Political Science Literature Research Articles

Consumptor economicus: How do consumers form expectations on economic variables?

Consumptor economicus, the economic consumer, is more complex than homo economicus. We find consumers form monthly expectations on inflation, unemployment and economic conditions based on coherent evaluations of relevant news. Relevant information is incorporated gradually, leading to a transient bias in consumer expectations, an established result. But expectations are also based on emotional responses to irrelevant events. We borrow the partisan bias from the political science and social psychology literature to identify exogenously emotional responses. Our results demonstrate that consumers also incorporate irrelevant emotive events immediately, leading to a persistent emotional bias in expectations, a new result.

How to Think About Social Identity

What does it mean to identify with a social group? Are individuals’ group attachments tied to material or nonmaterial payoffs? What is the existing evidence for social identification due to nonmaterial payoffs? When do identities matter and for what sorts of behaviors? We highlight findings from several literatures in political science, ranging from voting and redistribution to violence and conflict, focusing on nonmaterial, identity-based motivations for behavior in these domains. Doing so allows us to draw out commonalities across research areas that are often held in isolation from one another and that frequently employ overlapping terminology. We summarize important findings and identify open questions; these questions include what the role played by elites is in shaping mass mobilization around identities and what the relationship is between social identities and social norms.

What is Donald Trump? Forms of ‘Celebrity’ in Celebrity Politics

It is widely assumed that Donald Trump is a ‘celebrity politician’ and that he has cashed in his success on the reality show The Apprentice to secure political credibility and attention. In this respect, he fits what Matthew Wood et al. have labelled the ‘superstar celebrity politician’. This characterisation is the latest in a number of refinements to the definition and understanding of the celebrity politician. While this is a helpful move, I want to suggest that it might overlook one key dimension of the phenomenon. Definitions of the celebrity politician tend to focus on the source of their ‘celebrity’ – how they became famous, rather than on how they act out their celebrity role. This latter dimension features in media coverage, where journalists and commentators borrow from show business to describe politics, but is less often analysed in the political science literature. It matters because, I want to suggest, celebrity politicians like Trump act as stars, whether of reality television, rock music or film. They do not just resemble stars, they are them. This is evident in how they are represented, how they perform and how their ‘fans’ respond to them. It is also symptomatic of wider changes in the conduct and form of the contemporary, mediatised political realm.

Studying the (Economic) Consequences of Populism

Pundits and academics alike are increasingly interested in populism. This is a welcome development, since not long ago research on populism was relegated to the margins of the social sciences. Among those who are starting to undertake comparative research on populism, there is, however, a tendency to overlook the cumulative scholarship that has been developed on the topic (e.g., Rovira Kaltwasser et al. 2017). In this short piece I offer an overview of the ideational approach to populism, which is becoming increasingly influential in the political science literature and can also be useful for those interested in studying the economic consequences of populism.

A Vote for Freedom? The Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions on Regime Type

What are the effects of partisan electoral interventions on the subsequent character of the regime in the targeted country? Partisan electoral interventions have been frequently used by the great powers ever since the rise of meaningful competitive elections around the world. Such interventions have been found to have significant effects on the results of the intervened elections determining in many cases the identity of the winner. Nevertheless, there has been little research on the effects of partisan electoral interventions on the target’s subsequent level of democracy. This study investigates this question, testing three hypotheses derived from relevant political science literatures. I find suggestive evidence that covert electoral interventions have a significant negative effect on the target’s democracy increasing its susceptibility to a democratic breakdown. I also find preliminary evidence that the identity of the intervener has a mediating effect on the negative effects of covert interventions.

The Spread of Anti-Union Business Coordination: Evidence from the Open-Shop Movement in the U.S. Interwar Period

What explains the development of repressive employer coordination? Classic historical American business and labor literature focuses on institutions of labor repression and employer associations, but little systematic examination of such associations exists, particularly during the interwar period. Similarly, recent political science literature on the origins of industrial institutions underemphasizes the importance of repressive employer associations. I use new quantitative subnational evidence from the U.S. interwar period, with data from the open-shop movement in the United States at the local level after World War I. I test a variety of families of hypotheses regarding variation in repressive employer coordination, with specific data measuring the threat posed by organized labor. I find that such threats posed by unions are correlated to repressive employer associations. The results have implications for understanding local-level variation in the business repression of labor movements in the early twentieth century and contribute to our understanding of labor repressive institutions and the incentives of firms to collectively act.

