Volume 43, Number 4, July 2011

Twenty years after the collapse of communism, a rough consensus in the literature on postcommunist politics is that the past matters. Many questions remain, however, about exactly how, when, and why the past matters, especially in terms of political values and behavior. An original theoretical framework facilitates the consideration of the effect of communist-era legacies on postcommunist political values and behavior. The framework includes a set of mechanisms by which these effects can be transmitted and a set of particular values and behaviors whose legacy effects may be particularly important. Illustrating its utility, the framework is applied to an examination of the issue of trust in political parties.

Despite the fact that China and Vietnam have been the world’s two fastest growing economies over the past two decades, their income inequality patterns are very different. An examination of the political institutions in the two countries shows that profound differences between these polities influence distributional choices. In particular, as compared to China, elite institutions in Vietnam encourage the construction of broader policymaking coalitions, have more competitive selection processes, and place more constraints on executive decision making. As a result, stronger political motivations exist for Vietnamese leaders to provide equalizing transfers that limit inequality growth among provinces than for Chinese leaders.

An increasingly large literature on patronage has developed within political science in recent years. Yet this body of scholarship has thus far failed to explain variation in patronage allocation across countries. An original theory based on the logic of institutional choice, whereby political leaders allocate patronage in accordance with the varying political threats they face, explains this variation. Two variables—geography and visibility—capture this variation and thus explain patronage allocation. The theory is tested and validated through a comparative analysis of Rwanda and Uganda, whose current regimes are remarkably similar in origin and structure. The analysis extends to previous regimes in both countries.

What explains the range of nonvictorious outcomes experienced by rebel groups in civil wars? Varying combinations of two structural factors produce different types of rebel groups, whose organizational configurations predict their outcomes. These factors are the external resources provided by cross-border support networks found within regional state systems, and the status reversal grievances produced by the politics of fragmented authority in weak states. Insurgent types are then associated with a given level politico-military effectiveness and a corresponding fate. Eight Ugandan insurgencies illustrate variation in outcomes across groups within a context of contentious domestic and regional politics that controls for the state, regime, and time period.

Corruption has become a key concern throughout the world. Most of what is known about corruption comes from instances in which misdeeds become public, generating a scandal. Why do some acts of corruption become scandals and others do not? Corruption scandals are not triggered by corruption, but rather are initially caused by dynamics of political competition within government. Insiders leak information on misdeeds in order to gain power within the coalition or party in power. A powerful opposition, contrary to common belief, acts as a constraint for insiders, making corruption scandals less likely. These arguments are evaluated using empirical evidence from Argentina and Chile (1989–2008). The findings support the notion that corruption scandals emerge as a consequence of political competition.

Assessing four recent books on participatory budgeting and other participatory innovations in Latin America, this review article identifies these works as illustrative of a “second generation” of scholarship on what the author calls the “Participatory Promise.” Following upon the first generation of mostly single case studies of mostly successful cases, this second generation of scholarship tends to draw on a wealth of data from multiple comparable cases, both successful and unsuccessful. The end result is a clear social scientific advancement in understanding these real-world political phenomena that have demanded the attention of analysts and practitioners of contemporary democracy in Latin America for the last two decades.