Country's Political Structure Research Articles

From foreign direct investment to environmental regulations: Does a feedback effect ever exist?

This study revisits the feedback effect from foreign direct investments (FDI) on environmental regulations under the presence of the host country's political structure. Such a relationship may encounter the endogeneity problem due to the omitted variable bias and reverse causality. As such, the two-step system generalized method of moments is employed. Using data from 21 OECD countries from 1990 to 2019, we confirm that FDI flows influence environmental regulations, but such an effect is conditional on the host country's political constraints. Specifically, FDI increases (decreases) the stringency of environmental regulations if domestic political constraints are sufficiently high (low). Understanding the mechanisms of how FDI flows can affect environmental regulations allows countries to revise their policies to attract more FDI flows to support economic growth while simultaneously minimising their negative effects on the environment.

A matter of energy injustice? A comparative analysis of biogas development in Brazil and Italy

Energy transitions have significant implications for justice, as certain regions may experience losses or improvements as a result of decarbonization efforts. The biogas development in Brazil and Italy has been characterized by incidents of injustice in different dimensions and contexts. This article addresses this issue by applying a multi-scalar and multi-horizon structure model developed by Kanger and Sovacool (Kanger and Sovacool, 2022 [1]) to connect these incidents to energy transition dynamics, regarding biogas development, in both countries. Organized into dimensions and clusters, and at different spatial and temporal scales, the obtained data – derived by scientific literature review and analysis of news published by the media – were analyzed from an inventory that gathered 230 incidents of injustice for Brazil and 114 for Italy. Among the results obtained, some differences stand out. In Italy, biogas policies have mainly benefited large plants in the northern region of the country, leading to regional disparities, while in Brazil, the dependence on rainfall has prevented effective incentives for renewable sources, in addition to leading to increased energy costs and social problems. The research also reveals that the regional scale is more relevant for Italy, reflecting the country's political structure. Unlike the Italian reality, in Brazil, the regional spatial scale is neglected, with a greater presence of national scope initiatives. The movement to systematize the contextual factors of biogas injustices in Brazil and Italy can provide insights for policymakers and researchers interested in the dynamics of energy transition and the challenges associated with promoting renewable energies while addressing social and environmental issues.

The Impact of Afghanistan's Multinational Society on its Political Structure in the Past Two Decades

Afghanistan has been recognized as a multi-ethnic country where different ethnicities coexist. The political structures in Afghanistan have historically been influenced by ethnicity, although few countries in the world exhibit such a complex ethnic fabric. Today, ethnic diversity is not only considered a challenge but also a symbol of cultural pluralism. After 2001, when the political structure of Afghanistan was enshrined in the constitution based on modern values, it was an opportune moment for political elites to overcome historical mistakes and adhere to these values. However, ethnicity and ethnic values were regarded as superior and more entrenched than the new values. The main question is: How has the multi-ethnic society in Afghanistan influenced the political structure in the past two decades? Apparently, Afghanistan's multi-ethnic society has had a negative impact on the implementation of the country's political structure in recent decades. The research aims to investigate how the role of the multi-ethnic society has influenced Afghanistan's political structure in recent decades and how much the convergence and divergence of political elites have been affected by ethnic backgrounds. This article utilizes analytical-descriptive methods and relies on library resources, scientific journals, and reputable articles. The findings indicate that the multi-ethnic society has had a negative impact on the implementation of the political structure based on democratic values, and the ethnic attitudes towards politics failed to manifest a tangible and profound realization within the constitutional framework.

Stereotypes About the Teaching Profession

This research aims to determine the stereotypes about the teaching profession. In line with this purpose, 104 classroom teachers determined by the criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, were determined as the study group in the 2021-2022 academic year. In this study, which was directed by the basic qualitative research model, one of the qualitative research approaches, semi-structured interview forms, were used to collect data. The purpose of this interview form was to identify the stereotypes experienced by classroom teachers, the cause for the creation of these judgments, and the behaviours expected of teachers and non-teachers to combat these stereotypes. The content analysis technique was used in the analysis process of the obtained data. As a result of the research, the teaching profession, It is seen that there are stereotypes that it is comfortable, having a lot of holidays, working half a day, the most difficult, earning money while lying down, a sacred, female profession. Examining the origins of stereotypes reveals that the teacher (attitude, qualifications, type of employment) and working conditions are professional factors. In contrast, the country's political structure, the media, and the social perspective are non-professional factors.

