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15301. Post-Communist Competition and State Development

Author:
Anna Grzymala-Busse
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Theories of institutional development have tended to view discretion, or the leeway to act within institutional bounds, as an often unintended consequence of agency design and institutional specification. Yet the post-communist states show that discretion is a fundamental goal of institutional creation among competing elites. In turn, while political competition has been identified as a key constraint on discretion in institutional creation, widely-used indicators of political competition are inadequate. As post-communist democracies show, the number or seat share of political parties matters far less than what parties do in parliament. The key factor is a robust opposition: a clear, credible, and contentious threat to governing parties. Such opposition leads to the rise of formal institutions that both minimize the discretion necessary for rent-seeking, and favor equitable distributional outcomes.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

15302. The Language of Democracy: Vernacular Or Esperanto? A Comparison between the Multiculturalist and Cosmopolitan Perspectives

Author:
Daniele Archibugi
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Will Kymlicka has argued “democratic politics is politics in the vernacular.” Does it imply that democratic politics is impossible in a multilingual community, whether at the local, national, regional or global level? This paper discusses this assumption and maintains that democratic politics should imply the willingness of all players to make an effort to understand each other. Democratic politics imply the willingness to overcome the barriers to mutual understanding, including the linguistic ones. Any time that there is a community of fate, a democrat should search for methods that allow deliberation according to the two key conditions of political equality and participation. If linguistic diversity is an obstacle to equality and participation, some methods should be found to overcome it, as exemplified by the Esperanto metaphor. The paper illustrates the argument with four cases of multi-linguistic political communities: a) a school in California with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students; b) the city of Byelostok in the second half of the nineteenth century, where four different linguistic communities (Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish) coexisted. This led Markus Zamenhof to invent Esperanto; c) the linguistic problems of the Indian state, and the role played by English – a language unspoken by the majority of the Indian population in 1947 – in developing Indian democracy; and d) the case of the European Parliament, with twenty languages and a wealth of interpreters and translators.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, India, California, and Germany

15303. All for All: Equality and Social Trust

Author:
Bo Rothstein and Eric M. Uslaner
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The importance of social trust has become widely accepted in the social sciences. A number of explanations have been put forward for the stark variation in social trust among countries. Among these, participation in voluntary associations received most attention. Yet, there is scant evidence that participation can lead to trust. In this paper, we shall examine a variable that has not gotten the attention we think it deserves in the discussion about the sources of generalized trust, namely equality. We conceptualize equality in two dimensions: one is economic equality and the other is equality of opportunity. The omission of both these dimensions of equality in the social capital literature is peculiar for several reasons. One is that it is obvious that the countries that score highest on social trust also rank highest on economic equality, namely the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Canada. Secondly, these are countries that have put a lot of effort in creating equality of opportunity, not least in regard to their policies for public education, labor market opportunities and (more recently) gender equality. The argument for increasing social trust by reducing inequality has largely been ignored in the policy debates about social trust. Social capital research has to a large extent been used by several governments and policy organizations to send a message to people that the bad things in their society are caused by too little volunteering. The policy implication that follows from our research is that the low levels of trust and social capital that plague many countries are caused by too little government action to reduce inequality. However, many countries plagued by low levels of social trust and social capital may be stuck in what is known as a social trap. The logic of such a situation is the following. Social trust will not increase because massive social inequality prevails, but the public policies that could remedy this situation cannot be established precisely because there is a genuine lack of trust. This lack of trust concerns both “other people” and the government institutions that are needed to implement universal policies.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
Europe, Canada, and Netherlands

15304. Democratic Contestation, Accountability, and Citizen Satisfaction at the Regional Level

Author:
Endre M. Tvinnereim
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Democratic theory tells us that competition between political parties fosters more responsive government by disciplining elected leaders. Yet party competition may not always attain the levels desirable for holding leaders accountable, notably at the sub-national level. This paper hypothesizes that variations in competition-induced accountability affect regional, or state, government behavior, and that this variation is reflected in citizen satisfaction with regional government performance. The hypothesis is confirmed using survey data from sixty-eight German state election studies. Specifically, a widening of the gap between the two main parties of each state is shown to affect subsequent individual-level satisfaction negatively. This finding presents a conjecture that should be generalizable to other countries with strong sub-national units.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

15305. Capital, Labor, and the Prospects of the European Social Model in the East

Author:
Dorothee Bohle and Bela Greskovitz
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
During the past decade of European economic integration vastly worse standards have emerged in work conditions, industrial relations, and social welfare in Eastern Europe than in the West. Area scholars explain this divide by labor weakness caused by the ideological legacy of communism, and do not problematize the impact of transnational capital. In contrast, this essay argues that the reason why the European social model has not traveled to the East is that its socio-economic foundations, the industrial building blocks of the historical compromise between capital and labor, have not traveled either. In the West, the compromise had been rooted in capital-intensive consumer durables industries, such as car-manufacturing, and their suppliers. These sectors brought together organized and vocal labor with businesses willing to accommodate workers' demands, because for them labor had been less a problem as a cost-factor and more important as factor of demand. However, the main driving force of the eastward expansion of European capital has been the relocation of labor-intensive activities where business relies on sweating masses of workers, whose importance as consumers is marginal, and who are weak in the workplace and the marketplace. With this general conceptualization of how the emerging new European division of labor constrains the social aspects of East European market societies as a background, the essay studies the cases of Hungarian electronics and Slovak car industries in order to better understand how particular features of various leading sectors mediate the general pattern.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

