Annual Review of Political Science - Volume 6, 2003

This paper reviews a range of approaches to the analysis of government termination, by any account a very important substantive concern for political science. One essential preliminary matter is the distinction between government duration and government durability—the former an essentially empirical concept, the latter essentially theoretical. It is also important to note that empirical research into government termination is heavily conditioned by the precise definition of what marks the end of one government and the beginning of the next. Approaches to analyzing government termination can be divided into those that are fundamentally empirical and those based on a priori modeling. Both research traditions are reviewed. The empiricist approach has evolved into a body of work that applies increasingly sophisticated event-history models to a dataset that has become to a large extent common within the profession. The a priori approach has developed within the traditions of noncooperative game theory to model the responses of key actors to new information, for example, about the likely results of an election that might be called if the government were to fall. There is clearly unfulfilled potential to merge these two research traditions into a single more comprehensive account of government termination.

Swedish political science has a long pedigree. The Johan Skytte professorship of discourse and politics was established at Uppsala University in 1622, although political science teaching and research did not begin until the 1860s. Today, the discipline is represented at all 10 Swedish universities and at a number of other centers for higher education. Early Swedish political science gravitated toward constitutional law, history, and philosophy. In principle, the discipline today deals with all possible aspects of politics; as far as domestic politics research is concerned, special emphasis has been given to analysis of ideas, local politics, interest organizations, and political parties, as well as public administration and public policy. Contacts with the outside world have been close; different worldwide theories and methods have successively been incorporated. The relations between the discipline and the surrounding Swedish society have also been close and the reputation and visibility of the discipline fairly high.

Republican political theory has undergone a recent revival, first and most strongly among historians, subsequently in a more limited way among lawyers, philosophers, and political scientists. Surveying the many contexts in which republican principles are invoked, I find that appeals to republicanism are often redundant (there being other, probably better, ways of arguing for the same practices and outcomes) and sometimes unfortunate (setting off, among “street-level republicans,” resonances with darker features of the older republican tradition that contemporary academic theorists of republicanism would prefer to forget). Even the more attractive features of the republican ideal—deliberative engagement in pursuit of the common good—can invite communitarian excesses, and even the “liberal republican” versions that strive to avoid that outcome are largely bereft of mechanisms for realizing their vision.

The fall of Soviet Communism led to the release of top secret documents vital to our understanding of the Cold War. This material is, however, available to research only to a limited extent. The best access is to be obtained in the archives of the Warsaw Pact countries, including those in Berlin. In Moscow itself, secrecy still forestalls access to the most important documents, above all those relating to the origins of the Cold War under Stalin. It is therefore not surprising that the debate about Cold War origins is still with us, and without any notable improvement in the quality of evidence adduced in the debate. It is by no means clear, as historians such as Gaddis have asserted, that the origins can be laid merely at the door of one unreasonable and unreasoning man: Stalin. It is, however, equally unconvincing to hear from Trachtenberg that Stalin was merely doing what all statesmen do and did so entirely rationally. The complementary argument from Leffler that, given the rational nature of Russian decisions, the answer lies more with U.S. than with Russian policy makers begs as many questions as it seeks to answer. The wary reader is well advised that the jury is still out until both the prosecution and the defense actually have adequate access to the evidence.

Dahl's collected essays give more weight to his achievements as a philosopher of democracy than to his empirical investigations. Nevertheless, they clearly reflect his habit of working close to empirical facts, in particular the problems created for democratic practices by the size of modern political societies, their pluralism, and their intricate involvement with capitalism. His trenchant account, under the head of “polyarchy,” of basic democracy, of the further criteria for full democracy, and of the conditions for achieving democracy at both these levels has established the current standard for discussing democratic theory. Moreover, he clears the way for continuing hope for democracy by demolishing (by arguments supported by observations) the ruling-elite model and advances the prospects of democracy by championing a variety of jurisdictional arrangements for citizens' participation.