Tell Me Who Is Your Leader, and I Will Tell You Who You Are: Foreign Leaders’ Perceived Personality and Public Attitudes toward Their Countries and Citizenry

AbstractThe increasing visibility of prominent political leaders in news media is well documented in political science literature. The main concern that has been raised in this connection is that the complexity of political processes is being reduced to achievements and standpoints of individual politicians, and the importance of rational opinion building is discounted. The results of the current study provide the first empirical evidence to account for the misgivings about emotional effects of personalized political information on media audiences. Using data from an online experiment, this study shows that news coverage regarding behaviors and personal characteristics of a foreign leader influences (a) evaluations of personal characteristics typical of his or her nation's citizens and (b) emotional perceptions of that leader's country (sentiment and respect). This effect is shown to reflect a psychological phenomenon whereby people project their emotions and perceptions regarding a leader's personal characteristics onto his or her country and people.

Feminist Activism and the Politics of Reform: When and Why Do States Respond to Demands for Gender Equality Policies?

ABSTRACTUnder what conditions is gender equality policy advocacy successful? This article examines a segment of the largely quantitative comparative political science literature that seeks to answer this question. Recent scholarship emphasizes such factors as the strength of women's movements and the forms of opposition to which their policy demands give rise. However, one consequence of this approach is that the role of strategic choices made by feminist policy advocates is underestimated in explaining their successes. The article argues that understanding variation in the outcomes achieved by women's rights advocates requires close attention to the strategic capacity of policy entrepreneurs, assessed in terms of three inter‐related activities: (1) ‘framing’ policy demands; (2) forming and managing civic alliances; and (3) engaging with state entities without compromising organizational autonomy.

Las causas de la transparencia financiera en España: ¿fortaleza democrática o coyuntura crítica?

This article traces the antecedents of the high levels of financial transparency in Spain, which are aligned to those of the most transparent countries in the world such as Finland and Denmark. Given that the political science literature on transparency links this concept to democratic deepening and does not offer a response to this question, this article undertakes an in-depth study of the case of Spain. The study follows a process-tracing methodology and is based upon concepts borrowed from historical neo-institutionalism.The paper concludes that Spain’s opting for a strict and accelerated application of the international standards on financial transparency was influenced by very specific historical circumstances. The country was at a critical point in its fight against ETA when the issue of terrorist financing was introduced into the international anti-money laundering agenda as a consequence of the 09/11 attacks.

The gender gap on public opinion towards genetically modified foods

Ever since genetically modified (GM) foods were introduced into the food supply in the 1990s they have provoked debate and concern. The number of GM foods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and offered on supermarket shelves has steadily grown at the same time that public wariness about the safety of GM foods has increased. Studies within the scientific literature show a strikingly large gender gap in attitudes towards GM foods with women consistently more skeptical than men. However, there have been few efforts to understand the determinants of the gender gap on GM foods within the political science literature. This study employs a 2014 Pew Research Center survey on science issues to test several possible explanations for the gender gap in attitudes towards GM foods rooted in the different life experiences of women and men. The results show that while being a parent predicts more skeptical views about genetically modified foods overall it does not explain the gender gap in attitudes. In contrast, knowledge about science and having confidence in science do play a significant role in mediating the gender gap. By exploring the robust and pervasive gender gap on the issue of GM foods, this study sheds light on the fundamentally different ways men and women approach political issues.

Experimental governance: the role of municipalities in urban living labs

ABSTRACTInnovations in urban governance such as Urban Living Labs (ULL) are expected to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable and climate-resilient cities. This article reviews different ULL across Europe and explores the role and potential capacity of municipalities in the development of and/or facilitation of ULL as a form of experimental governance. It focuses on the role of the public sector in the multi-actor collaborations that often characterize experimental governance. The article draws on literature on cities in sustainability, climate and environmental governance, and bridges this with political science literature on governance. Based on institutional theory that emphasizes roles, identities, and perceived and actual acting space, three functional roles for the municipality are singled out – promoter, enabler and partner – in a framework with a set of indicators that are used to analyse 50 case studies of ULL (http://www.urbanlivinglabs.net). The aim is to advance knowledge on how municipalities can facilitate urban sustainability through experimental governance.

Brokerage in commercialised healthcare systems: A conceptual framework and empirical evidence from Uttar Pradesh