15306. Lessons for Post-Communist Europe from the Iberian Integration into the EU after Sixteen Years

Author:
Sebastian Royo
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to outline the main consequences for Portugal and Spain of EU integration. It uses the integration of Portugal and Spain into the European Union as an opportunity to draw some lessons that may be applicable to East European countries as they pursue their own processes of integration into the European Union. It examines challenges and opportunities that new member states from central and Eastern Europe will face when trying to integrate in the EU. Finally, the paper analyzes the impact the 2004 enlargement will have on the Iberian countries.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Spain

15307. Explaining Labor Quiescence in Post-Communist Europe: Historical Legacies and Comparative Perspective

Author:
Stephen Crowley
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Studies on the changing labor relations in post-communist countries have flourished in recent years, such that a review and analysis of what has been reported is overdue. Yet, interestingly, these studies have not reached a consensus on what they seek to explain. Indeed, some of the main questions remain under contention. First, is labor in post-communist societies weak, or (in at least some countries) strong? What should the referent be in determining strength or weakness? To the extent labor is weak, what would explain this weakness? If labor's power varies throughout the region, what would explain this variation? There have been a number of answers posed to these questions to date, but not a thorough testing of rival hypotheses. This paper will demonstrate, using a variety of measures, that labor is indeed a weak social and political act or in post-communist societies, especially when compared to labor in western Europe. This general weakness is rather surprising when one examines it against the now considerable economic and political diversity that exists in the post-communist world. The paper will then examine a number of hypotheses that have been proposed to explain labor's weakness, concluding that the institutional legacies of post-communist trade unions, and the ideological legacy of the discourse of class, best explain this overall weakness. However, the concept of legacy is itself found wanting, since it is unable to account for the extent of this weakness or the trends that have occurred in the region over time.
Topic:
Communism and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

15308. Why European Citizens Will Reject the EU Constitution

Author:
Claes H. de Vreese
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This study tests competing hypotheses about popular support for European integration. It introduces anti-immigration sentiments as a key variable for understanding reluctance towards integration. Drawing on survey data, it is found that anti-immigration sentiments, economic considerations, and the evaluation of domestic governments are the strongest predictors of both support for integration and individuals' propensity to vote “Yes” in a referendum on the enlargement of the EU. When extrapolating the findings to future referendums on issues of European integration, it may be predicted that such referendums will result in a “No” outcome under the conditions of high levels of anti-immigration sentiments, pessimistic economic outlooks, and/or unpopularity of a government.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

15309. The EMU Macroeconomic Policy Regime and the European Social Model

Author:
Andrew Martin
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper will be a chapter in Euros and Europeans: Monetary Integration and the European Social Model, Andrew Martin and George Ross, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2004. Over time, the impact of EMU on the European social model (ESM) is likely to depend most fundamentally on its effects on unemployment. If EMU makes possible a significant reduction in unemployment, it poses no threat to the ESM. However, EMU is likely to keep unemployment at high levels. This expectation hinges on two propositions: 1) in order to bring unemployment back down after an extended period of disinflation has kept growth below its potential and unemployment high, a period of economic growth above its long-run potential – a growth spurt – is necessary, and 2), the EMU macroeconomic policy regime, as interpreted and implemented by the ECB, blocks such a growth spurt. The first part of the paper describes the policy regime, arguing that the ECB's implementation of it so far and the bank's rationale for doing so indicate an unwillingness to permit the growth spurt needed to significantly reduce unemployment. Its rationale invokes the orthodox view that monetary policy has no long run effects on growth and employment. This view is challenged by an alternative view, described in the second part. The alternative rests mainly on an empirical analysis of cases in which disinflation was and was not followed by growth spurts during the 1980s and 1990s. Showing that in the long run unemployment was lower without higher inflation where monetary policy permitted growth spurts than where it did not, this analysis suggests that the ECB's orthodoxy is fundamentally flawed and that adherence to it will perpetuate Europe's high unemployment.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

15310. What Constitutions Can Do (But Courts Sometimes Don't):Property, Speech, and The Influence of Constitutional Norms on Private Law

Author:
Oliver Gerstenberg
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Against the background of the ECtHR's recent decision in Appleby v UK (a European “counterpart” to the well-known US Supreme Court decision in Marsh v Alabama) the paper addresses, first, the issue of the influence, often perceived as dilemmatic, of human rights norms and constitutional norms on private law. In a second step, then, the paper discusses the promise—and a possible dilemma—of “comparative constitutionalism” as an engine of a more denationalized “constitutional patriotism”: the dilemma that we trade the “closure” of domestic exceptionalism against the new, systemic “closure” of “too much” judicial comity and professionalism, the closure of a new Juristenrecht.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

15311. Learning and Change in Twentieth-Century British Economic Policy

Author:
Michael J. Oliver and Hugh Pemberton
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Despite considerable interest in the means by which policy learning occurs, and in how it is that the framework of policy may be subject to radical change, the “black box” of economic policymaking remains surprisingly murky. This article utilizes Peter Hall's concept of “social learning” to develop a more sophisticated model of policy learning; one in which paradigm failure does not necessarily lead to wholesale paradigm replacement, and in which an administrative battle of ideas may be just as important a determinant of paradigm change as a political struggle. It then applies this model in a survey of UK economic policymaking since the 1930s: examining the shift to “Keynesianism” during the 1930s and 1940s; the substantial revision of this framework in the 1960s; the collapse of the “Keynesian-plus” framework in the 1970s; and the major revisions to the new “neo-liberal” policy framework in the 1980s and 1990s.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

