Latest Resources
Cultura política de la democracia en Ecuador, 2010: Consolidación democrática en las Américas en tiempos difíciles
Democracy, Latin America and the Carribean, Parliament, Political Parties, Report, Academic/Think TankEste estudio representa la contribución más reciente de la serie de encuestas del Barómetro de las Américas, una de las diversas actividades del Proyecto de Opinión Pública de América Latina (LAPOP), las cuales se han diversificado y ampliado en años recientes. El estudio de 2010 es el más extenso realizado hasta el momento,...
Are swing voters instruments of democracy or farmers of clientelism? Evidence from Ghana
Africa, Article / Working Paper, Democracy, Electoral Systems, Political Parties, Academic/Think TankThis paper states that is one of the first to systematically address the question of whether strength of ethnic identity, political parties’ campaigns, poverty, or evaluation of clientelism versus collective/public goods, determines who becomes a persuadable voter in Africa. The paper conducts an empirical analysis using a unique data set from a survey conducted ahead of Ghana’...
The predatory or virtuous choices governors make: political institutions and economic performance
Article / Working Paper, Democracy, Latin America and the Carribean, Political Parties, Academic/Think TankThis paper explores the idea that political institutions are important determinants of the policies implemented in states. The authors propose a model of the policymaking process and then test its implications with state-level data for the period 1999 to 2006 in Brazil. The focus of the empirical tests is on the impact of political competition and checks and...
Think Tanks and Public Policies in Latin America
Book, Latin America and the Carribean, Political Parties, Public Administration, Academic/Think Tank, Civil SocietyThis book comes out of the “Think tanks and public policies: Global Dynamics and Local Specifications” conference hosted in Buenos Aires on the 21st and 22nd of February, 2006. It is a collection of essays and chapters touching on themes, and coming directly, from the conference. It's goal is to enable politicians, specialists and citizens of...
Are women economically more empowered in Left-run municipalities? A study of Self Help Groups in West Bengal, India
Article / Working Paper, Asia and the Pacific, Governance and Gender, Local Governance and Decentralization, Political Parties, Academic/Think TankIn this article from the Munich Personal RePEc Archive, Zakir Husain, Diganta Mukherjee, and Mousumi Dutta pose the question who controls the income earned by Self Help Group (SHG) members from group activities – they, or their husbands? The answer indicates the level of economic empowerment attained by SHG members. This paper examines whether identity of person...
Which Dictators Produce Quality of Government?
Article / Working Paper, Democracy, Political Parties, Academic/Think TankThis study deals with the effects of authoritarian regimes on state capacity or the quality of government (QoG): do some types of dictatorship (military, monarchy, single-party or personalist) perform better than others? More importantly, which are the mechanisms through which different authoritarian rulers produce better government? The paper argues theoretically, first, that single-party...
Legal Framework and Citizen Participation in South Asia Regional Report
Article / Working Paper, Asia and the Pacific, Civil Society, Democracy, Local Governance and Decentralization, Political Parties, Academic/Think Tank, Civil SocietyThis document is part of a global research initiative undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies, the Ford Foundation and some regional partners through the LOGO Link programme.The document reviews legal frameworks in Bangladesh, India and Nepal to facilitate comparative analysis among various forms of citizen direct and indirect participation. The ancient and rich civilisation of...
Democratic Reforms, Foreign Aid and Production Inefficiency
Article / Working Paper, Democracy, Political Parties, Public Administration, Academic/Think TankThis paper uses a theoretical model and employs panel data techniques to answer a simple question: what is the impact of foreign aid on the production inefficiency of the recipient country conditional on its political governance. We define inefficiency as the distance between the actual production and its potential level given the available input resources and technology. Much of the recent...
Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951-2006
Article / Working Paper, Electoral Systems, Political Parties, Academic/Think TankThis paper examines whether electoral motives and government ideology influence short-term economic performance. I employ data on annual GDP growth in 21 OECD countries over the 1951-2006 period and provide a battery of empirical tests. In countries with two-party systems GDP growth is boosted before elections and, under leftwing governments, in the first two years of a legislative period....
The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: do government ideology and electoral motives matter?
Article / Working Paper, Europe and CIS, Political Parties, Public Administration, Academic/Think TankThis paper empirically evaluates whether government ideology and electoral motives influenced the growth of public health expenditures in 18 OECD countries over the 1971-2004 period. The results suggest that incumbents behaved opportunistically and increased the growth of public health expenditures in election...