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Annual Review of Political Science - Volume 12, 2009
Volume 12, 2009
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A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 1–9More LessEditor's Note Robert A. Dahl, the foremost living theorist of democracy, is the emeritus Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1940 and where he spent virtually his entire academic career. After five years working for the government—as a management analyst at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, then as an economist in the Office of Price Administration and the War Production Board, and finally as a member of the Army—he returned to Yale in 1946. With colleagues Charles Lindblom, Robert Lane, and others, he helped build the first modern department of political science, a department that asked major substantive questions while using the best social science techniques available at the time.
In the interview that follows, which I conducted on March 30, 2008, Dahl grounds his motivation for studying democracy not only in his academic encounters but also in his experiences growing up in Alaska, attending public schools there, and working with longshore workers as a boy. He does not want to replicate the utopian visions of classical philosophers. His commitment is to the development of an empirical model of democracy that guides scholars in their efforts to determine the extent of democratization throughout the world as well as in the United States. Normatively, he is committed to a democracy that recognizes the rights and voice of all who have a legitimate claim to citizenship.
Although he is known for his arguments about the procedures democracy requires, some of his most important work deals with the distribution of power. He engaged in debate with elitist theorists such as C. Wright Mills and Floyd Hunter, who argued that a small elite determined virtually all important policy decisions. Dahl's book Who Governs?, winner of the 1962 Woodrow Wilson Prize of the American Political Science Association, makes a very different set of claims. There Dahl analyzes decision making in several policy arenas and finds different key actors influencing the outcomes. The debate did not stop there, of course, but Dahl transformed the style of argument by investigating how decisions were made and who made them.
Dahl continued to study and contemplate democracy, winning a second Woodrow Wilson Prize in 1990 for Democracy and Its Critics. By his admission, he concluded his writing career with a second edition of How Democratic is the American Constitution in 2003 and On Political Equality in 2006.
Robert Dahl has received numerous honors. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1950 and 1978, a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences in 1955–1956 and 1967, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, National Academy of Sciences, and British Academy (as a corresponding fellow). He served as President of the American Political Science Association in 1966–1967. He was the 1995 recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. He holds numerous honorary doctorates in addition to other major awards in recognition of his remarkable standing in the profession. The editorial committee of the Annual Review of Political Science was unanimous in its selection of Robert Dahl as the author of this first prefatory article by a distinguished living scholar to be published in our pages.
-Margaret Levi
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Neorepublicanism: A Normative and Institutional Research Program
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 11–29More LessNeorepublicanism may be defined as the attempt by current political scientists, philosophers, historians, lawyers, and others to draw on a classical republican tradition in the development of an attractive public philosophy intended for contemporary purposes. Three main ideas have been especially prominent in the neorepublican literature. First and most important is the conception of a free person as one who does not live under the arbitrary will or domination of others. Second is the associated conception of a free state as one that attempts to promote the freedom of its citizens without itself coming to dominate them. And third is the conception of good citizenship as consisting in a vigilant commitment to preserving the state in its distinctive role as an undominating protector against domination. The aim of the neorepublican research program is to rethink issues of legitimacy and democracy, welfare and justice, public policy and institutional design, from within the framework that these basic ideas provide.
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Domestic Terrorism: The Hidden Side of Political Violence
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 31–49More LessThis article reviews the literature on the onset and dynamics of domestic terrorism, with special emphasis on the interactions between terrorist organizations, the state, and society. Because this literature has often been based on case studies, we seek to impose some structure to its findings. We challenge the distinction between domestic and international terrorism, which truncates the sample of violence, and we show that the actor-sense of terrorism (violence carried out by underground organizations) is the most appropriate model for causal analysis. Terrorist organizations tend to emerge in developed countries in which the state is able to prevent the loss of control over any part of its territory. Terrorists take advantage of the state's mistakes (when, for example, it is over-repressive or makes ineffective concessions) in order to boost their support. Terrorists cannot survive without some degree of support. Consequently, levels of violence and targets are determined by social constraints.
