What factors determine the diffusion of social policies? This article examines the launching of conditional cash transfer programs by Brazilian municipalities to explore this problem. The literature of political science asserts that such programs have been widely implemented because they correspond to an alternative policy strategy adopted by governments facing opposition to implement universal public policies. So, political competition would be at the root of CCT launching. This article presents an alternative explanation. From 1995 to 2001, local governments created or emulated the Bolsa Escola Program (BEP) in all regions of the country. Sucha a path continued after the lauching of the national Bolsa Escola by the federal government. Why did some local governments decide to adopt the national BEP and others did not? To answer these questions, the research tests the influence of structural, internal and external variables on the dissemination of CCT programs. Two main hypotheses are tested. The first asserts that local political competition is positive for policy diffusion. The second hypothesis claims that party alignment between the municipal and federal levels increases the likelihood of municipalities adopting the federal BEP. The research uses Event History Analysis to test statistically the impact of political incentives on policy diffusion among São Paulo State's municipalities. Two types of policy diffusion are examined: horizontal and vertical. The findings confirm that political competition influences the horizontal diffusion among municipalities. Unexpectedly...

This dissertation examines how political institutions, as dynamically affected by voters and legislatures, mediate financial market reactions to severe fiscal shocks. This work uses as its case studies the experience of the U.S. states following the 2008 credit market seizure, and that of the German states following the financial crisis. It is found that following credit market seizures and severe fiscal shocks, political institutions become more important to market participants in assessing the risk characteristics of state bonds. Specifically, while unexpected deficits are correlated with higher state bond yields across all states, this effect is larger for states with left-leaning political systems than for states with right-leaning political systems. These results suggest that during economic crises – when credit markets might expect that political systems can no longer delay stabilizations – the identity of the political institutions and actors “behind the markets” become increasingly important.; Government

Extant research on the relationship between political systems and state punitiveness has so far paid little attention to the impact that transition from one political system to another may have upon levels and patterns of state punitiveness. This risks not only exaggerating the degree to which given trends in state punitiveness are distinct to particular political systems, but also overlooking the legacy that punitive policies, practices or experiences under a prior political system may bequeath its successor. With a view to advancing a better understanding of the relationship between political systems and state punitiveness, we draw on the case of Greece, taking a long historical perspective to chart the trajectory of punitive state policies and practices in the country before, during and after its dictatorship of 1967-74.

In recent years there has been an increased interest amongst development practitioners in the potential role of law in situations of violent conflict. The Middle East has increasingly become the focus of this concern. In particular, it has been claimed that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has failed to provide adequate access to the law for many Palestinians, and has instead ruled through patronage and violence. In this context the PNA has been the site of repeated calls for legal reform. Legal reform is often treated as a technical question of legal procedure or as an issue of the cultural appropriateness of legal regimes. This paper takes a third approach, which stresses the political and normative aspect of legal processes. It argues that, in order to understand the obstacles to positive legal development in situations of political transition, it is necessary to discover the ways in which legal practices are understood, used and abandoned in particular contexts. In a context where law has no absolute moral value, but is attractive for the substantive claims that can be made through it, people are willing to use whatever resources are available to them in order to enforce the tangible benefits of legal claims. This opens up the law for political manipulation...

South Africa was not atypical in having to accommodate indigenous institutions in its new political order when the country made its transition from minority rule to a non-racial democracy in 1994. In many parts of the world, and especially post-colonial states, customary forms of governance remain salient, being deeply rooted in local institutions. Indigenous institutions are not immutable and have connected with, and been engaged by, colonial powers and western states in a range of ways and to varying effect over many decades. Yet it is increasingly recognised that institutional multiplicity and competing claims to social and political legitimacy need to be taken seriously within hybrid political orders. State making and peace building in post-apartheid South Africa was made possible by the creation of an administrative machinery that could contain customary authority structures within a broader polity, political structures and processes that channelled the ambitions and grievances of traditional leaders, and a system of local government that drew on the presence and experience of chieftaincies to bring development to hard-to-reach areas. This was a contested process that is by no means over and it has had mixed results. Yet pockets of success have emerged out of the transitional period...

