Trade: Determinants of Policies

Author(s):  
Marc L. Busch ◽  
Edward D. Mansfield

A survey of the literature on trade has revealed that it is becoming more difficult for elected officials resist protectionist pressures by citing constraints imposed by global pacts and supply free trade. There are two main reasons why. First, the literature on the design and politics of international institutions increasingly emphasizes how they build in slack that can undermine government claims of being constrained. Second, as states accede to an ever-growing list of overlapping international institutions, there is often a choice among, or uncertainty over, which institution’s obligations apply. Where this situation creates more policy space for government officials, it also will make it more difficult for them to credibly tie their hands and supply free trade in the face of interest group pressures for protection. Currently, the literature is somewhat at a turning point. Questions about the design and politics of international institutions, and the growing thickness of the market for them, are very much in vogue. These questions have profound implications for the supply of free trade. The credibility of elected officials’ hands-tying strategies is likely undermined where institutions anticipate the political reactions of their members, or where members can shop for different rules on trade to accommodate domestic preferences. The irony is that the proliferation of international institutions may lead scholars of trade policy to renew their focus on domestic interest groups.

1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M Grossman ◽  
Elhanan Helpman

Endorsements are a simple language for communication between interest-group leaders and group members. The members, who share policy concerns, may not perfectly understand where their interests lie on certain issues. If their leaders cannot fully explain the issues, they can convey some information by endorsing a candidate or party. When interest groups endorse legislative contenders, the candidates may compete for backing. Policies may favor special interests at the expense of the general public. We examine the conditions under which parties compete for endorsements, the extent to which policy outcomes are skewed, and the normative properties of the political equilibria. (JEL D72)


Asian Survey ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-557
Author(s):  
Hidehiro Yamamoto

The political reforms that have been going on since the 1990s have drastically changed the face of politics in Japan. The most significant of these reforms was the change of government, which brought an end, albeit only once, to the long-standing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regime. These changes were expected to change the power structure by altering the contact of interest groups with political elites. I examine this issue based on a longitudinal survey conducted in four rounds between 1997 and 2017. The results show a robust structure of interest group politics, although the features were weakening. That is, contacts with the LDP and the bureaucracy were sources of political influence for interest groups. The impact of the two-party system and its setbacks are seen in the change in contact with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). However, The DPJ did not function as a source of interest representation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Beyers ◽  
Caelesta Braun

AbstractThe degree to which interest groups gain access to policymakers has often been explained by focusing on the exchange of resources in a dyadic relation between interest groups and policymakers. This article argues that the position an interest group occupies within a coalition and the relations it has outside its coalition substantially affect the likelihood of gaining access to policymakers. Our empirical focus is on the Dutch interest group system for which we examine how coalitions among groups and the network position of interest groups within and between such coalitions shape access. The analysis, based on data collected among 107 Dutch interest groups and 28 policymakers, leads to the conclusion that network positions count differently for elected and non-elected officials, and that network ties that bridge different coalitions add significant explanatory leverage to resource-based explanations of access.


Author(s):  
Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz

Interest groups are key actors in the Danish political system. This chapter discusses the origin and development of the interest group system and the political role of groups. The focus is on interest groups both as membership-based associations and as political actors. The chapter discusses how the early mobilization of farmers, workers, and businesses interacted with emerging corporatist structures in shaping the contours of the interest group system. Later developments led to a shift towards more groups representing citizen interests rather than economic groups. The political role of groups traditionally centred on access to public decision-making through, for example, representation in boards and committees. Today, interest groups operate across multiple arenas, and Parliament and the news media have become central. New actors such as think tanks and public affairs agencies have gained importance, but traditional interest groups remain the most prominent policy advocates in Denmark.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas T. Holyoke ◽  
Jeff Cummins

Does more lobbying by more interest groups, especially groups representing a state’s largest business sector, lead to greater spending and debt? Or does the blame really rest with state lawmakers and their political parties, which compete to attract and retain the allegiance of these powerful organized interests so they can win control of state government? We test this question with data on annual state budgets from 2006 to 2015, the number of interest groups in each state for those years, the size of the constituencies in different economic and social sectors these groups potentially represent, and the degree of competition between the political parties. Our results reveal that while there is a positive interest group effect on spending, the effect becomes negative as parties compete more for control of the state. As the gatekeepers, lawmakers and their parties, more than interest groups, are ultimately responsible for a state’s fiscal condition.


