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Why do vote-suppression efforts sometimes fail? Why does police
repression of demonstrators sometimes turn localized protests into
massive, national movements? How do politicians and activists
manipulate people's emotions to get them involved? The authors of
Why Bother? offer a new theory of why people take part in
collective action in politics, and test it in the contexts of
voting and protesting. They develop the idea that just as there are
costs of participation in politics, there are also costs of
abstention - intrinsic and psychological but no less real. That
abstention can be psychically costly helps explain real-world
patterns that are anomalies for existing theories, such as that
sometimes increases in costs of participation are followed by more
participation, not less. The book draws on a wealth of survey data,
interviews, and experimental results from a range of countries,
including the United States, Britain, Brazil, Sweden, and Turkey.
In this vivid ethnography set in contemporary Peru, Susan Stokes
provides a compelling analysis of the making and unmaking of class
consciousness among the urban poor. Her research strategy is
multifaceted; through interviews, participant observation, and
survey research she digs deeply into the popular culture of the
social activists and shantytown residents she studies. The result
is a penetrating look at how social movements evolve, how poor
people construct independent political cultures, and how the
ideological domination of oppressed classes can shatter.
This work is a new and vital chapter in the growing literature on
the formation of social movements. It chronicles the transformation
of Peru's poor from a culture of deference and clientelism in the
late 1960s to a population mobilized for radical political action
today.
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics offers a critical
survey of the field of empirical political science through the
collection of a set of chapters written by 48 top scholars in the
discipline of comparative politics. Part I includes chapters
surveying the key research methodologies employed in comparative
politics (the comparative method; the use of history; the practice
and status of case-study research; the contributions of field
research) and assessing the possibility of constructing a science
of comparative politics. Parts II to IV examine the foundations of
political order: the origins of states and the extent to which they
relate to war and to economic development; the sources of
compliance or political obligation among citizens; democratic
transitions, the role of civic culture; authoritarianism;
revolutions; civil wars and contentious politics. Parts V and VI
explore the mobilization, representation and coordination of
political demands. Part V considers why parties emerge, the forms
they take and the ways in which voters choose parties. It then
includes chapters on collective action, social movements and
political participation. Part VI opens up with essays on the
mechanisms through which political demands are aggregated and
coordinated. This sets the agenda to the systematic exploration of
the workings and effects of particular institutions: electoral
systems, federalism, legislative-executive relationships, the
judiciary and bureaucracy. Finally, Part VII is organized around
the burgeoning literature on macropolitical economy of the last two
decades.
Why do vote-suppression efforts sometimes fail? Why does police
repression of demonstrators sometimes turn localized protests into
massive, national movements? How do politicians and activists
manipulate people's emotions to get them involved? The authors of
Why Bother? offer a new theory of why people take part in
collective action in politics, and test it in the contexts of
voting and protesting. They develop the idea that just as there are
costs of participation in politics, there are also costs of
abstention - intrinsic and psychological but no less real. That
abstention can be psychically costly helps explain real-world
patterns that are anomalies for existing theories, such as that
sometimes increases in costs of participation are followed by more
participation, not less. The book draws on a wealth of survey data,
interviews, and experimental results from a range of countries,
including the United States, Britain, Brazil, Sweden, and Turkey.
Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism addresses major questions in
distributive politics. Why is it acceptable for parties to try to
win elections by promising to make certain groups of people better
off, but unacceptable - and illegal - to pay people for their
votes? Why do parties often lavish benefits on loyal voters, whose
support they can count on anyway, rather than on responsive swing
voters? Why is vote buying and machine politics common in today's
developing democracies but a thing of the past in most of today's
advanced democracies? This book develops a theory of
broker-mediated distribution to answer these questions, testing the
theory with research from four developing democracies, and reviews
a rich secondary literature on countries in all world regions. The
authors deploy normative theory to evaluate whether clientelism,
pork-barrel politics, and other non-programmatic distributive
strategies can be justified on the grounds that they promote
efficiency, redistribution, or voter participation.
Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism addresses major questions in
distributive politics. Why is it acceptable for parties to try to
win elections by promising to make certain groups of people better
off, but unacceptable - and illegal - to pay people for their
votes? Why do parties often lavish benefits on loyal voters, whose
support they can count on anyway, rather than on responsive swing
voters? Why is vote buying and machine politics common in today's
developing democracies but a thing of the past in most of today's
advanced democracies? This book develops a theory of
broker-mediated distribution to answer these questions, testing the
theory with research from four developing democracies, and reviews
a rich secondary literature on countries in all world regions. The
authors deploy normative theory to evaluate whether clientelism,
pork-barrel politics, and other non-programmatic distributive
strategies can be justified on the grounds that they promote
efficiency, redistribution, or voter participation.
Political representation lies at the core of modern politics.
Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate
without representative institutions. Yet relations between the
democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political
representation have never been well defined and remain the subject
of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers,
and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move
forward the debates about political representation on a number of
fronts. Drawing on insights from political science, history,
political theory, economics, and anthropology, the authors provide
much-needed clarity to some of the most vexing questions about
political representation. They also reveal new and enlightening
perspectives on this fundamental political practice. Topics
discussed include representation before democracy, political
parties, minorities, electoral competition, and ideology. This
volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideal and
the reality of political representation.
