International Political Science Review

This article discusses methodological problems related to operationalizing substantive definitions of democracy. The article argues that index-constructors need to be particularly conscious of measurement level issues. If not, their indexes may face severe reliability and validity problems, which in turn may bias empirical analyses utilizing the indexes. The article focuses particularly on the “effective democracy” measure developed by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel. The measure has been used by Inglehart and Welzel in several studies, particularly for empirically testing hypotheses deduced from their version of modernization theory. These tests have generated very strong results in favor of the theory. The article is sympathetic to Inglehart and Welzel’s goal of capturing “substantive” rather than “formal” democracy, but is critical of the specific measure proposed.The measure has several unfortunate theoretical and distributional properties; the empirical scores generated by the measure are often highly misleading. Empirical analysis suggests the index is biased, and that rich, Western countries are particularly favored. Utilization of the measure in statistical analysis may therefore lead to false inferences.

Canada and the United States share a border with one of the longest peaceful existencies in the world. Yet relationships between the two countries, while seemingly routine, often lack transparency and mutual comprehension. Of particular concern in Canada is a growing impression that public discourse in the United States considers Canadian governance to be flawed. This article employs the cases of terrorism and SARS to examine discourse regarding Canadian public administration in the United States press. The results of this analysis not only demonstrate elements of the American understanding of Canada but also speak to the role of peer nations in domestic policy discourse.

This article examines adaptation to democracy among immigrants who leave authoritarian regimes to settle in Australia. Two questions are addressed. First, do immigrants from authoritarian regimes successfully adapt to democracy, in terms of both supporting democracy and participating in the electoral process? And second, does the pre-migration socialization in authoritarian regimes influence immigrants’ democratic transition? Using the 2004 Australian Election Study and the Australian section of the 2005 World Values Survey, the findings indicate that if immigrants from authoritarian regimes lag behind the rest of the population in terms of support for democracy, they tend to participate at least as much as the rest of the population in electoral activities. Overall, the study highlights both the persistence of and the change in immigrants’ pre-migration political orientations.

This study seeks to demonstrate and explain the variation in the extent of support for radical Islamic groups by ethnic minorities in the Central Asian states. It maintains that two related factors — the greater Islamicization of Uzbeks and Tajiks, and the escalating campaign of religious persecution of the ethnic minorities — have contributed to the greater support for Islamists among Uzbeks and Tajiks than among representatives of other ethnic groups. The research draws on social movement theory to explicate the impact of Islamic identification and religious persecution on the success of recruiting and mobilization efforts by radical Islamic groups.

Despite the prominent role of job security regulations in the “varieties of capitalism” literature and although Swiss law gives only limited protection to workers against dismissal, Switzerland is normally classified as a coordinated market economy. This apparent contradiction is often explained by emphasizing the trade-off between extensive job security regulations and generous unemployment insurance benefits. This explanation, however, is not convincing for the Swiss case, as the coverage of the unemployment insurance system was very low until the late 1970s. This article argues that low levels of job security regulations are the result of the weakness of the federal state, which attempted several times to enact restrictive job security regulations. Each attempt to enact job security regulations, however, has been blocked by an alliance of liberal-conservative political groupings and employers’ associations. The present article traces the historical development of job security regulations in Switzerland and reveals the political coalitions that successfully kept the federal state weak.

Despite growing interest in the promises and problems of theoretical synthesis among political scientists, frameworks for assessing the potential advantages of different pathways to theoretical integration are scarce. We build on the conceptualization of alternative strategies for synthesis proposed by Jupille, Caporaso, and Checkel and assess the implications of two criteria — parsimony and empirical fit — for understanding the relationship between two influential strands of international relations theory, neorealism and neoliberalism. Neorealists present concerns about relative gains as evidence of the limited scope of the neoliberal theory of international cooperation. We argue that, on the contrary, neoliberalism provides theoretical tools that are indispensable to determine when and why relative-gains concerns thwart international cooperation, and that this provides a strong case for subsuming neorealism under neoliberalism in a parsimonious synthesis. We apply this framework to explain an empirical puzzle: why two arch-rival states — Austria and Prussia in the second half of the 18th century — succeeded in cooperating in some cases but failed in others.

Decentralization reforms aim at strengthening democracy by promoting political participation among citizens. Research shows (1) that information is a prerequisite for political participation and (2) that people face different private costs in acquiring information. Here we combine the two lines of research and ask: what private costs hamper the acquisition of information on decentralization? For the analysis, we use data from an indigenous population of lowland Bolivia. We surveyed 319 Tsimane’ adults in 12 villages. We found that nine years after the passage of the decentralization laws, knowledge about those reforms had only partially reached the Tsimane’. People who live closer to municipal towns, had more schooling, and participated in the market economy were more aware of decentralization. Political authorities trying to spread the potential benefits of decentralization should address the structural limitations of the dissemination of political knowledge.