Heeding the Sirens: The Politics of IMF Program Participation

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irfan Nooruddin ◽  
Byungwon Woo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
Economic Distress ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
Time Series Dataset ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Imf Programs ◽  
Do So

Given similar economic distress indicators, why do some states enter into International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs while others do not? Building on extant studies of IMF program participation that highlight the importance of various economic and political determinants, this article proposes an argument focusing on the political incentives of the IMF and a borrowing country when they engage in IMF program negotiations. Specifically, the study develops a domestic politics argument to highlight the interactions among sovereignty costs, competence costs, economic conditions and domestic regime types, and tests the argument using a cross-national time-series dataset of all IMF agreements between 1970 and 2006. It finds that when the economic crisis is mild, democracies are less likely than non-democracies to enter IMF programs, but that when the economic crisis is severe, democracies are more likely to do so than their autocratic counterparts. The article attributes this tendency to democratic leaders’ electoral vulnerability and shows that these patterns become more pronounced as elections draw near.

Alternative tourism and civil society in Athens

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Hecate Vergopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Alternative Tourism ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Web Forum ◽  
Guided Tours ◽  
Do So

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to tackle the issue of the meaning of tourism as it is being crippled by the economic crisis in Greece. Design/methodology/approach To do so, it brings together the findings of three different fieldworks related to tourism in Athens in times of crisis. Each one of these focuses on a specific player of tourism: a linguistic and semiological analysis led mainly on travel guides and ad campaigns deals with the industry of tourism; a linguistic analysis of tourists’ posts on a French web forum deals with the tourists themselves; and an ethnographical approach of alternative guided tours of Athens focuses on local players (associations and cooperatives offering out of the beaten tracks tours). Findings The whole study reveals that there is a misunderstanding between the industry and the consumers toward what the tourist practice should mean: whereas the tourists are in search of an ethical meaning, the industry claims there is no room for such issues. The alternative players, however, offer a political perspective that embraces the ethical issues raised by tourists. Originality/value They thus might, in the end, show us the way a so-called “civil society” could also have its own role to perform in tourism.

scholarly journals Interpretation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by Human Rights Bodies in Times of Economic Distress. The case of Greece

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Saranti
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Case Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Economic Distress ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Of Greece

Economic, social and cultural rights have borne the brunt of the recent economic crisis and the austerity measures adopted to counter it. Due to their gradual implementation and the need of positive measures to implement them, they were the first to be attacked. After discussing the possible ways of applying economic, social and cultural rights in the first part of the essay, I will then examine their application during economic crises with a special reference to Greece focusing mainly on two fields, labour rights and social security rights, and the case-law produced by international human rights bodies in that respect.

Domestic Political Consequences of International Rivalry

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-728
Author(s):  
Daehee Bak ◽  
Kerry Chávez ◽  
Toby Rider
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
External Threats ◽  
International Rivalry ◽  
Government Capacity ◽  
High Level

Given the conventional claim that external threats increase internal cohesion and government capacity, cross-country studies have examined how interstate conflict events influence domestic politics. This article reevaluates the in-group and out-group mechanisms by examining how international strategic rivalry, which indicates the presence of persistent external threats even in the absence of military conflict, affects domestic political competition. An alternative explanation suggests that the effect of external threats on political incentives of domestic actors differs between regime supporters and oppositions. We posit that the presence of international threats from rival states inflames domestic unrest and oppositions’ antiregime challenges, while making governments rely more on repressive tactics given resource constraints and a high level of domestic political intolerance. In addition, we propose that the domestic consequences of international rivalry are heterogeneous depending on the characteristics of political systems and the level of threat perception. Empirical tests reveal robust evidence for the hypotheses.

Regime Type, the Fate of Leaders, and War

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRE DEBS ◽  
H.E. GOEMANS
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
International Interaction ◽  
The Relationship

We propose and test a formal model of war and domestic politics, building on recent evidence on the relationship between regime type, the effect of war on the probability of losing office, and the consequences of losing office. The less the outcome of international interaction affects a leader's tenure and the less punitive are the consequences of losing office, the more a leader is willing to make concessions to strike a peaceful bargain. We demonstrate that our theory successfully predicts war involvement among nondemocratic regime types. Moreover, our theory offers an intuitive explanation for the democratic peace. Compared to nondemocratic leaders, the tenure of democratic leaders depends relatively little on the war outcome, and democratic leaders fare relatively well after losing office. Thus, democratic leaders should be more willing and able to avoid war, especially with other democrats.

scholarly journals The second image reversed: the international sources of domestic politics

1978 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 881-912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gourevitch
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Focus On Forms ◽  
The Impact

