This article provides a statistical analysis of core contentions of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ perspective on comparative capitalism. The authors construct indices to assess whether patterns of co-ordination in the OECD economies conform to the predictions of the theory and compare the correspondence of institutions across subspheres of the political economy. They test whether institutional complementarities occur across these subspheres by estimating the impact of complementarities in labour relations and corporate governance on growth rates. To assess the durability of varieties of capitalism, they report on the extent of institutional change in the 1980s and 1990s. Powerful interaction effects across institutions in the subspheres of the political economy must be considered if assessments of the economic impact of institutional reform in any one sphere are to be accurate.

The recent growth in the formation of think tanks in the United States raises questions about their role in the democratic process. A theory of think-tank formation is pre here, which posits that committee debate creates incentives for legislators to seek research-based, policy-analytic information supporting competing policy positions. As political entrepreneurs recognize this demand, they supply think tanks, just as scholars have suggested they supply interest groups. An important macro-level implication of this theory is that as legislators’ ideological polarization increases, the demand for policy analysis increases, as does the number of think tanks supplied. Empirical support for this proposition in the United States from 1903 to 2003 is shown, while controlling for market factors measuring the opportunity cost of investing in think tanks.

The formation of new party systems involves processes that significantly distinguish them from the transformation of established ones. In new party systems historical legacies matter, timing and sequencing of events have important consequences, and politicians do not just limit themselves to winning votes but employ a wide range of co-ordination strategies (i.e. electoral coalitions, party switching, manipulation of electoral vote-counting procedures) to make votes count more effectively. The literature has identified many of these causal factors individually without, however, thinking systematically about their interactions. This article borrows from recent work on path dependency to analyse such interactions in greater depth and pays closer attention to the distinct temporal dynamics shaping the formation of new party systems.

Preferences over jurisdictional architecture are the product of three irreduciblelogics: efficiency, distribution and identity. This article substantiates thefollowing claims: (a) European integration has become politicized in electionsand referendums; (b) as a result, the preferences of the general public and ofnational political parties have become decisive for jurisdictional outcomes; (c)identity is critical in shaping contestation on Europe.

This piece outlines some of the findings of an exploratory research project into popular forms of identification in the contemporary European context and their implications for projects of transnational integration such as the European Union. Drawing on a series of group interviews conducted with taxi-drivers in Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic, it looks at how political problems are articulated in discussion, how speakers position themselves in relation to these problems, and how this differs according to the topics in question. It is suggested that these routinized discursive practices shape the way speakers make sense of the political world, and in turn the kinds of political association that make sense to them as citizens.

Important articles in this Journal by Nownes in 2004 and Nownes and Lipinksi in 2005 demonstrate that ‘population ecology’ approaches are now central to interest group studies. Partly at least this move to study at population level is a consequence of the numbers of such organizations. Party scholars typically deal with far fewer cases and sui generis discussion is more defensible. Ecology seems to offer a ‘handle’ on the thousands of cases that exist in the interest group field. Nownes and Lipinski stressed the importance of environmental factors in determining group populations, and challenged group scholars to address the dynamics among interest group populations. This article argues that animal-based population ecology may be an imperfect analogy to use in making sense of group circumstances. It considers the way groups respond to opportunities and constraints.

The diversionary proclivities of democratic and autocratic regimes have been debated in the empirical literature. This new theoretical synthesis on the subject builds upon the insights of the institutional approach, rational choice literature on voting and research on audience costs. It is contended that leaders in mature democracies have more incentive to use diversionary force than leaders in other regimes, and they are more likely to gain domestic political and economic benefits from it. To test this, dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) models are used to ascertain the reciprocal relationships between domestic political unrest, domestic economic performance and foreign military intervention in 140 countries in 1950–96. The theory is supported since, collectively, mature democracies are more prone to use diversionary force and to benefit from it than non-democracies. Interesting nuances appear when specific types of presidential or parliamentary democracies are analysed.