15312. “Une Messe est Possible”: The Imbroglio of the Catholic Church in Contemporary Latin Europe

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Margaret Mott
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Throughout the contemporary period, the Church-State relationship in the nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – which we will refer to as Latin Europe in this paper – has been a lively source of political conflict and societal cleavage, both on epistemological, and ontological grounds. Epistemological, in that the person living in Latin Europe has to decide whether his world view will be religious or secular; ontological, in that his mortality has kept some sense of the Catholic religion close to his heart and soul at the critical moments of his human reality. Secular views tend to define the European during ordinary periods of life, (“métro boulot dodo,”) while religious beliefs surge during the extraordinary times of life (birth, marriage, death,) as well as during the traditional ceremonial times (Christmas, Easter). This paper will approach the question on the role of the Catholic church in contemporary Latin Europe by first proposing three models of church-state relations in the region and their historical development, then looking at the role of the Vatican, followed by an examination of some recent Eurobarometer data on the views of contemporary Catholics in each country, and finishing with an analysis of selected public policy issues in each country. Throughout, it is interested in the dual questions of whether religion still plays an important role in Latin Europe, and whether or not the Catholic church is still able to influence the direction of public policies in the now democratic nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal

15313. The European Union: Democratic Legitimacy In A Regional State?

Author:
Vivien A. Schmidt
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Democratic legitimacy for the EU is problematic if it is seen as a future nation-state. If instead the EU were seen as a regional state—with shared sovereignty, variable boundaries, composite identity, compound governance, and a fragmented democracy in which the EU level assures governance for and with the people through effective governing and interest consultation, leaving to the national level government by and of the people through political participation and citizen representation—the problems of the democratic deficit diminish for the EU level. But they become even greater for the national level, where the changes to national democratic practices demand better ideas and discourses of legitimization. A further complicating factor results from problems of “institutional fit,” because the EU has had a more disruptive impact on “simple” polities, where governing activity has traditionally been channeled through a single authority, than on more “compound” polities, where it has been more dispersed through multiple authorities.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe

15314. The Age of Welfare: Patronage, Citizenship, and Generational Justice in Social Policy

Author:
Julia Lynch
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Welfare states' redistribution of resources across classes, occupations, and genders is the subject of intensive scholarly analysis. Yet we know very little about how and why welfare states treat different age groups differently. This article demonstrates that seniors' demand for welfare does not determine age-orientation. Rather, the “age of welfare” is a largely unintended consequence of the interaction between the structure of social policies and the way that politicians use these programs to compete for votes. An implication for the policy feedback literature is that constituency demand may be less important than the unintended consequences of welfare state institutions.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

15315. The “New World Order”: From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism

Author:
Jeffrey Herf and Jürgen Neyer
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
On January 26, 2004, the topic of the CES-Berlin Dialogues was “The 'New World Order': From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism.” It was the second in a series of four meetings organized in Berlin under the heading “Redefining Justice.” The session was intended to examine successful and failed arenas of cooperation between the US and Europe; political misunderstandings and conscious manipulation; and models for future transatlantic relations. The presenters were Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History, University of Maryland, and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Neyer, Professor of International Political Economy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, and Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin. Jeffrey Herf was asked to speak on the basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy in the administration of President George W. Bush, and Jürgen Neyer focused on the European view of international relations and conduct in the period since the invasion of Iraq.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Europe, and Berlin

15316. European Anti-Americanism (and Anti-Semitism): Ever Present Though Always Denied

Author:
Andrei S. Markovits
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
There can be no doubt that the Bush Administration's policies have massively contributed to a hitherto unprecedented deterioration in European-American relations. However, European antipathies towards many things American date back at least to July 5, 1776, if not before. Following a conceptual discussion of anti-Americanism, the paper then turns to an account of these historical dislikes and anchors them particularly among Europe's elites. A discussion of anti-Semitism in relation to anti- Americanism follows in the subsequent section. A summary of an analysis of newspaper articles collected in the decade of the 1990s highlights the widespread nature of anti-American sentiments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy. Lastly, anti-Americanism's functionality as a useful ingredient in Europe's burgeoning state building process concludes the paper.
Topic:
International Relations and Nationalism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, France, Germany, and Italy

15317. How Can International Organizations Shape National Welfare States? Evidence from Compliance with EU Directives

Author:
Katerina Linos
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
How can international organizations shape national welfare states? The answer depends on why national governments comply with international organization mandates. International relations scholarship offers two competing compliance models. Enforcement theories emphasize states' utilitarian calculus and predict that states' policy preferences determine implementation, while managerial theories attribute non-compliance to states' capability limitations and emphasize institutional variables. This paper examines the implementation of EU social policy directives through a new quantitative dataset and qualitative case studies of implementation in Greece and Spain. Three proxies for national social policy preferences – low labor costs, high unemployment and early national social legislation – predict implementation delays. At the same time, factors unrelated to national preferences on particular directives have at least as large an impact on timely implementation. Thus, a national bureaucracy's capacity and the absence of veto players reduce implementation delays. These findings suggest that capabilities influence compliance at least as much as preferences, but through mechanisms different from the ones emphasized in existing work. Although international organizations may not be especially successful in overcoming past policy legacies in favor of future commitments, they can reorient the axes of contestation from left-right to supra-sub national and thus shape national policies.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