The international system is not only an expression of domestic structures, but a cause of them. Two schools of analysis exploring the impact of the international system upon domestic politics (regime types, institutions, coalitions, policies) may be distinguished: those which stress the international economy, and those which stress political-military rivalry, or war. Among the former are such arguments as: late industrialization (associated with Gershenkron); dependencia or core-periphery arguments (Wallerstein); liberal development model (much American writing in the 50s and 60s); transnational relation-modernization (Nye, Keohane, Morse); neo-mercantilists (Gilpin); state-centered Marxists (Schurmann). Arguments stressing the role of war include those which focus on the organizational requirements of providing security (Hintze, Anderson), the special nature of foreign relations (classical political theory), territorial compensation (diplomatic history), and strains of foreign involvement (analysis of revolutions). These arguments provide the basis for criticism of much of the literature which uses domestic structure as an explanation of foreign policy, in particular those which (such as the strong-state weak-state distinction) tend, by excessive focus on forms, to obscure the connection between structures and interests, and the role of politics. These arguments also permit criticism of the notion of a recent fundamental discontinuity in the nature of international relations.

Judicial Power in Domestic and International Politics

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey K. Staton ◽  
Will H. Moore
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Science ◽  
International Research ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Considerable Progress ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Rigid Boundary ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Do So

AbstractAlthough scholars have made considerable progress on a number of important research questions by relaxing assumptions commonly used to divide political science into subfields, rigid boundaries remain in some contexts. In this essay, we suggest that the assumption that international politics is characterized by anarchy whereas domestic politics is characterized by hierarchy continues to divide research on the conditions under which governments are constrained by courts, international or domestic. We contend that we will learn more about the process by which courts constrain governments, and do so more quickly, if we relax the assumption and recognize the substantial similarities between domestic and international research on this topic. We review four recent books that highlight contemporary theories of the extent to which domestic and international law binds states, and discuss whether a rigid boundary between international and domestic scholarship can be sustained on either theoretical or empirical grounds.

Public Opinion and International Policy Choices: Global Commitments for Japan and Its Peers?

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davis B. Bobrow ◽  
Mark A. Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Global Order ◽  
International Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
International Public Goods ◽  
The Us ◽  
Actual Contribution ◽  
Do So

To understand the prospects for global order and progress in the coming years, we explore the joint implications of three premises: (1) states advantaged by the current international order have stakes in its regularity and predictability, and thus in moving to counter or prevent threats to those stakes; (2) along impure public and club goods lines, they are more likely to make efforts to do so when some private or club benefits result; and (3) public opinion provides a bounded policy acceptance envelope offering incentives and disincentives to national political elites to act as envisioned by the first two premises. We present a mosaic of public opinion in major OECD countries (the US, Japan, and major EU members) on three policy areas – foreign aid, UN peace-keeping operations, and environmental quality – that contain international public goods elements. Actual contribution tendencies in those areas found in our previous work largely conform to the public opinion patterns reported here. Within the limits of available data, domestic political incentives as represented by public opinion warrant neither extreme optimism nor pessimism about the prospects for continuing contributions by OECD states to sustaining orderly functioning of the current world system.

scholarly journals Marx is Back, But Which One? On Knowledge Labour and Media Practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 570-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Mosco
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
The Political ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Structure And Dynamics ◽  
General Answer ◽  
The Many ◽  
Do So

The global economic crisis has led to a resurgence of interest in the work of Karl Marx. This paper acknowledges this interest, but asks on which of the many shades of Marx, communication scholars should be focusing their research attention. The most general answer is all of Marx, from the early work on consciousness, ideology and culture, which has informed critical cultural studies through to the later work on the structure and dynamics of capitalism that provides bedrock for the political economy of communication. But there is particular need for communication scholars to pay more attention to work that does not fit so neatly in either of these foci, namely, Marx of the Grundrisse and Marx, the professional journalist. Communication scholars need to do so because we have paid insufficient attention to labour in the communication, cultural and knowledge industries. The Marx of these two streams of work provides important guidance for what I have called the labouring of communication as well as for addressing general problems in communication theory.

scholarly journals Hawkish Partisans: How Political Parties Shape Nationalist Conflicts in China and Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Trevor Incerti ◽  
Daniel Mattingly ◽  
Frances Rosenbluth ◽  
Seiki Tanaka ◽  
Jiahua Yue
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
China And Japan ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Do So

Abstract It is well known that regime types affect international conflicts. This article explores political parties as a mechanism through which they do so. Political parties operate in fundamentally different ways in democracies vs. non-democracies, which has consequences for foreign policy. Core supporters of a party in a democracy, if they are hawkish, may be more successful at demanding hawkish behavior from their party representatives than would be their counterparts in an autocracy. The study draws on evidence from paired experiments in democratic Japan and non-democratic China to show that supporters of the ruling party in Japan punish their leaders for discouraging nationalist protests, while ruling party insiders in China are less likely to do so. Under some circumstances, then, non-democratic regimes may be better able to rein in peace-threatening displays of nationalism.

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