Stability Of Political Regimes Research Articles

Политические режимы разделённых обществ в условиях глобализации

In the course of the project, the authors have studied ample new latest Russian and international scientific literature on split societies; today’s status of studies of post-conflict settlement of split societies, ways of political control of split societies in the context of authoritarianism and democracy, territorial organization of split societies (federalization, regionalization). The research explores the empirical experience of solving the problems of split societies in a comparative historical perspective, reviews institutional methods for resolving and preventing inter-segment conflicts. It compares processes of state and nation-building in the split conflict and post-conflict societies, examines separatist ethnic conflicts and cases of declaration of independence, secession and the emergence of de facto statehood, as well as the impact of these processes on the stability of political regimes and post-conflict institutiona­lization. The authors also focus on the challenges of globalization (migration, ethnic and religious terrorism) and the emergence of new foreign-cultural segments caused by migration in the old democracies (France, Spain and Germany).

The Development of Slovenia in the European Union: Social Aspects

The author proves that the successful stability of independent Slovenia contributed to a number of factors, existing since its being incorporated in the SFRY. The factor, uniting the state has become the common goal – the aspiration to join the EU. The process of the European integration contributed to the modernization of a number of spheres, in particular social, cultural and economic ones. The global financial and economic crisis has revealed the turmoil in the economy of the state and its leadership was forced to gradually reduce a significant part of social privileges for the population. This caused the tension in the society and reduced the level of the national unity, having a negative impact on people’s wellbeing.
 However, since 2014, the Prime Minister M. Cherar has been trying to restore people’s trust in the state. The situation is getting better; indicators of trust in government are increasing, which also points to state capacity and political regime stability in Slovenia.
 Keywords: Slovenia, state stability, social sphere, government

DO LITERACY AND A MATURE DEMOCRATIC REGIME CURE CORRUPTION?

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1. INTRODUCTIONWhy is corruption more prevalent in some countries than in others? Do mature democracies nurture less corruption than young democracies? Does an educated populace compel government to become more transparent? The present paper attempts to find answers to these questions by examining the interactive impact of the durability of a democratic regime and educational attainment on corruption levels of a nation. A vast strand of literature1 has explored the factors that can affect the corruption level of nations (Kwok and Tadessee, 2006; Akhter, 2004; Treisman, 2000; Ades and di Tella, 1999; Leite and Weidmann, 1999; La Porta et al., 1997; La Porta et al., 1997). Yet, the interactive role of democratic durability and educational attainment has not been explored in the literature. Can higher levels of educational attainment results in a stronger impact of democratic durability on corruption?The nature and stability of political regimes have received strong attention from the researchers of recent world polity. Recent literature suggested that democracy fosters economic growth and development through protected property rights (Prezeworski and Limongi, 1993), via increased rule of law and more efficient allocation of resources (Scully, 1988), and by providing effective regulation of anti-competitive practices that allows private corporations to grow (Ayres, 1996). Bahmani-Oskooee and Goswami (2006) show that political rights and civil liberties, two fundamental characteristics of democracy, reduce the presence of black market in an economy. Hence, researchers, in general, tend to agree that the presence of democracy constituting of institutions like political rights, civil liberties, press freedom, and freedom of speech, paves the way of economic prosperity. Literature has been ambiguous about the effect of democracy on corruption (Qizilbash, 2008; Chowdhury, 2004; Shleifer and Vishny, 1998). The dominant view in the literature is that democracy has a deterrent effect on corruption, be it through a direct channel or an indirect channel. The mass uprising against the incumbent authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, dubbed by the media as 'Arab Spring' has again instigated interests in this area. Reportedly, one of the main trigger of such uprisings is the rampant corruption by the incumbent regimes. Corruption in the democracy is perceived to be less, however not free either. Recent 2G spectrum scam in India (largest functional democracy since its independence from the British colonial rule in 1947) of US$ 5.61 billion is an example of marginal scale of corruption indicating perhaps that the presence of democracy only is not sufficient to curb corruption.In this context, durability of a democratic2 regime might be an important factor to consider that has received relatively less attention. Montinola and Jackman (2002) show that corruption is actually lower in authoritarian regime than in nascent democracies, although once democratization reaches a certain threshold, this relationship changes and democratic regimes fare better. Similar to their study, Sung (2004) stresses on the non-linear association between democracy and corruption. His study shows that starting from an authoritarian regime, democratization initially results in greater corruption before it eventually leads to a decline in corruption. Similar findings have been established by Mohtadi and Roe (2003) and Rock (2009). Mohtadi and Roe (2003) show that young democracies suffering from insufficient checks and balances and lack of transparency, provide rent-seekers with greater access to public officials and hence greater opportunities for collecting public sector rents, at least up to a point, without making the corrupt acts of rent-seekers and officials open to public scrutiny. As democracy matures, transparency and monitoring activities become stronger and, thus, the probability of getting caught rises as well. …

