Long-term immigrants often have the option but not the obligation to acquire citizenship in their state of residence. Contrary to the received wisdom, this article defends the idea of mandatory citizenship for immigrants. It suggests that the current asymmetry in the distribution of political obligations between native-born citizens and immigrants is unfair. It also argues that mandatory citizenship is required by the principle that those who persistently affect others should share a democratic setting. Finally, it claims that mandatory citizenship is more compatible with the ideal of democratic equality and more conducive to a stable society.

This analysis challenges claims that regime type determines national economic performance, and hypothesizes that the level of public deliberation, rather than broad categories of regime type, is the driver of national economic performance across political systems; specifically, that negotiations, disagreements, and compromises between decentralized decision-making partisans (e.g., citizens, business representatives, professional associations, labor, and public administrators) are the underlying causal mechanism explaining the non-monotonic relationship between different types of political system and economic performance. Countries with high levels of public deliberation more often experience stable growth outcomes, while other countries can make radical changes in economic policy with uncertain outcome. The variation in public deliberation within regime type is significant, especially amongst authoritarian regimes. One startling implication is that, in certain situations, impressive gains in economic growth can be achieved only at the expense of active negotiation and participation in the policy-making process.

This article uncovers a new mechanism linking oil wealth to autocratic regime survival: the investigation tests whether increases in oil wealth improve the survival of autocracies by lowering the chances of democratization, reducing the risk of transition to subsequent dictatorship, or both. Using a new measure of autocratic durability shows that, once models allow for unit effects, oil wealth promotes autocratic survival by lowering the risk of ouster by rival autocratic groups. Evidence also indicates that oil income increases military spending in dictatorships, which suggests that increasing oil wealth may deter coups that could have caused a regime collapse.

Prevention in public policy is much discussed but rarely theorized. This article begins with a theoretical framework for reflecting on the political economy of prevention in advanced capitalist economies that integrates the analysis of preventive policies across the social, environmental and economic domains. The next two sections survey prevention initiatives in social policy and climate change policy, respectively. These mainly focus on the last three decades and are based mainly on UK evidence. The article then considers the relative absence of prevention in contemporary economic policy and management: today's neo-liberal economic and political order powerfully constrains preventive public policy. The final section outlines an alternative social political economy that prioritizes preventive and precautionary policy making.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the question of mass participation in primaries and caucuses became unusually salient, with a close Democratic race calling special attention to these often overlooked procedural elements of America's democratic system. This study adds a new element to scholarship on institutional design and citizen participation by way of a survey-based experiment conducted in the midst of the 2008 campaign. The results show that institutional choices are not neutral. Nominating candidates through caucuses rather than primaries not only reduces the number of participants, but also significantly affects the ideological composition of the electorate. Caucuses produce a more ideologically consistent electorate than do primaries, because policy centrists appear to avoid caucuses. This experimental finding is strongly buttressed by the observational data on Obama and Clinton voters.

This article extends theoretical arguments regarding the impact of economic globalization on policy making to electoral turnout and considers how distinct dimensions of globalization may produce different effects. It theorizes that constraints on government policy that reduce incentives to vote are more likely to be induced by foreign ownership of capital, while compensation through increased government spending is more likely (if at all) to be the product of structural shifts in production associated with international trade. Using data from twenty-three OECD countries from 1970–2007, the study finds strong support for the ownership-constraint hypothesis in which foreign ownership reduces turnout, both directly and – in strict opposition to the compensation hypothesis – indirectly by reducing government spending (and thus the importance of politics). The results suggest that increased foreign ownership, especially the most mobile capital flows, can explain up to two-thirds of the large declines in turnout over recent decades.

Existing research emphasizes how United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approval helps convey information to domestic audiences that military action is conducted with good intentions, for desirable consequences and in a legitimate manner. This information transmission mechanism can also increase support for UNSC-endorsed military action in countries unlikely to provide major contributions to military actions. There is some cross-national evidence supporting the information transmission mechanism in the United States. Examining the causal mechanisms underlying foreign public support for US military action through a survey experiment with approximately 2,000 respondents in Japan shows that foreign public support varies depending on whether the military action has UNSC approval. The process of presenting draft resolutions to the UNSC also affects public support.

Lobbies are active participants in international co-operation. In a repeated game, this article allows domestic lobbies to offer contingent rewards to influence their government to make pro-co-operation policy adjustments. The effect of lobbies depends on the type and intensity of their preferences. If the lobbies are ‘internationally benefiting’ – that is, they are interested in whether the foreign government reciprocates with adjustments of its own, they unambiguously improve co-operation. However, if the lobbies are ‘domestically benefiting’ – that is, they are interested in their own government's policy, they are less beneficial for co-operation. A domestically benefiting lobby that is willing to compensate its government even without foreign reciprocity undermines the credibility of punishing free riders. This article demonstrates this argument in the context of trade and environmental co-operation.

Despite its importance in contemporary American politics, presidential scandal is poorly understood within political science. Scholars typically interpret scandals as resulting from the disclosure of official misbehavior, but the likelihood and intensity of media scandals is also influenced by the political and news context. This article provides a theoretical argument for two independent factors that should increase the president's vulnerability to scandal: low approval among opposition party identifiers and a lack of congestion in the news agenda. Using new data and statistical approaches, I find strong support for both claims. These results suggest that contextual factors shape the occurrence of political events and how such events are interpreted.