In many contexts there are a range of individuals and organisations offering healthcare services that differ widely in cost, quality and outcomes. This complexity is exacerbated by processes of healthcare commercialisation. Yet reliable information on healthcare provision is often limited, and progress to and through the healthcare system may depend on knowledge drawn from prior experiences, social networks and the providers themselves. It is in these contexts that healthcare brokerage emerges and third-party actors facilitate access to healthcare.This article presents a novel framework for studying brokerage of access to healthcare, and empirical evidence on healthcare brokerage in urban slums in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The framework comprises six areas of interest that have been derived from sociological and political science literature on brokerage. A framework approach was used to group observational and interview data into six framework charts (one for each area of interest) to facilitate close thematic analysis.A cadre of women in Lucknow's urban slums performed healthcare brokerage by encouraging use of particular healthcare services, organising travel, and mediating communications and fee negotiations with providers. The women emphasised their personal role in facilitating access to care and encouraged dependency on their services by withholding information from users. They received commission payments from healthcare programmes, and sometimes from users and hospitals as well, but were blamed for issues beyond their control. Disruption to their ability to facilitate low-cost healthcare meant some women lost their positions as brokers, while others adapted by leveraging old and new relationships with hospital managers.Brokerage analysis reveals how people capitalise on the complexity of healthcare systems by positioning themselves as intermediaries. Commercialised healthcare systems offer a fertile environment for such behaviours, which can undermine attainment of healthcare entitlements and exacerbate inequities in healthcare access.

Non-ideal theory of constitutional adjudication

Abstract:When a constitutional court faces opposition from other branches of government or significant segments of the public, should it always hold fast to what it considers constitutionally right, even where this would potentially harm its status and perceived legitimacy? Or are constitutional compromises sometimes justified? Such ‘institutionally hard’ cases – those characterised by a sharp tension between constitutional principle and institutional prudence – pose a true dilemma for constitutionalism. This article advances a realistic, yet principled, liberal-constitutional approach to this dilemma, put forth in the vein of Rawlsian non-ideal theory. It addresses a troubling gap between, on the one hand, the idealising discourse of constitutional theory – which overlooks or downplays the actual social and political pressures that courts must confront – and, on the other, a growing political science literature which, in the name of ‘realism’, views judges solely as strategic actors, leaving no role for principled reasoning. What has stepped into the gap in normative theory is a vague notion of ‘judicial statesmanship’, which praises or criticises judges post hoc, on an intuitive basis, without any tangible prescriptive bite. Developing evaluative and prescriptive guidelines for institutionally-hard cases, a non-ideal theory of constitutional adjudication should construct principles that both reinforce the commitment to ideal constitutional principle, and properly situate constitutional courts within the real – contingent and often very non-ideal – social and political contexts in which they operate.

“More Symbolic—More Political—Than Substantive”: An Interview with James R. Clapper on the U.S. Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations

ABSTRACTThis article considers the status and value of the U.S. Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list via an extended and annotated interview with James R. Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence during the administration of President Barack Obama from 2010–2017. In this interview,1 Clapper reflects on the role and effectiveness of blacklisting for U.S. national security strategy. The article frames the interview within debates in recent political science and law literatures on blacklisting to situate Clapper’s views. Drawing on recent controversies—including the fraught relationship between the U.S., Pakistan, the Taliban regime, and the Haqqani network—Clapper speaks to the a) symbolism and foreign policy drivers of FTO listing; b) implications of the FTO list for peace negotiations; and, c) the cohesion of terrorist groups and the effectiveness of FTO listings. In reporting the interview thus, the article offers a rare direct insight to the causal reasoning of an elite security official with respect to a process that has, since its inception in 1997, been shrouded in ambiguity and controversy.

Teaching Community Organizing and the Practice of Democracy

ABSTRACTThis article builds on the political science literature on the pedagogy of civic engagement by discussing a recent pedagogical experiment that treats community partners as leaders and full participants in the design and implementation of community-engaged learning. The courses discussed here combine democratic theory, community organizing and leadership development, and partnership between students and a community organization in carrying out research and action projects on affordable housing.

Introduction: The Place of Agencies in Polarized Government

This is one of two complementary essays for a symposium honoring the work of Peter L. Strauss. Also included is the joint introduction. (The second essay is Gillian Metzger, Agencies, Polarization, and the States.) These essays engage one of Strauss’s most germinal writings, “The Place of Agencies in Government: Separation of Powers and the Fourth Branch” to consider whether contemporary polarized politics spells the end of the intricate system of multi-branch control and accountability which, Strauss argued, legitimates administrative agencies. Political polarization has become a major focus in contemporary discussions on congressional activity and governance. The tone of these discussions has grown increasingly grim, as many political scientists, argue that a constitutional system of divided and shared powers hardens current levels of partisan warfare into legislative gridlock. Proposals for reform abound. Scholars and political commentators have called for modifications to the electoral process and to party structure, for additional oversight of the culture among members of Congress, and for increased attention to demographics and economic inequality within the electorate. These proposals sometimes conflict, and usually face daunting legal or political obstacles to adoption. In an effort to better assess the likelihood that congressional dysfunction will be the norm going forward, this Essay reviews and synthesizes recent political science literature with the goal of sorting out what we know — and, perhaps more important, do not know — about the nature, extent, and causes of congressional polarization. The Essay begins by discussing standard metrics of congressional polarization and describing alternative approaches that challenge the standard account as overly simplistic. It then looks at historical trends to consider whether the contemporary situation is truly anomalous. Next, it considers the many theories put forth to explain the phenomenon, focusing initially on whether congressional polarization can be explained by polarization in the electorate and then moving to proposals around the electoral process, party structure and culture, and demographics. Finding little support in the literature for the notion that the challenged structures and practices are actually driving legislative polarization, the Essay concludes by suggesting that the rhetoric around congressional polarization — particularly around the likely continuation of partisan warfare and legislative gridlock — is far more negative than the existing evidence can justify.