15318. Allons enfants de *quelle* patrie: Breton Nationalism and the French Impressionist Aesthetic

Author:
Paul-André Bempéchat
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since its annexation by France in 1532, preserving Brittany's cultural identity has been dependent upon the fluidity of its political relationship with France. As the French Republic came into existence, laws were enacted to suppress minority languages across the Hexagon in favour of French. After the Revolution of 1789, the only language to be used officially, universally and exclusively in matters of education and civic administration became French, at a time when less than half the territory we recognize as France indeed spoke the language. Repressive, violent retaliatory measures were taken whenever linguistic resurgence arose, and such tactics only fueled the flames of nationalism. It was in 1839, at the height of European Celtomania, that the vibrancy of Brittany's ancient culture gained in both stature and appreciation. This revival had been generated by the publication and enormous international success of La Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz ("Songs and Ballads of Brittany"), the cornerstone of Brittany's cultural renaissance. When France fell to the Germans in 1870, a wounded Republic felt even more artistically vulnerable to the onslaught of German Romanticism that had beset the nation since Wagner's operatic successes of the 1840s. A "national nationalism" came into the fore as Camille Saint-Saëns founded the Société Nationale de Musique, whose mandate became the "de-Germanization" of French music, and a rediscovery of all that was musically French. France's cultural vulnerability opened a window for Breton literati and musical illuminati towards greater artistic expression. Refusing the wave of nationalism to pass them by, Breton composers began to assert their cultural identity by reviving ancient, modal Church canticles, folk melodies and traditionally Celtic instruments. As the tonal matrices of French post- Romanticism congealed into Impressionism, Breton musical Romanticism and Impressionism also entered the foreground of French musical life. By 1910, l'Association des compositeurs bretons was founded by Les Huit (Louis Aubert, Charles-Augustin Collin, Maurice Duhamel, Paul Ladmirault, Paul Le Flem, Paul Martineau, Joseph-Guy Ropartz, and Louis Vuillemin). Affectionately nicknamed La Cohorte bretonne ("The Invading Breton Troop") by critic René Dumesnil, the Association commissioned and launched Breton and Breton-inspired compositions in the national capital until the outbreak of World War I. After the Great War, Paris' greatest fear for the security of the Republic was the festering autonomist movement in Alsace, just regained after the Armistice. In extenso, Breton autonomist movements also presented a threat, and this led to further, violently repressive measures outlawing the speaking of the Breton language and the holding of Mass in Breton. Fearing that the impetus provided the cultural faction of Le Mouvement breton would wane, and coinciding with Maurice Duhamel's political address to the Bretons at the Congrès breton of 1929, Paul Ladmirault composed his own cultural epistle to Breton artists, L'Exemple des Cinq Russes in 1928. Ladmirault heralded the province's cultural originality and independence and aligned her struggles for recognition with those of the Russian musical nationalists, The Mighty Five (Mili Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modeste Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), a generation earlier. Seeing that this movement had, after a half century, finally earned its rightful place within the musical Pantheon, Breton composers finally found the requisite impetus to develop their own, distinct cultural patrimony.
Topic:
Nationalism and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Paris, France, and Germany

15319. Party Competition in Post-Communist Europe: The Great Electoral Lottery

Author:
Abby Innes
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article suggests that the academic emphasis on rational choice and political-sociological approaches to party development has led to a misleading impression of convergence with Western patterns of programmatic competition and growing partisan identification in the Central European party political scene. As an alternative thesis, the author argues that the very character of 'transition' politics in Eastern Europe and the necessarily self-referential nature of the parliamentary game has structured party systems in those countries, and that the differences between the party systems in this region are critically related to experiences under communism (–a political-historical explanation). The paper argues that, in order to cope with a practical lack of public policy options in major areas such as the economy, parties have had little choice but to compete over operating 'styles,' rather than over substantive (ideologically based) programmatic alternatives. The development of parties incumbent in government since 1989 may be compared to the development of catch-all parties in Western Europe in terms of the competitive logic of weakening/avoiding ideological positions in order to embrace a large constituency. However, successful parties in Eastern Europe lack the 'baggage' of an ideological past and the history of mass membership and a class or denominational clientele – their defining characteristic is that they try to appeal to all of the people all of the time.
Topic:
Education, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

15320. Report on an Analysis of the Representativeness of the Second Audit Sample, and the Correlation between Petition Signers and the Yes Vote in the Aug. 15, 2004 Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela

Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
This study was conducted by The Carter Center and confirmed by the OAS in response to a written request from Sumate presented to The Carter Center Sept. 7, 2004. Sumate asked that The Carter Center evaluate a study performed by Professors Ricardo Hausmann and Roberto Rigobon.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
South America and Venezuela

15321. Audit of the Results of the Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela

Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The following questions are expected to be answered by this audit of the manual recount of voting receipts (comprobantes de votación) in the ballot boxes:Does the electronic result transmitted by the voting machines (shown on the respective tally sheets) coincide with the manual recount of the receipts deposited in the respective ballot boxes, or not? Is there a discernable bias in the discrepancies found in favor of either the “Yes” votes or the “No” votes?
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
South America and Venezuela