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Women in Parliaments: Descriptive and Substantive Representation
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 51–69More LessThis essay reviews two research programs. The first focuses on variations in the number of women elected to national parliaments in the world (descriptive representation), and the second focuses on effects of women's presence in parliament (substantive representation). The theory of the politics of presence (Phillips 1995) provides reasons for expecting a link between descriptive and substantive representation. The safest position would be to say that results are “mixed” when it comes to empirical support for the theory of the politics of presence. However, when a large number of studies covering a wide set of indicators on the importance of gender in the parliamentary process are piled together, the picture that emerges shows that female politicians contribute to strengthening the position of women's interests.
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Self-Government in Our Times
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 71–92More LessThe eighteenth-century ideal of self-government of the people was based on an assumption that renders it incoherent and unrealistic, namely, that interests and values are sufficiently harmonious that each individual needs to obey only himself while living under laws chosen by all. This conception collapses in the presence of heterogeneous preferences. Yet a weaker notion of self-government is logically coherent: A collectivity governs itself if decisions implemented on its behalf reflect the preferences of its members. I define this second-best self-government and analyze whether democratic institutions can satisfy even this definition.
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Social Policy in Developing Countries
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 93–113More LessDrawing on recent work and data on social protection in the developing world, this essay evaluates the current state of the art and suggests several important new lines of research. We first examine the historical origin and evolution of social protection systems in developing countries, arguing that insufficient attention has been paid to the authoritarian roots of developing nations' social policy. As a preliminary effort to remedy this shortcoming in the literature, we offer a political logic for the observed variation in the character of institutions of social policy established by nondemocratic regimes. Next, we explore recent research examining linkages between models of economic development and welfare regimes in developing countries. Finally, we turn to the study of the political determinants of the social policy reforms that occurred in the final decades of the twentieth century, arguing that variation in reform across policy areas has been more complex than is generally appreciated in the literature. To explain this variation, we develop a theory that identifies the political coalitions supporting different policy outcomes.
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Variation in Institutional Strength
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 115–133More LessComparative research on political institutions has begun to turn from issues of formal institutional design to issues of institutional strength. Rather than assuming a tight fit between formal rules and political behavior, these studies examine how variation in the stability and/or enforcement of formal rules shapes actors' expectations and behavior. This article explores the emerging research agenda on institutional strength. It disaggregates the concept of institutional strength into two dimensions—enforcement and stability—and it argues that institutions vary widely on both dimensions. The article then examines the sources of this variation and its implications for comparative research. It shows how recent research on weak institutions may be used to refine existing theories of institutional effects, design, and development, which should broaden the comparative scope of these theories. The conclusion examines ways of developing comparative measures of institutional strength.
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Quality of Government: What You Get
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 135–161More LessIn development policy, international organizations have shifted their focus to the importance of good governance and sound institutions. The theory behind this is that only with a high quality of government (QoG) can a country reap the benefits of economic growth and social development. We review the research behind this policy shift and offer a first benchmark statistical analysis. The first section contains a review of the conceptual discussion of what QoG means. Second, we present four salient approaches pertaining to the outcomes of QoG: the debates concerning QoG and democracy, economic growth, corruption, and the rule of law. The third section uses insights gained from these debates to focus on the policy outcomes of QoG—its effects on social well-being, public health, and environmental sustainability. We conclude by discussing possible pitfalls in future research on QoG and development.
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Democratization and Economic Globalization
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 163–181More LessWe address two questions that are central to the literature on the emergence of democracy and economic globalization. First, does democratization foster higher levels of trade and capital account openness? Second, do trade and capital account openness increase the likelihood of democratization? We review the literature in international political economy and comparative politics that has theoretically and empirically addressed these questions. We then conduct some empirical tests in a sample of developing countries to briefly evaluate the empirical relationship between democracy and economic globalization. Our analysis reveals that evidence for the claim that democracy fosters trade and capital account liberalization is robust but that empirical support for the predicted positive effect of economic openness on democracy among developing countries is weak. More theoretical work is needed to clarify the link between democracy and economic liberalization, and to this end we provide possible topics for future research.