This article tests the applicability of the democratic peace thesis tosub-Saharan African states by examining a ‘politicalinversion’ thesis. This suggests that the domestic politicalframework of African states compels their leaders to engage in internationalconflict, contrary to what the democratic peace thesiests: namely, politicallyopen African states are more likely to fight each other. This conclusion raisesthe issue of the universality of the democratic peace thesis; therefore, theextent to which the democratic peace is evident across other regions of theworld is examined. Empirical analyses of state dyads 1950–2001demonstrate that politically open African states are more likely to fight eachother and, moreover, the democratic peace does not hold in any region outside the West. These findings supportthe political inversion thesis of African conflicts and challenge the suggestionthat the spread of democracy will occasion international peace throughout theworld.

Numerous recent studies have addressed how the investment choices of firms depend on elite perceptions of the quality of national regulatory regimes. Likewise, other studies show that government structures can help to support credible commitments that protect market mechanisms. The authors provide the first analytic discussion of elite perceptions of national regulatory quality as a function of the independence of regulators in a country’s political system. Their central claims are that market operations depend on perceptions of regulatory quality and that independent regulators facilitate elite perceptions of regulatory quality because they check actors in domestic political systems. Cross-national statistical evidence suggests that regulatory independence supports elite perceptions of high regulatory quality. This article also provides evidence that regulatory independence is more likely where political competition shapes incentives to intervene in business markets.

Huntington referred to a ‘clash of civilizations’ revealing itself in international terrorism, particularly in the clash between the Islamic civilization and the West. The authors confront his hypotheses with ones derived from the strategic logic of international terrorism. They predict more terrorism against nationals from countries whose governments support the government of the terrorists’ home country. Like Huntington, they also predict excessive terrorism on Western targets, not because of inter-civilizational conflict per se, but because of the strategic value of Western targets. Contra Huntington, their theory does not suggest that Islamic civilization groups commit more terrorist acts against nationals from other civilizations in general, nor a general increase in inter-civilizational terrorism after the Cold War. The empirical analysis – based on estimations in a directed dyadic country sample, 1969–2005 – broadly supports their theory. In particular, there is not significantly more terrorism from the Islamic against other civilizations in general, nor a structural break in the pattern of international terrorism after the Cold War.

The California recall election of 2003 provides an excellent setting for investigating voter rationality and certain forms of sophisticated voting. In a pre-election telephone survey, 1,500 registered voters were asked to make pairwise comparisons between the major candidates, and their responses were combined to infer preferences. Individuals’ preference orderings over the major candidates rarely exhibited intransitivity. The patterns of tactical voting observed in the replacement part of the recall election were consistent with the declining rate hypothesis. Voters also engaged in ‘hedge voting’ on the recall question itself. The results suggest that voters’ decisions are ‘rationalistic’: while voters are consistent in forming utility-based preference rankings and choosing on that basis, their voting strategies do not incorporate probability assessments in a realistic, consistent fashion, if at all.

Despite decades of research, our understanding of how institutional contextsinfluence urban political participation remains muddled. It is argued here thatthis confusion arises from the diversity of competing hypotheses, failures toconceptualize the causal processes underlying these hypotheses thoroughly, andthe use of inadequate controls for rival hypotheses. A more comprehensivespecification of the relationship between metropolitan jurisdictional contextsand two modes of participation is provided. After a presentation of atheoretical framework organizing the many extant hypotheses, these are tested,using survey data collected by the Knight Foundation from 2002 in twenty-fiveurban counties. Contrary to prior work, it is found that the size of localgovernments is positively associated with participation, while governmentalfragmentation diminishes the propensity for political action.

This article provides a justification of proportional representation (PR) in strictly liberal terms. Previous justifications of proportional representation have tended to be based either on its intuitive fairness to political parties, or on its being fair to social groups. The arguments of critics of PR, we argue, likewise rely on fairness to group identities. In contrast, our result shows that proportionality is logically implied by liberal equality, that is, by the requirement that all individual voters be treated equally. Thus we provide a justification for PR in terms of the theory of voting, similar to May’s theorem for majority rule.