Do people in new democracies that are undergoing market reforms turn against these reforms when the economic adjustment is painful? The conventional wisdom is that they will. According to "economic voting" models, citizens punish elected governments for bad economic performance. The contributors to this collection, in contrast, begin with the insight that citizens in new democracies may have good reasons to depart from the predictions of economic voting. They use state-of-the-art statistical techniques to analyze changes in aggregate support levels, as reflected in public opinion polls, in response to changes in inflation, unemployment, production, and wages. They find that public opinion of reforms does not always conform to the expectations of the economic voting model.
Does it matter when politicians ignore the promises they made and the preferences of their constituents? If politicians want to be reelected or see their party reelected at the end of their term, why would they impose unpopular policies? Susan Stokes explores these questions by developing a model of policy switches and then testing it with statistical and qualitative data from Latin American elections over the past two decades. She concludes that politicians may change policies because unpopular policies are best for constituents and hence also will best serve their own political ambitions.
Do people in new democracies that are undergoing market reforms turn against these reforms when the economic adjustment is painful? The conventional wisdom is that they will. According to "economic voting" models, citizens punish elected governments for bad economic performance. The contributors to this collection, in contrast, begin with the insight that citizens in new democracies may have good reasons to depart from the predictions of economic voting. They use state-of-the-art statistical techniques to analyze changes in aggregate support levels, as reflected in public opinion polls, in response to changes in inflation, unemployment, production, and wages. They find that public opinion of reforms does not always conform to the expectations of the economic voting model.
This book examines whether the mechanisms of accountability
characteristic of democratic systems are sufficient to induce the
representatives to act in the best interest of the represented. The
first part of the volume focuses on the role of elections,
distinguishing different ways in which they may cause
representation. The second part is devoted to the role of checks
and balances, between the government and the parliament as well as
between the government and the bureaucracy. The contributors of
this volume, all leading scholars in the fields of American and
comparative politics and political theory, address questions such
as, whether elections induce governments to act in the interest of
citizens. Are politicians in democracies accountable to voters in
future elections? If so, does accountability induce politicians to
represent citizens? Does accountability limit or enhance the scope
of action of governments? Are governments that violate campaign
mandates representative? Overall, the essays combine theoretical
discussions, game-theoretic models, case studies, and statistical
analyses, within a shared analytical approach and a standardized
terminology. The empirical material is drawn from the well
established democracies as well as from new democracies.
Political representation lies at the core of modern politics.
Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate
without representative institutions. Yet relations between the
democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political
representation have never been well defined and remain the subject
of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers,
and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move
forward the debates about political representation on a number of
fronts. Drawing on insights from political science, history,
political theory, economics, and anthropology, the authors provide
much-needed clarity to some of the most vexing questions about
political representation. They also reveal new and enlightening
perspectives on this fundamental political practice. Topics
discussed include representation before democracy, political
parties, minorities, electoral competition, and ideology. This
volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideal and
the reality of political representation.
Does it matter when politicians ignore the promises they made and the preferences of their constituents? If politicians want to be reelected or see their party reelected at the end of their term, why would they impose unpopular policies? Susan Stokes explores these questions by developing a model of policy switches and then testing it with statistical and qualitative data from Latin American elections over the past two decades. She concludes that politicians may change policies because unpopular policies are best for constituents and hence also will best serve their own political ambitions.
This book examines whether mechanisms of accountability characteristic of democratic systems are sufficient to induce the representatives to act in the best interest of the represented. The first part of the volume focuses on the role of elections, distinguishing different ways in which they may cause representation. The second part is devoted to the role of checks and balances, between the government and the parliament as well as between the government and the bureaucracy. Overall, the essays combine theoretical discussions, game-theoretic models, case studies, and statistical analyses, within a shared analytical approach and a standardized terminology. The empirical material is drawn from the well established democracies as well as from new democracies.
Some theorists claim that democracy cannot work without trust.
According to this argument, democracy fails unless citizens trust
that their governing institutions are serving their best interests.
Similarly, some assert that democracy works best when people trust
one another and have confidence that politicians will look after
citizen interests. Questioning such claims, Democracy and the
Culture of Skepticism, by Matthew Cleary and Susan Stokes, suggests
that skepticism, not trust, is the hallmark of political culture in
well-functioning democracies. Drawing on extensive research in two
developing democracies, Argentina and Mexico, Democracy and the
Culture of Skepticism shows that in regions of each country with
healthy democracies, people do not trust one another more than
those living in regions where democracy functions less well, nor do
they display more personal trust in governments or politicians.
Instead, the defining features of the healthiest democracies are
skepticism of government and a belief that politicians act in their
constituents' best interest only when it is personally advantageous
for them to do so. In contrast to scholars who lament what they see
as a breakdown in civic life, Cleary and Stokes find that people
residing in healthy democracies do not participate more in civic
organizations than others, but in fact, tend to retreat from civic
life in favor of private pursuits. The authors conclude that
governments are most efficient and responsive when they know that
institutions such as the press or an independent judiciary will
hold them accountable for their actions. The question of how much
citizens should trust politicians and governments has consumed
political theorists since America's founding. In Democracy and the
Culture of Skepticism, Matthew Cleary and Susan Stokes test the
relationship between trust and the quality of governance, showing
that it is not trust, but vigilance and skepticism that provide the
foundation for well-functioning democracies.
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