abstract: This article examines the state's uneven capacity to deliver public social goods to the periphery. It does so through a comparative analysis of two agencies in Thailand, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education, which have exhibited a marked disparity in serving rural citizens over the past twenty-five years. The author traces these outcomes to a divergence in how the agencies perceive the significance of their rural policies in meeting Thailand's security threats and economic growth strategy. This perception produces contrasting organizational norms between central and local bureaucrats, which informs incentives for capacity-building. When an agency's central office believes that rural policy matters significantly for national goals, norms develop that encourage local agents to invest in serving rural needs. But when an agency deems rural policy to be less urgent in meeting key national objectives, the converse ensues. The article finds that how an agency strategically considers the rural sector influences its decisions to invest in the periphery, with lasting consequences for state capacity and the rural-urban divide.
{"title":"The Uneven State: Center and Periphery in Shaping State Capacity in Thailand","authors":"Illan Nam","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916341","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: This article examines the state's uneven capacity to deliver public social goods to the periphery. It does so through a comparative analysis of two agencies in Thailand, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education, which have exhibited a marked disparity in serving rural citizens over the past twenty-five years. The author traces these outcomes to a divergence in how the agencies perceive the significance of their rural policies in meeting Thailand's security threats and economic growth strategy. This perception produces contrasting organizational norms between central and local bureaucrats, which informs incentives for capacity-building. When an agency's central office believes that rural policy matters significantly for national goals, norms develop that encourage local agents to invest in serving rural needs. But when an agency deems rural policy to be less urgent in meeting key national objectives, the converse ensues. The article finds that how an agency strategically considers the rural sector influences its decisions to invest in the periphery, with lasting consequences for state capacity and the rural-urban divide.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139394434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract: The authors develop a perspective of locally embedded welfare state development to explain how relatively weak national political actors can, nonetheless, shape national policy over time by pursuing local reforms. Empirically, the authors assess their argument by using municipality-level representative shares, data on noncontributory pension reforms, roll-call votes from parliament, and archival material from early twentieth-century Norway, in which several local governments introduced noncontributory old-age pensions before Norway adopted a national scheme. The authors show, first, how nationally underrepresented but highly institutionalized socialist parties with geographically concentrated support introduced local pensions. Over time, these parties thus shaped the possibility space for national reform, effectively locking the national policy agenda into a pension system preferred by the socialists—namely, noncontributory pensions. Citing high municipality-debt pressures in their constituencies, bourgeois politicians from districts with local pensions eventually supported and promoted national-level pension reform. This support, in turn, spurred the cross-class alliance required to establish a national noncontributory pension system.
{"title":"Laying Down The Principles: How Local Socialist Achievements Spurred National Bourgeois Support for Noncontributory Pensions","authors":"M. Rasmussen, C. Knutsen","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916344","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: The authors develop a perspective of locally embedded welfare state development to explain how relatively weak national political actors can, nonetheless, shape national policy over time by pursuing local reforms. Empirically, the authors assess their argument by using municipality-level representative shares, data on noncontributory pension reforms, roll-call votes from parliament, and archival material from early twentieth-century Norway, in which several local governments introduced noncontributory old-age pensions before Norway adopted a national scheme. The authors show, first, how nationally underrepresented but highly institutionalized socialist parties with geographically concentrated support introduced local pensions. Over time, these parties thus shaped the possibility space for national reform, effectively locking the national policy agenda into a pension system preferred by the socialists—namely, noncontributory pensions. Citing high municipality-debt pressures in their constituencies, bourgeois politicians from districts with local pensions eventually supported and promoted national-level pension reform. This support, in turn, spurred the cross-class alliance required to establish a national noncontributory pension system.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139394623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract: The circumstances under which a country democratizes can have long-lasting consequences for citizens' political attitudes. To develop this argument, the author links East Germans' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy today to their experiences during German reunification: East Germany democratized under conditions of extreme economic uncertainty, which has had enduring effects on how economic evaluations are linked to democracy satisfaction. An original survey experiment finds that qualitatively similar experiences of current economic insecurity have stronger effects on East than West Germans' democracy satisfaction. Household panel data show that this effect is stronger among those East Germans who experienced more economic hardship during the transition. Surveys of East Germans prior to reunification demonstrate that a similar pattern did not exist before the transition. Finally, cross-national survey data document similar patterns among Eastern Europeans more broadly. These findings complement existing work on the legacies of authoritarian rule by emphasizing the lasting attitudinal effects of authoritarian breakdown.
