Global Capital Cycles and Market Discipline: Perceptions of Developing-Country Borrowers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Alexandra O. Zeitz
Keyword(s):  
Developing Country ◽  
Global Markets ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bond Markets ◽  
International Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Bond Issues ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Global Liquidity

Abstract Developing countries are often thought to be particularly exposed to the constraints of global markets. Facing scrutiny from foreign investors, why do developing-country governments enter international bond markets, especially when they can access cheaper finance from international financial institutions? I argue that borrowing governments' perception of market constraints depends on global liquidity. When bond markets are highly liquid, investors become more risk acceptant and governments perceive the political costs of borrowing to be lower, especially compared to the conditionality of concessional loans. I use data on the timing of bond issues and three case studies—Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya—to demonstrate that choices to issue debt were shaped by global liquidity. These findings nuance debates about how markets constrain governments, emphasizing that market constraints are conditional on systemic factors, including, global liquidity.

Contingent Advantage? Sovereign Borrowing, Democratic Institutions and Global Capital Cycles

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Ballard-Rosa ◽  
Layna Mosley ◽  
Rachel L Wellhausen
Keyword(s):  
Open Economy ◽  
Capital Markets ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Market Access ◽  
Political Risk ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Bond Issues ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Democratic Advantage

AbstractHow do domestic and global factors shape governments’ capacity to issue debt in primary capital markets? Consistent with the ‘democratic advantage’, we identify domestic institutional mechanisms, including executive constraints and policy transparency, that facilitate debt issuance rather than electoral events. Most importantly, we argue that the democratic advantage is contingent: investors’ attention to domestic politics varies with conditions in global capital markets. When global financial liquidity is low, investors are risk-averse, and political risk constrains governments’ capacity to borrow. But when global markets are flush, investors are risk-tolerant and less sensitive to political risk. We support our argument with new data on 245,000 government bond issues in primary capital markets – the point at which governments’ costs of market access matter most – for 131 sovereign issuers (1990–2016). In doing so, we highlight the role of systemic factors, which are under-appreciated in much ‘open economy politics’ research, in determining access to capital markets.

Audience Costs and the Credibility of Commitments

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
The Political ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Large N ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Threats and promises are prevalent in international relations (IR). However, deception is also a possibility in diplomacy. Why should one state believe that another state is not merely bluffing? How can a state credibly communicate its threats and promises to others? The IR scholarship suggests that one way by which a state may make its commitments credible is by generating audience costs—the political costs a leader suffers from publicly issuing a threat or promise and then failing to follow through. There is a broad and methodologically diverse literature on the existence, mechanisms, and effectiveness of audience costs. The concept of audience costs has also been applied to explain many phenomena in IR. This article examines the IR scholarship on audience costs across different methodological approaches, including qualitative case studies, large-N statistical tests, and survey experiments.

Inflation, Unemployment, and Government Collapse

1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN D. ROBERTSON
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Discrete Events ◽  
Significant Evidence ◽  
Initial Application ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Incumbent Regime

As democracies enter an era of economic retrenchment, the political costs associated with economic decline have come under close scrutiny by students of comparative politics and public policy. Of particular concern is the linkage between inflation, unemployment, and the collapse of incumbent governments. The present study provides an initial application of an alternative approach to measuring this linkage across 8 European democracies, and offers significant evidence linking political costs for cabinet governments with rising prices and the growing unemployment. By utilizing the Poisson method of determining probabilities of discrete events, increasing probabilities of government collapse are significantly associated with rising inflation and unemployment in European democracies between January 1958 and December 1979. Subsequent use of the Sanders and Herman's (1977) and Warwick (1979) analyses of cabinet stability provides a useful means to disaggregate the nation sample of the study into four discrete subsets of nations. After applying the model developed in the current study to these separate subsets, it is concluded that the more significant the change in rates of inflation and unemployment, the more likely the pattern of government collapse will be interrupted by the unexpected termination of an incumbent regime.