Governing parties generally win fewer votes at European Parliament elections thanat national electionsmost common explanation for this is that European electionsare ‘second order national elections’ acting as mid-termreferendums on government performance. This article proposes an alternative,though complementary, explanation: voters defect because governing parties aregenerally far more pro-European than the typical voter. Additionally, the morethe campaign context primes Eurosceptic sentiments, the more likely voters areto turn against governing parties. A multi-level model is used to test thesepropositions and analyse the effects of individual and contextual factors at the1999 and 2004 European Parliament elections. Both European and domestic concernsmatter to voters; moreover, campaign context plays an important role in shapingvote choices.

A unidimensional spatial model of multiparty parliamentary elections under proportional representation is presented, in which parties project that the median parliamentary party will implement its policy position. The parties are assumed to be uncertain about the electoral impact of valence issues relating to party elites’ images of competence, integrity and charisma. The assumptions of the model, highlighting the importance of the median party in parliament, are consistent with empirical work by McDonald and Budge. Under them, the existence of a Nash equilibrium under quite general concavity conditions is proved and it is shown that parties will moderate their positions when their valence images deteriorate. Computations of party equilibria are reported. The model and its implications for policy-seeking parties with results on vote-seeking parties can be contrasted with that recently reported by Schofield and Sened.

Why was franchise extended to the lower classses and to women? Was it conquered by the excluded groups, threatening that unless they were admitted as citizens they would reach for power by other, revolutionary, means? Or was it voluntarily granted by the incumbent elites? This question is examined statistically, using a new dataset covering the entire world from the inception of representative institutions until now. The general picture that emerges is that the poorer classes fought their way into the representative institutions and, once admitted, they were organized by different political parties. In pursuit of their economic and social goals, these parties sought to enhance their electoral positions, treating the issue of female suffrage as an instrument of electoral competition.

This study examines the media diet of Richard Nixon, whose exposure to the news consisted almost entirely of a White House-produced daily news summary. Nixon staffers repeatedly asserted that the summary was the most effective way to give the president a comprehensive, objective account of the previous day’s reporting. While the summaries covered a wide range of media sources, analysis of the framing and filtering done by the White House raises doubts about the assertion that summaries were an effective substitute for first-hand consumption of the news. Nixon’s handwritten marginal notes reveal that the summaries provoked reactions in the president that had important implications for his conduct of the presidency.

How do majority group members in emerging multicultural and multiracial societies respond to the experience of living amidst ethnic diversity? Recent public opinion surveys are analysed to assess the contextual determinants of English whites’ opinions towards ethnic minorities and immigrants. Multilevel analyses reveal that whites’ racial hostility is affected by local ethnic context; however, the direction of this effect depends on which ethnic minority groups reside in the area. Consistent with the contact hypothesis, whites who live in neighbourhoods with relatively large black populations display lower levels of racial hostility than respondents with few black neighbours. However, in line with racial threat theory, residential proximity to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is associated with more negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities.

Although a substantial philosophical literature exists on the concept of ‘friendship’ and its connections to politics, the possibility that groups such as states could be friends has largely been ignored. This is puzzling since the description of political communities as friends is one that goes back to Thucydides. Moreover, contemporary international politics is replete with references to the concepts of ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’. This article argues that international friendships provide powerful reasons for minimally just states to engage in other-regarding conduct. Drawing on an Aristotelian account of self-interest for inspiration, it is suggested that the same reasons that justify a state’s self-regard also justify its regard for other states. These reasons rest on whether the basic institutions of a state – one’s own or another’s – are minimally just. States, solely because of their character, have reason to enter into different levels of friendship. Those different relationships in turn generate different expectations regarding consultation, security and respect for autonomy.

The formulas for electing presidents and the rules determining the legislativepowers of presidents are important variables for explaining the performance ofpresidential democracies. This article develops a strategic choice model toexplain variations in these institutional features. Based on this model, it isproposed here that constitution makers are likely to opt for more-than-pluralityrules of presidential elections when the number of parties necessary to passconstitutional changes increases. It is also proposed that the makers ofconstitutions are likely to strengthen the legislative powers of the presidentwhen the number of parties necessary to pass constitutional changes increasesand when parties are decentralized. The argument is supported by a statisticalanalysis of the determinants of constitutional choice in Latin America.