The recent publication of all the essays and articles written by Robert A. Dahl between 1940 and 1997 is an occasion to note the capacity of Dahl's theory of democracy to address specific problems within specific democratic countries. This review draws the threads of Dahl's work together and then applies them to the European situation. Its aim is not only to give coherence to Dahl's lifelong research project but also to show that his theory may help identify the basic institutional and normative questions that the political development of European integration has to answer.

This essay's point of departure is the hallowed belief that democracy requires active citizens and news media that supply them with information they need to participate effectively in politics. The main features of this model of a functioning democracy, including the underlying assumptions, are tested and found wanting. Neither citizens nor media are capable of performing the roles expected of them. The appropriateness of these roles for life in modern societies is also open to question, as are the many myths and stereotypes that obscure the interface between media and democracy. The fact that democracy can persist despite citizens and media that fall short of the expected performance suggests that political culture may be more important than citizen wisdom and media excellence. Rallies in civic activism during crises may also be a major factor in the durability of democratic governance in the United States.

The Supreme Court's role in American politics is a product of its interventions in public policy making and the impact of those interventions on government and society. The Court's frequent and substantial interventions during the past half century are especially striking, and their extent and their beneficiaries cannot be explained fully by major theories of the Court's behavior. The Court's rulings often receive negative responses from other policy makers, but even more noteworthy is the degree to which judges and administrators carry out the Court's policies and legislators leave those policies standing and the Court unscathed. Scholars who emphasize the Court's limited ability to change society make a strong case, but it is not clear to what extent the Court's limitations are unique to the judiciary and to what extent they reflect the limited powers of government in general.

Scholarship on the Vietnam war has advanced understanding of why the United States fought in Vietnam. An examination of this work leads us to consider several related topics, such as why North Vietnam won the war, why the United States and its ally South Vietnam lost the war, and whether there were missed opportunities whereby the U.S. military intervention could have been avoided. The disciplines of history and political science have illuminated many important aspects of the war ranging from such diverse subjects as presidential personality and leadership to congressional-executive relations. Political science has also contributed significant theoretical advances on the subject of why nations go to war and on the nature of international conflict, belief systems, and conflict resolution processes. By and large, however, we believe that most of the seminal discoveries on the subject of “why the United States fought in Vietnam” have been made by historians. We review several of these contributions with expectations that political science will build on this rich empirical foundation in hypothesis testing and theory development.

This paper examines three images of the Third World (postcolonial, nonaligned, and less developed states) and four types of security (international, transnational, regional, and internal) on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). In the first image, the Third World is defined by a postcolonial racial divide between the former European colonial powers and their decolonized empires. The second image of the Third World is the lingering legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement, which comprised the states outside of the American and Soviet blocs. The third image is that of the less developed world and the continuing struggle between rich and poor, both among and within states. The four forms of security—international, transnational, regional, and internal—encompass interstate conflicts; civil wars, revolutions, and their spillover effects; nationalism and interethnic conflict and the prospect of failed states; the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; transnational terrorism; the illicit narcotics trade; and perceived negative consequences of globalization.

This article reviews research on electoral fraud—clandestine and illegal efforts to shape election results. Only a handful of works classify reports on electoral fraud to identify its nature, magnitude, and causes. This review therefore looks at the larger number of historical works (as well as some ethnographies and surveys) that discuss ballot rigging. Its conclusions are threefold. First, fraud takes on a panoply of forms; it ranges from procedural violations of electoral law (that may or may not intend to distort results) to the outright use of violence against voters. Second, even when ballot rigging is an integral part of electoral competition, it is infrequently decisive. Fraud, nevertheless, undermines political stability because, in close races, it can be crucial. Third, political competition shapes the rhythm and nature of electoral fraud. Efforts to steal elections increase with inequality, but competitiveness—which institutions help to shape—determines the ballot-rigging strategies parties adopt.

Many have argued that Rawls's and Habermas's accounts of public reason have converged in their latest writings, as both support the basic structure of the modern, constitutional, democratic state. But an analysis of their views of global justice reveals deep differences in their views of public reason. For Rawls, public reason is a substantive set of principles to be used to answer fundamental questions, whose content varies with the context in which these questions arise. Habermas, on the other hand, endorses the public use of reason, which provides criteria determining the universal validity of moral norms, though it does not itself ground substantive norms. Ironically, at the global level Rawls's substantive principles of public reason are more inclusive than Habermas's formalist account, which rules out moral and legal systems that Rawls's theory would accommodate.