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Has the Study of Global Politics Found Religion?
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 183–202More LessThe past generation has witnessed a resurgence of religion in global politics, but political science has been slow to catch up with it. The reason lies in the secularism embedded in the field's major theories, one that reflects actual secularism in world politics, beginning with the events surrounding the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and growing steadily through the middle twentieth century. Today, a small but growing number of political scientists have begun to explore religion, doing so in ways that depart from secular assumptions and embrace religion's distinctiveness to greater and lesser degrees.
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Redistricting: Reading Between the Lines
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 203–223More LessThe redistricting process evokes major questions about representative democracy, fairness, and political accountability. This article covers the state of the field along three dimensions. First, it explains how redistricting bears on questions about racial and minority representation. Second, it examines how redistricting influences electoral competition, focusing on the alleged power of partisans and incumbents to draw maps that eliminate all but token opposition. Third and last, it discusses the issues surrounding the redistricting process itself and how various procedural reforms may influence political outcomes. Although significant progress has been made in understanding how different redistricting schemes create various biases in the electoral system, a review of the literature shows that major questions have not been resolved regarding the effects of redistricting on electoral competition, partisan polarization, and representation of communities of interest, especially minorities. Moreover, there is insufficient evidence from empirical research to justify any particular reform of the redistricting process. In addition to filling these gaps, future work might also broaden the scope of research to assess how redistricting affects other aspects of democracy, including political participation, efficacy, and trust.
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Does Efficiency Shape the Territorial Structure of Government?
Liesbet Hooghe, and Gary MarksVol. 12 (2009), pp. 225–241More LessThis article asks three questions. Why is government organized across multiple levels? Does efficiency determine the level at which decisions are made? Does efficiency frame how policy problems are bundled in jurisdictions? Rather than examine how government structure may or may not lead to efficient outcomes, this article considers how efficiency constrains government. The purpose here is to probe fundamental commonalities of government structure which are usually taken for granted because they exist in an otherwise fluctuating political universe.
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Bargaining Failures and Civil War
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 243–261More LessThis article explores the many bargaining failures that may occur at every stage in intrastate disputes: before fighting breaks out, as a war is being fought, and once a war ends. It argues that disputes that occur within states are particularly susceptible to information and commitment problems. It also reveals why certain countries have more difficulty overcoming these problems than others do. This represents the most comprehensive overview to date of bargaining failures associated with civil wars.
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Hobbesian Hierarchy: The Political Economy of Political Organization
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 263–283More LessHierarchy is a nearly ubiquitous form of political organization. This article examines the concept of hierarchy and addresses three questions. What is hierarchy? When is it selected? Why does it matter? I outline and make explicit a theoretical approach common to the disparate literatures on political parties, domestic structures, and international relations. Drawn from the theory of the firm in economics, this relational contracting approach focuses on how hierarchy reduces transaction costs and safeguards specific assets, and it explains the nature and persistence of hierarchy and why it develops in some strategic settings and not others. Relational contracting theory has clear limitations, however, whose gaps are highlighted and sometimes filled by alternative approaches to understanding hierarchy. Integrating relational contracting theory with these alternatives promises a more complete approach.
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Negative Campaigning
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 285–306More LessThe past two decades have seen an explosion of social science research on negative political advertising as the number of political observers complaining about its use—if not negative campaigning itself—has also grown dramatically. This article reviews the literature on negative campaigning—what candidates are most likely to attack their opponent, under what circumstances, and most importantly, to what effect. We also discuss the many serious methodological issues that make studying media effects of any kind so difficult, and make suggestions for “best practices” in conducting media research. Contrary to popular belief, there is little scientific evidence that attacking one's opponent is a particularly effective campaign technique, or that it has deleterious effects on our system of government. We conclude with a discussion of whether negative political advertising is bad for democracy.
