Students Of Comparative Politics Research Articles

The return of oligarchy? Threats to representative democracy in Latin America

ABSTRACT Long regarded by students of comparative politics as an important if muddled concept, oligarchy, as I define it, denotes modes of rule in which public office holders govern with a view to the private interests of the wealthy. The enabling condition in a democratic regime is weak institutional mechanisms of citizen representation and participation. The persistence of oligarchic modes of rule under democracy helps account for the enduring appeal of populism in Latin America. This article outlines the classical theory of oligarchy, examines the use of the concept in contemporary theories of comparative politics, describes oligarchic modes of rule in Latin America’s hierarchical market economies, offers an account of the dynamics of populist mobilisation and oligarchic modes of rule in Peru, and draws lessons from the Odebrecht corruption scandal.

Response to Ethnic and Racial Studies interlocutors

ABSTRACTThis symposium on my book, The Specter of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy (Princeton, 2018) provides an opportunity to engage specialists in classical and modern political theory and philosophy, comparative racial and ethnic politics, and political sociology who have provided commentary on different aspects of the two overarching arguments intertwined in The Specter of Race; how students of democracy have largely ignored how racial and ethno-national hierarchy has been historically tethered to its practice , and how students of comparative politics have, for the most part, ignored how these hierarchies have informed the very development of modern democracies.

The Bipolar Voter: On the Effects of Actual and Perceived Party Polarization on Voter Turnout in European Multiparty Democracies

Despite the growing literature on polarization, students of comparative politics have not yet been able to reach much assured understanding of how party polarization influences voter turnout in multiparty settings, which often put on offer both centrist, and divergent mainstream and niche party policies. I evaluate how politically sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens with different ideological preferences respond to high and increasing party polarization by employing individual- and party system-level data from 17 European multiparty democracies. I hypothesize that high levels of actual and perceived party polarization increase voter turnout, and policy seeking, sophisticated citizens are more likely to turn out when polarization in party policy offerings in the short run increases their utility from voting. The empirical analyses show that high party polarization increases both politically sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens’ propensities to turn out. However, such positive effect for the most part comes from the between- and within-party systems differences in actual party polarization, rather than how individual citizens perceive that. The implications of these findings with respect to strategic position taking incentives of political parties and the effects of the knowledge gap between sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens on political participation and democratic representation are discussed in the concluding section.

Recent Studies on Indonesian Islam: A Sign of Intellectual Exhaustion?

