Findings

Legitimacy

Kevin Lewis

September 26, 2018

Citizens and Condemnation: Strategic Uses of International Human Rights Pressure in Authoritarian States
Jamie Gruffydd-Jones
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming

Abstract:

Governments with strict control over the information that their citizens hear from foreign sources are regular targets of human rights pressure, but we know little about how this information matters in the domestic realm. I argue that authoritarian regimes strategically pass on certain types of external pressure to their public to “internationalize” human rights violations, making citizens view human rights in terms of defending their nation internationally rather than in terms of individual violations, and making them more likely to be satisfied with their government’s behavior. I find strong support for this model through statistical analysis of Chinese state media reports of external human rights pressure and a survey experiment on Chinese citizens’ responses to pressure on women’s rights. This analysis demonstrates that authoritarian regimes may be able to manipulate international human rights diplomacy to help them retain the support of their population while suppressing their human rights.


Keeping Vigil: The Emergence of Vigilance Committees in Pre-Civil War America
Jonathan Obert & Eleonora Mattiacci
Perspectives on Politics, September 2018, Pages 600-616

Abstract:

What explains the emergence of organized private enforcement in the United States? We study the formation of vigilance committees — that is, coercive groups organized in a manner not officially sanctioned by state law and with the purpose of establishing legal and moral claims. We argue that these committees were primarily intended to help create civic political identities in contexts of social ambiguity and institutional instability, what we call social frontiers. Relying on quantitative and qualitative analysis, we find that these committees were more likely to form in contexts where levels of ethno-nationalist heterogeneity were high and where political institutions had recently changed. Contrary to common wisdom, vigilance committees were much more than functionalist alternatives to an absent state, or local orders established by bargaining, or responses to social or economic conflict. They constituted flexible instruments to counteract environments characterized by social and political uncertainty.


Envy and the Islamic revival: Experimental evidence from Tunisia
Maleke Fourati
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming

Abstract:

I design and conduct a survey with an embedded lab-in-the-field experiment to test whether envy triggers popular support for the Islamic revival using a nationally representative sample of 600 Tunisians. Individuals exposed to high inequality may feel envious if they perceive that the success of others is granted rather than earned. Thus, envious individuals may be motivated to engage in religious and political activities to cope with their feelings. I trigger the sentiment of envy with a 2  ×  2 design by interacting a priming video and low stakes. I find that individuals in the envy treatment donate a larger proportion of their endowment to a politically involved religious charity, my measure of support for the Islamic revival. Overall, my experimental findings, consistent with survey data, confirm the idea that envy is an important determinant of popular support for the Islamic revival, even after controlling for religiosity.


Receiving Foreign Aid Can Reduce Support for Incumbent Presidents
Ryan Briggs
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming 

Abstract:

Foreign aid is thought to be useful, and therefore desirable, to recipient governments because it allows them to increase their support through the provision of goods or services. However, the effect of the provision of aid on vote choice has rarely been directly tested. I examine the effect of receiving foreign aid on incumbent electoral support in three African countries using a spatial difference in differences design. Surprisingly, receiving aid lowers support for incumbent presidents. I test two mechanisms that could produce this result and find support for a mechanism where aid reduces one’s opinion of the incumbent, perhaps because aid does not live up to expectations. I discuss the implications of this result for research on the political effects of foreign aid and electoral accountability.


The Price of Collaboration: How Authoritarian States Retain Control
Barbara Piotrowska
University of Oxford Working Paper, August 2018

Abstract:

To understand state control, we need to consider the actions of both citizens and the regime. One way authoritarian regimes maintain control is through covert repression, in particular through the use of informants. This paper uses an original dataset containing information from a sample of almost 300 informants to East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to shed light on the way in which an authoritarian system uses informants to counter the effect of a destabilizing factor. I consider both the supply of potential informants, arising from the society, and the Stasi's demand for them. In theory, a destabilizing factor such as exposure to West German TV lowers the supply of informants and increases the demand for them. As a result, the price offered for informant services increases. The equilibrium effect on the number of informants is theoretically indeterminate. The results of the data analysis are consistent with the theory.


Swiss watch cycles: Evidence of corruption during leadership transition in China
Lan Xiaohuan & Li Wei
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming

Abstract:

This paper presents evidence of corruption during China's leadership transitions when governmental positions are open for competition. The import value of luxury watches, a popular medium for corrupt exchanges, peaked during regular leadership transitions in 1996–97, 2001–02, and 2006–07. However, imports of nonluxury watches and other luxury items unpopular for corrupt exchanges did not exhibit the same cycle. Nor did imports of luxury watches increase in Hong Kong, Singapore, or the US. During the leadership transition of 2011–12, since wearing a conspicuous luxury watch was by then likely to be exposed on social media and trigger an anti-corruption investigation, this “Swiss watch cycle” vanished.


Nationalism on Weibo: Towards a Multifaceted Understanding of Chinese Nationalism
Yinxian Zhang, Jiajun Liu & Ji-Rong Wen
China Quarterly, September 2018, Pages 758-783 

Abstract:

It appears that nationalism has been on the rise in China in recent years, particularly among online communities. Scholars agree that the Chinese government is facing pressure from online nationalistic and pro-democracy forces; however, it is believed that of the two, nationalistic views are the more dominant. Online nationalism is believed to have pushed the Chinese government to be more aggressive in diplomacy. This study challenges this conventional wisdom by finding that online political discourse is not dominated by nationalistic views, but rather by anti-regime sentiments. Even when there is an outpouring of nationalist sentiment, it may be accompanied by pro-democracy views that criticize the government. By analysing more than 6,000 tweets from 146 Chinese opinion leaders on Weibo, and by decomposing nationalistic discussion by specific topic, this study shows that rather than being monolithically xenophobic, nationalists may have differing sets of views regarding China's supposed rivals. Rather than being supportive of the regime, nationalists may incorporate liberal values to challenge the government. Nonetheless, this liberal dominance appears to provoke a backlash of nationalism among certain groups.