History Pages of the National Medical Research Center of Rehabilitation and Balneology

In 2021 the National medical research center of rehabilitation and balneology (NMIC RK) marks one hundred years. This is one of the specialized scientific institutions created in the country in the first years of the existence of Soviet power. From the first months of the reign of Soviet power, it became obvious that the resort business was at a new stage of development. Under Nicholas II, as with his predecessors, resort business was treated as something secondary, philanthropic. Only with the advent of socialism was a resort business in the USSR of the 1920s. acquired important state significance. First of all, it was decided to create in a short time the necessary number of specialized research institutes. Within a few years, a network of special institutions for the scientific support of resort business was created. One of the first was the NMIC RK. The history of this Center is unique, but still little studied. The purpose of the study is to, based on archival materials and publications, characterize the history of the Center, identify its role in the development of balneology. Resortology of the USSR has become an independent multi-industry sphere. the Centre has made a significant contribution to this through its scientific achievements and high efficiency. Scientists of the NMIC RK tried to keep up with the demands of the authorities and worked for the benefit of the population and economy of the country. the center faced a number of problems after the change of the country's political structure in the 1990s, but this did not prevent it from maintaining the scientific potential and professionalism of its employees, modernizing the logistics, improving the quality of work and introducing the results of research into the practice of the country's resort business.

DISCOUNT RATE DISTORTIONS AND THE RESOURCE CURSE

AbstractEmpirical evidence has suggested a “resource curse” exists, in which countries with abundant resources may have higher initial consumption but then grow more slowly. The effect appears to be dependent on a country's political structure. Theoretical models not typically accounted for historical exceptions, or have not shown the effect exists in a dynamic growth setting. We derive the resource curse effect in an optimal growth model augmented with a political process. The economy has a finite nonrenewable resource, and the government planner can choose to over‐extract natural resources relative to the efficient path by distorting the discount rate, but in so doing incurs political costs that depend on the presence of democracy. Government planners in non‐democratic countries usually have more autonomy in policymaking than those in democratic countries; therefore, the political cost is lower for non‐democratic countries. We show that the incentive for the planner to distort the extraction path is larger, the higher is the initial resource endowment. Consistent with empirical evidence, the distortion raises short‐term consumption but lowers the long‐term growth rate, and institutional differences create corner solutions that explain why some resource‐abundant countries avoid the curse. These results are robust to the inclusion of autonomous technological change.

Political Risk in Developing Country When Company is Moving Production

There are many aspects like social, economic, political, legal, technological, which directly or indirectly affect our business specially when the market is new or company is moving to another country. This paper shows that there are many aspects company should look into before going to another developing country for their production or business, particularly the aspects of the country's political structure and processes should between into account when assessing political risk

Rattling the Hesam: International Distractions from Internal Problems in Iran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began waging a war of words against the state of Israel several months after he won Iran's 2005 election. This article explores the motives for his fiery rhetoric. A series of explanations including ideological zeal, inexperience, international pressure, unifying regional regimes, and inciting a war with Israel are evaluated and critiqued. This article offers a new rationale that examines internal politics as a motive for the Iranian leader's speeches. The diversionary theory of conflict, which claims that leaders try to overcome domestic shortcomings with foreign distractions, is examined in this context. But while this theory has typically been associated with war and unifying the country's political structure, this article contends that President Ahmadinejad's plan may not be full‐scale war, but a verbal confrontation and subtle support for terror groups, which can be just as effective in achieving internal aims. Such a policy would also win converts among the rank‐and‐file Arabs. The resulting regional prestige is also designed to mask his domestic shortcomings in the political and economic arena. Blasting Israel and boosting groups such as Hizballah and Hamas, while receiving cheers from many Arab people for standing up to Israel, in other words, is designed to distract the Iranian people from the sinking economy and President Ahmadinejad's loss of power, blocked appointments, and criticism from even conservatives. In addition, rather than seeking support from the entire country, the president may be trying to outflank his conservative opponents, including many from the clergy, legislature, and ruling elite, who have become disenchanted with his anti‐corruption crusades, appointments, and policies. If successful, this plan would pit his country's conservative majority (including young people and the Revolutionary Guard) against the minority moderates and some disaffected conservatives. Finally, this article critiques other theories and suggested strategies responding to the crisis and offers its own diversionary theory, as well as ideas about how to handle President Ahmadinejad's oratories.

Gender in Early Classical Japan: Marriage, Leadership, and Political Status in Village and Palace