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The Institutional Origins of Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 307–327More LessThis article provides a political explanation for the unexpectedly high levels of income inequality found in the African region today. Traditional explanations for inequality are reviewed and found not to be compelling. Instead, it is argued that natural endowments in the region shaped the nature of colonial institutions, which in turn created the conditions for the high levels of inequality found today. The surprisingly high levels of inequality in Africa can be understood as resulting from a process of class formation linked to dynamics of state building that have their origins in the economic institutions of the early colonial state. Insofar as political power has often been used to gain economic advantages during the postcolonial era, inequality has changed little over the past 40 years, despite the official focus on development and poverty alleviation by donors and governments alike.
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Riots
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 329–343More LessThe past century of research has identified a host of economic, political, demographic, and other factors that seem to be associated with the prevalence of riots. The study of riots has, however, probably focused too much on these “push” factors that lead to violence and not enough on understanding the response of the state to riots. Understanding the political incentives that motivate democratic and authoritarian states to sometimes allow riots to take place and at other times to take the strongest possible law-and-order measures to prevent them is key to understanding variation in violence. Scholars also need to pay more attention to the psychological factors that encourage people to riot, and to the micro-logic of target choice within these larger events.
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Regimes and the Rule of Law: Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 345–366More LessAccording to popular wisdom, judicial independence and the rule of law are essential features of modern democracy. Drawing on the growing comparative literature on courts, we unpack this claim by focusing on two broad questions: How does the type of political regime affect judicial independence? Are independent courts, in fact, always essential for establishing the rule of law? In highlighting the role of institutional fragmentation and public opinion, we explain why democracies are indeed more likely than dictatorships to produce both independent courts and the rule of law. Yet, by also considering the puzzle of institutional instability that marks courts in much of the developing world, we identify several reasons why democracy may not always prove sufficient for constructing either. Finally, we argue that independent courts are not always necessary for the rule of law, particularly where support for individual rights is relatively widespread.
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Field Experiments and the Political Economy of Development
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 367–378More LessSocial scientists have begun to work alongside developing country governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations on experimental projects that address fundamental questions in the political economy of development. We describe the range of projects that have taken place or are currently under-way, identify new and promising frontiers for research, and discuss some challenges that are particular to work in this area. The impact of this research will depend on the extent to which scholars can successfully link studies of experimental interventions to broader questions of social scientific interest.
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Laboratory Experiments in Political Economy
Vol. 12 (2009), pp. 379–388More LessThis article summarizes a small part of the literature on laboratory experiments in political economy. The experiments discussed are primarily aimed at testing predictions of equilibrium models of voting in committees and elections. The specific topics discussed are voter turnout, the Condorcet jury theorem, and the swing voter's curse. The latter two topics address questions of information aggregation by voting rules. All the experiments find significant evidence of strategic voting and, with a few exceptions, find support for the equilibrium predictions of the theories.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 26 (2023)
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Volume 25 (2022)
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Volume 24 (2021)
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Volume 23 (2020)
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Volume 22 (2019)
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Volume 21 (2018)
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Volume 20 (2017)
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Volume 19 (2016)
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Volume 18 (2015)
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Volume 17 (2014)
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Volume 16 (2013)
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Volume 15 (2012)
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Volume 14 (2011)
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Volume 13 (2010)
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Volume 12 (2009)
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Volume 11 (2008)
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Volume 10 (2007)
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Volume 9 (2006)
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Volume 8 (2005)
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Volume 7 (2004)
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Volume 6 (2003)
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Volume 5 (2002)
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Volume 4 (2001)
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Volume 3 (2000)
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Volume 2 (1999)
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Volume 1 (1998)
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Volume 0 (1932)