scholarly journals ¿Hacia la consolidación política? Cambios en la "estructura de oportunidades electorales" de las mujeres en Argentina

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santiago Alles
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
The Political ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Socio Economic Variables ◽  
Las Mujeres

RESUMEN: El presente artículo tiene como objetivo determinar los cambios de la «estructura de oportunidades electorales» de las mujeres en Argentina a lo largo del período 1983-2005, para lo cual el trabajo va más allá de los análisis estáticos usuales y examina los elementos dinámicos del proceso. Desde la perspectiva institucional, la elección de mujeres está condicionada en primer lugar por las características del diseño electoral: la introducción de cuotas de género es reconocida por la literatura como un dispositivo clave para facilitar la elección de mujeres, pero su efectividad se ve condicionada por otros elementos del sistema electoral, tal como la magnitud de distritos, pero también por las características del sistema de partidos. Basado en un análisis estadístico multivariado, el artículo encuentra evidencia que sostiene que, tras un período donde la elección de mujeres se explica mediante factores político-institucionales, en las últimas elecciones los factores sistémicos pierden capacidad explicativa, aun cuando se controla el efecto de las variables socioeconómicas, lo que indica que la elección de mujeres se explica por factores no incluidos en el análisis, eventualmente partidarios o personales. Estos resultados sugieren que las cuotas han tenido efectos de largo alcance, haciendo posible la consolidación de la posición política de las mujeres.ABSTRACT: This article has as main goal to know the changes suffered by the «electoral opportunity structure» of women in Argentina through the period 1983-2005, for which purpose the work goes beyond usual static analyses and examine the dynamic elements of the process. From the institutional perspective, the election of women is conditioned at first for the features of the electoral design: the introduction of gender quotas is highlighted by the literature as a key device to make easy the election of women, but its effectiveness is conditioned by the other elements of the electoral system. Based on a multivariate statistical analysis, this article finds evidence that maintains that, after a period where the election of women is explained by political-institutional factors, in the last elections the systemic factors lost explanatory ability, even when the effect of socio-economic variables is kept under control, which points out that the election of women is explained by non included factors, eventually partisan or individual ones. These results suggest that the quotas have had long-range effects, making possible the consolidation of the political position of women.

When Participation Wins Votes: Explaining the Emergence of Large-Scale Participatory Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Nationwide Implementation

Why are large-scale participatory institutions implemented in some countries but only adopted on paper in others? I argue that nationwide implementation of Binding Participatory Institutions (BPIs)––a critical subtype of participatory institutions––is dependent on the backing of a strong institutional supporter, often a political party. In turn, parties will only implement BPIs if they place a lower value on the political costs than on the potential benefits of implementation. This will be true if: 1) significant societal demand exists for BPI implementation and 2) the party’s political opponents cannot take advantage of BPIs for their own gain. I test this theory through two detailed case studies of Venezuela and Ecuador, drawing on 165 interviews with key national-level actors and grassroots activists.

In the Kingdom of Whomever: Baldwin’s Method

Empty Houses ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kurnick
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Generic Difference

James Baldwin is not only one of the more notable Anglophone twentieth-century novelists to attempt continually and with minimal success to enter the theater. He is also one of the major inheritors of the aesthetic and political problematic we have repeatedly encountered in the course of this book. Baldwin is perhaps the most important twentieth-century novelist to seriously explore what it means to make interiority the bearer of collective desire. This chapter argues that the novel of interiority reaches an impasse and a breakthrough in the work of Baldwin precisely when the contradictions inherent in the attempt to think collective problems through sexual interiority becomes unavoidably insistent—and does so through Baldwin's negotiation with the generic difference of the theater. His career makes clear that if the novel relentlessly personalizes collective issues, its theatrical preoccupation constitutes a record of the political costs of that reduction, one that demands to be read at the level of form.

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