Terrorism, Agenda 2063 and the challenges of development in Africa

The nobility of the objectives and aspiration of the African Union's Agenda 2063 towards the developmental needs of the African people are laudable, as are the attempts being made to ensure collective action, despite the ‘shield of sovereignty behind which too many corrupt leaders have hidden’. However, these noble objectives and aspirations may be undermined and threatened by the upsurge in militant Islamism and the spread of terrorism within and outside Africa, a fact not being addressed by Agenda 2063. Yet while Agenda 2063 does not seek to address the challenges posed by terrorist networks within the continent, which are threatening human security as well as the sovereignty, territoriality, legitimacy and stability of political regimes, these issues are at the core of the agenda. This article argues for Agenda 2063 to step up its efforts to combat both the roots of terrorism and the threat to development that terrorism itself poses.

Продовольственный вопрос «на местах» как фактор устойчивости политических режимов в период революции и Гражданской войны: на примере Томской губернии (февраль 1917 - декабрь 1919 г.)

Продовольственный вопрос «на местах» как фактор устойчивости политических режимов в период революции и Гражданской войны: на примере Томской губернии (февраль 1917 - декабрь 1919 г.)

State capacity and political regime stability

Two recent strands of research have proposed that state capacity facilitates autocratic and democratic survival, respectively. While convincing arguments sustain each of these expectations, prior research has neglected a crucial distinction with respect to state capacity: that between monopoly on violence and administrative effectiveness. In this article, we first formulate propositions about the relationship between each of these different aspects of state capacity and political regime stability. We then subject these propositions to empirical assessment through cross-national, statistical analysis. Our findings show that state capacity does indeed tend to enhance regime stability in both autocracies and democracies. Yet, the analyses also reveal that what primarily matters in autocracies is the monopoly on violence whereas administrative effectiveness is what stabilizes democracies. Finally, we discuss alternative interpretations of the patterns and conclude that our results go a long way toward making sense of apparent inconsistencies in the findings of previous studies.

The stabilizing state: State capitalism as a response to financial globalization in one-party regimes

ABSTRACTOne of the most important developments in the modern global economy is financial globalization. This has raised threats to the stability of political regimes in two ways: (1) by enhancing the possibility of a financial crisis that could cause political turmoil; and (2) by easing access to foreign sources of financing for opposition political groups. I argue that state capitalism – defined as state-owned publicly listed corporations – is greater among one-party regimes as a way to address these dual threats. One-party regimes have both the motivation and a greater institutional capacity for addressing these threats in comparison to other regimes. Tests are conducted on 607 firms in 1996 and 856 firms in 2008 across seven East Asian economies, and are supplemented with case studies of Malaysia and South Korea. The evidence suggests that financial globalization is contributing to the rise of the state as a counter reaction.

Durable authoritarianism in the Arab Spring

Large popular protests against non-democratic rule swept much of the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Why did non-violent and armed rebellions emerge in some countries, but not in others? Why did some autocrats fall from power under pressure 'from below', but not others? Theoretical debates on the impact of structural and institutional factors on the stability of political regimes and democratization suggest possible avenues for research. Oil wealth empowered some autocrats to avoid large popular protests and helped others to weather them out without major problems. Huge profits from oil exports reduced demands for political representation, enabled autocrats to 'buy' loyalty of their population and strengthened the repressive apparatus, as well as the readiness of its members to use force against their political opponents. In addition, the survival of Arab monarchies, and of the Algerian regime, suggests that authoritarian regimes are more stable than sultanist (personalist) ones. The broader social base of authoritarianism and resulting regime coalitions, and strong political institutions, reduced the pool for recruitment of protesters and made a firm government response possible. Sultanistic regimes, by contrast, faced existential threat because of highly unpopular personalist rule and dynastic tendencies, narrow social base, widespread corruption and ineffective rule.

