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Political Scientists (political + scientists)
Selected AbstractsThe Limits of Design: Explaining Institutional Origins and ChangeGOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2000Paul Pierson Political scientists have paid much more attention to the effects of institutions than to issues of institutional origins and change. One result has been a marked tendency to fall back on implicit or explicit functional accounts, in which the effects of institutions explain the presence of those institutions. Institutional effects may indeed provide part of such an explanation. Yet the plausibility of functional accounts depends upon either a set of favorable conditions at the design stage or the presence of environments conducive to learning or competition. Exploring variability in the relevant social contexts makes it possible to both establish the restricted range of functional accounts and specify some promising lines of inquiry into the subject of institutional origins and change. [source] Causal Inference with Differential Measurement Error: Nonparametric Identification and Sensitivity AnalysisAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010Kosuke Imai Political scientists have long been concerned about the validity of survey measurements. Although many have studied classical measurement error in linear regression models where the error is assumed to arise completely at random, in a number of situations the error may be correlated with the outcome. We analyze the impact of differential measurement error on causal estimation. The proposed nonparametric identification analysis avoids arbitrary modeling decisions and formally characterizes the roles of different assumptions. We show the serious consequences of differential misclassification and offer a new sensitivity analysis that allows researchers to evaluate the robustness of their conclusions. Our methods are motivated by a field experiment on democratic deliberations, in which one set of estimates potentially suffers from differential misclassification. We show that an analysis ignoring differential measurement error may considerably overestimate the causal effects. This finding contrasts with the case of classical measurement error, which always yields attenuation bias. [source] Testing for Interaction in Binary Logit and Probit Models: Is a Product Term Essential?AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2010William D. Berry Political scientists presenting binary dependent variable (BDV) models often hypothesize that variables interact to influence the probability of an event, Pr(Y). The current typical approach to testing such hypotheses is (1) estimate a logit or probit model with a product term, (2) test the hypothesis by determining whether the coefficient for this term is statistically significant, and (3) characterize the nature of any interaction detected by describing how the estimated effect of one variable on Pr(Y) varies with the value of another. This approach makes a statistically significant product term necessary to support the interaction hypothesis. We show that a statistically significant product term is neither necessary nor sufficient for variables to interact meaningfully in influencing Pr(Y). Indeed, even when a logit or probit model contains no product term, the effect of one variable on Pr(Y) may be strongly related to the value of another. We present a strategy for testing for interaction in a BDV model, including guidance on when to include a product term. [source] Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2006Christian Lund ABSTRACT Public authority does not always fall within the exclusive realm of government institutions; in some contexts, institutional competition is intense and a range of ostensibly a-political situations become actively politicized. Africa has no shortage of institutions which attempt to exercise public authority: not only are multiple layers and branches of government institutions present and active to various degrees, but so-called traditional institutions bolstered by government recognition also vie for public authority, and new emerging institutions and organizations also enter the field. The practices of these institutions make concepts such as public authority, legitimacy, belonging, citizenship and territory highly relevant. This article proposes an analytical strategy for the understanding of public authority in such contexts. It draws on research from anthropologists, geographers, political scientists and social scientists working on Africa, in an attempt to explore a set of questions related to a variety of political practices and their institutional ramifications. [source] Ticket to trade: Belgian labour and globalization before 19141ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 2 2008MICHAEL HUBERMAN Standard trade theory, as invoked by political scientists and economists, would anticipate that workers in Belgium, a small Old World country, rich in labour relative to land, were in a good position to benefit from the wave of globalization before 1914. However, wage increases remained modest and ,labour' moved slowly towards adopting a free-trade position. Beginning in 1885, the Belgian labour party backed free trade, but its support was conditional on more and better social legislation. Belgian workers' wellbeing improved in the wave of globalization, but the vehicle was labour and social legislation and not rising wages. [source] The Transposition of EU Law: ,Post-Decisional Politics' and Institutional AutonomyEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos The transposition of European Union (EU) law into national law is a significant part of the EU policy process. However, political scientists have not devoted to it the attention that it deserves. Here, transposition is construed as part of the wider process of policy implementation. Drawing on implementation theory from the field of public policy, the article outlines three sets of factors (institutional, political, and substantive) that affect transposition. Second, the article examines the manner in which eight member states transpose EU legislation, and identifies a European style of transposition. An institutionalist approach is employed to argue that this style is not the result of a process of convergence. Rather, it stems from the capacity of institutions to adapt to novel situations by means of their own standard operating procedures and institutional