Liberal Institutions Research Articles

The Contemporary Crisis of Constitutional Democracy†

The growth of constitutional democracy has been a remarkable feature of the last 30 years, but during the last decade it has suffered a dramatic decline. That decline is marked less by constitutional democracies being overthrown than by an increase in regimes that retain the formal institutional trappings while flouting the norms and values on which constitutional democracies are based. This process of constitutional degradation is the subject of two recent books that together present the most comprehensive evaluation available on the current state of constitutional democracy. In this review article, the findings and analysis presented in Graber, Levinson and Tushnet’s Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? and Ginsburg and Huq’s How to Save a Constitutional Democracy are examined and appraised. The article argues that solutions to the contemporary crisis cannot be found only by strengthening liberal institutions; to survive, constitutional democracy must also seek to reinvigorate its democratic aspirations.

The Soft Stuff of Institutional Development

What are the effects of culture on economic institutions? Many see an essential role for culture in institutional development. This paper systematically considers twelve dimensions of culture on two dimensions of economic institutions: liberal economic institutions and the building of large, effective states. Dimensions of culture adjacent to one another are shown to correlate differently with the two measures of institutions. This analysis is, in part, framed in terms of the debate regarding the relationship between migration, culture, and institutions, and it casts doubts on positions that these variables are as tightly or as consistently related as is at times portrayed.

Liberal Pacification and the Phenomenology of Violence

AbstractWhile international relations scholars make many claims about violence, they rarely define the concept. This article develops a typology of three distinct kinds of violence: direct, indirect, and pacification. Direct violence occurs when a person or agent inflicts harm on another. Indirect violence manifests through the structures of society. We propose a third understanding of violence: pacification. Using a phenomenological methodology, and drawing on anarchist and postcolonial thought, we show that the violence of pacification is diffuse, inconspicuous, intersubjective, and structured into the fabric of society. This understanding of violence matters for the study of international relations in general and research on the liberal peace in particular. We argue that the spread of liberal institutions does not necessarily decrease violence but instead transforms it. Our phenomenological analysis captures empirical trends in human domination and suffering that liberal peace theories cannot account for. It reveals how a decline in direct violence may coincide with the transformation of violence in ways that are concealed, monopolized, and structured into the liberal order. We call this process liberal pacification.

Voted out: Regime type, elections and contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations

Previous research has suggested that leaders of democratic regimes are particularly willing to contribute troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations because backing ‘liberal’ peacekeeping allows them to support the diffusion of liberal institutions. However, evidence used to sustain this argument is based on contribution patterns during the decade of peacekeeping that followed the Cold War. In this article, we argue that there has been a reversal in the relative willingness of democratic and non-democratic governments to provide the United Nations with peacekeepers since then. Specifically, we propose that the introduction of more ‘robust’ forms of peacekeeping during the 1990s has rendered democratic governments reluctant to contribute large numbers of peacekeepers to United Nations operations because elected leaders are now concerned that voters may object to the deployment of national troops to high-risk humanitarian missions in which there is no clear national interest. By contrast, non-democratic leaders partly discount public opinion because they are less reliant on popular support to retain power. Thus, when non-democrats see that contributing troops to United Nations peacekeeping will bring them reputational and/or resource benefits, they are willing to contribute peacekeepers — and on a large scale. We test our claims quantitatively. We find that since the 1990s, democratic governments have remained more likely than non-democrats to contribute some troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations, but non-democratic governments have been more likely to make large-scale contributions. We also find that governments have been especially reluctant to make sizeable contributions to peacekeeping when elections have been on the horizon.

The Deep Roots of Economic Development in the U.S. States

The “Deep Roots” literature investigates the effects of deep cultural variables on outcomes. We attempt to identify how these deep cultural variables actually affect per capita output by expanding Putterman and Weil’s (2010) inquiry on the effects of State History and Agricultural History to the populations of the fifty U.S. States. In the course of this application, we uncover two distinct points while giving a qualified validation of Putterman and Weil. First, the effects of deep roots on outcomes are only clearly apparent after controlling for the percent of the population that is non-Hispanic white because that population is negatively correlated with per capita income after controlling for State History or Agricultural History. Second, while we find some support of the conclusion that deep roots impact outcomes by altering institutions, deep roots do not have any impact on liberal economic institutions at the state level.

