Members of some legislatures enjoy long political careers, whereas elsewhere turnover is rampant. This variation is consequential since high-incumbency assemblies may facilitate legislative expertise at the expense of social representation. We explore cross-national differences in re-election (incumbency) rates by identifying ‘supply’ conditions such as legislative resources that benefit incumbents as well as ‘demand’ conditions such as political corruption that affect voters' willingness to re-elect incumbents. We hypothesize that legislative perquisites help incumbents win re-election, but only if there is relatively high public confidence in politics, as reflected in low corruption levels. We tested our argument using OLS and instrumental variable regression and new global data on sixty-eight democracies (2000–18) covering 288 elections and over 55,000 legislators. We found that legislative resources help incumbents get re-elected only under relatively low levels of political corruption. In contrast, under severe corruption, such resources can depress re-election rates.

In this research, I apply and extend Kohli's (2004) state-directed development framework to better understand country-level factors influencing cross-national differences in job characteristics and job satisfaction. Prior research has indicated that the nature of work has changed dramatically in recent years in response to economic shifts and an increasingly global economy. However, there is little agreement on whether the overall quality of work has improved or declined over that period and little is known about the overall comparative quality of work and job satisfaction across the global economy. In this study I use non-panel longitudinal data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 – survey questions on job characteristics and job quality) and various country-contextual variables. This article explores the impact of state-directed development on job satisfaction, first identifying and explaining the foundations of the statist literature, and then using various statistical methods to test for statistically significant impact and variation across countries.

In this research, I apply and extend Kohli's state-directed development framework to better understand country-level factors influencing cross-national differences in job characteristics and job satisfaction. Prior research has indicated that the nature of work has changed dramatically in recent years in response to economic shifts and an increasingly global economy. However, there is little agreement on whether the overall quality of work has improved or declined over that period and little is known about the overall comparative quality of work and job satisfaction across the global economy. In this study I use non-panel longitudinal data from the International Social Survey Program (survey questions on job characteristics and job quality) and various country-contextual variables. This article explores the impact of state-directed development on job satisfaction, first identifying and explaining the foundations of the statist literature, and then using various statistical methods to test for statistically significant impact and variation across countries.

The contemporary discussion about the growing ‘burden of population ageing’ should not neglect the substantial productive potential of older people. Using micro-data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this paper examines the relationships between selected socio-demographic characteristics and the rates of participation in voluntary work in 10 European countries among those aged 50 or more years. The analysis reveals a clear spatial pattern, with relatively high participation rates in Northern Europe and relatively low participation rates in Mediterranean countries, and shows that age, education, health and involvement in other social activities strongly influence an individual's propensity to engage in volunteer work. A multivariate logistic regression provided no indication that the country differences can be explained by variations in population composition or attributes, such as the age structure or differences in health status. The findings have important implications for future cross-national research and for policies to promote the participation of older adults in voluntary work, and suggest that policies and programmes to encourage older citizens to make greater use of their productive capacities are feasible. It is concluded that further research needs to account for the influences of institutions and culture on participation in volunteering, the finding of this paper.