In this paper I outline the logical relations between political equality and the practice of imprisonment by the state. I identify the very limited conditions in which the citizen-rulers of a democratic state give it the authority to imprison them, and the still more limited conditions in which a democratic state has good reason to imprison its citizen-rulers. I further argue that this reason to imprison becomes less significant the more that formal political equality leads to substantive equality of political influence among citizens. The more democratic is the state, the more it will substitute restorative justice methods for imprisonment. I demonstrate that this democratic theory of punishment can explain recent huge rises in imprisonment rates in the US and the UK as one consequence of the retreat of political equality in those countries over the same period. I conclude by considering in turn the position of non-citizens in a penal regime of political equality; the persistent social injustice of democratic state punishment; and the inherent abolitionism of a penal theory based on a serious commitment to political equality.

This research on Political Communications in the general elections and its effectiveness is one of the first of its kind on India, the literature having concentrated on voting behaviour in relation to socio-economic characteristics. The importance of communication during elections has been inadequately researched because of the diversity of the country. Through a content analysis of the coverage of election information in the media and case studies of party campaigns, the study evaluates the campaign practices in the mass media and conventional interpersonal forms. It highlights the electronic and outdoor forms like posters, wall writings, symbol displays and cutouts that were important during the 1991 elections. The thesis then examines the impact of these campaigns through a panel survey on a sample of 1155 electors from the three constituencies of Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Nagarkurnool in Andhra Pradesh. The voting patterns have been evaluated in relation to access to and the impact of different forms of political' communications. Research revealed that Indian political communication campaigns were well organised and professional advertising agencies were hired to promote the parties. Campaigns have been systematically planned through the development of creative and media strategies. Apart from the mass media channels...

Through an analysis of the work of the poet, Pindar, the historian, Thucydides, and the philosopher, Aristotle, this thesis builds on the conception of man as a creature between god and beast in an attempt to develop a sense of the kinds of thought and language that are appropriate for political theorising. It discusses an understanding of political theory that is based on the human capacity for reasonable, creative action. In this, it opposes another model of political theorising, one that has been collapsed under a scientific model that judges itself successful only when it yields precise and definitive answers to dilemmas that grow out of a contingent and indeterminate world. I have argued that man's good, his potential to become a responsible and flourishing actor, is realised through attentive and reflective political experience. This experience is not 'raw', acquired alone by passively 'absorbing' whatever man perceives to be the case in pursuit of his individual whims. It is instead guided, shared, interpreted, evaluated, and demanding. The texts I have chosen serve to supplement direct political experience. Pindar's odes - their elliptical language and use of metaphor, their juxtaposition of seemingly mutually exclusive characteristics in men - demand effort on the part of an audience/reader to cultivate the capacity to derive meaning from culturally-situated complex ideas and images. Thucydides' description of the war through a 'fragmented' perspective...

This thesis explores the role the Federal Republic of Germany played in the transformation of the Western international economic system between 1972 and 1976. It has two main aims: first, it examines Bonn's activities in the shaping of the Western response to the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system, the first oil crisis 1973174 and the 1975 world recession; and second, it studies the effect of these actions on West Germany's political position in the Western alliance. As will be shown, Bonn was able to have a significant impact via four means: an ability to manage its economic and political goals; clever use of its economic strength; the adoption of a mediating role among its Western allies, above all the United States and France; and the strong political leadership of Helmut Schmidt (as finance minister, then chancellor). As a final consequence, the Federal Republic through a combination of its actions, the waning of American, French and British economic and political power, the transformation of the institutional setting and the advancement of economic issues to the fore of political debates achieved the permanent enhancement of its political status within the Western alliance.

This dissertation examines the responses of the Muslim community in Meerut city, in western Uttar Pradesh, India, to the rise of militant Hindu nationalism and to the anti-Muslim violence that shook Meerut in April-May 1987. I show how Meerut Muslims engaged in adaptive economic and political strategies in the wake of the 1987 violence and how these strategies culminated in a new style of participatory politics. This emerged under the leadership of the hitherto low status Qureshi (butcher) community. I show how Qureshi political activism has worked to create a Muslim political community which can be mobilised in terms both of civic and Muslim identities. I also demonstrate how Muslim political leaders have engaged in an instrumental politics of vote-trading with Hindu low- caste political parties. Both communities are exploiting new possibilities for representation in an era of multi-party coalition politics at state and national levels. My account of the 'new Muslim politics' in Meerut examines how Islam is understood alongside civic, or even secular, accounts of what it means to be a Muslim in contemporary India. More generally, my discussion of the production of ethnic peace in Meerut since c.1990 allows me to contribute to an ongoing debate on the causes and differential geography of 'communal' violence in India. I do not attempt to adjudicate between the competing accounts of 'votes and violence' offered by Steven Wilkinson...