{"title":"When Democracy Brings Insecurity: The Political Legacies of Regime Change","authors":"Hans Lueders","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916343","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: The circumstances under which a country democratizes can have long-lasting consequences for citizens' political attitudes. To develop this argument, the author links East Germans' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy today to their experiences during German reunification: East Germany democratized under conditions of extreme economic uncertainty, which has had enduring effects on how economic evaluations are linked to democracy satisfaction. An original survey experiment finds that qualitatively similar experiences of current economic insecurity have stronger effects on East than West Germans' democracy satisfaction. Household panel data show that this effect is stronger among those East Germans who experienced more economic hardship during the transition. Surveys of East Germans prior to reunification demonstrate that a similar pattern did not exist before the transition. Finally, cross-national survey data document similar patterns among Eastern Europeans more broadly. These findings complement existing work on the legacies of authoritarian rule by emphasizing the lasting attitudinal effects of authoritarian breakdown.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139391654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is democracy a boon for economic growth or a hindrance? This brief essay reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions to this age-old question and highlights some potentially fruitful avenues for future research.
{"title":"Democracy and Economic Growth: Theoretical Debates and Empirical Contributions","authors":"Joel W. Simmons","doi":"10.1353/wp.0.a917154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.a917154","url":null,"abstract":"Is democracy a boon for economic growth or a hindrance? This brief essay reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions to this age-old question and highlights some potentially fruitful avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 27","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139392917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract: Why do national governments choose to transfer some of their administrative, political, and fiscal powers to regional authorities? This article develops and tests a nationally focused strategic account: decentralization is a targeted means to bolster a governing party's national-level electoral strength by appeasing the voters of threatening ethnoterritorial parties in national parliamentary elections. Statistical analyses of decentralization across the subnational regions of Western European countries confirm that governing parties transfer additional competencies to regions in which an ethnoterritorial party threat exists, when the government is legislatively vulnerable. In contrast, if a government is not dependent on a region for maintaining national parliamentary control, the presence of a strong ethnoterritorial opponent will not motivate the government to decentralize. These findings help to explain patterns of asymmetrical decentralization across regions within a country and why governing parties decentralize competencies to subnational governments that they do not expect to control.
{"title":"Transferring Power to Maintain Control: Decentralization as a National-Level Electoral Strategy in Western Europe","authors":"Bonnie M. Meguid","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916340","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: Why do national governments choose to transfer some of their administrative, political, and fiscal powers to regional authorities? This article develops and tests a nationally focused strategic account: decentralization is a targeted means to bolster a governing party's national-level electoral strength by appeasing the voters of threatening ethnoterritorial parties in national parliamentary elections. Statistical analyses of decentralization across the subnational regions of Western European countries confirm that governing parties transfer additional competencies to regions in which an ethnoterritorial party threat exists, when the government is legislatively vulnerable. In contrast, if a government is not dependent on a region for maintaining national parliamentary control, the presence of a strong ethnoterritorial opponent will not motivate the government to decentralize. These findings help to explain patterns of asymmetrical decentralization across regions within a country and why governing parties decentralize competencies to subnational governments that they do not expect to control.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139393159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract: Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, which created exogenous variation in government spending. A discontinuity in the 2011 German census meant that some municipalities saw an unforeseen increase in budgets. Using a regression discontinuity design, the authors show that the increase in budgets and subsequent spending on public goods benefited left-leaning parties but had no detectable effect on incumbent support. To parse out the causal channel, the authors rely on panel evidence and demonstrate that treated residents viewed their economic situation more favorably than did untreated residents, which led the former to espouse progressive parties.
{"title":"Government Spending and Voting Behavior","authors":"Anselm Hager, H. Hilbig","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916342","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, which created exogenous variation in government spending. A discontinuity in the 2011 German census meant that some municipalities saw an unforeseen increase in budgets. Using a regression discontinuity design, the authors show that the increase in budgets and subsequent spending on public goods benefited left-leaning parties but had no detectable effect on incumbent support. To parse out the causal channel, the authors rely on panel evidence and demonstrate that treated residents viewed their economic situation more favorably than did untreated residents, which led the former to espouse progressive parties.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139393529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern international interactions are structured by institutions of global governance, both formal and informal. Most of these institutions are encompassed by the liberal international order. Like domestic institutions, these international institutions are challenged by the prevalence and depth of disinformation. The demand for disinformation, in turn, has been fed by the order’s lack of attention to growing domestic economic inequality. Disinformation and inequality thus present twin challenges to global governance.
{"title":"GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: The Twin Challenges of Economic Inequality and Disinformation","authors":"Lisa L. Martin","doi":"10.1353/wp.0.a915395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.a915395","url":null,"abstract":"Modern international interactions are structured by institutions of global governance, both formal and informal. Most of these institutions are encompassed by the liberal international order. Like domestic institutions, these international institutions are challenged by the prevalence and depth of disinformation. The demand for disinformation, in turn, has been fed by the order’s lack of attention to growing domestic economic inequality. Disinformation and inequality thus present twin challenges to global governance.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 9","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138615476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay reviews research on Southeast Asia that has appeared in World Politics, with a focus on articles published since the mid-1970s. Drawing on debates about the nature of the region that are commonly found within the field of Southeast Asian area studies, the essay identifies two axes along which Southeast Asian politics research varies: in its emphasis on the connectedness versus autonomy of the region, and in its focus on individual country experiences versus common regional dynamics. Characterizing the Southeast Asia–focused research in World Politics in this way helps us to understand more generally the relationship between area studies and political science over the past fifty years.
