Political Science Faculty Publications

Party Linkages and Economic Policy: An Examination of Indira Gandhi’s India

Charles R. Hankla — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:57:39 PDT

We know from observation that some democracies intervene deeply in their domestic economies while others adopt a more laissez faire approach. Can we explain these differences solely with ideology, or are other political influences also at work? I argue in this paper that elected leaders sometimes opt for hefty economic regulation purely to generate sources of patronage that can be used to maintain their political positions. Leaders are most tempted to take this approach, I contend, when their political parties are not stably linked to sources of electoral support. Unstably linked governing parties will tend to have very short time horizons, focusing on the immediate objective of avoiding massive vote losses in the next election. As a result, they will be less concerned with the potential future damage that a patronage-based policy may inflict on the national economy. I find support for this argument with a close examination of Indian economic policy under Indira Gandhi. Prime Minister Gandhi, I contend, increased the Indian state’s control over trade, industrial production, and credit allocation just as the Congress Party’s linkages to the electorate were destabilizing.

Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq"

Jason Reifler et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:32 PDT

In this article, we argue that the public will tolerate significant numbers of U.S. combat casualties under certain circumstances. To be sure, the public is not indifferent to the human costs of American foreign policy, but casualties have not by themselves driven public attitudes toward the Iraq war, and mounting casualties have not always produced a reduction in public support. The Iraq case suggests that under the right conditions, the public will continue to support military operations even when they come with a relatively high human cost. Our core argument is that the U.S. public’s tolerance for the human costs of war is primarily shaped by the intersection of two crucial attitudes: beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of the war, and beliefs about a war’s likely success. The impact of each attitude depends upon the other. Ultimately, however, we and that beliefs about the likelihood of success matter most in determining the public’s willingness to tolerate U.S. military deaths in combat.

Foreign Policy and the Electoral Connection

Jason Reifler et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:31 PDT

Public opinion is central to representation, democratic accountability, and decision making. Yet, the public was long believed to be relatively uninterested in foreign affairs, absent an immediate threat to safety and welfare. It had become conventional to say that "voting ends at water's edge." We start the examination of the scholarly understanding of the role of foreign affairs in public opinion and voting at that low point of view. Much subsequent development saw an increasing degree of holding and using of attitudes and beliefs about foreign affairs among the public. Moving in parallel with developments in political psychology, theoretical and methodological advances led to an increasingly widely shared view that the public holds reasonably sensible and nuanced views, that these help shape their political behaviors, and that these, in turn, help shape and constrain foreign policy making.

Casualties, Polls, and the Iraq War

Jason Reifler et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:30 PDT

In their article “Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq,” Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, and Jason Reifler attempt to flush out the relationship between public opinion and the use of force as it pertains to the Iraq war.1 The authors promote the following proposition: “Our thesis is that expectations of future success are the key determinants of public casualty tolerance. That is, the U.S. public can accept that the war is not yet won and will involve continued and even mounting costs, provided that events thus far are not convincing it that eventual success is impossible” (p. 24). This statement actually contains two theses. First, public support for a military operation will not necessarily wane in the face of rising casualties.2 Second, the public’s tolerance for casualties is most affected by its expectation of victory (i.e., ultimate strategic success). These theses are consistent with Feaver and Gelpi’s argument in their earlier work: “Casualty phobia is not the dominant feature of the general public. On the contrary, policymakers can tap into a large reservoir of support for missions, even missions that entail a fairly high human price, provided those missions are successful. The public is defeat phobic, not casualty phobic.”3 Applying this argument to Iraq, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler assert that, as long as Americans expect victory, they will tolerate mounting casualties and thus support the war. Put another way, they claim that opposition to the Iraq war is driven not by casualties per se, but by the expectation of failure: “When the public believes that the mission will succeed, it continues to support the mission, even as costs mount. When the public thinks victory is unlikely, even small costs will cause support to plummet” (pp. 15–16). To test their theses, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler begin by trying to establish that rising casualties do not necessarily produce a corresponding drop in public support. To do this, they tracked presidential approval ratings against casualties over a twenty-month period (from March 2003 through October 2004) and divided this period into three phases of the war.

Iraq the Vote: Retrospective and Prospective Foreign Policy Judgments on Candidate Choice and Casualty Tolerance

Jason Reifler et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:29 PDT

In this article, we model the effect of foreign policy attitudes on both vote choice and casualty tolerance, using survey data collected during the 2004 election. We show that prospective judgments of the likelihood of success in Iraq and retrospective judgments of whether the war in Iraq was right are significant determinants of both vote choice and casualty tolerance. The prospective judgment of success is key in predicting casualty tolerance, while retrospective judgment of whether the war was right takes precedence in determining vote choice. In addition, there is an important interaction between the two variables, so the effect of one is conditional on the value of the other. We believe this is compelling evidence that foreign policy matters, and that it matters in reasonable ways.

