Market Democracy Research Articles

Party Systems and Democratic Divergence in Contemporary Latin America

The study of democracy in Latin America’s third wave is necessarily a study in contrasts, given the forking paths of democratic development in the region. Explanations of these forking paths are naturally drawn to an analysis of the diverse ways in which political parties and social movements have constructed alternative democratic orders. Party systems that were programmatically aligned from left to right by democratic transitions and market liberalization have been more stable than those that were de-aligned by the dual transitions of the 1980s and 1990s. They also moderated social mobilization by channeling dissent from market orthodoxy into institutionalized outlets of partisan representation and electoral competition. In the process, programmatically-aligned partisan competition contributed to the construction of democracy as a form of institutionalized pluralism, rather than a plebiscitary expression of popular sovereignty. The latter was more likely to emerge where de-aligned party systems failed to provide institutional outlets for societal opposition to the neoliberal model, thus channeling dissent toward anti-systemic forms of social and electoral protest. Where this occured, new popular majorities could be mobilized that not only swept away traditional party systems, but also transformed or refounded democratic institutions by plebiscitary means.

Structural Inequality, Quasi-rents and the Democratic Peace: A Neo-Ricardian Analysis of International Order

This article employs the neo-Ricardian concept of quasi-rents – temporary above-market returns – to vindicate the structuralist claim that patterns of international order are shaped by global inequality and the transnational division of labour. Developing a framework linking the distribution of quasi-rents within the global economy to the process of class formation, the article examines the implications for the influential ‘social market democracy’ explanation of the democratic peace. It argues that the democratic peace is in part predicated on the quasi-rents enjoyed by substantial sections of the workforces of the ‘core’ advanced industrial states. Such a political economy provides the foundations for a ‘social market democracy’ in which economic security can be enjoyed by substantial sections of the population, giving rise to the system of values on which the democratic peace rests. Thus, present patterns of international order result from a historically specific unequal distribution of quasi-rents within the world economy.

State Building in a Rentier State: How Development Policies Fail to Promote Democracy in Afghanistan

ABSTRACTState building is considered to be the solution to Afghanistan's ills. State‐building efforts largely aim to mirror Afghanistan to a market democracy. However, a market democracy is the outcome of specific historical and geo‐graphical circumstances, and cannot be replicated easily. This article explores four models of state formation: the Western, developmental, rentier and predatory state. Afghanistan can be characterized as a weak rentier state, subsisting on aid. Generally, the structural consequences of such aid rentierism are underestimated. ‘State building’ in this context cannot be successful. More aid ‘ownership’ and a strengthening of the Afghan bureaucracy will simply consolidate aid rentierism rather than reverse‐engineer a market democracy. A greater focus on economic policy is required to direct Afghanistan's rulers towards a more viable path of state formation. In this regard, the ‘developmental state’ offers some insights.

Review Symposium: Free Market Fairness. By John Tomasi. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.)

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsReview Symposium: Free Market Fairness. By John Tomasi. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.)Jacob T. LevyJacob T. Levy a McGill University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 75, Number 2April 2013 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613000303 Views: 53Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright © Southern Political Science Association 2013PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Alex Gourevitch Welcome to the Dark Side: A Classical-Liberal Argument for Economic Democracy, Critical Review 26, no.3-43-4 (Oct 2014): 290–305.https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2014.947743Rob Reich Gift Giving and Philanthropy in Market Democracy, Critical Review 26, no.3-43-4 (Dec 2014): 408–422.https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2014.969095Jacob T. Levy There's No Such Thing as Ideal Theory, SSRN Electronic Journal 63 (Jan 2014).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2420125

Common-sense Constructivism and Hegemony in World Politics

AbstractThe IR literature on hegemony rarely combines attention to material power and ideas. Cox's neo-Gramscian work is a rare exception, but it too narrowly construes Gramsci's conceptualization of common sense, reducing it to elite views on political economy. But Gramsci argued that hegemony had to reckon with mass quotidian common sense. If political elites do not take into account the taken-for-granted world of the masses, elite ideological projects would likely founder against daily practices of resistance. In this article, I show how mass common sense can be an obstacle to an elite hegemonic project aimed at moving a great power into the core of the world capitalist economy. In contemporary Russia, a ruling elite with a neoliberal project is being thwarted daily by a mass common sense that has little affinity with democratic market capitalism. Scholarly work on future Chinese, Brazilian, or Indian participation in constructing a new hegemonic order would do well to pay attention to the mass common senses prevailing in those societies