15322. The carter center financing democracy in guatemala. Final Report: Financing Democracy in Guatemala

Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In recent years discussions about the quality of democracy in the Western Hemisphere have focused increasing concern on the financing of political parties and their campaigns. Unlimited spending on campaigns is believed (correctly or not) to have raised the cost of elections to the point where poor candidates stand little chance of competing and the prospect of creating a level playing field for parties and their candidates has become decidedly remote. Undisclosed contributions of licit or illicit origin by wealthy donors have meanwhile intensified the dependence of elected officials on their campaign funders, increasing the likelihood that politicians respond to donor interests and hindering effective representation for the ordinary citizen in the making of public policy. In tandem, these trends are contributing to public cynicism about parties and candidates, and about the possibilities for meaningful citizen participation in politics.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

15323. Financing Democracy in the Americas

Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Citizens throughout the hemisphere increasingly question the integrity of political processes with opaque methods of financing and access. After a quarter-century of democratic governance, money-conscious voters in Latin America's troubled economies have begun to ask whether elections really allow them to hold governments accountable for enacting promised reform s or whether instead politicians respond primarily to the special interest groups who fund their campaigns. Democracy remains a valued good, but questions are being asked about how much it costs, who pays, and whether the need to raise funds distorts policy agendas.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

15324. The Proliferation Security Initiative in Perspective

Author:
Andrew Prosser
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Participant countries of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a U.S.-led effort to stem the illicit trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and delivery systems, met on the first anniversary of the initiative, from May 31 to June 1 in Krakow, Poland. Russia announced on the first day of the meeting its decision to participate in the PSI, a move that U.S. officials had supported as an important step in augmenting the effectiveness of the initiative. However, Russia's participation will only occur, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, as long as PSI activities do not violate national or international law. Russian officials have similarly expressed concerns that the PSI's land, sea, and air-based WMD interdiction activities could endanger international commerce, and give unwarranted powers to the U.S. Navy to act as a global police force.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

15325. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Theater Air and Missile Defense History

Author:
Howard B. Bromberg
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Although we did not fully realize it at the time, our planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and our role in the Global War on Terrorism actually started within minutes after the attack on the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, the command began assuming roles in three major operations which culminated over nineteen months later with the Coalition victory in removing the Regime of Saddam Hussein and freeing the Iraqi people and the region from his threats.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

15326. U.S. Military Assistance to 1460 Report Countries: 1990-2005

Author:
Victoria Garcia
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
On Jan. 30, 2003, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted resolution 1460, which reaffirms the council's previous resolutions (1261, 1314, and 1379) on children and armed conflict and calls on all parties to armed conflict to stop using child soldiers. Resolution 1460 also requests that the UN secretary general list the progress made by the 23 parties to conflict on the Security Council's agenda (S/2002/1299), including governmental armed groups that continue to use or recruit child soldiers. In response to Resolution 1460, and in advance of the Security Council's fourth open debate on children in armed conflict, the Coalition to stop the Use of Child Soldiers published a report that lists 17 countries where child soldiers were being used from January 2003 through September 2003. While the report does not cover every situation where children are being deployed, it specifically includes all of the countries covered on the Security Council's agenda, as well as other situations deemed critical by the coalition.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

15327. A Unified Security Budget for the United States

Author:
Miriam Pemberton and Marcus Corbin
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Since September 11, 2001, the question of how to provide for our security has loomed large over our national life. Many of the Bush administration's answers to this question have come under intense challenge—from the doctrine of preventive war to the development of new designs for “usable” nuclear weapons to the choice of war with Iraq as the centerpiece of its war on terrorism. But until recently one aspect of the administration's strategy has gone virtually unchallenged, namely its military budgets and the spending priorities contained within them. From 2000 to 2004, these budgets have increased by more than 50%. Congress has approved each of these budgets, and virtually the entire menu of programs specified in them, with hardly a whisper of debate.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

15328. Narrating Oneself Through Another: Medieval Christians and Their Images of the Saracen

Author:
Paul T. Levin
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
It was Turkish membership in the European Union that the Viennese social worker quoted in the Guardian was against. As the Commission of the European Union has recently delivered a report that suggests the opening up of EU accession negotiations with Turkey, old fears seem to be awakening on the continent; “Turcophobia”, as the Guardian calls it. The liberal Viennese news weekly Profil the same week described the prospect of Turkish membership as “not so much a risk as a danger” in an editorial titled “The Turks at the Gates of Vienna.” But not only Turks are experiencing a resurrection of animosities that many thought were long since buried. In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, anti-Arab sentiments surged along with verbal and physical attacks on Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. Perhaps the secretly held view of too many in Europe and the “West” is that of Britain's Robert Kilroy-Silk. According to his column in the Sunday Express on September 25 of this year, Arabs are no more than "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors". This essay digs deep to find the historical roots of today's images of Turks, Arabs, and Muslims.
Topic:
International Relations, International Organization, Regional Cooperation, and Religion
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Europe, Turkey, and Arabia

15329. Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge Nuclear Devastation

Author:
Lynn Eden
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Whole World on Fire is about a puzzle that is morbid, arcane, and consequential. Morbid, because it involves the devastation caused by nuclear weapons. Arcane, because it involves secret and obscure calculations by a government bureaucracy tucked away deep within U.S. military intelligence. And consequential, because it involves decisions at the highest level of government about using nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States

