The Effect of Democratization on Election-oriented Economic Policy

The Effect of Democratization on Election-oriented Economic Policy PDF Author: Jin Seok Bae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of electoral politics on macroeconomic and distributive policy in East Asian “developmental states” using empirical evidence from South Korea. Based on existing theories of political budget cycles (PBCs) and distributive politics, this study examines how democratization affects the pattern and degree of political budget cycles and targeted spending. Contrary to the bureaucracy dominance thesis in developmental state theory, I argue that authoritarian leaders in Korea had incentives to manipulate macroeconomic conditions before elections to increase the ruling party’s urban representation. The incentives for PBCs and targeted spending under authoritarian rule were, of course, smaller than that under democracy, but the constraints on PBCs and targeted spending were also smaller under authoritarian rule. I find that PBCs occurred in Korea before and after democratization and that democratization did not affect the degree of PBCs in statistical terms. Based on these findings, I conclude that the increased constraints (checks and balances) offset the increased incentives (electoral competition) after democratization. This study also pays attention to the institutional variables that shape incumbent’s preference regarding tactical allocation: the N=2 Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system under authoritarian rule adopted to increase ruling party’s urban representation; the five-year single term presidency under democracy that led the president’s goal to focus on preempting early lame-duck status and obtaining a graceful retirement. Based on the analysis of the institutional effect on identifying target group, I demonstrate that the main target for the incumbents during the authoritarian period was swing voters in urban areas, while the main targets for the incumbents during the democratic period were both the incumbent’s core support group and opposition backers.

The Effect of Democratization on Election-oriented Economic Policy

The Effect of Democratization on Election-oriented Economic Policy PDF Author: Jin Seok Bae
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Get Book Here

Book Description
The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of electoral politics on macroeconomic and distributive policy in East Asian “developmental states” using empirical evidence from South Korea. Based on existing theories of political budget cycles (PBCs) and distributive politics, this study examines how democratization affects the pattern and degree of political budget cycles and targeted spending. Contrary to the bureaucracy dominance thesis in developmental state theory, I argue that authoritarian leaders in Korea had incentives to manipulate macroeconomic conditions before elections to increase the ruling party’s urban representation. The incentives for PBCs and targeted spending under authoritarian rule were, of course, smaller than that under democracy, but the constraints on PBCs and targeted spending were also smaller under authoritarian rule. I find that PBCs occurred in Korea before and after democratization and that democratization did not affect the degree of PBCs in statistical terms. Based on these findings, I conclude that the increased constraints (checks and balances) offset the increased incentives (electoral competition) after democratization. This study also pays attention to the institutional variables that shape incumbent’s preference regarding tactical allocation: the N=2 Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system under authoritarian rule adopted to increase ruling party’s urban representation; the five-year single term presidency under democracy that led the president’s goal to focus on preempting early lame-duck status and obtaining a graceful retirement. Based on the analysis of the institutional effect on identifying target group, I demonstrate that the main target for the incumbents during the authoritarian period was swing voters in urban areas, while the main targets for the incumbents during the democratic period were both the incumbent’s core support group and opposition backers.

Economics and Elections

Economics and Elections PDF Author: Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Publisher: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
A cross-national study of the effect of economic conditions on voting behavior in the United States and the Western democracies

Democracy for Realists

Democracy for Realists PDF Author: Christopher H. Achen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888743
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.

Costs of Democracy

Costs of Democracy PDF Author: Devesh Kapur
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019909313X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.

Shock to the System

Shock to the System PDF Author: Michael K. Miller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217599
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
How violent events and autocratic parties trigger democratic change How do democracies emerge? Shock to the System presents a novel theory of democratization that focuses on how events like coups, wars, and elections disrupt autocratic regimes and trigger democratic change. Employing the broadest qualitative and quantitative analyses of democratization to date, Michael Miller demonstrates that more than nine in ten transitions since 1800 occur in one of two ways: countries democratize following a major violent shock or an established ruling party democratizes through elections and regains power within democracy. This framework fundamentally reorients theories on democratization by showing that violent upheavals and the preservation of autocrats in power—events typically viewed as antithetical to democracy—are in fact central to its foundation. Through in-depth examinations of 139 democratic transitions, Miller shows how democratization frequently follows both domestic shocks (coups, civil wars, and assassinations) and international shocks (defeat in war and withdrawal of an autocratic hegemon) due to autocratic insecurity and openings for opposition actors. He also shows how transitions guided by ruling parties spring from their electoral confidence in democracy. Both contexts limit the power autocrats sacrifice by accepting democratization, smoothing along the transition. Miller provides new insights into democratization’s predictors, the limited gains from events like the Arab Spring, the best routes to democratization for long-term stability, and the future of global democracy. Disputing commonly held ideas about violent events and their effects on democracy, Shock to the System offers new perspectives on how regimes are transformed.

How Dictatorships Work

How Dictatorships Work PDF Author: Barbara Geddes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107115825
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Explains how dictatorships rise, survive, and fall, along with why some but not all dictators wield vast powers.

The Politics Industry

The Politics Industry PDF Author: Katherine M. Gehl
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633699242
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

Electoral Politics in Africa since 1990

Electoral Politics in Africa since 1990 PDF Author: Jaimie Bleck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108680623
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Democratic transitions in the early 1990s introduced a sea change in Sub-Saharan African politics. Between 1990 and 2015, several hundred competitive legislative and presidential elections were held in all but a handful of the region's countries. This book is the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the key issues, actors, and trends in these elections over the last quarter century. The book asks: what motivates African citizens to vote? What issues do candidates campaign on? How has the turn to regular elections promoted greater democracy? Has regular electoral competition made a difference for the welfare of citizens? The authors argue that regular elections have both caused significant changes in African politics and been influenced in turn by a rapidly changing continent - even if few of the political systems that now convene elections can be considered democratic, and even if many old features of African politics persist.

The Emerging Democratic Majority

The Emerging Democratic Majority PDF Author: John B. Judis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743254783
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR AND A WINNER OF THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY'S ANNUAL POLITICAL BOOK AWARD Political experts John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira convincingly use hard data -- demographic, geographic, economic, and political -- to forecast the dawn of a new progressive era. In the 1960s, Kevin Phillips, battling conventional wisdom, correctly foretold the dawn of a new conservative era. His book, The Emerging Republican Majority, became an indispensable guide for all those attempting to understand political change through the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the country in Republican hands, The Emerging Democratic Majority is the indispensable guide to this era. In five well-researched chapters and a new afterword covering the 2002 elections, Judis and Teixeira show how the most dynamic and fastest-growing areas of the country are cultivating a new wave of Democratic voters who embrace what the authors call "progressive centrism" and take umbrage at Republican demands to privatize social security, ban abortion, and cut back environmental regulations. As the GOP continues to be dominated by neoconservatives, the religious right, and corporate influence, this is an essential volume for all those discontented with their narrow agenda -- and a clarion call for a new political order.

Competitive Elections in Developing Countries

Competitive Elections in Developing Countries PDF Author: Myron Weiner
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822307662
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
This is the latest in the At the Polls series, in which Duke University Press has joined with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research to publish studies on the electoral process as it functions around the world. Cited by Choice for its "high standard of scholarly analysis and objectivity," the series provides both a chronicle of events and a thorough analysis of the election results.