The Impact of Party Politics and Democratic Quality on Economic Reform

Author(s):  
M. Anne Pitcher
Author(s):  
Tim Haughton ◽  
Marek Rybář ◽  
Kevin Deegan-Krause

Party politics across Central and Eastern Europe has become less structured. Many of the divides that anchored political competition have waned in recent years, weakening the attachment of voters to the existing palette of parties and making them more likely to be attracted to new and non-traditional electoral vehicles. But for such parties to succeed at the ballot box, they need to be able to frame elections and campaign effectively. Drawing on data from a specially commissioned survey, we find that the success of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) led by Igor Matovič in the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia owed much to the crafting of an anti-corruption appeal combined with an effective campaign. Both mobilization and conversion of voters, particularly through television and the leaders’ debates, in the months leading up to election day ensured OĽaNO won a quarter of the vote. OĽaNO stands in stark contrast to other parties whose leaders failed to craft as effective a message, miscalculated the impact of electoral rules and in some cases were unable to distance themselves enough from their past actions. The success of OĽaNO underlines that themes related to anti-corruption and good governance have become central to party politics and political contestation. More broadly, the election and its aftermath continued a general trend of forward movement of voters from old parties to new to newer still, indicating the churn of party politics in Slovakia is likely to continue.


Economies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Nihar Shembavnekar

Theory and economic intuition suggest that domestic institutions influence the employment impact of economic reform, but the evidence base is thin. This paper seeks to address this by examining the extent to which differences in regional labour market flexibility shaped the impact of unanticipated economic reforms on employment in informal (unregistered) manufacturing enterprises in India (1990–2001). It employs a difference-in-differences strategy and finds that tariff reductions are not associated with significant employment shifts in informal enterprises, a finding that may be attributable to the fact that these enterprises rarely engage in international trade. However, on average and ceteris paribus, delicensing (FDI reform) is associated with statistically significant increases (increases) in informal employment and informal enterprise numbers in inflexible (flexible) labour markets. There is some evidence that the delicensing effect is attributable to increases in product market competition in delicensed industries. However, the channel underlying the result associated with FDI reform is less clear. In light of the persistent primacy of the informal sector in India and other developing economies, these findings have substantial policy relevance.


Author(s):  
Rebecca Kay

The economic, social and political changes that have occurred in Russia over the last 10 years have had a profound effect on Russian women’s lives. Economic reform has brought poverty, insecurity and high levels of anxiety and stress to much of the population, both male and female. The impact of these changes on women was amplified in the early 1990s by their structural positioning both within the workforce and within the population, brought about by the legacies of the Soviet planned economy, Soviet attitudes to gender and long established demographic trends. Alongside these historical influences, ‘new’ essentialist attitudes towards gender and the appropriate roles and responsibilities of women in post-Soviet Russian society have been strongly promoted through the media, political and social discourses, imposing new pressures and dilemmas on many post-Soviet Russian women. Numerous women’s organisations have been established in Russia since the early 1990s, many of them with a specific remit of helping Russian women to overcome the upheavals and hardships which they face. Struggling to survive themselves with very few resources and minimal external support, Russia’s grassroots women’s organisations have nonetheless offered practical help and advice and emotional support and solidarity to their members. This paper is based on the findings of a period of intensive fieldwork carried out in 1995-6 with grassroots women’s organisations in Moscow and three Russian provincial centres. It will present the aims, activities and impact of the groups studied. It will also investigate the ways in which these groups and their membership positioned themselves in relation to the development of essentialist attitudes and opinions on gender within Russia on the one hand, and a dialogue with ‘western’ feminist theory and practice on the other.


1989 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 213-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew watson ◽  
Christopher Findlay ◽  
Du Yintang

The absence of a systematic programme has been a distinctive feature of China's economic reform process. The Chinese did not set out to develop a step-by-step plan of reform to be phased in over a period of years. Instead they adopted a number of strategic goals, and in 1978 launched incremental and pragmatic changes aimed at realizing them. Essentially the strategy adopted had four main aspects: a shift from economic growth expressed mainly through statistical targets towards an emphasis on satisfying the consumption needs of the population; a change from extensive development based on new investment towards intensive development through greater efficiency; an acceptance of greater economic autonomy for producers, with a broader mix of methods of economic management and types of ownership; and the adoption of a much more open economy. The reforms adopted over the succeeding years have all been consistent with these objectives, but they have not been implemented through a carefully planned series of stages. Overall the process has been marked by different rates of reform across sectors, by occasional pauses and even retreats, and by problems generated by the interaction of the differing rates of reform. Enterprise managers, for example, have found that plan controls over their production or sales have disappeared at a faster rate than controls over their supply of inputs. Given the dual price system and the continuing role of the central government in the supply of strategic materials and energy, the impact of the uneven pace of change on managers’ behaviour has therefore been very complex.


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