{"title":"SOUTHEAST ASIA AND WORLD POLITICS","authors":"Thomas B. Pepinsky","doi":"10.1353/wp.0.a915396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.a915396","url":null,"abstract":"This essay reviews research on Southeast Asia that has appeared in World Politics, with a focus on articles published since the mid-1970s. Drawing on debates about the nature of the region that are commonly found within the field of Southeast Asian area studies, the essay identifies two axes along which Southeast Asian politics research varies: in its emphasis on the connectedness versus autonomy of the region, and in its focus on individual country experiences versus common regional dynamics. Characterizing the Southeast Asia–focused research in World Politics in this way helps us to understand more generally the relationship between area studies and political science over the past fifty years.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":" 1","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138617162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Within sovereign states citizenship is arguably the most important political marker of in- and outsiders. As a result, questions about who gets to reap the benefits of citizenship often result in distributional conflict. This conflict becomes inflamed when a country goes through a period of significant inward migration. Given that citizenship is so important and so contentious, from where do the rules governing its acquisition come? Our starting point is the acknowledgment that migrants are mobile labor. From this perspective, countries in which elites benefit from an increased supply of productive labor—that is, those with high land/labor ratios—will be more likely to adopt policies that attract migrants, such as easier naturalization rules, including birthright citizenship. We illustrate the plausibility of our argument with some statistical evidence and suggest some avenues to further explore this crucial question.
{"title":"Land/Labor Ratios, Citizenship, and Migrants: Exploring the Hidden Links in the Political Economy of Immigration Regimes","authors":"Melle Scholten, David Leblang","doi":"10.1353/wp.0.a915397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.a915397","url":null,"abstract":"Within sovereign states citizenship is arguably the most important political marker of in- and outsiders. As a result, questions about who gets to reap the benefits of citizenship often result in distributional conflict. This conflict becomes inflamed when a country goes through a period of significant inward migration. Given that citizenship is so important and so contentious, from where do the rules governing its acquisition come? Our starting point is the acknowledgment that migrants are mobile labor. From this perspective, countries in which elites benefit from an increased supply of productive labor—that is, those with high land/labor ratios—will be more likely to adopt policies that attract migrants, such as easier naturalization rules, including birthright citizenship. We illustrate the plausibility of our argument with some statistical evidence and suggest some avenues to further explore this crucial question.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"46 4","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138622915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elena Barham, Sarah Zukerman Daly, Julian E. Gerez, John Marshall, Oscar Pocasangre
abstract: Vaccine distribution in the Global South has created opportunities for vaccine-developing countries to improve their international reputations. Leveraging a panel survey conducted in early 2021, this article evaluates whether vaccine diplomacy affects trust in foreign governments in six Latin American countries. Among vaccinated respondents, trust in the government of the country that they believed developed their vaccine increased relative to trust in the governments of other foreign powers. Furthermore, providing information about the aggregate distribution of vaccines within a respondent's country increased vaccine-eligible respondents' trust in the governments of countries from which more vaccines were delivered. In each case, greater trust principally reflects updated perceptions of a common good motivation. The article's empirical findings suggest that vaccine distribution—especially by China, but for other vaccine-developing countries as well—can cultivate favorable international public opinion. These favorable opinions may in turn facilitate great powers' economic, political, or military foreign policy goals.
{"title":"Vaccine Diplomacy: How COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution in Latin America Increases Trust in Foreign Governments","authors":"Elena Barham, Sarah Zukerman Daly, Julian E. Gerez, John Marshall, Oscar Pocasangre","doi":"10.1353/wp.2023.a908776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2023.a908776","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: Vaccine distribution in the Global South has created opportunities for vaccine-developing countries to improve their international reputations. Leveraging a panel survey conducted in early 2021, this article evaluates whether vaccine diplomacy affects trust in foreign governments in six Latin American countries. Among vaccinated respondents, trust in the government of the country that they believed developed their vaccine increased relative to trust in the governments of other foreign powers. Furthermore, providing information about the aggregate distribution of vaccines within a respondent's country increased vaccine-eligible respondents' trust in the governments of countries from which more vaccines were delivered. In each case, greater trust principally reflects updated perceptions of a common good motivation. The article's empirical findings suggest that vaccine distribution—especially by China, but for other vaccine-developing countries as well—can cultivate favorable international public opinion. These favorable opinions may in turn facilitate great powers' economic, political, or military foreign policy goals.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135568233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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