Recent Studies on Indonesian Islam:A Sign of Intellectual Exhaustion? Iqra Anugrah1 (bio) Jajat Burhanudin and Kees Van Dijk, eds. Islam in Indonesia: Contrasting Images and Interpretation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013. 279 pp. Noorhaidi Hasan. The Making of Public Islam: Piety, Democracy and Youth in Indonesian Politics. Yogyakarta: SUKA Press, 2013. 330 pp. Mirjam Künkler and Alfred Stepan, eds. Democracy and Islam in Indonesia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. 252 pp. Martin van Bruinessen, ed. Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the “Conservative Turn.” Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013. 240 pp. Islam in Indonesia continues to be a main focus of studies on Indonesian society and politics. Recent research on this subject analyses Indonesian Islam in the context of changing state-society relations in post-authoritarian era. However, despite the proliferation of new studies and empirical findings on post-authoritarian Indonesian Islam, their primary analytical lens remains unchanged. This lens is based on five main [End Page 105] theoretical assumptions about Indonesian Islam, namely (1) the primacy of culturalist and idealist explanations of Indonesian Islam, (2) the dichotomy between “moderate-progressive” and “conservative-fundamentalist” Islamic groups, (3) a focus on Islamic groups and institutions within society, (4) a presentist view of Indonesian Islam, and (5) methodologically, a crude division of labor between humanities scholars and social scientists. Such a research agenda, unfortunately, has a number of major weaknesses. First of all, it reifies the “moderate-progressive versus conservative-fundamentalist” view of Indonesian Islam, thereby reducing the complexity and diversity within Indonesian Islam and possibly essentializing it. Second, its overemphasis on the role of Islamic groups and institutions isolates the dynamics of these groups from larger structural contexts, that is, the changing nature of political economy, class configurations, and state-society relations in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Likewise, the mainstream approach to studying Indonesian Islam also overlooks the transnational impact of changes in global political economy on Islamic movements worldwide, including Indonesian Islam. Given all of this, the lack of an innovative research agenda for contemporary studies of Indonesian Islam might be symptomatic of intellectual exhaustion. The recent works on Indonesian Islam under review here are not free from the shortcomings described above. With the exception of Noorhaidi Hasan’s monograph, most of the essays in the other three edited volumes look at Indonesian Islam from a mainstream perspective. As such, although the empirics of their findings are appreciated, their analytical frameworks have been overused. To overcome this barrier, reviving a critical materialist approach that takes into account both ideational and historical-structural dimensions can provide a breakthrough for future research on Indonesian Islam. The Same Old Wine in the Same Old Bottle Perhaps the clearest sign of the lack of new theoretical breakthroughs can be found in Mirjam Künkler and Alfred Stepan’s and Martin van Bruinessen’s edited volumes. At the risk of being accused of exaggeration, any serious student of comparative politics, Indonesia, and political Islam will find it difficult to point out what is really new in these two books, despite the fact that the editors and many of the contributors are long-time observers of Indonesian political Islam. Künkler and Stepan open the discussion in the introduction by outlining the four main foci of their book, namely, theoretical discussion of Indonesia’s democratization, attitudes and behaviors of religious and political actors, religion, and law. The main emphasis here is on the competition and disagreement over political discourses and the need to find a Rawlsian “overlapping consensus”2 among different religious and political actors (6). They also emphasize the role of public intellectuals in promoting democratic values and combating anti-democratic ideas (7). In the second chapter, William Liddle and Saiful Mujani, two other senior scholars on Indonesian Islam and [End Page 106] politics, discuss Indonesia’s democratization using Linz and Stepan’s classic work on democratic transition and consolidation as a benchmark.3 The focus of their essay is on the attitudinal, behavioral, and constitutional dimensions of democratic consolidation in five arenas: civil, political, and economic societies; the rule of law; and the state’s apparatus. The second part of the book discusses the discursive aspect of relations among...

Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics: Algeria Compared. By Miriam R. Lowi. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 252p. $94.00, cloth, $31.99 paper.

Although Miriam R. Lowi's primary goal is to explain “the enigma of Algeria” (p. 16), her analysis extends far beyond this individual country to shed light on questions that are of broad interest to students of comparative politics. Indeed, as is indicative of all so-called single-country case studies, her in-depth investigation of Algeria's postindependence trajectory—from its “unfulfilled expectations” in the 1980s to its “descent into violence” in the 1990s and then “the [state's] resurgence” in the 2000s (p. 7)—is at the outset an attempt to explain a larger class of phenomena. Lowi is quite explicit in this regard. In sum, she seeks to “extend [her] argument about Algeria” to explain, first, why oil-rich states experience different kinds of political stability in the face of similar economic shocks, and second, what role, if any, oil wealth has played in fueling these political outcomes (p. 17).

Linking China, India, and the United States

China and India in the Age of Globalization. By Shalendra D. Sharma. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 321 pp., $85.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-51571-9); $27.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 798-0-521-73136-2). Professor Shalendra Sharma's China and India in the Age of Globalization provides an informative and timely contribution to the literature on the rising role and status of China and India in world affairs. Sharma's treatment of the political economy of both countries and implications for future-defining Sino-Indian, US–China, and US–India relations is richly detailed, current, and informed by consultation with much of the voluminous relevant literature concerned with the two emerging powers. Professor Sharma's decision to compare China and India, and to analyze his chosen subject within the context of relations with the United States, will be welcomed by many readers. Within this comparative framework, he raises and addresses questions of importance for today's students of comparative politics and international studies, policymakers in all three political systems, and others generally interested in understanding the contemporary “contradictions and paradoxes” (p. 271) of globalization. His key questions include: Will China become a “responsible global stakeholder” (also see Bhattacharya 2005)? Will growing economic convergence further solidify Sino-Indo relations? I would add: How will the economic, social, and political implications of unparalleled disparities in aggregate national income relative to per-capita income play out over time in China and India? Sharma's approach to his subject is thorough, balanced, and cautious. He effectively interweaves historical analysis with recent developments. Table 2 (p. 57) listing “major reform steps in China: 1978–2006” is particularly helpful. His critical analysis of China's banking and financial sectors (pp. 116–27) is illuminating. The book certainly does not avoid informed speculation on the future, but Sharma typically hedges his bets.1 Based on power-transition theory, for instance, he expects China's rise to destabilize the international system.2 At the same time, he envisions the prospect that the United States can further facilitate integrating China “into the international economy and embedding it in the …