15330. International Trade Law in US Courts

Author:
Saadia M. Pekkanen
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
This paper seeks to assess the relationship between international trade law and national courts, a topic that remains surprisingly unexplored by legal scholars let alone other disciplines. Three interrelated questions motivate this study. First, how has international trade law been treated by national courts? Second, what might account for that treatment? Third, what possible predictions and implications can we draw from such an analysis with respect to the diffusion of international trade law in domestic societies?
Topic:
Government, International Law, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and North America

15331. Could Humphrey Have Gone to China? Measuring the Electoral Costs and Benefits of Making Peace

Author:
Kenneth Schultz
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Theoretical arguments for why “it takes a Nixon to go to China” emphasize either the superior credibility that hawks have in advocating peace or the superior political benefits they enjoy in doing so. This paper looks for evidence of these effects in the canonical case: that of U.S. rapprochement with China in the early 1970s. I use counterfactual simulations on data from the 1968 National Election Study to explore the political effects of a proposal to open relations with China, focusing on whether and how those effects would depend on who made the proposal: Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey. I find evidence of both the credibility and electoral security effects hypothesized in the theoretical literature. In particular, there is a very dramatic asymmetry in the political costs and benefits of proposing peace: while such a proposal would have been electorally costly for Humphrey, it could have been an electoral boon for Nixon.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

15332. Strategic Moral Diplomacy: Mandela, Qaddafi and the Lockerbie Negotiations

Author:
Lyn Boyd Judson
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
On October 29, 1997, South African President Nelson Mandela arrived in Libya to award Colonel Muammar Qaddafi the Good Hope Medal. The Medal, also referred to as the Order of Good Hope, is the highest honor that South Africa can bestow upon a citizen of another country--it would be given a year later to US President Bill Clinton. At the time, Colonel Qaddafi was a pariah in the international community. Libya had been under United Nations sanctions since 1992 for its refusal to hand over the two indicted suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Government, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Libya, United Nations, and Scotland

15333. China and State/Space: Scale Relations and the City in an Era of Globalization

Author:
Carolyn Cartier
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Since the onset of reform and opening in the People's Republic of China after 1978, decentralization of state power has arguably been the most consequential transformation of the Chinese political economy, underpinning the dynamics of economic growth and state-society relations. The growth of the number and size of cities and the urban population—urbanization—are the outstanding geographical manifestations of these processes. How should we analyze the relationships between them? This chapter introduces scale relations as a basis for assessing the decentralization of state power and urbanization, and to demonstrate the 'rescaling' of the Chinese state in an era of globalization as spatial processes and their manifestation at the urban scale.
Topic:
Globalization and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

15334. Understanding Foreign Policy Debates: Towards a Critical Constructivist Methodology

Author:
Lene Hansen
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Constructivists and poststructuralists argue that identities, ideas, norms, culture and discourses are indispensable for understanding world politics. This seemingly innocuous statement has been at the centre of heated debates within the field of International Relations for the past fifteen years and there is little indication that discussions are ceasing. Great debates throw up a series of fundamental questions: what should be the scope or research questions of International Relations; should one ask questions related to state behavior, or should one ask questions about the processes through which this behavior is conceptualized and legitimated to domestic and international audiences? How should the field's primary unit – the state – be conceptualized; what is, in other words, the ontology of the state, is it a rational utilitarian actor, is it concerned with security, self-preservation and relative gains, or does its utilitarianism translate into economic concern with absolute gains? Or, is the state a politically contested and unstable actor who is constantly in the process of constructing its identity? Are states and international institutions motivated by material interests or are they equally concerned with promoting a particular set of norms and ideas? And, how should these questions be studied? Which epistemology and methodologies should be applied, should one opt for a positivist epistemology, or a “social science approach” and an ensuing use of falsifiable hypotheses and causal analysis? Or, are there non-causal research questions, which warrant an interpretive, constitutive, or discursive epistemology, and what kind of methodologies are appropriate for these non-causal studies?
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Government, and Politics

15335. The Inefficient Use of Power: Costly Conflict with Complete Information

Author:
Robert Powell
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Recent work across a wide range of issues in political economy as well as in American, comparative, and international politics tries to explain the inefficient use of power — revolutions, civil wars, high levels of public debt, international conflict, and costly policy insulation — in terms of commitment problems. This paper shows that a common mechanism is at work in a number of these diverse studies. This common mechanism provides a more general formulation of a type of commitment problem that can arise in many different substantive settings. The present analysis then formalizes this mechanism as an “inefficiency condition” which ensures that all of the equilibria of a stochastic game are inefficient. This condition has a natural substantive interpretation: Large, rapid changes in the actors' relative power (measured in terms of their minmax payoffs) may cause inefficiency.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
America

15336. Counter-Terrorism: A Game Theoretic Analysis

Author:
Daniel G. Arce M. and Todd Sandler
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
This paper establishes the prevalence of deterrence over preemption when targeted governments can choose between either policy or employ both. There is a similar proclivity to favor defensive counterterrorist measures over proactive policies. Unfortunately, this predisposition results in an equilibrium with socially inferior payoffs when compared with proactive responses. Proactive policies tend to provide purely public benefits to all potential targets and are usually undersupplied, whereas defensive policies tend to yield a strong share of provider-specific benefits and are often oversupplied. When terrorists direct a disproportionate number of attacks at one government, its reliance on defensive measures can disappear. Ironically, terrorists' can assist governments in addressing coordination dilemmas associated with some antiterrorist policies by targeting some countries more often than others.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Government, and Terrorism

