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1571. The Spread of Neoliberalism: U.S. Economic Power and the Diffusion of Market-Oriented Tax Policy

Author:
Duane Swank
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
I offer an explanation for the widespread diffusion of neoliberal tax policies in the developed democracies. Specifically, I argue that the highly visible 1980s market-conforming tax reform in the United States, the late twentieth century's dominant political economy, creates significant incentives for adoption of neoliberal tax policies by decision makers in other polities. As such, I stress a dominant actor model of the diffusion of neoliberalism that is grounded in asymmetric competition for mobile assets and policy learning. However, while the incentives to follow U.S. tax policy are substantial, the relative weight assigned the costs and benefits of reform and, in turn, the pace and degree of neoliberal policy adoption by other nations is fundamentally contingent on features of domestic political and economic environments. I assess these arguments with empirical models of 1981-to-1998 tax rates on capital in sixteen nations. I find that changes in U.S. tax policy influence subsequent reforms in other polities; in the long-term, all nations move toward the U.S. neoliberal tax structure. Analysis also shows, however, that the responsiveness to US tax reforms is notably greater where linkages with U.S. markets are stronger, where domestic economic stress is deeper, and where uncoordinated market institutions are dominant. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the present analysis for the volume's central questions: are dominant. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the present analysis for the volume's central questions: of international policy interdependence and domestic political economic forces in shaping policy change?
Topic:
Economics and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

1572. Summary of Proceedings: Automated Voting and Election Observation

Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Automated voting (sometimes referred to as electronic or e-voting) technologies are increasingly used in elections across the world, particularly because they are often seen as symbolic of a country's level of modernization. The possibilities for rapid aggregation and analysis of results, as well as potentially greater accuracy, have all added to the attractiveness of computer-based voting equipment. There is little doubt that the ability to quickly publish results can be of particular advantage in conflict and post-conflict scenarios, where a prolonged period of counting can heighten tensions and reduce confidence in the final results. The potential to remove some traditional elements of unintentional voter error or intentional fraud can also contribute to greater confidence, while at the same time raising new questions.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

1573. Measuring Risk: Political Risk Insurance Premiums and Domestic Political Institutions

Author:
Nathan Jensen
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
There is a resurgence in the literature in political science on how political risk affects multinational corporations operating in emerging markets. Most existing studies suffer from data problems where researchers can only offer indirect evidence of the relationship between political institutions and political risk. In this paper I utilize a new data resource to explore how domestic institutions affect political risks for multinationals. Utilizing price data from political risk insurance agencies I test how domestic political institutions affect the premiums multinationals pay for coverage against 1) expropriations and contract disputes and 2) government restrictions on capital transactions. I find that constraints on politicians lead to marginally lower expropriation and transfer risks. Democracy, on the other hand, greatly reduces expropriation risk but has no impact on transfer risk.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Political Economy, and Politics

1574. Types and Sources of Anti-Americanism: A Framework for Analysis

Author:
Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
At the end of World War II Henry Luce spoke of the coming of an American century. Today commentators across the political spectrum emphasize America's dominant military capabilities and economic strength. Many observers have also argued that the United States uniquely benefits from the wave of economic liberalization and democratization that followed the end of the Cold War. Joseph S. Nye has coined a catchy phrase, “soft power,” to suggest the importance of being admired, so that “others want what you want.” Nye argued that the United States commanded a lot of soft power. Indeed, with the end of the Cold War it seemed for a while as if the United States was in a “virtuous circle,” in which its success caused it to be more admired, which in turn enhanced its influence, and thus furthered its success.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, America, and North America

1575. What's So Good About Democracy? A Research Note

Author:
William Roberts Clark
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
It is surprisingly difficult to demonstrate that democracy makes a difference where, presumably, it is needed the most. Life remains precarious for large portions of the world's population, and the people for whom survival is far from trivial are concentrated in the world's poorest nations. If, as we seem committed to believe, a) the state can play some positive role in securing the life chances of individuals; and b) democracy increases the likelihood that states will play such a role, then we ought to see tangible benefits from the adoption of democracy in the world's poorest nations. If not, we may be required to accept either of two uncomfortable conclusions. Perhaps democracy has important normative benefits but provides little in terms of material consequences. Alternatively, it may have material benefits, but only in countries where wealth has already made such benefits less vital.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and Politics

1576. The Powers and Pathologies of Military Networks: Insights from the Political Cybernetics of Karl W. Deutsch and Norbert Wiener