The Politics of Transnational Law

This chapter highlights several traits of institutional design that characterise the current discontent among states with liberal institutionalist governance. It discusses these traits with states’ critiques of transnationalism. The chapter analyses how states respond to such frustration by developing policies and practices designed to reclaim sovereign manoeuvrability by circumventing or creatively navigating these same international legal structures. This development draws on the very same transnational structures and modus operandi as foreseen by transnational law scholars. The chapter argues that in contrast to the predictions of transnational legal scholarship, this form of transnationalism is increasingly used as a managerial tool to limit the impact or development of more traditional and liberal forms of international law. The expansion and increased institutionalisation of international law itself seem to have created the structural premise for this type of politics of international law. In sum, international law has developed to a point where some states feel threatened by their own creation.

Rethinking Post-Tenure Malaise: An Interactional, Pathways Approach to Understanding the Post-Tenure Period

ABSTRACTThe decades between tenure and retirement constitute the longest yet least understood period of a faculty member’s career. Previous research depicts the midcareer as fraught with reduced job and career satisfaction, lowered productivity, and even stagnation. However, we suggest a reframing of this period. Drawing on data from surveys and interviews of post-tenure faculty at three liberal arts institutions, we reconceptualize the post-tenure as a period of dynamic interplay between an individual’s agency and choices and an institution’s opportunities and practices of recognition and rewards. We present a post-tenure model of four “pathways” to reflect how faculty vitality is constituted through institutional connection (belonging and fit) and career satisfaction (growth and recognition).

When the Music Stops

The modern global humanitarian system takes the form it does because it is underpinned by liberal world order. Now the viability of global liberal institutions is increasingly in doubt, a backlash against humanitarianism (and human rights) has gained momentum. I will argue that without liberal world order, global humanitarianism as we currently understand it is impossible, confronting humanitarians with an existential choice: how might they function in a world which doesn’t have liberal institutions at its core? The version of global humanitarianism with which we are familiar might not survive this transition, but maybe other forms of humanitarian action will emerge. What comes next might not meet the hopes of today’s humanitarians, however. The humanitarian alliance with liberalism is no accident, and if the world is less liberal, its version of humanitarian action is likely to be less liberal too. Nevertheless, humanitarianism will fare better than its humanist twin, human rights, in this new world.

Principled Toleration and Respectful Indifference in the Liberal Polity

This paper examines toleration at two levels. At the first level, liberal individualism is concerned that the individual must be as free as possible to pursue their own goals and lifestyles. At the second level, liberal political theory is concerned with the value of liberal political culture and institutions and how to maintain and protect them. I argue that we can learn a great deal about the exercise of toleration and respect at the level of the liberal polity by examining them at the level of the liberal individual. Both tolerance and intolerance at the level of the polity must be principled. Principled tolerance and intolerance have the following features. First, the judgment whether to tolerate a particular belief or practice must be based on the value of toleration itself, not pragmatic political requirements. Second, it should be an issue of setting aside moral principles and convictions rather than dislikes, prejudices or fears. Third, it should respect the distinction between the public and the private, and should only recognise an issue as one of toleration if there is a public impact at stake.

Power Transitions and Global Trade Governance: The Impact of a Rising China on the Export Credit Regime

The existing liberal international economic order was constructed during the era of American hegemony and heavily shaped by US power. How is the rise of China affecting global economic governance? This article analyzes the case of export credit, which has long been considered a highly effective international regulatory regime and an important component of global trade governance. I show that the rise of China is profoundly altering the landscape of export credit and undermining its governance arrangements. State-backed export credit is a key tool of China’s development strategy, yet I argue that an explosion in China’s use of export credit is eroding the efficacy of existing international rules intended to prevent a competitive spiral of state subsidization via export credit. The case of export credit highlights a fundamental tension between liberal institutions of global governance and the development objectives of emerging powers.

Hispanicism and Early US Literature: Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and the Origins of US National Identity by John C Havard

