Effects Of Democratic Institutions Research Articles

Democratic Trust and Injustice

Trust is a crucial condition for the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic institutions in conditions of deep diversity and enduring injustices. Liberal democratic societies require forms of engagement and deliberation that require trustful relations between citizens: trust is a necessary condition for securing and sustaining just institutions and practices. Establishing trust is hard when there is a lingering suspicion that the institutions citizens are subject to are illegitimate or undermine their ability to participate and deliberate on equal terms. The promise of participation, the appeal to deliberation and inclusion, in other words, is experienced as a form of bad faith. In this paper, I offer four conditions required for democratic trust and discuss them in relation to a series of examples of both democratic mistrust and attempts at rebuilding trust.

In Light of Democracy and Corruption: Institutional Determinants of Electricity Provision

Long-lasting democratic institutions have been found to matter for the universal provision of reliable electricity. In this article we revisit this finding, suggesting that the effect of democracy on electricity provision is moderated by the quality of institutions shaping the implementation of public policies. We test the hypothesis positing the interaction effect between democracy and corruption using cross-national data on the share of population living in unlit areas. The results show that democracy is associated with a higher electrification rate only in low-corrupt contexts. When corruption is widespread, democratic experience is not correlated with higher rates of electrification. These findings suggest that the effect of democratic institutions is conditional on the quality of the institutions that shape policy implementation.

СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ОСНОВАНИЯ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ КОНФЛИКТНОСТИ

The article deals with the sociological aspects of the analysis of political conflict related to the socio-structural and subjective foundations of political processes and relations. It is shown that many problems and contradictions in the social sphere, such as social polarization, excessive inequality, poverty and violation of the principles of social justice, deprivation of basic needs and interests, unstable labor employment significantly determine the field of politics and are projected on the object and subject of political conflict, weighing down their course and positive outcomes. The insolubility of social problems and contradictions, their encapsulation cause either a decrease in the population's interest in politics, in the effectiveness of democratic institutions, con- tribute to the widening of the gap between "private" and "public", generate a sense of political alienation and powerlessness, or push to meet basic needs beyond the existing social norms and political institutions, to destructive forms of resolving political conflicts, which leads to a loss of control of society and social catastrophe. Sociological analysis of the subject cross-section of conflict interaction shows that a conflict based on group interests (in comparison with class and elitist) contributes more to maintaining a dynamic balance in society and realizing the positive potential of political conflict, since it is characterized by flexible intra-group connections and mobile inter-group barriers in the socio-political system. Class and elitist models of conflict tend more to vertical polarization of society, which strengthens the "discontinuous" lines of interaction between the "top" and "bottom", makes the dichotomy "rule-submission" rigid, and reduces the possibilities of dialogical plasticity and flexibility of the political system.

Социология политического конфликта

The article deals with the sociological aspects of the analysis of political conflict related to the socio-structural and subjective foundations of political processes and relations. It is shown that many problems and contradictions in the social sphere, such as social polarization, excessive inequality, poverty and violation of the principles of social justice, deprivation of basic needs and interests, unstable labor employment significantly determine the field of politics and are projected on the object and subject of political conflict, weighing down their course and positive outcomes. The insolubility of social problems and contradictions, their encapsulation cause either a decrease in the population's interest in politics, in the effectiveness of democratic institutions, contribute to the widening of the gap between the «private» and «public», generate a sense of political alienation and powerlessness, or push to meet basic needs beyond the existing social norms and political institutions, to destructive forms of resolving political conflicts, which leads to a loss of control of society and social catastrophe. The sociological analysis of conflict interactions based on the predominance of horizontal connections and relationships contributes more to maintaining a dynamic balance in society and realizing the positive potential of political conflict, as it differs in flexible intra-group connections and mobile inter-group barriers in the socio-political system. Excessive class divisions and inequality tend to vertical polarization of society, which strengthens the «discontinuous» lines of interaction between the «top» and «bottom», makes the dichotomy «rule-submission» rigid, and reduces the possibilities of dialogical plasticity and flexibility of the political system.

Factors that Influence County Government Expenditures and Revenues: A Study of Florida County Governments

Following the political market framework, this panel analysis examines the effects of democratic institutions on government size in Florida’s 67 counties from 1998 to 2007. Regarding group demand, the study suggests that unemployment rate reduces county government expenditures and revenues. Regarding elites’ preferences, Democratic elites’ preferences reduce expenditures and revenues. With regard to mass support, citizen income has a positive influence on expenditures and revenues. On the other hand, Democratic ideology reduces both expenditures and revenues. Finally, we found that county government structure influences expenditures and revenues significantly, but home rule does not.

