Volume 40, Number 3, April 2008

Small firms in the Portuguese pharmacy sector have adjusted remarkably well to regional economic integration, in contrast to the response of other small retailers to the challenges of political and economic liberalization. It is possible for old sectors of small firms to adjust to globalization and preserve individual ownership through an extended politics of sectoral defense. Key strategic elements and institutional preconditions make this politics possible. The article draws on field research on the pharmacy and food retail sectors in Portugal and theoretical analyses on neocorporatism, the third Italy, and varieties of capitalism.

Does proportional representation produce greater minority representation than single member districts? This question can be studied through the ethnic background of legislators elected in the two tiers of the mixed electoral system in Russia. In general, there is no significant difference in the level of minority representation in proportional representation and single member district contests. However, electoral systems have different effects for different ethnic groups. Proportional representation does not provide increased minority representation in party systems devoid of ethnic parties. Moreover, the relationship between minority representation and electoral system is conditioned by the minorities’ demographic and cultural characteristics.

Ethnofederalism has been blamed for secessionism in the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, yet it is also touted as an important way of preventing ethnic conflict. Indeed, ethnofederalism is a double-edged sword, potentially generating both centrifugal and centripetal dynamics. Which way it ultimately cuts depends not only on context and institutions, but also on the undertheorized factor of leadership strategy. A focused process-tracing comparison of four time periods in the most challenging case of Ukraine, each corresponding to a different Soviet leadership strategy, confirms the theory and challenges the common wisdom that secessionism was inexorably rising in the USSR during the year of its disintegration.

Governments in postcommunist Europe are not slaves to their institutions, unable to extend their time in office beyond the constraints imposed by their institutional arrangement. Cabinet duration is tied to performance in office, characterized by economic success. Duration models show that governments in postcommunist Europe are similar to those in western Europe, even though some states lack party institutionalization and strong partisan attachments. Institutional arrangements, including the effective number of parties in government and the type of government, combine with economic performance to affect the survival rates of postcommunist governments.

Historically, faith-based organizations made important contributions in the field of social provision, but with the advent of the modern welfare state their role diminished dramatically. Why has there been renewed interest in the United States and Britain in publicly funded faith-based social provision. Despite significant differences between the two countries, their governments have endorsed strikingly similar faith-based initiatives that have institutionalized the relationship between the state and faith-based organizations. The emergence of faith-based initiatives is one component of welfare state restructuring, more specifically, a response to the growing problem of minority social exclusion in urban areas.

Contrary to many expectations, both capital and labor in China seem to have come to accept–and even support–Chinese Communist rule. Recent works by Bruce Dickson, Mary Gallagher, and Yongshun Cai help to explain why. Simultaneously, the findings of scholars outside of China suggest that the larger answer lies in China’s combination of state-led late development and socialist past. Unlike in earlier developers, the emergence of capitalism in China has brought both greater economic inequality and new forms of dependence on the state. Further, as in postsocialist Russia and East and Central Europe, Chinese citizens show a preference for socialist economic values. Consequently, for both rising and declining sectors, China’s economic reform has created disincentives to oppose the authoritarian political status quo.