Mix-Up: Models of Governance and Framing Opportunities in U.S. and EU Consumer Policy

Students of comparative politics have highlighted different styles of regulation in the U.S. and Europe. These differences also apply to consumer policy and its different models of governance. The paper holds that governance is a key variable but adds aspects of issue framing. Two examples of consumer policy are analysed: regulation of genetically modified organisms and tobacco control. The case studies show that features of governance such as adversarial legalism or the precautionary principle are not necessarily linked to distinctive styles of regulation. Instead they vary across policy fields. Only a mix of governance elements and framing opportunities for interest groups can explain output and new directions of consumer policy. Dilemmas of collective action appear to be shrinking for consumers because framing trumps mobilization of members.

Discipline, Accountability, and Legislative Voting in Latin America

What information do citizens have about what goes on inside legislatures, and what difference does it make to the sort of representation provided? These questions are increasingly important as students of comparative politics evaluate the performance of institutions established in new, or renewed, democracies during the last decades of the twentieth century. In Latin America, where the capacity of the legislative branch relative to the executive is of perennial concern to political reformers and academics alike, there is substantial interest in the relationships among parties, legislators, the executive, and citizens. This article examines the internal dynamics of parties across a number of Latin American legislatures, assessing the responsiveness of legislators to competing pressures from party leaders and other actors. Latin America illustrates the frequent tension between partisan and individual accountability among legislators, but this tension is manifest to varying degrees within legislatures generally. By accountability, I mean that representatives communicate to voters what they will do if elected, that information about actions once in office is available to constituents, that representatives are responsive to the preferences and demands of constituents, and that they are punished for lack of responsiveness. In a recent landmark study, Stokes articulates a related notion of accountability of executives and parties as the embodiments of national government but focuses mainly on the first and last elements of my definition, campaign promises and electoral punishment.1 My conception of accountability encompasses transparency and responsiveness as well, in order to direct attention to the perspective of legislators, who are often subject to competing demands from national parties and more narrow electoral constituencies and whose individual roles in the policymaking process are often obscured from public scrutiny. Changes on both these fronts, in representatives' ties to constituencies and in the information about legislators' actions, increase the premium on individual accountability among representatives. Recent institutional reforms in many Latin American countries have altered the balance of resources that induce party discipline. Drawing on interview data with party leaders, legislators, and staff, surveys of legislators, and records of debates and votes, I illustrate how political elites regard these reforms, outline the strain they perceive between loyalty to party and responsiveness to constituents, and discuss the connection between these matters and the normative concept of democratic account-

State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810–1900. By Fernando López-Alves. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. 295p. $49.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.

One of the most vexing questions posed over time by political scientists is: Why do democratic polities develop in some countries, but not in others? In his seminal work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1986), still read today by most students of comparative politics, Barrington Moore strove to answer that question by examining the historical process in which commercial agriculture emerged in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China. In his book, Fernando López-Alves takes the framework that Moore provided and applies it to three countries in Latin America whose trajectories in the nineteenth century led to different polities and experiences with democracy—Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay (he also makes brief reference to Paraguay and Venezuela as so-called control cases). While conceding the need for “further testing” (p. 220), he arrives at conclusions that differ significantly from Moore's, even though he does not attempt to dismiss that earlier work.