repertoires. It concludes by highlighting (a) the partial nature of efforts at EU level to improve transposition, themselves impaired by the politics of the policy process and (b) some ideas regarding future research. [source] The Identity of European Law: Mapping Out the European Legal SpaceEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2000Christopher Harding The main purpose of this discussion is to supply some content to the concept of the ,European legal space' at the turn of the twentieth century. The term ,legal space' is used in preference to ,legal system' or ,systems' in order to convey a sense of the complex, non-hierarchical, overlapping, interlocking and evolutionary character of contemporary European legal phenomena. A number of evident legal orders may be identified within the overall European space: those of the EC, the EU, the EEA, the Council of Europe and the OSCE, although to refer to some of these as ,orders' may be misleading, by implying too much in terms of a centrally determined structure. It is also possible to point to less evident legal ordering, such as the process of norm exportation contained in the Europe Agreements concluded between the EU and individual non-Member States, or the kind of order resulting from transatlantic co-operation in fields such as criminal justice (which also challenges the description of ,European'). In juristic terms, the argument here confronts the primacy traditionally accorded to the sovereign state in the field of law-making, and draws upon two non-juridical models of analysis: that of multi-level governance, as used by political scientists to indicate a shift away from the exclusive authority and legitimacy claimed by sovereign states; and the biological model of catalytic closure, used to indicate evolution through a process of spontaneous reactions within a body. Both models may be usefully employed to probe the dynamics of European legal ordering at the close of the Twentieth Century. [source] Globalization and the Boundaries of the State: A Framework for Analyzing the Changing Practice of SovereigntyGOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2001Edward S. Cohen The impact of globalization on the sovereignty of the modern state has been a source of great controversy among political scientists. In this article, I offer a framework for understanding the state as a boundary-setting institution, which changes shape and role over time and place. I argue that, rather than undermining the state, globalization is a product of a rearrangement of the purposes, boundaries, and sovereign authority of the state. Focusing on the United States, the article traces the changing shape of state sovereignty through a study of the patterns of immigration policy and politics over the past three decades. Immigration policy, I argue, provides a unique insight into the continuities and changes in the role of the state in an era of globalization. [source] The "Trial" of Lee Benson: Communism, White Chauvinism, and The Foundations of the "New Political History" in the United StatesHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2003Gerald Zahavi Lee Benson was one of the first American political historians to suggest a "systematic" revision of traditional political history with its emphasis on narrow economic class analysis, narrative arguments, and over-reliance on qualitative research methodologies. This essay presents Benson's contributions to the "new political history",an attempt to apply social-science methods, concepts, and theories to American political history,as a social, cultural, and political narrative of Cold War-era American history. Benson belonged to a generation of ex-Communist American historians and political scientists whose scholarship and intellectual projects flowed,in part,out of Marxist social and political debates, agendas, and paradigmatic frameworks, even as they rejected and revised them. The main focus of the essay is the genesis of Benson's pioneering study of nineteenth-century New York state political culture, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, with its emphasis on intra-class versus inter-class conflict, sensitivity to ethnocultural determinants of political and social behavior, and reliance on explicit social-science theory and methodology. In what follows, I argue that The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy has its roots in Benson's Popular Front Marxist beliefs, and his decade-long engagement and subsequent disenchantment with American left-wing politics. Benson's growing alienation from Progressive historical paradigms and traditional Marxist analysis, and his attempts to formulate a neo-Marxism attentive to unique American class and political realities, are linked to his involvement with 1940s radical factional politics and his disturbing encounter with internal Communist party racial and ideological tensions in the late 1940s at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. [source] A Pragmatic Guide to Qualitative Historical Analysis in the Study of International RelationsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 4 2002Cameron G. Thies Researchers using qualitative methods, including case studies and comparative case studies, are becoming more self,conscious in enhancing the rigor of their research designs so as to maximize their explanatory leverage with a small number of cases. One aspect of qualitative research that has not received as much attention is the use of primary and secondary source material as data or evidence. This essay explores the potential problems encountered by political scientists as they conduct archival research or rely on secondary source material produced by historians. The essay also suggests guidelines for researchers to minimize the main problems associated with qualitative historical research, namely, investigator bias and unwarranted selectivity in the use of historical source materials. These guidelines should enable advanced undergraduates and graduate students to enhance the quality of their historically minded political science scholarship. [source] Setting Boundaries: Can International Society Exclude "Rogue States"?,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2006ELIZABETH N. SAUNDERS This essay addresses a prominent post-Cold War issue to which political scientists have paid relatively little attention: the status of so-called rogue states in international politics. The war in Iraq crystallized transatlantic disagreement over whether "rogue states" exist and how they should be treated, but the debate raged throughout the 1990s. This essay brings international relations theory to bear on the issue of "rogue states," but it does so with a theoretical twist. It argues that we must first identify the entity from which these states are allegedly excluded as well as who gets to set the membership criteria. If we stipulate that the international system includes all states, then international society can be defined according to various shared ideas and many realizations of international society are possible. Powerful states may try to act as "norm entrepreneurs," promoting their ideas as the basis of international society. But states, including great powers, may genuinely disagree over the basis and boundaries of this society. It is thus vital not only to take both power and shared ideas seriously, but also to describe the origins and limits of shared ideas. The limits to shared ideas can be termed"bounded intersubjectivity." This essay uses the debate over "rogue states" and the transatlantic crisis over confronting Iraq to underscore these theoretical issues. [source] The views of an advocatus dei: political marketing and its criticsJOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2004Stephan C. Henneberg Abstract This paper addresses 11 statements of criticism of political marketing. These statements represent the most commonly voiced issues and were collected from marketers and political scientists. While marketing theorists are more concerned with the state of political marketing theory, political scientists concentrate much of their criticism on aspects of political marketing management as it is experienced in practice. Each statement is discussed and general conclusions are identified. While presenting the personal opinion of the author (advocatus dei), these conclusions and statements concerning political marketing should foster critical discourse on issues such as political marketing management, concepts and ethics. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications [source] Beginning to Write Separately: The Origins and Development of Concurring Judicial OpinionsJOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 2 2010CHARLES C. TURNER Introduction While political scientists and legal academics have both evinced a "fascination with disagreement on courts,"1 this scholarly concentration on conflict rather than consensus has tended to focus on dissent and dissenting opinions. As far as we can tell, there is no authoritative history of concurring opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court. This article is a first effort to correct that oversight by examining developments and change in concurring behavior from the founding through the White Court (1921). This period covers the emergence of an institutionally independent national judicial branch and ends before the start of the modern, policy-making Court era, which we argue begins with the Taft Court and the creation of a fully discretionary docket. [source] The Exercise of Authority to Prevent Communal ConflictPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 2 2001Joseph G. Bock This article attempts to bridge the gap between research on the role of leaders in conflict prevention, on the one hand, and studies on obedience to authority, on the other. The former has been the focus of political scientists and international relations specialists while the latter has been researched extensively by social psychologists. Studies of obedience provide an explanation of the potential role of authority in conflict prevention. This article discusses investments in peace that focus on building inter-communal harmony, and compares them to investment in a business setting. It argues that peace research could benefit from a focus on obedience studies comparing the role of conflict-promoting authority figures to that of conflict-preventing authority figures. It supports the view that aid agencies that train community leaders in communal conflict preemption techniques are making effective investments in peace. [source] Comparative Journal Ratings: A Survey ReportPOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Iain McLean The expert survey and bibliometric methods of assessing the quality of work in political science are complementary. This project builds on previous surveys of academic political science journals conducted among US political scientists. The current wave extends the survey to political scientists in Canada and the UK. Preliminary results suggest both similarities and differences across the three countries. These results matter for policy debate in any country that is considering channelling flows of funds to universities in proportion to the quality of their research, and in helping to supply objective evidence about the research quality of work submitted by candidates for academic appointments and promotions. [source] Equity and the Kyoto ProtocolPOLITICS, Issue 1 2007Edward Page Global climate change raises a number of important issues for political scientists and theorists. One issue concerns the ethics of implementing policies that seek to manage the threats associated with dangerous climate change in order to protect the interests of future generations. The focus of much of the debate about climate change and inter-generational equity is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol to this Convention. This article outlines the mechanisms adopted by the Kyoto Protocol and three rival ,climate architectures', evaluating each in terms of some basic principles of equity. [source] Studying the Polarized PresidencyPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2002Charles M. Cameron For reasons that political scientists do not fully understand, American political elites are now more ideologically polarized than they have been since the end of World War I. This polarization,in combination with the rise of divided party government,has sweeping implications for the presidency. No aspect of executive-legislative relations is untouched. But also deeply affected are relations with the media, with thejudiciary, with the bureaucracy, and even the organization of the president's own staff. Presidential scholars are just beginning to grasp these changes. We face an enormous challenge but also a remarkable opportunity. The polarized presidency makes us confront a broader range of the institution's possibilities,and those of American democracy. [source] Who Are These