Residential Satisfaction in the Informal Neighborhoods of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Residential satisfaction is a very important factor in determining the quality of life, housing improvement proposals, and adequate housing policies. This paper reports on the findings of a study in four informal neighborhoods or "ger districts” of Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital. Mongolia has been facing an onslaught of rural migration to the urban areas because of two reasons. First, rural nomads have lost their livestock due to recent harsh climate conditions, and second because of the transition from communism to a democratic market economy, based on the exploitation of Mongolia's rich mineral resources. In the cities, migrants have invaded land and erected rural nomadic "ger” (felt tents or yurts). The traditional ger (as they are called in the Mongolian language) are sustainable structures well adapted for a nomadic society. However, when they are located in high-density, unplanned shantytowns, they create many issues. The country's capital, Ulaanbaatar, is the coldest capital in the world; ger' household use coal for heating which causes dense air pollution, especially in the winter. These informal urban areas lack sanitation, adequate vehicular access and other services. Eventually residents build small permanent houses, but they still lack for basic services. This paper presents the findings of more than one hundred household surveys related to housing conditions in three informal ger districts of Ulaanbaatar. The surveys were held in the summer of 2011. This paper discusses some of the characteristics of the settlements as well as the residential satisfaction of its inhabitants.

Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome: A Reply to Luciano Pellicani

According to Luciano Pellicani, the US culture wars are grounded in a perpetual struggle between the enlightening forces of reason and democracy, on the one hand, and the dark forces of faith and theocracy, on the other hand. Accordingly, he claims that the Puritans sought to establish a medieval collectivist theocracy, not a modern market democracy, and that the US ‘culture war’ between enlightened secular liberalism and reactionary religious conservatism ultimately rests on the perpetual battle between Athenian reason and the faith of Jerusalem. In this essay I contest Pellicani’s assertion that faith is diametrically opposed to reason and that America needs to abandon its Christian legacy in favor of Enlightenment secularism. My argument is that the modern separation of belief from rationality underpins both the secular rationalism and fanatical fideism which confront each other in the United States and across the West today. The only genuine alternative to these two extremes is not an attempt to repair the wreck that is the Enlightenment project but rather a proper synthesis of faith and reason that distinguishes political from religious authority without divorcing religion from politics. It is true that mainstream Protestantism in the USA is characterized by a vague ‘civil religion’ that is post-Christian, neo-pagan and Gnostic in outlook. But it is equally the case that the rapprochement of Evangelicals and Catholics around shared notions of the common good has the potential to transform the American polity, economy and society in the direction of a more Christian settlement.

Party Youth Activists and Aggressive Political Participation in Ghana: A Qualitative Study of Party Foot-Soldiers’ Activism

This paper analyzes the factors underpinning party youth activists’ involvement in aggressive politics in Ghana. The rank and file party youths, known as party foot-soldiers play various roles in the partisan process. Formal power allows incumbent parties to monopolize state resources, control appointments and dispense patronage. And in an environment of “competitive clientelism” political parties also commit electoral fraud in order to win elections or to maintain their control over state resources. Foot-soldier activism has become a “viable career option” for many young Ghanaians. The economic and social dividends associated with the practice of free market democracy are the most sought after benefits for party activism at the foot-soldier category. However, these benefits are yet to materialize in Ghana. On the basis of data gathered through interviews and other sources, the central claim of this paper is that the institutionalization of a stable and highly competitive two-party political system and the informal logic of party politics are responsible for foot-soldiers’ involvement in aggressive political participation. The de facto two-party system with a winner takes all; zero-sum character invests enormous patronage on the winning party. Foot soldiers aggression is also linked to structural and partisan factors such as youth unemployment, unfulfilled electoral promises, survival strategies of political elites and structural weakness in the transitional process. The paper concludes that party foot-soldiers place a high premium on capturing state power for the political elites. As a result, the foot-soldier views the change of government as the right time to claim the rewards for their efforts in ensuring victory.