Where democracy exists, there will be individualism. The historical record shows that democracy inevitably engenders individualism. This proposition will be challenged by those who think either that individualism can obtain in nondemocratic cultures or that democracy can exist without engendering individualism. The paper rejects both contentions. The defining characteristic of democracy is freedom, and the oldest democratic concept of freedom is the Greek one: To be free is to live as one likes. Versions of that definition are found wherever people are or aspire to be democratic. To live as one likes means that one is allowed to try out various roles in life. Each person is more than any single role, function, or place in society. Individualism consists in that idea. Only democracy inspires it. It is also true that democracy, in reaction, produces antidemocratic individualism. The greatest students of democratic individualism are Plato and Tocqueville, and they are also its profoundest critics. But contemporary critics are certainly worth scholarly attention.

Deliberative democratic theory has moved beyond the “theoretical statement” stage and into the “working theory” stage. Although this essay revisits some of the main theoretical debates, this is done via a survey and evaluation of the state of deliberative democratic theory as it is being applied in a number of research areas and as it intersects with related normative debates. Five research areas are covered: public law, international relations, policy studies, empirical research, and identity politics.

The United States pays a high price for its health system, and governments pay about half the costs. At the same time, the United States distinguishes itself by failing to provide health insurance for 15% of its population. In this article, I review research on the politics and economics of health to investigate three questions. Does this spending represent good value? Why does the United States spend so much on health? Finally, what technical and political challenges do policy makers face as they turn away from government solutions and toward market-based solutions to the challenge of balancing costs, access, and quality?

Samuel Finer's The History of Government from the Earliest Times is not only a major contribution to the history of governance in the ancient world; it is, in certain crucial respects, the only one. This essay surveys the uses of history within the discipline of political science to establish that surprising conclusion. In certain other social sciences—most notably in economics and above all in sociology—numerous leading scholars have applied the theories of their disciplines to illuminate the study of past civilizations while using data from those periods as a check on contemporary theories. Political scientists have, however, rarely ventured into world history before the eighteenth century. This essay considers some possible explanations for that discrepancy, then delineates and assesses Finer's massive and penetrating exploration of some 5000 years of institutional governmental history.

Trade interdependence does not always reduce hostility between states. It depends on whether the trade represents vulnerability or sensitivity interdependence. Portfolio investment also does not represent a tie that binds politically. Even more important, foreign direct investment (FDI) represents a link that is costly (and time-consuming) to break. Thus, FDI links between countries are more likely to reduce conflict than trading links. Evidence shows that symmetrical FDI is the most stable guarantor of low conflict between countries. One factor generating conflict may be that scarce factors of production are in political command. Abundant factors, now more generally in power among developed states, may be partly responsible for the diminishment of conflict among these states in recent years.

Over the past two decades, academic feminism has differentiated and fragmented substantially in light of a wide range of new approaches in theory. This overview and assessment of the wide, diverse, and changing field of feminist theory gives particular attention to contestations surrounding the political theorizing of gender, identity, and subjectivity. Three divergent and oppositional perspectives—difference feminism, diversity feminism, and deconstruction feminism—frame current discussions regarding the “construction” of the female subject; the nature of sexual difference; the relation between sex and gender; the intersection of gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.; and the significance of “women” as a political category in feminism. The problem of epistemic identification (locating or dislocating the female subject, analyzing gender difference, politicizing identity) is also a central element in the theorizing of feminist politics, multicultural citizenship, justice, power, and the democratic public sphere. Within this domain, we find equally intense debates among feminist theorists concerning the meaning of feminist citizenship and the politics of recognition, as well as the relations between gender equality and cultural rights, feminism and multiculturalism, democracy and difference. Although the field is far from convergence even on the meaning of feminism itself, we might take its current state as a sign of its vitality and significance within the discourses of contemporary social and political theory.