Many observers of the US Supreme Court suspect that justices time their departures from the Court based on ideological and political factors. This paper assesses the theoretical effects of such behavior. Does political timing of retirement devalue the appointment process and thereby make the Court less responsive to the public? Do politically motivated retirements lead to more justices serving …
Although party competition is widely regarded as an important part of a working democracy, it is rarely analysed in political science literature. This article discusses the basic properties of party competition, especially the patterns of interaction in contemporary party systems. Competition as a phenomenon at the macro level has to be carefully distinguished from contest and cooperation as th…
This paper investigates how constituency size affects spatial competition in a two-party system with a new entrant. When the electorate is small, two-party systems are stable only if the following conditions hold: the candidates are neither too certain nor too uncertain about voters’ preferences; competition is sufficiently costly; and the candidates have binding policy commitments. Moreover, w…
This paper reconsiders the discussion on ordinal utilities versus preference intensities in voting theory. It is shown by way of an example that arguments concerning observability and risk-attitudes that have been presented in favour of Arrow’s Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA), and against utilitarian evaluation, fail due to strategic voting. The failure of these two arguments is t…
Journal of Theoretical Politics
Gradualism is common in international cooperation, as states begin with limited cooperation and choose more ambitious targets slowly over time. However, most models of international cooperation are static and thus cannot explain gradualism. I show that when states can implement domestic reforms to reduce the cost of international cooperation, enforcement concerns prompt gradualism. First, to ac…
This theme issue addresses three research questions: i) how are the impacts of macro-level crises transmitted to children's micro-level experiences of poverty and well-being? ii) in what ways can these impacts be mediated by the policy responses of international and national actors? and iii) what lessons can be derived from responses to past crises and to what extent is this learning being appl…
Central America has been one of the regions hardest hit by the global financial crisis. This article analyses the short-run effects of the crisis on children's schooling and employment outcomes in El Salvador, exploiting repeated cross-sectional samples of the annual household survey for the period 2000–8. It reveals that this early phase of the financial crisis has decreased school attendance …
This article examines case examples of some of the consequences for children and families of average and severe economic and social disruptions, including the economic losses and failure of social supports during the transition after perestroika in Russia, the experience of poor families during economic retrenchment in Mexico, the massive asset loss in the capital of Honduras after a natural di…
How has the well-being of children and young people been affected by the global food, fuel and financial crises that have struck since 2007? This article reports empirical findings from qualitative research in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Yemen and Zambia in 2009 and 2010. Intended to complement the wider body of mainly quantitative evidence, it explores how the subjective and relatio…
In a mix of responses to the food, fuel and financial crises of 2008–9, some developing countries have introduced new safety-net programmes, while others have modified and/or expanded existing ones. Many have introduced conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in recent years, and these have been used as an important starting point for a response. This article aims to describe these various experience…
The global financial crisis has emphasised the fundamental role of social protection institutions in developing countries. There is also growing evidence that countries with programmes focused on children have a greater chance of minimising the longer-term effects of the crisis. However, financing remains a major challenge: the effects of a slowdown in growth are likely to reduce the fiscal spa…
The wave of unrest that swept through the Arab world at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 originated in Tunisia. What happened— and what are the prospects that Tunisia will make a successful transition to democracy?
Egyptians threw off the thirty-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, but now find themselves under essentially the same military tutelage that they had hoped to escape by launching their struggle.
Widely reported as “Facebook revolutions,” the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt show that social media not only can ignite protests but also can help to determine their political consequences.
Strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s suspiciously lopsided 2010 electoral victory—and subsequent crackdown on dissent—may seem like a repeat of the events of 2006, but much has changed in the interval, and his regime is much more precarious today.
Despite signs of a cautious willingness to allow more political competition, the regime of newly reelected president Yoweri Museveni fell back on familiar habits of brutal repression when public unrest followed a sudden spike in the cost of living.
Many new democracies have faltered due to high levels of inequality and a deep polarization between the rich and poor. What is the relationship between modern liberal democracy and socioeconomic inequality?
Despite India’s impressive achievements in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, it remains home to a third of the world’s poor. Although it has successfully averted famine since independence, it still struggles to prevent chronic hunger.
Despite improvements in South Africa’s socioeconomic landscape and the expansion of the black middle class since the end of apartheid, the country’s levels of poverty and inequality remain high and heavily correlated with race.