Estimation, Specification and Testing in Middle- and Zero-Inflated Ordered Probit Models

Zero-inflated ordered probit (ZIOP) and middle-inflated ordered probit (MIOP) models are finding increasing favour in the discrete choice literature. Both models consist of a mixture of binary and single ordered probit equations, the combination of which accounts for an excessive build-up of observations in a given choice category. We propose generalisations to these models - which collapse to their ZIOP/MIOP counterparts under a set of simple parameter restrictions - with respect to the inflation process. The appropriateness and implications of our generalisations are demonstrated by using two key empirical applications from the economics and political science literatures. Likelihood ratio (LR) and Lagrange multiplier (LM) specification tests lead us to support the newly proposed generalised models over the ZIOP/MIOP ones, and suggest a role for our generalisations in modelling zero- and middle-inflation processes.

Russian “Federalism”: Illiberal? Imperial? Exceptionalist?

Relations between the center and regions in Russia, being always in the limelight of attention in political science literature, remain a battlefield of different scholarly interpretations. Several narratives shape the current debate on Russian subnational regionalism or, in very legalistic terms, “federalism.” One is bent on applying to Russia such normatively-loaded concepts as multilevel and networked governance, meta-governance, indigenous governance, civil society participation, and others with strong liberal and institutional pedigrees. In this vein, Russia might be referred to—for example, along with Germany and France—as a “post-imperial democracy,” with an implicit anticipation of the prefix “post-” to signify Moscow's commitment to a democratic, rather than imperial, future. Seen from this perspective, with all its specificity Russia still conforms to basic standards of democratic rule and therefore can be approached, described, and analyzed in the language applicable to the liberal west, where institutions mitigate controversies over interests and create consensus over rules of the game.

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, Soft Law, and the Procedural Rule of Law

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines facilitate discretionary spousal support determinations under the Divorce Act. Non-binding in nature, they are expected to restore some transparency to an uncertain and unpredictable remedy and to benefit dependent spouses who might previously have been deterred from claiming support. They may thus be seen as an important tool for advancing economic justice at family breakdown and promoting substantive economic gender equality. Several Canadian appellate courts have enthusiastically endorsed them. Others object to their application, grounding their resistance in their unofficial and non-binding character. This paper responds to that objection, based on the constitutional separation of powers and the rule of law. Drawing on literature in constitutional law, administrative law, and political science, I suggest that judicial reliance on the Advisory Guidelines does not offend the rule of law. Instead of the narrow and formalistic principle set out by the Supreme Court of Canada, adopting a thicker understanding of the rule of law, grounded in participation and deliberation, imbues the Advisory Guidelines with normative force and affirms the legitimacy of judicial reliance on them.

Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Polities

This article argues that a common pattern and set of dynamics characterizes severe political and societal polarization in different contexts around the world, with pernicious consequences for democracy. Moving beyond the conventional conceptualization of polarization as ideological distance between political parties and candidates, we offer a conceptualization of polarization highlighting its inherently relational nature and its instrumental political use. Polarization is a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “Us” versus “Them.” The politics and discourse of opposition and the social–psychological intergroup conflict dynamics produced by this alignment are a main source of the risks polarization generates for democracy, although we recognize that it can also produce opportunities for democracy. We argue that contemporary examples of polarization follow a frequent pattern whereby polarization is activated when major groups in society mobilize politically to achieve fundamental changes in structures, institutions, and power relations. Hence, newly constructed cleavages are appearing that underlie polarization and are not easily measured with the conventional Left–Right ideological scale. We identify three possible negative outcomes for democracy—“gridlock and careening,” “democratic erosion or collapse under new elites and dominant groups,” and “democratic erosion or collapse with old elites and dominant groups,” and one possible positive outcome—“reformed democracy.” Drawing on literature in psychology and political science, the article posits a set of causal mechanisms linking polarization to harm to democracy and illustrates the common patterns and pernicious consequences for democracy in four country cases: varying warning signs of democratic erosion in Hungary and the United States, and growing authoritarianism in Turkey and Venezuela.