‘Bringing the outside in’: illustrations from Haiti and Mali for the re-conceptualization of democracy promotion

This article is about the conceptualization of democracy promotion in political science. It argues that democracy promoters in aid-dependent states do not influence the change and stability of political regimes mostly ‘from without’, as typically assumed in academia. Instead, it mainly takes place ‘within’ the supported political system. Empirical findings from democracy assistance in Haiti and Mali challenge the typical conceptualization and shed light on factors that have been dismissed so far. By scaling-up these findings, the article concludes that a change of perspective from a static to a dynamic, process-oriented, and context-sensitive understanding of democracy promotion on the one hand, and the integration of findings from academic research on political regime change and development research on the other, would generate a conceptualization of the phenomenon that could help discover how democracy promotion works. Finally, empirical illustrations suggest that the incorporation of donors' formal and informal institutions into the supported political system, and the dense interaction between donors and local actors during democracy promotion, are likely to undermine democratization in aid-dependent states.

Reading Russia: The Wounds of Lost Empire

Reading RussiaThe Wounds of Lost Empire Ghia Nodia (bio) Broadly understood, Russia is another one of the many hybrid regimes that hover in the "gray zone" between liberal democracy and autocracy. In recent years, it has moved so close to full-fledged autocracy that the democratic element, without being fully forsaken, has worn exceedingly thin. But this does not make Russia a unique case, either in its region or globally. Russia is also a "petrostate," in the sense that oil and natural-gas riches have underpinned the political regime's stability. While one cannot deduce a regime's character simply by counting its mineral resources, the weight of evidence suggests that if a regime harbors autocratic tendencies, the availability of vast mineral wealth will reinforce rather than dilute them. But this "hybrid regime" formula, even when augmented by observations concerning Russia as a petrostate, is too broad and indistinct to advance our understanding very much. The regime's hybrid character can be explained by a number of structural factors that are no more applicable to Russia than they are to a number of its neighbors: Democratic traditions and civil society are weak; the middle class is small; people long for a strong hand after the misery and instability of the 1990s; and so on. All of this is true enough, but it is also true about a lot of places besides Russia, whose specific case therefore remains to be explained. I believe that the crucial factor in explaining the peculiarity of the Russian case (or, to use the Churchillian words, the "key" to the Russian "enigma") has to do with developments in Russian nationalism, or the Russian perception of the world and Russia's place in it. The concept of nationalism mostly brings to mind small nations striving for independence from larger ones. But big-nation nationalism is [End Page 34] no less important, even if many contemporary analysts of international relations fail to gauge its significance. Small-nation nationalism is typically about sovereignty, about being recognized as a player that can make its own choices. But great-power nationalism is about participation in determining the world order, about having a voice in setting international norms. It is about the recognition not merely of sovereignty, but of greatness. Failure to attain such recognition leads to deep feelings of resentment: It is the note of resentment that makes this variety of nationalism the most powerful factor in international politics, especially post–Cold War politics. The syndrome is mostly characteristic of nations that once had, but have now lost, great-power status. Russia is one of the most conspicuous cases of great-power resentment, though certainly not the only one. Such resentment expresses itself in various ways in the behavior of nations as different as France, Turkey, Iran, and China. The Mainspring of Policy The most popular target of such resentment is the United States—not necessarily because it has done something wrong (it may have done so, of course, but that is not at issue here) but because it is the great power of the day. The resentment may also take as its target a vaguer entity called "the West," because in the modern world, "the West" has acquired the collective moral power to set norms in politics and much more besides. This feeling of resentment, rather than some rational calculation of national self-interest of a type familiar to Westerners, is the major explanatory factor behind many of the steps that Russia has been taking in the international arena. Moscow's August 2008 invasion of Georgia and subsequent recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for instance, was meant as a direct response to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia a decade ago and the subsequent Western recognition of Kosovo after it declared independence in February 2008. Striking at Georgia certainly brought psychological satisfaction: Russia wanted to make a point to the West, and it did so. Whether this served Russia's "national interest" in some objective sense is another matter entirely. Russia's predicament as a fallen great power is also relevant to understanding its domestic politics. What is notable about the trajectory of Russia's development since communism gave...

The hazard rate of political regimes

We present a preliminary study on the stability of political regimes. In a longitudinal data set we study the effect of some observable economic and political conditions on the hazard rate of different types of political regimes. We find that economic development has a stabilizing effect in countries with democratic political institutions, but rich autocracies do not show a lower hazard rate than less developed autocracies. While the stability of autocracies is not affected by their degree of economic development, it is greatly associated with the degree of popular discontent. Widespread discontent with leaders in autocratic regimes highly increases their hazard rate. This relationship is much weaker for regimes with democratic institutions. We also find a non-monotonic time dependence pattern for the hazard rate of political regimes. Political regimes are found to be at an increasing risk of collapse during the first years, with their hazard rates reaching a peak around the fourth year.