Reframing Citizenship in Contemporary Brazil: the Effectiveness of Democratic Institutions

This article presents an overview and brief comparison of two participatory institutions of Brazilian democracy the public policy management councils and the ouvidorias ombuds offices Both institutions are intended to promote participation within the state but cannot achieve it because they remain linked to old political grammars they should fight against Concerning councils the main challenge is to qualify and reinforce the representatives of society Concerning ouvidorias the lack of a specific legislation undermines its democratic potentials

Effective Democracy and Swing Voters: Evidence Based on Actual Voting Records

Using actual voting records of simultaneous elections held for federal and regional assemblies - where same political parties contest against each other in both type of elections - we identify the swing voters in an electoral constituency. We compare the Parliamentary performance of elected representatives who enjoy high level of support among swing voters and those who enjoy low level of support among such voters. We measure performance of an elected representative based on her level of activity in Parliament. Specifically, we use attendance, number of questions asked, number of debates participated in and number of private member bills introduced as metrics for measuring performance. We find that representatives who enjoy high level of support among swing voters outperform others significantly in terms of all four parameters that we examine. The above differences are not explained by differences in observable candidate characteristics. We also find that reelection chances are more sensitive to performance in high swing constituencies. The above findings show that the presence of swing voters enhances the effectiveness of democratic institutions by significantly increasing activity level of such institutions.

Governance and Globalisation

AbstractUnlike the large literature on ‘democracy and trade’, there is a much smaller literature on the effect of the level of democracy in a nation on the level of its foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. These few studies reveal mixed empirical results, and surprisingly only one study has examined bilateral FDI flows. Moreover, few of these studies use multiple governance indicators separating the ‘pluralism’ effect of democratic institutions from the ‘good governance’ effect, there are no studies on democratic institutions’ various effects on the level of FDI relative to trade, and there are no studies of democratic institutions’ various effects on the selection of countries into FDI. We focus on three contributions. First, we examine the simultaneous effects of the World Bank's (six) Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs) – which allow separating the effects of pluralism from those of five other good governance measures – on bilateral trade, FDI and FDI relative to trade using state‐of‐the‐art gravity specifications. Second, we find strong evidence that – after accounting for host governments’ effectiveness in various roles of good governance – a higher level of pluralism as measured by the WGIs’ Voice and Accountability Index reduces trade levels, likely by increasing the ‘voice’ of more protectionist less‐skilled workers, but not FDI levels. Moreover, we find qualitatively different effects of other WGIs – such as political stability – on trade versus FDI flows. Third, we account for firm heterogeneity alongside a large number of zeros in bilateral FDI flows using recent advances in gravity modelling. We distinguish between the (country) intensive and extensive margins and show that pluralism affects FDI inflows negatively at the intensive margin, but positively at the extensive margin.

MONETARY CREDIBILITY VS. VOTER APPROVAL: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND EXCHANGE-RATE STABILIZATION DURING CRISES

This paper analyzes how political institutions affect the execution of exchange-rate policy. By focusing on policy-makers' responses to the emergence of speculative pressure on their currencies, we argue that the effect of democratic institutions on exchange-rate stability is likely to be conditioned by the officially announced exchange-rate regime. Officially fixed exchange rates are the main instrument of autocrats to signal commitment to long-term stability. Autocratic governments with strictly fixed exchange rates are thus more likely to defend their exchange rates than autocrats with an intermediate regime because the latter implicitly signal that they care less about monetary stability. In contrast, democrats defend more often in intermediately than in fully fixed official regimes by using a combination of external and internal adjustments, which reduce the negative effects of a devaluation on voters. Our analysis of 189 currency crises between 1975 and 1999 supports this conditional effect.

The Size of Government in Majoritarian and Consensus Democracies

This article looks at the effect of democratic institutions on the size of government. With the help of the ordinary least squares regression analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from 1974 to 1995, the study provides considerable evidence that the variance in the type of democracy, measured by the Lijphart index of majoritarian/consensus political institutions, has a systematic effect on the variance in the size of government, measured both by total government outlays as well as total government revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product. The article further argues that such institutional effects on the size of government are strengthened by partisan politics. More specifically, the analysis demonstrates the presence of the multiplicative interaction effect of the mutually reinforcing nature between the institutional structure and partisan composition of government in their association with the size of government.