15337. The Meaning of Monetary Power

Author:
Benjamin J. Cohen
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
What is the meaning of monetary power? No one doubts that money is inherently political, an integral part of global “high politics.” Yet remarkably few scholars of international relations have attempted to explore the notion of monetary power in formal analytical terms. As Jonathan Kirshner has accurately noted, the topic is “a neglected area of study” (1995:3).
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

15338. An Arendtian Critique of Deliberative Global Sphere Theory: 'Humanitarian' Violence and the Paradox of Founding

Author:
Patricia Owens
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
The language of the 'public sphere' is foundational to democratic theory and practice and most of our activity is oriented toward some form of public. As subject and object of democracy, the notion of a 'public' is a discursive weapon second only to the 'people' as the political honorific par excellence. Definitions of the public sphere vary, however, not least because different topographical locations and fields of activity are public in different times and places; publics are constituted through a variety of media (face-to-face, print, and electronic encounters); and there are various modes in which one can participate in public discourse and action (liberal, deliberative, agonistic). Most straightforwardly, 'public spheres' organise relations among strangers. They are the places in which people talk or read about their common affairs.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and International Law

15339. Justice and Order

Author:
Richard Ned Lebow
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Order is the proper starting point of the study of politics. Social order sustains political activity and makes it necessary. It provides the cement that binds people together in a community, but the very social proximity this allows breeds conflicts that require authoritative resolution. It is with good reason that Aristotle opens his Politics with the assertion that “Every state is a community of some kind.”
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and International Law

15340. Rethinking Rural Livelihoods in Afghanistan

Author:
Jo Grace and Adam Pain
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
Abstract:
This synthesis report presents the findings of the first 18 months of research from AREU’s Rural Livelihoods Monitoring Research Programme. The project gathered village and household information from 390 households across seven provinces with an aim to improve the understanding of rural livelihoods in Afghanistan and the monitoring and evaluation capacity of NGOs. The report offers conclusions and recommendations regarding: livelihoods diversity, non-farm labour, labour migration, indebtedness, gender, health, agriculture and social protection.
Topic:
Agriculture, Gender Issues, Health, NGOs, Rural, and Labor Rights
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Middle East

15341. Looking for Peace on the Pastures: Rural Land Relations in Afghanistan

Author:
Liz Alden Wily
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
Abstract:
This paper synthesises the lessons learned from a study of land tenure relations in Bamiyan, Badakhshan and Faryab Provinces. It also offers recommendations on how to move forward from the existing muddle of land policy and law to engage in "learning by doing" projects aimed at mitigating conflict on communal land.
Topic:
Law, Rural, Land, and Community
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Middle East

15342. U.S.–South Africa Research and Training Collaborations

Author:
Beth Elise Whitaker
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
This report, the most recent of several SSRC projects related to knowledge production, research networks and capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa, concerns the state of collaboration between U.S. and South African higher education institutions around social science research and other areas linked to the extraordinary changes that have (and are) taking place in post- apartheid South Africa's higher education system. Conducted and written by Beth Whitaker, an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte and former program associate at the American Council on Education's Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development, the study inventories recent partnerships with an eye toward the future. Political transformations in South Africa catalyzed a flood of student exchange programs, individual research partnerships between U.S. and South African scholars, and broader efforts in establishing institutional linkages around research, advanced training, and in addressing the extreme inequities of a higher education system bifurcated along racial lines (an issue far from unfamiliar in the U.S. context). In focusing on these broader institutional connections, the study demonstrates some overlaps and some significant gaps (especially the paucity of cross-national institutional collaborations on HIV/AIDS). It also calls attention to the unevenly distributed participation in partnerships—with historically black and disadvantaged institutions in both countries less able to establish networks internationally for mutual benefit. It should be an important resource for those institutions planning future collaborations, which will hopefully address some of the gaps that have been identified in the study. While the research for the study was primarily conducted in 2002-3 with the support of the National Science Foundation, Prof. Whitaker updated the results for the purposes of this publication in the Spring of 2004.
Topic:
Education and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

15343. Technology Transfer: Bringing Innovation to NASA and the Nation

Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration
Abstract:
For the last half of the twentieth century, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was among the most successful organizations in hi story in developing new technology and making it available to both the private sector and other government organizations. Small computers; cellular communications; lightweight, heat resistant materials; telemedicine, and a broad spectrum of everyday products have all benefited from NASA research and development.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Communications, and Reform

15344. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: Reorganizing for Results

Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration
Abstract:
Of the Department of Energy's $23 billion budget, the $1.3 billion allocated to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) offers important opportunities to assist in resolving one of the major issues facing the Nation today—the need for sources of clean, reliable, efficient, secure and affordable energy. EERE's programs—which include advanced hydrogen fuel concepts, renewable power technologies, transportation and building technologies—are aimed at improving this country's efficient use of energy, increasing the diversity of energy sources on which we rely, and making us less dependent on foreign energy sources. The management of this small office should be of major interest to leaders of both government and industry as EERE leadership tries to ensure that every dollar is used most effectively in the pursuit of its mission to strengthen America's energy security. This was the goal of Assistant Secretary David Garman as he launched a comprehensive reorganization of EERE on July 1, 2002.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, and Reform
Political Geography:
America and Germany

