Legislatures and Political Stability: An Exploratory Analysis

Mishler, William; Hildreth, Anne

doi:10.2307/2130433

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Leaders in electoral systems with legislatures are substantially more stable, by about 36.6 percent. This confirms the conventional wisdom that active legislatures are necessary for stable democracy (Mishler and Hildreth 1984, 39). In the nonelectoral setting, however, a leader must be in power for over 8 years before legislatures become stabilizing.…”

Section: Explaining the Inconsistent Effect Of Winning Coalitionssupporting

confidence: 83%

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for “Selectorate Theory”

Kennedy

2009

International Studies Quarterly

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This study re-examines the empirical support for one of the most influential explanations of leadership tenure, ''selectorate theory,'' by testing for consistency across key regime categories. The argument made herein is that if the measures are good, the consistency of their relationships should not be limited to particular nominal regime categories, and they should capture the implications of the theory differentiating it from competing theories. Current measures of selectorate theory concepts are wanting on both fronts. I find that the measure used for winning coalition size is correlated with the destabilization of leaders in democracies and the stabilization of leaders in nondemocracies. I also find that the measure of selectorate size exhibits two behaviors inconsistent with the theory: larger selectorates are only stabilizing after the leader has already been in office for an extended period of time; and the effect is only substantial for differentiating between types of military regimes. These findings have five implications: (1) they cast serious doubt on the utility of current measures of selectorate theory; (2) they raise conceptual questions about the treatment of political regimes as vectors or categories; (3) they define substantive, not just statistical, issues that future measures will need to address; (4) they give baselines for re-analysis of the effect of these measures on other implications of interest; and (5) they provide an interesting comment on the comparative politics literature on hybrid regimes and the effect of parliamentary institutions in nondemocratic regimes.

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Section: Explaining the Inconsistent Effect Of Winning Coalitionssupporting

confidence: 83%

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for “Selectorate Theory”

Kennedy

2009

International Studies Quarterly

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“…Fortunately, the literature on political institutionalization furnishes a firm footing on which to develop such an estimate. Examining a wide variety of organizations, scholars have consistently sought specific indicators that reflect an underlying dimension of institutionalization (see, e.g., Mishler and Hildreth 1984;Hibbing 1988;Ragsdale and Theis 1997). Although they appear in various guises, these indicators can be subsumed under three general headings: differentiation, durability, and autonomy (Keohane 1969; see also Huntington 1968;Shepsle and Bonchek 1997).…”

Section: Measuring Judicial Institutionalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Institutionalization of the U.S. Supreme Court

McGuire¹

2004

Polit. anal.

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In pursuing their goals, members of the U.S. Supreme Court are affected by their institutional setting. How has that institutional environment changed over time and what have been the political consequences of those changes? Despite considerable analysis of the institutional dynamics of legislatures and executives, political scientists have been slow to bring time series techniques to the study of the Supreme Court, and as a result much less is known about its evolutionary path. Measuring a variety of organizational characteristics, I construct an index of the institutionalization of the Supreme Court from 1790 to 1996. This indicator suggests that the integration of the Court into the system of federal policy making has better enabled the justices to satisfy their objectives. To demonstrate this empirically, I test a series of error correction models of judicial influence, each of which confirms that the nature of the Supreme Court's character has had considerable implications for the scope of the justices' legal and political impact. These results underscore the need for judicial scholars to examine the Court's policy making in longitudinal perspective.

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“…These leaders pursue policies in their own selfinterest as they have little accountability to (or knowledge of) public preferences. Expropriation or nationalization can benefit the leader by providing him immediate access to resources or revenue (Li 2009a (Mishler and Hildreth 1984).…”

Section: Argument: Bilateral Investment Treaties As a Credible Signalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Authoritarian Regimes

Bastiaens

2015

International Interactions

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iv Existing scholarship does not account for why foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have been increasing to many authoritarian countries in recent decades, with some authoritarian developing countries attracting levels of FDI similar to those in democratic developing countries. This dissertation argues that while authoritarian countries are in general more risky than democratic countries, this risk can be minimized when authoritarian regimes are constrained from both "above" and "below." Authoritarian regimes that sign international investment treaties signal FDI-friendly policies and are constrained from backtracking on those policies. At the same time, authoritarian regimes that allow some degree of citizen participation in policymaking are constrained from deviating from FDI-friendly policies, which are generally preferred by citizens. In sum, it is hypothesized that authoritarian regimes that sign international investment treaties and maintain relatively high levels of citizen participation will attract the most FDI inflows. This hypothesis is tested using micro and macro level empirical evidence. Specifically, multilevel ordered probits of survey data on citizen preferences for FDI and statistical regressions of panel data on global FDI inflows are conducted. Estimation results confirm both the theoretical foundations and formal hypothesis of this dissertation: citizens in authoritarian countries view FDI inflows as welfare-enhancing and authoritarian countries with bilateral investment treaties and high levels of citizen participation attract the most FDI inflows. Additionally, results from an original survey of U.S. foreign investors reveal that multinational companies are aware of and value international investment treaties and freedom of association in host nations, thereby providing key primary evidence in support of the hypothesis. Finally, a comparative case study of Jordan and Syria further illustrate the micro-foundations of the argument. While both Jordan and Syria have signaled a dedication to liberal economic policies, Jordan has been the successor in attracting FDI inflows because of its participatory decision-making processes. This dissertation contributes to international political economy, international organization, and authoritarian political institution research by illuminating the domestic factors that provide credibility of compliance to international treaties signed by authoritarian countries. Previous literature has failed to address the variation of foreign investment inflows to authoritarian regimes and the role of compliance to international investment treaties in attracting these investment inflows to authoritarian countries.

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Legislatures and Political Stability: An Exploratory Analysis

Cited by 9 publications

References 17 publications

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for “Selectorate Theory”

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for “Selectorate Theory”

The Institutionalization of the U.S. Supreme Court

The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Authoritarian Regimes

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