A Comparativist's Perspective

One of the uncomfortable facts of life confronting students of comparative politics is that all political systems are, to some extent, unique. Indeed, it seems that the more we know about a particular place, the harder it becomes to compare it to others. Squeezing a given case into a tight theoretical mold offers no easy solutions to this problem, a lesson nicely illustrated by Brazil, whose experience partly inspired the theory of “bureaucratic authoritarianism.” Yet Brazilian authoritarianism never quite matched the expectations that animated this theory, or for that matter, its paradoxical offspring—the theory of “democratic transitions.” As Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter once noted: “Brazil is an interesting exception. . . . No serious attempt was made in Brazil to create distinctively authoritarian institutions. Rather, the generals [ruled] . . . by distorting rather than by disbanding the basic institutions of political democracy.” One might quibble with the assertion that Brazil lacked distinctively authoritarian institutions and insist instead that the grafting together of democratic and patrimonialist structures during the 1960s is precisely what created an “exceptional” political beast, one that subsequently resisted a full transition to democracy for nearly 15 years. Yet then we would have to concede that this protracted dynamic was not wholly unique to Brazil, or even to Latin America. Many of my Egyptian colleagues still complain that their country is mired in a marhalla intiqaliyya mustamira—a continuing transitional stage. This ailment Daniel Brumberg, assistant professor of government at Georgetown University, has been a visiting fellow at both the U.S. Institute of Peace and the International Forum for Democratic Studies. He is the author of From Khomeini to Khatami: Charisma, Revolution, and Reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2001) and is currently at work on a comparative study of power-sharing and political reform in Indonesia, Algeria, and Kuwait.

Democratic Culture and Governance: Latin America on the Threshold of the Third MillenniumSocial Democracy in Latin America: Prospects for Change

Democratic Culture and Governance is a collection of essays by prominent Latin American social scientists who were brought together by UNESCO to discuss issues of democracy at a conference held in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1990. The organization of this conference in Latin America was a recognition of the significance of the region for the debate about the theory and practice of democratization and democratic governance. The contributors include Manuel A. Garretón, Francois Bourricaud, Torcuato Di Tella, Norbert Lechner, Michel Maffesoli, Helio Jaguaribe, Mario Dos Santos, Osvaldo Sunkel, Ariel Davrieux, Enrique Leff, Dante Caputo, Jorge Sabato, Raúl Bernal-Meza, and Luis Albala-Bertrand. The articles by these prominent Latin Americanists address three main topics: issues of transition processes, economic conditions and the dilemmas of democratic governance, and democratization in the context of international restructuring. The collection provides a sense of some of the most troubling issues affecting democracy in Latin America, especially how prominent social scientists view these problems. The articles, however, lack depth. They are short pieces that look like conference commentaries rather than carefully-thought-out scholarly articles. In this sense, the book is useful as a documentation of the relevant issues discussed at the Montevideo conference, but it cannot be viewed as a significant contribution to the academic literature on democratization processes in Latin America.Social Democracy in Latin America should be welcomed by students of comparative politics and social democracy. Outstanding social scientists from Latin America and Europe provide informative and insightful analyses of the relationship between European and Latin American social democracy. The essays can be divided into two categories. One set of articles focuses on the analysis of the social democratic experience in Europe and its relevance for Latin America; the second set examines the experiences, possibilities, and limitations of social democracy in Latin America. Contributors to the book are Tilman Evers, Kenneth Hermele, Paul Cammack, Manuel Alcántara Sáez, Pablo González Casanova, Marcelo Cavarozzi, Alex Fernández Jilberto, Luis Gómez Calcaño, Julio Cotler, Augustin Cueva, Jaime Tamayo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Alain Touraine.The articles by Evers, Hermele, Cammack, and Alcántara Sáez address two main topics: the social democratic experience in Germany, Sweden, England, and Spain and the nature of the relationship between the European social democratic governments and parties and their Latin American counterparts. A major theme examined in these chapters is whether economic or political motivations accounted for the increasing interest of European social democrats in Latin America. The chapters concentrating on Latin America address more general themes, as in the chapter on the Left in South America by Cavarozzi, or concentrate on country or regional studies, including those of Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Central America, and Mexico.The last two chapters address questions about the challenges of social democracy in Latin America. Cardoso examines the tension between the role of the market and that of the state in the allocation of resources and the redistribution of income. In Latin America, under the present conditions of external debt and inflation, the trend has been to privatize. But while privatization in great proportion is, according to Cardoso, unacceptable, social democrats must carefully evaluate how Latin American economies can open up. The final essay, by Touraine, discusses social democracy as a political project, the various meanings of social democracy, and possible ways out of the present situation at a time when the room for positive solutions is narrow. Overall, the essays are rich in information and provide a critical outlook on the social democratic experiences in Europe and Latin America.