Building Networks from the Outside In: Japanese NGOs and the Kyoto Climate Change Conference

Kim D. Reimann — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:28 PDT

This chapter looks at changing patterns of Japanese environmental NGOs active in the international sphere and argues that in the early 1990s changes in the international realm provided activists new opportunities and frameworks that allowed them to overcome steep domestic organizational barriers and participate in new activities focused on global environmental issues. Building upon recent work done by sociologists and political scientists, it outlines how international opportunity, transational diffusion, and international socialization of state actors have encouraged the growth of NGOs and new forms of social action.

Up to No Good? Recent Critics and Critiques of NGOs

Kim D. Reimann — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:27 PDT

This chapter examines the various criticisms of NGOs and calls attention to both the validity of these criticisms as well as contradictions and inconsistencies. Critics of NGOs can be found across the political spectrum, ranging from rightists who object to NGOs in principle to leftists who criticize NGOs for their failures to advance a progressive agenda or for deferring to government preferences. Despite their ideological differences and ultimate objectives, however, critics are remarkably similar in terms of many of their main complaints about NGOs. During the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, a clearly defined set of critiques of NGOs have appeared focusing on: (1) their performance and actual effectiveness, (2) accountability issues, (3) issues of autonomy, (4) commercialization, and (5) ideological and/or political interpretations of their rising influence. Now appearing with increasing regularity and frequency in the academic literature, the policy world, and the popular press, these critiques have been directed towards not only NGOs working in the area of conflict resolution (the main subject of this book), but to all NGOs: advocacy NGOs, service NGOs, and NGOs working in various issues areas. In order to provide both a comprehensive and a refined examination of the debate, this chapter will present the major criticisms of NGOs in general, while distinguishing critiques as they apply to various types of NGOs.

A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs

Kim D. Reimann — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:26 PDT

This article provides a "top-down" explanation for the rapid growth of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the postwar period, focusing on two aspects of political globalization. First, I argue that international political opportunities in the form of funding and political access have expanded enormously in the postwar period and provided a structural environment highly conducive to NGO growth. Secondly, I present a norm-based argument and trace the rise of a pro-NGO norm in the 1980s and 1990s among donor states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), which has actively promoted the spread of NGOs to non-Western countries. The article ends with a brief discussion of the symbiotic relationship among NGOs, IGOs, and states promoting international cooperation.

Party Strength and International Trade: A Cross National Analysis

Charles Robert Hankla — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:25 PDT

We know from observation that some democracies intervene deeply in their domestic economies while others adopt a more laissez faire approach. Can we explain these differences solely with ideology, or are other political influences also at work? I argue in this paper that elected leaders sometimes opt for hefty economic regulation purely to generate sources of patronage that can be used to maintain their political positions. Leaders are most tempted to take this approach, I contend, when their political parties are not stably linked to sources of electoral support. Unstably linked governing parties will tend to have very short time horizons, focusing on the immediate objective of avoiding massive vote losses in the next election. As a result, they will be less concerned with the potential future damage that a patronage-based policy may inflict on the national economy. I find support for this argument with a close examination of Indian economic policy under Indira Gandhi. Prime Minister Gandhi, I contend, increased the Indian state control over trade, industrial production, and credit allocation just as the Congress Party linkages to the electorate were destabilizing.

The Multidimential Impact of Proportionality: Electoral Districts and Deficit Spending

Charles Robert Hankla — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:24 PDT

Why might a democratically elected government choose to run a sustained fiscal deficit in the face of many potential drawbacks? In this paper, I contribute in two important ways to our understanding of the political causes of fiscal outcomes. First, I develop a theoretical argument that democracies with a few large districts will have greater political incentives to provide balanced budgets than democracies with many small districts. Second, I test my theory (and, preliminarily, other theories) with a much broader empirical model than those generally used in the literature. The project helps bring to light the multidimensional impact of electoral proportionality on deficit spending, a theoretical development that has the potential to improve greatly our understanding of policy formation in a variety of areas. It also helps pull developing countries and diverse democratic institutions into a literature that has centered on explaining behavior in wealthy, parliamentary systems.

Parties and Patronage: A Comparative Analysis of the Indian Case

Charles Robert Hankla — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:53:23 PDT

What political factors influence the allocation of economic patronage in democracies? Answering this question is vital to improving our knowledge of how states and markets interact. In this paper, I argue that changing levels of party centralization can drive important changes in the allocation of state largess. When governing parties are centralized, national party leaders will control sources of patronage, targeting benefits to particularly influential regions and industries. By contrast, when governing parties are decentralized, influential sub-national party leaders will advocate for their constituents, allocating patronage evenly through a national logroll. I find evidence for these relationships by comparing India's distribution process for industrial licenses and government finance under a decentralized Congress Party (1954-61) to its distribution process under a centralized Congress Party (1969-75).