15345. Sustainable Development in Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria: The Role of Social Capital, Participation, and Science and Technology

Author:
Akin L. Mabogunje and Robert W. Kates
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Sustainable development as an aspiration is global; as an ongoing process, it is local. A growing number of scientists and technologists share in the aspiration and experiment with the local. Here we report one such effort in Ijebu-Ode, a small city of 200,000 inhabitants in south-west Nigeria, which, through a participatory city consultation process chose to reduce poverty through a set of local and sustainable livelihood activities. Now four years into the effort, we describe the setting, the participatory process, the poverty reduction activities, and the impressive results to date. We attribute the success to date to the large stock of social capital, the participatory process that drew upon this stock, and the scientific and technological community that both serve as boundary spanners to link Ijebu-Ode to the national and the global and as a resource for local technologies and advice.
Topic:
Development, Science and Technology, Sustainability, Participation, and Social Capital
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

15346. The Impact of the Crisis - Decline and Recovery

Author:
Joseph J. Stern
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
When the Asian financial crisis broke in mid-1997, the expectation was that Indonesia would weather the crisis with minimal damage. Actual events soon proved these expectations widely wrong and the Indonesian economy was more severely affected than other Asian countries. In part this outcome reflected Indonesia's fundamental institutional weakness that had been overlooked in the euphoria that marked international financial markets during the 1990s, and in part the impact of the financial crisis was magnified by inconsistent internal policies and by an overly ambitious IMF program that tried to achieve too much in to short a period of time. The result was not only a severe economic contraction with rising poverty levels and growing social unrest, but a political change that resulted, in the short-run, in further economic instability and effectively delayed Indonesia's recovery.
Topic:
Politics, Financial Crisis, Banks, Currency, IMF, and Economic Recovery
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

15347. Framing the Fundamental Issues of Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Akin L. Mabogunje
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper frames the fundamental issues of sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper begins by considering the general problems of development in sub-Saharan Africa and then frames the issues as the maintenance or enhancement of the region's capital stocks. It describes the integration of the region into the global capitalist economy and considers how to integrate science and technology into the development culture of the region through greater concern with social learning. A concluding section reflects on the imperative of a new value and cultural orientation if sub-Saharan Africa is to meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations and those of the New Partnership for Africa's Development articulated by African governments themselves.
Topic:
Globalization, Science and Technology, Sustainable Development Goals, Social Capital, and Knowledge Systems
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

15348. Tough Policies, Incredible Policies

Author:
Alejandro Neut and Andrés Velasco
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We revisit the question of what determines the credibility of macroeconomic policies here, of promises to repay public debt. The literature has focused on governments. strategic decision to default (or erode the value of outstanding debt via inflation/devaluation). It has also focused on increasing policymakers. utility costs as a way to deter strategic misbehavior. By contrast, we build a model in which default or inflation can occur deliberately (for strategic reasons) or unavoidably (shocks leave no other option). In addition, when it does occur, default or inflation entail pecuniary costs, not just utility costs for the policymaker. In the model with these two features, much conventional wisdom on the determinants of credibility need no longer hold. Tough policies such a as appointing a conservative policymaker, indexing public debt or denominating public debt in foreign currency may reduce, not increase, the credibility of vows to repay debt in full. For some parameter values, these tough policies may also reduce welfare.
Topic:
Debt, Crisis Management, Macroeconomics, Currency, Credibility, and Commitment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15349. Monetary Policy and the Currency Denomination of Debt: A Tale of Two Equilibria

Author:
Roberto Chang and Andrés Velasco
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Exchange rate policies depend on portfolio choices, and portfolio choices depend on anticipated exchange rate policies. This opens the door to multiple equilibria in policy regimes. We construct a model in which agents optimally choose to denominate their assets and liabilities either in domestic or in foreign currency. The monetary authority optimally chooses to float or to fix the currency, after portfolios have been chosen. We identify conditions under which both fixing and floating are equilibrium policies: if agents expect fixing and arrange their portfolios accordingly, the monetary authority validates that expectation; the same happens if agents initially expect floating. We also show that a flexible exchange rate Pareto-dominates a fixed one. It follows that social welfare would rise if the monetary authority could precommit to floating.
Topic:
Debt, Monetary Policy, Exchange Rate Policy, and Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15350. Institutions and Development

Author:
Robert H. Bates, Avner Greif, Macartan Humphreys, and Smita Singh
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper addresses the political foundations for economic development in Africa and does so by exploring two basic themes: political accountability and political order. We say that political elites are accountable when, in order to retain office, they must employ power to serve the interests of those whom they rule. By political order we mean the extent to which people employ coercion to protect property rights rather than to trespass upon them. Where there is accountability, many hold, then those with power make policies that enhance the welfare of private citizens, as by rendering them more prosperous (e.g. World Bank 1991). And where there is political order, then there is security for property rights, rendering it in the interests of private agents to invest, to labor, and to generate higher levels of income (North and Thomas 1973). The paper provides data about the trajectory of political reform and political order in contemporary Africa and their significance for the behavior of governments. It demonstrates the limited impact of political reform upon public policy, documents the relationship between reform and conflict, and posits the existence of a political "trap" that limits Africa’s development.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Economic Growth, Accountability, and Institutions
Political Geography:
Africa