Reviewed by: Hispanicism and Early US Literature: Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and the Origins of US National Identity by John C Havard Maria A. Windell HAVARD, JOHN C. Hispanicism and Early US Literature: Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and the Origins of US National Identity. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2018. 224 pp. $44.95 cloth; $44.95 e-book. The president of the United States is an avowed nationalist who constructs his position as such most consistently through xenophobic screeds against (im)migrants from Latin America. In such a political moment it is vital that we both produce and attend to scholarship that explores the US’s relationship to the Americas. John C. Havard’s Hispanicism and Early US Literature: Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and the Origins of US National Identity undertakes this task by tracking how the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century US defined itself through and against depictions of Spain’s imperial presence in the Americas. Havard posits the Hispanicism of his title as a counterpart to Edward W. Said’s and Toni Morrison’s more familiar formulations of Orientalism and Africanism. His use of Hispanicism builds on Ed White’s earlier coining of the term as a hemispheric parallel to the exoticism of Orientalism, and his argument more generally builds on developments in transamerican studies that highlight the necessity of nuancing nationalist and transatlantic framings of US literary traditions. In particular, he emphasizes Hispanicism’s “political dimension,” arguing that it “had a special role” in developing “the idea that Anglo-Americans were racially fitted for liberal-democratic self-government,” an idea that he insists goes beyond Africanism’s “constructi[on of] whiteness as a prerequisite for freedom and agency” (15). He thus asserts, “It is no coincidence that US representations of Hispanic difference focus on what is construed as the metaphysical aversion to liberty of the Spanish and their New World descendants in a period in which US expansionists turned their eyes toward Spanish Louisiana, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America” (18). Hispanicism and Early US Literature covers the aftermath of the American Revolution through the late nineteenth century, working to explain how the nation arrived at 1898 and the Spanish-American War, so often seen as a turning point in the development of US imperialism, with a discourse fully prepared to promote US intervention in Spanish America. In tracing Hispanicism across the long nineteenth century, Havard engages an array of canonical and noncanonical authors and texts—at times crossing these categories by, for instance, working with lesser-known novels by authors such as James Fenimore Cooper. The study includes poetry, novels, novellas, and essays, thereby demonstrating Hispanicism’s breadth, depth, and duration. Havard’s argument balances its formal, temporal, and geographic range with a focus on literature’s relation to US political discourses, particularly liberalism. Each chapter of Hispanicism and Early US Literature close reads its central text(s) while questioning how Hispanicism related to developments within liberalism. Havard notes that Hispanicism and liberalism were not, as we might presume today, opposed in the nineteenth century: “For many early national and antebellum whites, it seemed obvious that the capacity to establish liberal institutions was a specifically Anglo-American faculty. Liberalism and racialism were not at odds for these US Americans” (17). By locating Hispanicism within liberal political discourse, Havard illustrates not only the literary but also the cultural, social, commercial, and governmental impact of US tendencies to paint the Spanish (Americas) with a broad brush. The book is organized into an introduction, conclusion, and five chapters divided in two parts. The introduction offers an historical and critical framework [End Page 320] for Hispanicism. Part I of the book examines “The Black Legend, Hispanicism, and the Emergence of National Identity in the Early United States.” The three chapters that compose this section cover ways US authors positioned the nation in relation to ideas, perceptions, and images of Spain, Mexico, and Spanish(-American)ness from the 1780s through the years preceding the US Civil War. The first chapter reads Joel Barlow’s epic poems The Vision of Columbus (1787) and The Columbiad (1807) as establishing an Hispanicist ideology by juxtaposing a rising, cosmopolitan, commercial US against a greed-driven...

“A Promise to Support Us:” Undocumented Experiences on a Sanctuary Campus

This exploratory study examines the experiences of undocumented students at Hawthorne College, an elite, liberal arts institution with sanctuary status. Drawing primarily on a questionnaire and qualitative interviews, it considers 1) whether undocumented and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students on a sanctuary campus experience the characteristic psychosocial difficulties that mark the lives of undocumented students elsewhere and 2) the extent to which institutional policies mitigate these challenges. The research reveals that sanctuary is neither a panacea for undocumented students’ concerns nor is it a meaningless symbol. Students are protected from some typical barriers to college success, experience other barriers in classic ways, and face still other constraints quite differently in a privileged, high-pressure educational environment. The study adds to emerging research on the undocumented experience in higher education and offers preliminary insights into the promises and limits of the sanctuary campus movement.

Um pluralismo liberal: Isaiah Berlin e John Stuart Mill

O ensaio explora a relação entre o pluralismo de valores, como Isaiah Berlin o entende, e liberalismo. Consiste de duas partes principais. Na primeira, argumento que o pluralismo de valores não implica no liberalismo, e critico dois filósofos – William Galston e George Crowder – que acreditam nessa implicação. Na segunda, reconstruo e defendo o próprio entendimento de Isaiah Berlin sobre essa relação, analisando um ensaio que é frequentemente negligenciado pelos intérpretes de Isaiah Berlin: John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life. Berlin pensava que o relacionamento entre o pluralismo de valores e o liberalismo era largamente psicológico. Ele acreditava que aqueles que abraçavam o pluralismo de valores seriam mais propensos a afirmar as instituições liberais, pois seria mais provável que eles exibissem certas virtudes – notavelmente, a empatia, a imaginação e a abertura para outras formas de vida – que tipicamente motivam a tolerância.