Prospects of Democracy: A Study of 172 Countries

This book provides the most extensive comparative survey of the state and conditions of democracy ever made. It focuses on 172 contemporary states, with historical data on the measures of democracy and on explanatory variables extending back to the 1850s. It presents a comprehensive exploration of democratization, its successes and failures, making predictions on the prospects for democracy for single countries and for seven regions of the world. As well as presenting empirical analyses of democratization on the basis of Vanhanens's resource distribution theory of democratization and making predictions on the prospects, the book includes contributions from five commentators, Mitchell A. Seligson on Latin America, Samuel Decalo and John W. Forje on Africa, John Henderson on Oceania and Ilter Turan on why some of the countires that pass Vanhanen's democratic threshold cannot in fact be seen as democracies. The volume also includes an introductory chapter which examines and compares other theoretical interpretations of democratization. Prospects for Democracy will be essential reading for all serious students of comparative politics and democracy.

Direct democracy in California: Example or warning?

This study maintains that the analysis of direct democracy in California can suggest more lessons for students of comparative politics than the traditional Swiss example. The development of direct democracy in California is reviewed and the recent expansion in its use is related to the development of an ‘initiatives industry’. As in all aspects of Californian politics, money has a significant impact on the results of referendums. Direct democracy undermines the role of the legislature and encourages politicians to follow popular trends rather than to attempt to exercise political leadership. Various possible reforms of the existing system of direct democracy are reviewed. Although not without its merits, direct democracy in California is more of a warning than an example to be emulated.

Explaining Third World Democracies

tutes the area where the most crucial contemporary tests of democratic politics are taking place, so students of comparative politics should naturally focus their attention on this area. Studying democracy in the Third World poses a distinct set of intellectual problems. The most fundamental, perhaps, is establishing some frame of reference for analyzing a familiar Western idea in circumstances that lie outside the historical experience of the West. Rescuing discussions of comparative politics from the dangers of ethnocentrism is no easy task, however. One serious intellectual fault that Western scholars continue to fall prey to is the posture of triumphalism. At first glance, triumphalism paints an intellectually ambitious vision of progress that appeals to an optimistic faith in the possibilities for improving the human condition. On reflection, however, triumphalism obscures rather than enlightens. It reduces the study of politics to a simple matter of describing how others copy their experiences from a single master plan of history. Moreover, it narrows the scope of discourse to the point of denying the possibility of multiple inspirations for the values that underlie all human communities.

Lethal politics: Soviet genocide and mass murder since 1917

While there are estimates of the number of people killed by Soviet authorities during particular episodes or campaigns, until now, no one has tried to calculate the complete human toll of Soviet genocides and mass murders since the revolution of 1917. Here, R. J. Rummel lists and analyzes hundreds of published estimates, presenting them in the historical context in which they occurred. His shocking conclusion is that, conservatively calculated, 61,911,000 people were systematically killed by the Communist regime from 1917 to 1987. Rummel divides the published estimates on which he bases his conclusions into eight historical periods, such as the Civil War, collectivization, and World War II. The estimates are further divided into agents of death, such as terrorism, deportations, and famine. Using statistical principles developed from more than 25 years of quantitative research on nations, he analyzes the estimates. In the collectivization period, for example, about 11,440,000 people were murdered. During World War II, while the Soviet Union had lost almost 20,000,000 in the war, the Party was killing even more of its citizens and foreigners-probably an additional 13,053,000. For each period, he defines, counts, and totals the sources of death. He shows that Soviet forced labor camps were the major engine of death, probably killing 39,464,000 prisoners overall. To give meaning and depth to these figures, Rummel compares them to the death toll from'major wars, world disasters, global genocide, deaths from cancer and other diseases, and the like. In these and other ways, Rummel goes well beyond the bare bones of statistical analysis and tries to provide understanding of this incredible toll of human lives. Why were these people killed? What was the political and social context? How can we understand it? These and other questions are addressed in a compelling historical narrative. This definitive book will be of interest to Soviet experts, those interested in the study of genocide and violence, peace researchers, and students of comparative politics and society. Written without jargon, its statistics are confined to appendixes, and the general reader can profitably read the book without losing the essence of the findings, which are selectively repeated in the narrative.

Delivering Public Services in Western Europe: Sharing Western European Experience of Para-Government Organization.