Self-Government, Market Democracy, and Economic Liberty

Self-Government, Market Democracy, and Economic Liberty

Modern Robbers: Special Interest Groups and Braking the Economic Growth

Small well-motivated groups, including state officials, public and community activists, politicians, etc., proved their capacity to impose burden on the economy. The power to do so in modern Market Democracies could be reached without “unsheathing the sword”. Old fashioned redistribution experts - roving bandits are crowded out by modern ones. The most common way is to use the whole of the state apparatus as a “sword;” and to resort for cover to care for the needy and protection of the vulnerable, the ill-informed, the weak, the sick, or the “unwise” economic agents from all kinds of possible dangers. The longer list of the categories of persons in need of protection because of their “weakness,” underprivileged statute in the past, etc.; the easier it becomes to justify regulatory interference, the growth of the state apparatus, the increase in state insurance programming, and other budgetary expenses. Classical liberal epoch's legislator presumed the economic agent is reasonable, rational, and responsible. This assumption has been gradually substituting for the last century, by the implicit assumption of citizen's' limited capacity. The mechanism of the impact upon economic growth achieved by means of special interests groups’ expansion has been described by M. Olson. “Protection” takes place by means of market entry barriers placed in the way of agents or by means of various controls and regulations. One who imposes heavy regulatory burden in the emerging markets, in transitional economies with weak property protection, makes running fair business almost unaffordable.

The Politics of Paradox: Metaphysics Beyond "Political Ontology"

Introduction Much of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy proclaimed the end the metaphysics and the death of God. The German, French, and English strands of the Enlightenment were united in their suspicion of metaphysical theism. Figures as diverse as Comte, Marx, Spencer, Nietzsche, and Russell defended the absolute autonomy of atheist reason against religious faith. Following the rise of partisan ideologies that terrorized the West from 1789 to 1989, the downfall of the Soviet empire appeared to herald the “end of history” and a global convergence toward liberal market democracy. Ideas of freedom and justice would henceforth…

Integrating rule takers: Transnational integration regimes shaping institutional change in emerging market democracies

ABSTRACT How does the transnationalization of markets shape institution building, particularly in those countries that have few options other than to incorporate the rules and norms promulgated by advanced industrialized countries? Building on recent advances in international and comparative political economy, we propose a framework for the comparative study of the ways in which transnational integration regimes (TIRs) shape the development of regulatory institutions in emerging market democracies. The ability of TIRs to alleviate the supply and demand problems of institutional change in these countries depends in large part on the ways in which TIRs translate their purpose and power into institutional goals, assistance and monitoring. Integration modes can be combined in different ways so as to empower or limit the participation of a variety of domestic public and private actors to pursue and contest alternative institutional experiments. We illustrate the use of our framework via a brief comparison of the impact of the European Union accession process on post-communist countries and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico, with special attention to the development of food safety regulatory institutions.

Global Democratisation and Capitalism: Discovering the Third World States in the Era of Limited State and Unlimited Quest

The complexity of democratisation has mystified the reality of the Third World States (TWS) democracy. Accountability inherent in market democracy is dual and the compliance of government in this spectrum is important on ideological and political grounds. This work intends to contribute to the argument around globalisation as related to state functions and the positions of democracies. The paper wishes to address ideological connotation of minimum state as forwarded by neo-liberalists and maximum quest as reflected by aspirations, needs and wants of people across the world. We therefore draw conclusion that state minimisation in the era of maximum quest is less fit in this complex interdependent epoch. Key words: Democratisation; Third world states; Globalisation; Limited state; Unlimited quest

Economic and Political Results for 2001 and Prospects for Strengthening Economic Growth

The year 2001 concluded the first decade of post-Communist transformation, Russia’s development in a regime of market democracy. The period witnessed difficult and complex processes of the transformation of Soviet socialism into a new society. A tortuous and contradictory path gave rise to acrimonious debate about the very nature of reform, its effectiveness and appropriateness, about whether there were alternative ways of meeting the challenges that the country was facing.

The Politics of Labour Market Reforms and Social Citizenship in Germany

Since the second half of the 1990s, German labour market policy has experienced paradigmatic changes, undermining the conservative ideal of preserving social status and maintaining achieved living standards. Reforms carried out by the conservative–liberal government of the 1990s focused largely on workfare measures. This development had its roots in the progressive disintegration of the cross-class alliance of organised business and trade unions that had previously supported Bismarckian unemployment protection. The withdrawal of employers from the conservative welfare state can be related to far-reaching socio-economic changes which were thought to undermine the functional feasibility of the social dimension of the ‘German Model’. Instead of pursuing ‘social democratic’ activation, the Red–Green government (1998–2005) not only continued on the reform trajectory of its predecessor, but accelerated the departure from the established policy path. Understanding the revision of social democratic labour market policy requires scrutiny of both shifts in power and policy learning.

