John Sidel, "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Revisited: Colonial State and Chinese Immigrant in the Making of Modern Southeast Asia"
Barrington Moore, Jr., argued that a vigorous and independent bourgeoisie is a necessary, if insufficient, condition for democracy. This article addresses this thesis through a comparative analysis of class formation in Southeast Asia. Colonial era state policies towards immigrant Chinese merchant minorities shaped the diverging capacities and inclinations of capitalist classes in the region to assert themselves in political life and to assume control over state power. The variegated identities and strengths of the capitalist classes of Southeast Asia have prefigured enduring authoritarian rule in most countries in the region over the past several decades, while enabling democratic rule in the Philippines, Thailand, and, in recent years, Indonesia.
Frances Hagopian, "Latin American Catholicism in an Age of Religious and Political Pluralism: A Framework for Analysis"
This article identifies and proposes a framework to explain the responses of Latin America’s Roman Catholic churches to a new strategic dilemma posed by religious and political pluralism. Because the church’s goals of defending institutional interests, evangelizing, promoting public morality, and grounding public policy in Catholic social teaching cut across existing political cleavages, church leaders must make strategic choices about which to emphasize in their messages to the faithful, investment of pastoral resources, and alliances. The article presents a typology of episcopal responses based on Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico and explains strategic choices by the church’s capacity to mobilize civil society, its degree of religious hegemony, and the ideological orientations of Catholics.
Gary L Goodman and Jonathan T. Hiskey, "Exit without Leaving: Political Disengagement in High Migration Municipalities in Mexico"
As Mexico continues to democratize amid an unprecedented wave of migration, the increasing levels of migration have affected the political attitudes and behaviors of those left behind. Municipal and individual level data strongly attest to the process of disengagement among citizens in high migration municipalities from the national political system as a transnational community comes to the fore. High migration municipalities exhibit lower voter turnout rates, and individuals in high migration areas report lower levels of political efficacy, participate less in politics, and rely more on participation in local community groups than their counterparts in less migratory towns.
Ozge Kemahlioglu, "Particularistic Distribution of Investment Subsidies under coalition Governments: The Case of Turkey"
Governments can provide investment subsidies to private business to stimulate growth and production. Rent seeking by politicians has threatened the success of this strategy especially in developing countries like Turkey. Particularistic allocation of these subsidies by politicians has been a concern, but the influence of electoral incentives on these particularistic exchanges has not been systematically analyzed. Responsibility sharing and credit claiming mechanisms under coalition governments are expected to give different electoral incentives to politicians. Investment subsidies in Turkey between 1992 and 1997 reveal that districts where the coalition partner that is not in control of distributing subsidies is strong have received a relatively smaller number of subsidies.
Lianjiang Li, "Political Trust and Petitioning in the Chinese Countryside"
What is the significance of distinguishing trust in government’s commitment from trust in its competence in understanding the relationship between political trust and political participation? Chinese farmers have more trust in the central government’s commitment to protect their rights and interests than in its capacity to do so. Trust in the center’s competence carries more weight than trust in its commitment in accounting for the propensity to petition. Petitioning tends to weaken trust in the center’s capacity as well as trust in its commitment. Distrust in the center’s commitment enhances the propensity to engage in more assertive forms of political participation.
Review Article: Lisa Hilbink, "Assessing the New Constitutionalism"
Initial scholarly exuberance over the global spread of bills of rights and judicial review has given way to a spate of studies that bemoan the trend as fundamentally antidemocratic. This review offers an empirically informed critique of these new, more skeptical studies. It highlights ways in which selection and tenure rules for high court judges vary across cases, describes a number of institutional mechanisms designed to mitigate judicial supremacy in different countries, and offers examples of the ways that some new constitutionalist countries have sought to facilitate popular access to courts and to charge courts with protecting popular interests. More comparative work on the effects of this variation on political practice and policy outcomes would be welcome.