Liberal democracies have begun to use organizations other than classic public bureaucracies to provide public services. This highly original work is the first to provide a comparative analysis of such organizations in Western Europe. It examines parallels between para-government organizations at the national level, and similar organizations at the municipal and transnational level. It offers a theoretical rationale for para-government organizations in terms of transactional analysis. Why have modern governments adopted such a model of delivering services? What are the problems, limits, and possibilities of providing services thorough this form of organization? What are the similarities and differences in the use of such organizations within Western Europe? Are there parallels between the growth of para-government organizations at the national level and similar developments at both the municipal and transnational levels? This important volume draws on studies of six countries, four cities, and three kinds of transnational organizations to answer these questions. Essential reading for scholars and students of comparative politics, public administration, and Western Europe. A comprehensive and well-structured book. --Political Studies

Participation and Swiss Democracy

AS THE GREAT HISTORIAN LOUIS HARTZ TAUGHT US IN HIS remarkable study The Liberal Tradition in America, anyone wishing to focus on the special character of a regime would do well to begin by taking the measure of what is absent rather than what is present. Like America, Switzerland has long been regarded as an exception to many of the conventional rules of historical and democratic development — Sonderfall Schweiz is how the Swiss portray and perhaps boast a little about their national exceptionalism. Switzerland possesses a unique form of democratic government the hallmarks of which are participatory democracy, neutrality and radical federalism (decentrahsm or localism, what the Swiss sometimes call Kantönligeist). These hallmarks give to it a character which stands in stark contrast to traditional Anglo-American democracy. The student of comparative politics will observe at once that a great many of Switzerland's leading political features seem to have no analogue in either the English common law or the American Constitution. Swiss democracy is English democracy minus most of English democracy's salient features: which is to say, it is scarcely English democracy at all.The powerful idea of natural rights as the armour of the individual against illegitimate authority (originally against the illegitimacy of absolute monarchy, later against the hyper-legitimacy of majoritarian tyranny) is largely missing, for example. Missing too is the tradition of an independent judiciary devoted to the protection of wholly private rights against an alien, power-mongering state. When Alexis de Tocqueville, whose liberal premises suited America so well, went looking in the Alps for something like the English liberties, he went astray. Not finding English liberties, he quite misunderstood Switzerland's regime.

Trade and the variety of democratic institutions

Students of comparative politics have long acknowledged the importance of such institutional factors as electoral systems, parliamentary versus presidential rule, and the strength of parties; but they have either regarded the institutions as given or have explained them entirely in domestic terms (associating proportional representation, for example, with the intensity of social cleavages). In economically advanced democracies, however, these institutional aspects can be plausibly linked to dependence on trade: proportional representation, the parliamentary system, strong parties, and large electoral districts have “survival value” for developed democracies exposed to trade. That the recently revived agitation for proportional representation in the United Kingdom has been cast explicitly in terms of economic necessity and dependence on trade adds force to this argument, and suggests the need for further historical research on other cases of institutional adaptation and change.

Duverger's Law, Fusion, and the Decline of American "Third" Parties

has been strongly emphasized. It is argued that the statewideplurality method of electing a president and governors, plus the singlemember-district-plurality method of electing national and state legislators, have made third party growth unlikely. This assessment of the consequence of the plurality election method has also been stressed by students of comparative politics. In that context it has been referred to by Riker (1982) and others as Duverger's Law. There is, however, a way by which the obstacles presented to a minor party by a plurality election system can be minimized; that method is jointly sponsored candidacies. Today in Great Britain the two smallest parties, the Liberals and Social Democrats, divide the parliamentary districts between them and advise the electorate that a vote for a candidate of either

Toward a Political-Economic Accounting of the Endurance of Cabinet Administrations: An Empirical Assessment of Eight European Democracies

Many European cabinet administrations seem unable to successfully quell public impatience over economic imbalances and setbacks. While students of comparative politics have focused much attention on the structural dynamics of the party and parliamentary systems which bear upon the endurance of European cabinet administrations, few studies have explored the role of the economic conditions prevailing within the environment of incumbent cabinets. Utilizing the concept of cabinet administration (as distinct from cabinet government), the present analysis examines the relationship between inflation, unemployment, and the longevity of 104 cabinets in eight European democracies-Austria, Belgium, Finland, France (V), Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Norway-existing between 1958 and 1982. The present analysis demonstrates the particularly prominent role which unemployment and inflation play in constraining the longevity of European parliamentary cabinet administrations. After controlling for the effects of country attributes and the distinct environmental changes associated with different time periods, unemployment and to a lesser extent inflation are shown to contribute to shortened endurance of cabinet administrations.