This dissertation shows that and explains why two European Union (EU) Member States, namely France and the United Kingdom (UK), differ in the degree of internalisation of political conditionality. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part assesses the degree of internalisation of political conditionality. Following a three-fold measurement framework, the thesis examines French and British policies, legal documents and behaviour. The analysis of behaviour concentrates on four cases of EU aid sanctions: Madagascar 2009, Mozambique 2009, Nicaragua 2008 and Zimbabwe 2002. France and the UK differ significantly. France has not officially endorsed political conditionality, generally does not insert human rights clauses in its developing agreements, and is recurrently among the donors which take a soft stance in response to recipient governments’ abuses. The UK has adopted a fully-fledged policy requiring partner governments to respect human rights and basic democratic principles, has consistently included human rights clauses in its development agreements and often belongs to the group of hardliners in favour of the application of aid sanctions. The second part of the dissertation explains these differences. Given the complexities of aid decision-making...

Military intervention in internal conflicts represents a recurrent practice in international history. This thesis provides a theoretical framework for the study of the political and sociological processes that lead political elites to militarily intervene in internal conflicts. Following the renewed interest in political elites both in Sociology and International Relations, the thesis draws on Elite Theory to address the dual nature of political elites as both domestic and international actors. In doing so, it develops a framework for the study of military intervention centred on political elites that overcomes the limits of existing contributions on the subject. In particular, the thesis highlights how interventionary policies are shaped by three overlapping causal antecedents: elites’ contending ideological claims; elites’ struggle for both domestic and international power; and the relationship established by the intervener’s elite with elite and counter- elite groups in the target state. The thesis tests the plausibility of the proposed framework by examining US decisions in three cases: US intervention in the Cuban War of Independence (1898-1902); US intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918- 1920); and US non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This analysis highlights three elements. First...

The purpose of this study is to analyse the economic policy preferences and political influence of a sample of German and Swiss pharmaceutical multinationals and banks. Put differently, the goal is to examine whether these MNEs have the will, and the political clout, to promote a liberal economic order or whether they seek to distort, or even suspend, the free formation of prices. In a sense, this study is thus a two-step procedure: first, it will analyse the formation of MNEs' preferences and then, second, it will examine how these preferences translate into political influence and policy outcomes. The focus of the analysis will be on the home country and the EU level of policy-making during the period from 1985 to 1995. Economic policy preferences will be explained as the result of the interaction of three factors: the extent and nature of MNEs' internationalisation process, their business focus and sectoral characteristics. With regard to policy outcomes and MNEs' influence over them, it will be argued that also three factors need to be considered: interests, institutions that link MNEs to the policy-making process and changing economic and political circumstances, which affect perceptions of self interest and institutions. Particular focus will be on the impact of circumstances on the preferences of the government...

This dissertation examines the divergent trajectories of ethnic and national politics in the Tamil speaking regions of India and Sri Lanka. Despite comparable historical experiences and conditions, the south Indian Tamil speaking areas were peaceably accommodated within a pan-Indian framework whilst Sri Lankan politics was marked by escalating Tamil-Sinhala ethnic polarisation and violent conflict. The dissertation explains these contrasting outcomes by setting out a novel theoretical framework that draws on the work of Reinhart Koselleck and his analysis of the links between concepts and political conflict. It argues that in the era of popular sovereignty the nation and ethnicity have become central and unavoidable concepts of political order, but concepts that can be deliberately constructed through political activity in more or less inclusive ways. Setting out the conceptual connections between the nation, ethnicity and popular sovereignty, the dissertation shows how the conceptual tension between a unified national identity / interest and ethnic pluralism becomes a central and unavoidable locus of political contestation in the era of popular sovereignty. Tracing the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in India and Sri Lanka from the late nineteenth century to the late 1970’s...