People?PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2002Robert H. Ferrell The temptation of historians and political scientists is to codify a president's actions, rather than analyze the frequently personal causes behind them. People are so difficult to judge. Some holders of the nation's highest office are nearly impossible to analyze personally, others identify themselves or their close friends do so. Of the presidents from Wilson through Eisenhower, Wilson is an easy judgment, the three Republican presidents of the 1920s are fairly easy because of the testimony of their personal physician, Franklin D. Roosevelt remains a sphinx, and Truman and to a lesser extent his successor are understandable. [source] Fiscal Policy and Presidential Elections: Update and ExtensionPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2000ALFRED G. CUZÁN This article updates, deepens, and extends previous articles published in this journal on the relation between fiscal policy and presidential elections. It presents evidence that is consistent with the view that voters reward fiscal frugality and punish fiscal expansion. The relationship is robust with respect to economic conditions, presidential incumbency, number of consecutive terms in the White House by presidents of the same party, and war. An intriguing finding is that, when fiscal policy is controlled for, incumbency advantage practically disappears. It is hoped that these findings will stimulate more political scientists, especially students of the presidency, to pay more attention to the role of fiscal policy in presidential elections. [source] Rethinking local political leadershipPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2002Steve Leach The changing nature of local political leadership in Britain over the past 25 years has received scant attention from political scientists. This article argues that changes in the roles and functions of local authorities have had a marked impact on the nature of local political leadership. Three phases (operational, transitional and collaborative) are identified and leadership roles are related to changes in the political context of local government. The fundamental tasks of leadership have not changed but what has changed is the balance or relative emphasis between them and the way they have been interpreted. While elected local authorities cannot ignore the implications of the changed external agenda , notably the advent of new forms of executive leadership , the way they respond still bears the mark of the local political culture. [source] Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on JudgingAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010Christina L. Boyd We explore the role of sex in judging by addressing two questions of long-standing interest to political scientists: whether and in what ways male and female judges decide cases distinctly,"individual effects",and whether and in what ways serving with a female judge causes males to behave differently,"panel effects." While we attend to the dominant theoretical accounts of why we might expect to observe either or both effects, we do not use the predominant statistical tools to assess them. Instead, we deploy a more appropriate methodology: semiparametric matching, which follows from a formal framework for causal inference. Applying matching methods to 13 areas of law, we observe consistent gender effects in only one,sex discrimination. For these disputes, the probability of a judge deciding in favor of the party alleging discrimination decreases by about 10 percentage points when the judge is a male. Likewise, when a woman serves on a panel with men, the men are significantly more likely to rule in favor of the rights litigant. These results are consistent with an informational account of gendered judging and are inconsistent with several others. [source] Comparing Competing Theories on the Causes of Mandate PerceptionsAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2005Lawrence J. Grossback The discussion of presidential mandates is as certain as a presidential election itself. Journalists inevitably discuss whether the president-elect has a popular mandate. Because they see elections as too complex to allow the public to send a unitary signal, political scientists are more skeptical of mandates. Mandates, however, have received new attention by scholars asking whether perceptions of mandate arise and lead representatives to act as if voters sent a policy directive. Two explanations have emerged to account for why elected officials might react to such perceptions. One focuses on the president's strategic decision to declare a mandate, the second on how members of Congress read signals of changing preferences in the electorate from their own election results. We test these competing views to see which more accurately explains how members of Congress act in support of a perceived mandate. The results indicate that members respond more to messages about changing preferences than to the president's mandate declaration. [source] CONTOURS OF AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CHINESE STATE: POLITICAL STRUCTURE, AGENCY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL CHINATHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 3 2004Frank N. Pieke Anthropologists have long been inclined to view China from the perspective of a state-society dichotomy. In this model, the inevitable consequence of economic reform is that , especially at the local level , the state must yield more and more of its power to entrepreneurs, foreign investors, non-state organizations, and local communities. Not only does this approach distort the role of the state in society, but by placing the state above and outside society it also excludes it from the anthropological gaze. This article proposes an anthropology of the Chinese state which does not merely view the state in society, but also investigates the state itself as society. Drawing on fieldwork in northeastern Yunnan province, I illustrate this general point by investigating the changing role of the local state in economic development. This agenda for an anthropology of the Chinese state resonates both with the recent ,reinvention' of the subfield of political anthropology with its focus on governmentality, policy, and rights, and with recent calls by political scientists for the development of an interdisciplinary anthropology of the developmental state. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||