What inverted U can do for your country: A curvilinear relationship between confidence in the social system and political engagement
Aleksandra Cichocka et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming

Abstract:

We examined the link between political engagement and the tendency to justify the sociopolitical system. On one hand, confidence in the system should be negatively related to political engagement, insofar as it entails reduced desire for social change; on the other hand, system confidence should also be positively related to political engagement to the extent that it carries an assumption that the system is responsive to citizens’ political efforts. Because of the combination of these 2 opposing forces, the motivation for political engagement should be highest at intermediate levels of system confidence. Five studies revealed a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and normative political engagement. In 2 representative surveys, Polish participants with moderate levels of system confidence were more likely to vote in political elections (Study 1) and to participate in solidarity-based collective action (Study 2). Two field studies demonstrated a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and actual participation in political demonstrations (gender equality and teachers’ protests in Poland; Studies 3 and 4). This pattern of results was further corroborated by analyses of data from 50 countries drawn from the World Value Survey: we observed negative quadratic relationships between system confidence and collective action as well as voting. These relationships were stronger in democratic (vs. nondemocratic) regimes (Study 5). Our results suggest that some degree of system confidence might be useful to stimulate political engagement within the norms of the system.


How to Sell a Coup: Elections as Coup Legitimation
Sharan Grewal & Yasser Kureshi
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming

Abstract:

Unlike other political leaders, leaders coming to power through military coups face a dual legitimation challenge: they must justify not only why they should rule but also how they came to power. Little attention has been paid to how coup leaders solve this legitimacy deficit and even less to the audiences of this legitimation. We ask: why do some coup leaders legitimate their coups by holding elections while others do not? Counterintuitively, we argue that coup leaders who oust democratically elected leaders are less likely to hold elections, except when tied to US military aid. We test these hypotheses through a data set of military coup regimes from 1946 to 2014 and trace out mechanisms through case studies of the Nigerian coup of 1983 and the Egyptian coup of 2013. This argument provides a new explanation for the emergence of authoritarian elections and a new perspective on the international dimensions of dictatorship.


Electoral Contestation: A Comprehensive Polity-Level Analysis
John Gerring et al.
University of Texas Working Paper, August 2018

Abstract:

The study of electoral contestation generally focuses on districts or regions rather than polities. We present a new dataset that measures electoral contestation through historical records of elections in sovereign and semi-sovereign polities throughout the world from 1789 to the present. We also offer a new index of contestation intended to capture multiple dimensions of this complex concept. Our second objective is to explain variation across polities and through time in electoral contestation. We argue that the degree of contestation in a polity is affected by demography, with larger polities fostering greater electoral contestation. This hypothesis is tested with a series of cross-national regression tests that employ a variety of specifications and estimators – cross-sectional, fixed-effect, and instrumental variable. We find a robust association between population and contestation extending throughout the modern era.


We Comply with a Little Help from Our Friends: Human Rights, Development Aid, and Well-Being
Wade Cole & Megan Reynolds
Social Forces, forthcoming

Abstract:

Scholars debate whether human rights treaties and foreign aid are effective in achieving their stated objectives. Using data on more than 100 developing countries over a 20- to 40-year period, we analyze the independent and interactive effects of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and development assistance (general and health-specific) on three population health outcomes: infant mortality rates, life expectancy at birth, and caloric consumption. Pooled OLS and two-way fixed-effects analyses demonstrate that, in conjunction with development assistance for health, being party to the ICESCR improves survival-related outcomes; this is especially true for infant mortality. These findings do not appear to be driven by selection effects (with respect to ICESCR ratification) or simultaneity bias (with respect to aid receipt). In some cases, targeted aid promotes compliance with a human rights treaty that is otherwise difficult to implement; in other cases, ICESCR membership steers aid effects in different directions. Our findings challenge received wisdoms regarding the ineffectiveness of international human rights law and foreign aid.


Pitfalls of Professionalism? Military Academies and Coup Risk
Tobias Böhmelt, Abel Escribà-Folch & Ulrich Pilster
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming

Abstract:

Military academies tend to be strongly linked to the professionalization of the armed forces. This explains why many countries in the world have created such institutions. The following article studies a potential negative externality stemming from military schools: increased coup risk. We argue that military academies may create, inculcate, and strengthen cohesive views that could conflict with incumbent policies, and that these schools establish networks among military officers that may facilitate coordination necessary for plotting a putsch. We also contend and empirically demonstrate that these negative side effects of military academies are in particular pronounced in nondemocracies, that is, military academies have diverse effects across regime types. This work has significant implications for our understanding civil–military relations. Furthermore, we contribute to the literature on military education and professionalization, as we suggest that military academies are important vehicles through which coups can emerge predominantly in authoritarian states.


The Carolingians, the Church, and the medieval constitution
Andrew Young
Social Science Journal, forthcoming

Abstract:

In the eighth century, Charles Martel confiscated Church property to make distributions of benefices and precaria to his vassals. This project was an investment in state capacity and secularizations of Church property were continued under Charles’ son Pippin III. Many scholars have characterized this development as the expansion of Carolingian (monarchical) authority at the expense of the Church and to the benefit of the lay nobility. I argue that a better characterization is one of constitutional bargains that, taken together, benefited the Church as well as the Carolingians and their noble vassals. This opportunity for mutually beneficial constitutional exchange arose because of a decrease in the importance of trade relative to landed wealth and the increased papal insecurity resulting from Muslim and Lombard threats.


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