Gender in Early Classical JapanMarriage, Leadership, and Political Status in Village and Palace Yoshie Akiko (bio) Translated by Janet R. Goodwin In Japan's early classical age-the eighth and ninth centuries-women known as toji played a major role in rural society in the management of agricultural enterprises and the supervision of labor. On a higher social level, consorts of the sovereign known as ōtoji (also written ), or "grand toji," managed productive enterprises within their own independent residences. Building upon a synthesis of previous research on the history of women in the classical age, in this article I will examine the social, political, and economic activities of toji on both levels. The article will focus primarily on the eighth and ninth centuries but will trace specific phenomena back in time to the fourth and fifth. In addition, I will follow some developments into subsequent periods, using a later vantage point to illuminate earlier conditions. The discovery that women played a surprisingly powerful role in early classical times has not yet been incorporated into our general understanding of the history of the age. Let us take, for example, Ishimoda Shō's argument that between the sixth and ninth centuries members of the local chieftain (zaichi shuchō) class were the key figures in communally organized productive activities-in other words, that such local chieftains constituted the base of [End Page 437] the administrative structure of the realm.1 Much of the debate concerning ancient and classical history has revolved around Ishimoda's thesis since he proposed it in the mid-1970s. Unfortunately, this debate has largely ignored the existence of female chieftains, and female village leaders rarely appear in analyses of the breakdown of the ancient communal framework after the ninth century and its replacement by a new local order.2 Official sources compiled by order of the court, such as chronicles and compendia of ritual, contain very little direct evidence about women. When women do appear in such works, moreover, they are often depicted from the perspective of those who sought to promote Chinese concepts of patrilineality and male dominance. For instance, maxims found in official works that purport to record conventional images of the roles and productive activities of men and women often convey biased or anachronistic concepts of gender relations. To uncover the figures of women "hidden" in such sources, we need to turn to other types of material. Central among these are setsuwa tales relating the lives of the common people and archaeological findings such as mokkan, wooden tablets used for keeping routine records of various sorts because paper was such a precious commodity. Unlike the situation with chronicles and such, toji appear with some frequency in this sort of material. A close examination of these different sources reveals the central role played by toji in the early classical age. It also makes clear that toji should not be regarded as "wives" who exercised leadership in local society simply as proxies for their husbands. To understand women's economic and administrative roles we need to situate their activities within the context of the patterns of family and marriage and legal and governmental structures current at the time. Archaeological evidence likewise points to the independent status of the sovereign's consorts in this period and to the earlier widespread presence of female chieftains throughout the Japanese archipelago. Exploration of the commonalities between village and palace centered on women's roles should yield more than an enhanced appreciation of the position of women; it promises to shed light on various central features of early classical society and government. Legal Codes and Actual Conditions From the second half of the seventh century, the Yamato court, drawing from Chinese models, began a full-fledged overhaul of the country's political structure. A legal system patterned on that of China provided the skeletal framework for government control of the populace. Administrative regulations (ryō) issued at the end of the seventh century were combined in the eighth with penal codes (ritsu), forming a governmental system generally known as the ritsuryō [End Page 438] polity. There were many gaps between the idealized ritsuryō political structure and actual social conditions within Japanese society. The...

Democracy and health

Scholars of population and global health have grappled for decades with the complex relationship between health and its determinants. This growing literature has taught us much about proximal and distal health determinants, especially those in the socio-economic realm. Economics as it relates to health, in particular, has received considerable and recent investigation,1 but mounting evidence suggests that a country's economic status alone cannot entirely explain differences in health and health policy.2–8 Thus, societies with similar levels of economic development, such as Afghanistan and the Indian state of Kerala, can have radically different levels of health and health system development. It is therefore important to extend our analysis to broader structural factors, such as political institutions, to better understand global health inequalities. A country's political structure affects virtually every aspect of society, including health. There are few studies on the relationship between political institutions and health, at both theoretical and empirical levels9–11. One reason must certainly stem from the complexity of the health-politics nexus and the difficulty of identifying independent and interactive influences in both directions. The relationship can be defined in many ways, ranging from the study of political systems (e.g. democratic or authoritarian, legislative and executive governance, proportional or majoritarian electoral systems, constitutional structure); culture (e.g. political values); institutions (e.g. centralized or fragmented, presidential or parliamentary, responsiveness to citizenry, political parties); state capacity (technical and administrative capacity, level of corruption); and philosophy, to more nuts-and-bolts political process factors, such as personal politics (e.g. political leadership, powerful personalities, presidential tactics), political strategy and interest group representation (e.g. its strength or weakness in a political system). More recent influences on health policy include re-election incentives, financial contributions (e.g. in the US), and the depth and range of public opinion.12,,13 A recent issue of the …