Author:
Hayward R. Alker
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Probably best known nowadays as a distinguished political scientist, a scholar of nations, nationalism and the formation of international security communities, Karl W. Deutsch also wrote a lot about networks before they were popular subjects for strategic analysis Indeed, Deutsch's title for The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control explicitly parallels Norbert Wiener's specificational subtitle of his subject-defining book on cybernetics: Cybernetics: or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. One of Deutsch's greatest passions was the development and application of cybernetic theories to the “nerves” or “neural networks” of social, including governmental and inter-governmental, entities and processes, including the development and disintegration of nations and international communities. So conceived, they can have important human-like capacities. For example, “will may be defined in any sufficiently complex net, nervous system or social group [e.g. a nation] as the set of … internally labeled decisions and anticipated results, proposed by the application of results from the system's past and by the blocking of incompatible impulses or data from the system's present or future.” Indeed, Deutsch defined a nation as a special kind of people -- “a large, general-purpose communication net of human beings.” Like some states, pluralistic, multi-national security communities -- whose prevalence in the modern North Atlantic Area is perhaps the most often noted discovery of Deutsch's collaborative work on international community formation -- develop in adaptive, feedback-governed “learning nets,” “networks” or in part anticpatory “communication grids” with multiple, interdependent nodes. Perhaps, he argues in rather cybernetic language, such developments require “the development and practice of habits and skills of mutual attention, communication, and responsiveness, so as to make possible the preservation of the autonomy and substantial sovereignty of the participating units, and the preservation of stable expectations of peace and peaceful change among them”, all processes taking place within networks of human social communication.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Organization, Politics, and War

1577. Peacekeeping and the Peackept: Where Peacekeepers Go

Author:
Virginia Page Fortna
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Because peacekeeping is not distributed to conflicts at random, to understand its effects, we need to understand where it tends to be used. This chapter investigates the question of where peacekeepers get sent – what distinguishes conflicts that receive international peacekeeping from those that do not? Why were peacekeepers sent to El Salvador and Namibia but not to the Philippines or Palestine? Why no peacekeeping in Northern Ireland, monitors to South Africa, traditional peacekeepers to Papua New Guinea, a multidimensional mission to Cambodia, and an enforcement mission to Liberia? Why peacekeeping in Mozambique and, eventually in Sierra Leone, but not in Bangladesh? What explains this variation across civil war cases?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Organization, Politics, and War
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, South Africa, Philippines, Palestine, Cambodia, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Ireland, and Papua

1578. Two-Level Theories and Fuzzy-Set Analysis

Author:
Gary Goertz and James Mahoney
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Two-level theories explain outcomes with causal variables at two levels of analysis that are systematically related to one another. Although many prominent scholars in the field of comparative analysis have developed two-level theories, the empirical and methodological issues that these theories raise have yet to be investigated. In this article, we explore different structures of two-level theories and consider the issues involved in testing these theories with fuzzy-set methods. We show that grasping the overall structure of two-level theories requires both specifying the particular type of relationship (i.e., causal, ontological, or substitutable) that exists between and within levels of analysis and specifying the logical linkages between levels in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. We argue that for the purposes of testing these theories, fuzzy-set analysis provides a powerful set of tools. However, to realize this potential, investigators using fuzzy-set methods must be clear about the two-level structure of their theories from the onset. We illustrate these points through an empirical, fuzzy-set test of Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Economy, Politics, and War

1579. The Dilemma of the Prisoners' Dilemmas

Author:
Daniel G. Arce M. and Todd Sandler
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
In a variety of social, economic, and political situations, the Prisoners' Dilemma (PD) game is the most studied of the 78 distinct binary games. When characterizing Olson's (1965) analysis of collective action, Russell Hardin (1982, Chapter 2) goes so far as equating all collective action problems to Prisoners' Dilemmas. Although a variety of game forms are now associated with collective action problems (Sandler 1992), there is no question that the PD game occupies a central place in the analysis of diverse social science phenomena. PD games are used to investigate arms races, treaty adherence, the tragedy of the commons, counterterrorism, logrolling, public good provision, altruism, boycotts, and many other issues.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Economy, Politics, and War

1580. Racing to the Bottom in the Post-Communist World: Domestic Politics, International Trade and Environmental Governance

Author:
Edward Mansfield, Helen V. Milner, and Liliana B. Andonova
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
In this paper, we analyze whether trade liberalization and increasing commercial openness has affected environmental governance in the post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. During the Cold War, these countries had closed economies and autarkic trade policies combined with little environmental regulation and poor environmental quality. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union began a process of marked change in the region. Many post-Communist countries have engaged in extensive trade liberalization. Others, however, have been slower to open their markets; and some have maintained highly protectionist trade policies. Have countries that opened up to global markets improved their environmental policies or has increasing exposure to the international trading system led to a “race to the bottom”? Controlling for a wide variety of economic and political factors, our results indicate that heightened trade openness has weakened environmental governance in the post-Communist world, suggesting that an environmental race to the bottom has been occurring among the transition economies.
Topic:
International Relations, Environment, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Berlin