BALANCING IN UNIPOLARITY

This article aims to analyze, through a critical bias, the implications of unipolarity to balancing behavior. In order to do so, it discusses the dynamics of balance of power theory, assumed to be inoperative in the post-Cold War period by the main academic debates over unipolarity: i) unipolar stability; ii) balance of threats; iii) soft balancing; iv) liberal institutionalism. What is argued is that, including the unipolar illusion view, tied to the balance of power theory, these approaches overestimated the effects of the unipolarity to the balancing behavior of other states. In this sense, it is assumed here that the issues related to the unipolar moment are directly connected to the hegemonic interregnum discussions. By concluding that the dynamics of balance of power, especially those of hard balancing, are still observed in the post-Cold War era, the two main ponderations of the literature become inverted: i) that balancing became inoperative and; ii) that the only available strategies to other states would be soft balancing and bandwagoning. In sum, this conclusion has directly implication to the available strategies both to the United States and its main peer competitors. 
 
 
 Recebido em: Agosto/2018.
 Aprovado: Setembro/2018.

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Heidelberg: Georg Jellinek, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch

Abstract In the German Kaiserreich the University of Heidelberg was known as a liberal academic institution, with internationally well-known professors and many students from foreign countries. Young and innovative scholars in the institution included the Protestant theologian and philosopher Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), the sociologist Max Weber (1869-1920) and the Professor of Public Law Georg Jellinek (1851-1911) who studied the origins and driving forces of capitalism and of modern occidental rationalism. These scholars were interested in the ‛cultural significance’ of religious beliefs and their ethical implications. They saw religion as a relatively autonomous cultural force sui generis. In close intellectual interaction they focused on the religious roots of modern human rights and the strong ethical differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism.

The Trump presidency, climate change, and the prospect of a disorderly energy transition

AbstractThis article reflects on the implications of the Trump presidency for global anthropogenic climate change and efforts to address it. Existing commentary, predicated on liberal institutionalist reasoning, has argued that neither Trump’s promised rollback of domestic climate-related funding and regulations, nor withdrawal from the Paris framework, will be as impactful as often feared. While broadly concurring, I nonetheless also in this article take a wider view, to argue that the Trump administration is likely to exacerbate several existing patterns and trends. I discuss four in particular: the general inadequacy of global greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and implementation efforts; the inadequacy of contemporary climate financing; the embrace between populist conservatism and opposition to action on climate change; and not least, the current global oil and gas boom which, crucially, is being led by the US. I submit that these patterns and trends, and the Trump administration’s likely contributions to them, do not augur well for climate change mitigation, let alone for an orderly transition to a low-carbon global economy. Given current directions of travel, I suggest, this coming transition is likely to be deeply conflict-laden – probably violently so – and to have consequences that will reverberate right across mid-twentieth-century international order.

Prisoners of History: Explaining Why Statist Belgium Has School Vouchers While Liberal America Does Not

ABSTRACTThe United States is widely characterized as having liberal (limited state) ideology and institutions, while Belgium is relatively statist. Yet the United States relies primarily on local public monopolies to provide elementary and secondary education, while Belgium provides schooling through robust education free markets including and in some locales dominated by publicly funded faith-based schools. We present comparative case studies of the evolution of each educational system, in search of explanations. Our American case summarizes prior accounts, while the Belgian case uses archival research. The evolution of each system reflects similar late 19th and early 20th Century conflicts between the Catholic Church and the state, though American “public” schools were essentially Protestant, and Protestant majorities eventually imposed state-funded quasimonopolies. In contrast, in Belgium the contending parties (traditionalist Catholics opposing Liberals) had relatively equal political power over the long term, giving each incentives for market-based compromises which still endure Belgian school wars, Blaine Amendments, Catholic education, school choice and religion, school vouchers.

