote as well as how to vote. An analysis of cross-national survey data supports this claim, demonstrating that previous studies of economic voting have failed to identify the full relationship by omitting abstention. In addition, th…
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- Vol. 41, No. 9, Page 1290-1309
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
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- -
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- Comparative Political Studies
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Are Mapmakers Able to Target and Protect Congressional Incumbents?: The Insti…
Can those in charge of redistricting foster electoral competitiveness by targeting some congressional incumbents while protecting others from potent competition? We provide an answer by presenting the dynamic redistricting thesis, which holds that the type of redistricting plan and the time passed since its enactment affect the emergence of high-quality congressional candidates. We demonstrate …
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- Vol. 37, No. 6, November 2009.pp. 955-982
- ISBN/ISSN
- 1532-673x
- Collation
- -
- Series Title
- American Politics Research
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Political Accountability and the Room to Maneuver: A Search for a Causal Chain
Many studies of the room to maneuver make no provision for popular evaluation of policy. They assert rather than demonstrate popular satisfaction with policy choices and macroeconomic outcomes. The authors present a framework that explicitly models channels for popular preferences to influence policies and outcomes. Results for economic policy making in Britain do not support the room to maneuv…
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- Vol. 41, No. 9, Page 1212-1239
- ISBN/ISSN
- 00104140
- Collation
- -
- Series Title
- Comparative Political Studies
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