Enterprise and Inequality: A Study of Avon in South Africa

Avon's apparent success in using entrepreneurship to help women escape poverty, as well as its staying power in circumstances where similar efforts have failed, has captured the attention of the international development community. This study, the first independent empirical investigation, reports that in South Africa, Avon helps some impoverished women earn a better income and inspires empowerment among them. The authors introduce a new theory, pragmatist feminism, to integrate past work on women's entrepreneurship and argue that feminist scholars should reexamine the histories of the market democracies for replicable innovations that may have empowered women.

Employment status and the prevalence of poor self-rated health. Findings from UK individual-level repeated cross-sectional data from 1978 to 2004

ObjectivesTo assess, using individual level data, how the proportion of people in different employment statuses may have played a role in the prevalence of poor self-rated health from 1978 to...

Public Diplomacy in Croatia:Sharing NATO and EU Values with the Domestic Public

Summary In a globalized world, with dynamic flows of information and communication, public diplomacy also supports internal understanding of international values and relations. The sharing of international standards, democratic changes and market reforms in Central, Eastern and South-East Europe has become more effective by communicating with the domestic public. This has also been experienced in Croatia, which has long been considered as one of the more advanced transition countries. Croatia’s strategic goal of becoming a functional market democracy has always been in line with NATO and EU values, although the costs and benefits of accession were, and still are, to be discussed both abroad and with the domestic public. Creating pluralistic, well-structured and institutionalized platforms for permanent public dialogue is a multifaceted activity that allows all segments of society to practise democracy. The lessons learned in Croatia confirm that a government — if and when it develops a domestic dialogue — not only gains public support for its foreign policy goals at home and abroad, but also becomes better articulated internationally.

Emerging Micro-Politics of the Marginal Tea Plantation Community of West Bengal in the Context of Globalisation and State's Neo-Liberal Policies

Globalisation ushered in the new economic reforms in India during 1990s through government's new market policy. But, in the wake of these globalised economic orientations, the impact of State-led neo-liberal policies was also strongly felt. And just when the global discourse on democracy became uni-dimensional, almost thrusting the neoliberal model of market democracy as the only universally desirable model and Indian State linking itself to the global economic and political power, significant countervailing processes emerged in the form of socio-political movements at the grass root level, thereby countering the State's policies of globalisation. The study conducted in North Bengal among the marginal tea plantation community attempts to study the emergence of Adivasi Vikas Parishad (AVP) as a political force in Terai and Dooars tea regions at the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas. Responses are built primarily on the lived experience of economic marginalisation of tea workers, revealing contradictions between accumulation of profit by garden-owning companies with global market connections on the one hand, and the increasing living costs, failure of State policies to support for the sustainable livelihoods of the workers and the pressures emanating from the newer orientations of life for the hitherto unexposed people through globalisation, on the other. In the light of this, the present paper attempts to evaluate the State-sponsored neo-liberal economic policies and their impact on the livelihoods of the tea workers, and the resultant micro-politics of tea workers’ livelihoods, albeit with a focus on the possible future trends and their overall implications to the nature of economic policies and politics in the region.

The liberal renaissance and the end(s) of history

Addressing the historical turn in International Relations (IR), this article offers a critical appraisal of what I call the liberal renaissance by interrogating liberal discourse and its renderings of history. The main argument advanced is that whether implicitly or explicitly, liberal perspectives in IR are heir to two overlapping and often contradictory narratives of history that masquerade as universals when they can be shown to be particular (and indeed peculiar). The first narrative is animated by a juridico-philosophical discourse while the second is informed by a stadial-historical discourse. I suggest that both of these narratives contribute to a triumphant, universal and relatively pacific reading of the liberal project, the aim of which is to encourage — through a variety of strategies, tactics and technologies — liberal democratic market societies so that the world will one day be united by capitalist commerce and the institutions of polyarchical democracy. I conclude the article by considering some of the consequences of holding to these historical appreciations for contemporary IR and advocates of the liberal project.