Are Autocratic Rulers Also Inside Traders? Cross-Country Evidence

I. INTRODUCTION This article explores one aspect of the relation between a country's political structure and its regulation of economic activity. The central premise is that authoritarian governments operate, at least in part, for the purpose of enriching their rulers. Consequently, economic regulations are enforced (or not) so as to benefit the autocrats and their supporters. By its nature, insider trading is clandestine. It is therefore unobservable, and its existence must be inferred from indirect evidence. My approach is to examine the enforcement of insider trading regulation. More than 100 countries have stock markets. Most also have laws ostensibly designed to protect the general investing public from trading with insiders possessing superior material information regarding the value of particular firms. Enforcement has occurred, however, in less than one-half of the countries with laws. My key hypothesis is that enforcement is less likely in autocracies, where government officials and their supporters both control the regulatory and judicial systems and are likely to engage in inside trading. Put simply, they will be disinclined to prosecute themselves. Data are available that identify countries with stock markets, those with insider trading laws, and those that enforce them. Also available are indexes that gauge levels of political freedom, economic freedom, and corruption for almost all countries. These serve as measures of the degree of autocratic rule. My statistical analysis indicates a strong correlation between the presence of autocratic government and the absence of insider-law enforcement, supporting the main hypothesis. II. BACKGROUND The economic theories of regulation and public choice presume that government officials are self-interested utility maximizers whose behavior is substantially affected by the personal costs and benefits of exercising their political power. (1) In autocracies, officials generally have significant control over economic activity and are unconstrained by democratic institutions, such as political competition (elections), the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and a free press. Opportunities for personal aggrandizement are therefore more readily available, including in particular financial enrichment. All such behavior amounts to wealth transfers from the population at large and a tax on productive economic activity. (2) Government regulation of the economy is ostensibly about rectifying market failure. For example, market entry restrictions are justified by arguments that consumers are protected from incompetent, unstable, or dishonest firms. Various other government-imposed requirements and permits for the conduct of business are justified under the guise of protecting workers, saving the environment, nurturing infant industries, earning foreign exchange, and a variety of other public interest grounds. All such regulation, however, can be viewed alternatively as creating tollgates through which entrepreneurs must pass to (legally) conduct business. (3) Unrestrained government officials charged with regulatory enforcement can extract tolls (bribes) for personal gain. Given this potential, autocratic rulers have an incentive to impose numerous regulations simply to create opportunities to enrich themselves and their supporters. (4) If a law or regulation is to serve as a tollgate, enforcement must occur. The threat of prosecution must be real to create the incentive for market participants to pay bribes. Autocrats must establish that attempts at circumvention without payment (or compliance) involve real costs that are greater. Through their control of government regulatory agencies and the judicial system, they can exempt bribe payers while others are subject to prosecution, that is, enforcement occurs but is selective. More generally, autocrats might view all types of economic activity within their country as providing opportunities for personal economic gain. …

Governmental Regulation of the Press: A Study of Israels Press Ordinance

Israel's press plays a distinctive role in the country's political structure. Comprised of 27 dailies and 135 magazines, some with distinctive partisan affiliation and others committed to political neutrality, it has wide circulation and enjoys considerable political influence.Israeli newspapers were not always as independent as they are today. During the struggle for liberation, the press placed itself at the disposal of theYishuv(Jewish community) leadership, to be used as a political tool for promoting the objectives of the Jewish population in Palestine. Only in the fifties, after the establishment of the sovereign state of Israel, did the press begin to develop consciousness of its distinct and autonomous role in the political process.Several institutions founded by the press itself have moulded it into a politically viable establishment: the Editors' Committee, the Press Council, the National Union of Journalists and the Union of the Daily Papers. The Editors' Committee is the most powerful and long standing of the four. Organised in 1948 by the chief editors of the Hebrew dailies, it functions as an intermediary between the Government and the public in matters concerning important policy decisions.

Parties and Politics in the Philippines

To understand present-day Philippine politics, one must consider the evolution of the country's political structure since late Spanish and early American colonial times. Briefly, the nationwide two-party system of today, under whose aegis contests are held for all types of elective office from barrio lieutenant (village head) to the presidency of the Republic, evolved out of an earlier pattern of purely local politics. In 1898, when American colonial rule was imposed, each municipality had its wealthy and educated Filipino families whose rivalry for prestige and influence extended back into the Spanish colonial period. During the latter part of that period members of these leading families (the principales), who in many towns had grouped themselves loosely into rival factions, had been allowed to compete for election to the post of gobernadorcillo (municipal mayor) by an electoral college chosen by lot among their own number. This pattern remained unchanged during the first few years of American rule. Initially, property and literacy requirements under the new regime restricted the franchise to essentially the same local elite who had held municipal offices in late Spanish times, and local politics continued in the old way. During late Spanish and early American years, electioneering could be confined to the poblacion-the market town and principal barrio of the municipality which serves as the seat of municipal government and contains the homes of most of the wealthier citizens, i.e., those most likely to vote under the restricted franchise of the early period. But as the American period progressed, the arena of political campaigning became larger and political organization grew more complicated. This was the result of two innovations, both of which stemmed from the American decision to prepare the Philippines for eventual independence by entrusting Filipinos, as early as possible, with the operation of a wide variety of representative institutions of government. One change was the increase in the size of electorate through the reduction of voting qualifications; the other was the extension of the elective principle to higher levels of government. The gradual reduction and final abandonment of property qualifications for voting, the elimination of the cedula (poll tax) and the liberalization and growing non-enforcement of literacy requirements meant that more peasants in the outlying barrios began to cast votes and, concomitantly, that the poblacion candidates were forced to cultivate the barrios. This