This thesis is concerned with the way that modern political change affects social relationships in a prosperous predominantly Greek-Cypriot village. The first chapter traces the main social, political, demographic and economic changes to have affected the village in this century. The second chapter considers in detail the importance of landholdings, of supplementary occupations, and of status distinctions derived from education and work in the villagers' system of social evaluation. Chapter 3, in considering kinship and affinity as institutional constraints on the conduct of individuals, also stresses one prize of success in the village arena - the desirability of one's children as marriage partners. The fourth chapter is concerned with other types of social relations which constrain men, in particular fictive kinship, friendship and membership in the village itself (which is defined in a number of ways); this leads directly to the description of the village as a solidary community. Chapter 5 analyses the leadership opportunities provided by administrative office in the village, and considers how far power is achieved and diffused in other ways. Chapter 6 examined the scope of politics in the village, particularly the meaning of the opposition between left and right wing supporters...

This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of radical populist politics among working class residents of a Venezuelan barrio (shantytown). It draws on fieldwork conducted over 19 months and focuses on the political ideals and practices of pro-government chavista activists in the context of the “Bolivarian Revolution”. Specifically, it analyses the utopian desires that underpin activists’ engagement with a number of political organisations in their communities, uncovering how political activism is embedded in broader projects that seek personal transformation, material betterment and moral redemption. It also examines state-led efforts to establish participatory democracy at the local level, tracing the experiences of grassroots activists as they attempt to build new political institutions in their communities. My approach involves a close attention to the relationship between political discourse, state policy and everyday practice, exploring the complex interactions that unfold between state agencies and community actors. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to understand the appeal of a radical populist project by looking beyond claims that political efficacy rests solely on the redistribution of resources. I suggest that the particular appeal of chavismo lies in the fact that it also asks its adherents to usher in a new moral order by transforming themselves...

For decades, scholars, investors and policymakers treated sovereign default risk as a defining feature of emerging market economies. Recently, sovereign risk has re‐emerged as an empirical issue for advanced economies, raising new questions for academic research. This thesis investigates the link between political economy factors and financial market perceptions of sovereign risk during the Euro area debt crisis, representing one of the timeliest academic analyses of this episode. It combines an innovative international political economy framework applicable to developed democracies with in‐depth analysis of government bond market fluctuations during the Greek and Irish sovereign debt crises. The thesis argues that political factors influence sovereign risk premia in developed democracies, particularly in crisis periods. This is in contrast to the dominant claim that politics has no or little direct impact on government bond yields in advanced economies. Specifically, it highlights the importance of the domestic political system, finding a role for socio‐political contestation and its interaction with institutional checks and balances. Moreover, it expands the analysis to the international sphere, integrating the so far mostly separate analyses of the domestic and international sources of sovereign credibility. Specifically...

This thesis aims to provide a frame work by which citizens in a democracy can become empowered and take ownership of their democratic institutions and the public sphere in which they discuss solving the problems that they face as a society. In short, this work will argue that politics is a craft, and that political actions are skills. If citizens learn to better practice this skill, then democracy will be better off. It will become better off since more citizens will feel more empowered to participate in the political process if they have their political skills well developed. As will be argued in the second chapter of this thesis, disempowerment can come about even in the face of an equal distribution of formal power and the absence of what Iris Marion Young has called internal exclusions, when citizens have a general feeling of inadequacy while participating. Another term for this psychological malaise that some participants feel is political mortification. Instituting politics as a craft entails creating school curriculums and adult education programs that have students develop their political skills, and that this can help create empowered citizens that want to engage in the political process.

This thesis examines contemporary jurisdictional arrangements and how new and shifting forms of them impact the ability to map political and socio-political configurations, including the analytical and disciplinary tools used to examine them, into explicitly defined locations. More specifically, it asks how the jurisdictional arrangements found in modern Europe affect mainstream International Relation’s core enabling conditions – most critically, that an international realm exists, that it is jurisdictionally different and clearly separable from domestic realms, and that it therefore requires its own conceptualization. The thesis contends that IR’s ability to assume those things rests on a particular resolution to a “jurisdictional problematique” – on a specific answer to a “Who decides what, where, how, and over whom” question. While that resolution normally comes in a sovereignty-based form, sovereignty is determined to be merely one possible resolution and therefore simply one jurisdictional type. In that regard, the thesis challenges IR’s answer based on a thick examination of the European Union’s (EU) political structures (e.g. its institutional rules, programs, policies, and the like) as well as its socio-political relationships (e.g. European citizenship). It considers four potential changes...