The Rise of an Illiberal China in a Liberal World Order

The Rise of an Illiberal China in a Liberal World Order Liselotte Odgaard (bio) Elizabeth Economy’s The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State is a compelling book explaining the paradox that, under Xi Jinping, China has become an increasingly illiberal state fighting Western liberal values, while at the same time positioning itself as a champion of the fundamental institutions of a liberal world order. China’s profile as a proponent of anticorruption, provider of significant public goods such as international development and humanitarian aid, and champion of globalization has won it wide acclaim as a force for responsible international leadership. Economy demonstrates that the rise in China’s international legitimacy has occurred alongside domestic institutional change that seeks to reverse many of the political, social, and economic developments that emerged from 30 years of liberalizing reform. The objective of this institutional change is to restore the central role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within the Chinese polity. This contradictory development has been facilitated by China’s ability to take advantage of the political and economic openness of other countries through policies such as the Belt and Road Initiative while providing considerable overseas political and financial commitments. At the same time, China does not provide countries with similar opportunities to engage within its borders. Even if the Trump administration does not succeed in changing China’s unfair investment and trade practices, it has rightly pointed to the need to redress the imbalance between the country’s easy access to overseas markets and its restrictive domestic policies. The anticorruption campaign has strengthened the CCP and deepened the party’s integration into Chinese society. At the same time, issues such as price levels, wealth distribution, and educational opportunities that could improve people’s basic livelihood have not been addressed. Under Xi’s presidency, the rule of law has been strengthened on the pretext of preventing the abuse of power and the dereliction of duty for personal gain. However, in contrast to Western interpretations of the rule of law, in China it is not a means of restraining arbitrary actions by those in power. Instead, it is equated with ruling the country according to the law and is used as [End Page 150] an instrument to both ensure the continued dominance of the CCP and strengthen the coercive power of the state. The book traces what might rightly be termed the totalitarian policies of the current regime back to ancient Chinese history and the politics of the People’s Republic of China. Economy argues that Xi’s form of totalitarianism constitutes a revolution due to its strategy of intensified penetration of the party-state in domestic political and economic life combined with an ambitious and expansive role for China abroad. She touches on totalitarianism when describing the leadership’s development of a social credit system that will provide benefits for good behavior and penalize bad behavior, as defined by the party. The thinking behind this form of social control is rooted in the dossier that all Chinese citizens have, which includes information such as their education, grades, workplace assessments, and political liabilities. Although the deep delving into citizens’ personal lives has resulted in some Chinese describing the system as “big brother,” numerous Chinese citizens support the effort, seeing it as a means of enhancing societal trust. In a future edition of the book, it would be interesting to include a foreword discussing the extent to which Xi’s brand of authoritarianism constitutes a totalitarian form of government, and if so, whether this type of regime indicates that China is headed toward a Sino-centric form of hierarchical government with little room for international liberal institutions. The fascinating analysis of how the party-state and its logic of control and planning creep into all corners of Chinese society begs the question of whether China’s rise will be accompanied by the use of coercive power abroad as well as at home. Indeed, Beijing may aspire to recreate a Chinese sphere of influence in Asia if the United States’ reliance on its system of democratic alliance partners unravels and is replaced by narrow U.S. interest protection. We are already...

Narrative and elucidating the concept of democracy: the case of Myanmar’s activists and democratic leaders

ABSTRACTNarrative analysis has been widely employed in the social sciences. Yet there has been no systematic application of narrative theory to the study of how the word “democracy” is given meaning by political actors. Using the empirical example of the Burmese democracy movement in the lead up to the historic 2015 election victory of the National League for Democracy, this article argues that narrative analysis can contribute in unique ways to the interpretive task of “elucidating” the concept of democracy. Tracing plot and character construction within activist and aid worker stories about democracy in Myanmar, this study reveals three prominent and diverging narratives of democracy within and around the movement; a liberal narrative, centring on liberal democratic institutions and values, a benevolence narrative, focussing on the value of moral leadership and selflessness, and an equality narrative, highlighting the importance of cultural reform towards greater relational equality. Attention to these narratives has implications for donor “democracy promotion” strategies raising new questions about the role of formal institutions of democracy, the perceived source of “solutions”, and the impact on internal struggles within democracy movements.

Liberalism and the anxiety of belief

ABSTRACTAnxiety about perceived threats to liberal freedom has played a double role in liberalism. On the one hand, such anxiety has driven the development of liberal institutions aimed at safeguarding freedoms. Yet another, problematic, side of this anxiety can also be found in the history of liberalism and in the policies and practices of contemporary liberal states. From the beginning, liberal intolerance of those perceived to be connected, through religious affiliation or beliefs, with arbitrary or absolute power and therefore deemed to pose a threat to the existing order has justified social exclusion and, in many cases, systematic violence. Rae’s article examines the theoretical and political roots of this distinctive form of liberal anxiety, tracing the connection between anxiety about Catholicism and Catholics in John Locke’s time and contemporary anxieties about the relationship between Islamism and Muslims in liberal states.