2021 ◽  
pp. 13-41
Author(s):  
Ella Volodymyrivna Bystrytska

Abstract: A series of imperial decrees of the 1820s ordering the establishment of a Greco-Uniate Theological Collegium and appropriate consistories contributed to the spread of the autocratic synodal system of government and the establishment of control over Greek Uniate church institutions in the annexed territories of Right-Bank Ukraine. As a result, the Greco-Uniate Church was put on hold in favor of the government's favorable grounds for the rapid localization of its activities. Basilian accusations of supporting the Polish November Uprising of 1830-1831 made it possible to liquidate the OSBM and most monasteries. The transfer of the Pochaiv Monastery to the ownership of the Orthodox clergy in 1831 was a milestone in the liquidation of the Greco-Uniate Church and the establishment of a Russian-style Orthodox mono-confessionalism. On the basis of archival documents, the political motivation of the emperor's decree to confiscate the Pochayiv Monastery from the Basilians with all its property and capital was confirmed. The transfer to the category of monasteries of the 1st class and the granting of the status of a lavra indicated its special role in strengthening the position of the autocracy in the western region of the Russian Empire. The orders of the Holy Synod outline the key tasks of ensuring the viability of the Lavra as an Orthodox religious center: the introduction of continuous worship, strengthening the personal composition of the population, delimitation of spiritual responsibilities, clarifying the affiliation of the printing house. However, maintaining the rhythm of worship and financial and economic activities established by the Basilians proved to be a difficult task, the solution of which required ten years of hard work. In order to make quick changes in the monastery, decisions were made by the emperor and senior government officials, and government agencies were involved at the local level, which required the coordination of actions of all parties to the process.


Citizens are political simpletons—that is only a modest exaggeration of a common characterization of voters. Certainly, there is no shortage of evidence of citizens' limited political knowledge, even about matters of the highest importance, along with inconsistencies in their thinking, some glaring by any standard. But this picture of citizens all too often approaches caricature. This book brings together leading political scientists who offer new insights into the political thinking of the public, the causes of party polarization, the motivations for political participation, and the paradoxical relationship between turnout and democratic representation. These studies propel a foundational argument about democracy. Voters can only do as well as the alternatives on offer. These alternatives are constrained by third players, in particular activists, interest groups, and financial contributors. The result: voters often appear to be shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent because the alternatives they must choose between are shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
abdul muiz amir

This study aims to find a power relation as a discourse played by the clerics as the Prophet's heir in the contestation of political event in the (the elections) of 2019 in Indonesia. The method used is qualitative based on the critical teory paradigm. Data gathered through literary studies were later analyzed based on Michel Foucault's genealogy-structuralism based on historical archival data. The findings show that, (1) The involvement of scholars in the Pemilu-Pilpres 2019 was triggered by a religious issue that has been through online social media against the anti-Islamic political system, pro communism and liberalism. Consequently create two strongholds from the scholars, namely the pro stronghold of the issue pioneered by the GNPF-Ulama, and the fortress that dismissed the issue as part of the political intrigue pioneered by Ormas NU; (2) genealogically the role of scholars from time to time underwent transformation. At first the Ulama played his role as well as Umara, then shifted also agent of control to bring the dynamization between the issue of religion and state, to transform into motivator and mediator in the face of various issues Practical politic event, especially at Pemilu-Pilpres 2019. Discussion of the role of Ulama in the end resulted in a reduction of the role of Ulama as the heir of the prophet, from the agent Uswatun Hasanah and Rahmatan lil-' ālamīn as a people, now shifted into an agent that can trigger the division of the people.


Author(s):  
Tom Scott

Renewed interest in Swiss history has sought to overcome the old stereotypes of peasant liberty and republican exceptionalism. The heroic age of the Confederation in the fifteenth century is now seen as a turning point as the Swiss polity achieved a measure of institutional consolidation and stability, and began to mark out clear frontiers. This book questions both assumptions. It argues that the administration of the common lordships by the cantons collectively gave rise to as much discord as cooperation, and remained a pragmatic device not a political principle. It argues that the Swiss War of 1499 was an avoidable catastrophe, from which developed a modus vivendi between the Swiss and the Empire as the Rhine became a buffer zone, not a boundary. It then investigates the background to Bern’s conquest of the Vaud in 1536, under the guise of relieving Geneva from beleaguerment, to suggest that Bern’s actions were driven not by predeterminate territorial expansion but by the need to halt French designs upon Geneva and Savoy. The geopolitical balance of the Confederation was fundamentally altered by Bern’s acquisition of the Vaud and adjacent lands. Nevertheless, the political fabric of the Confederation, which had been tested to the brink during the Reformation, proved itself flexible enough to absorb such a major reorientation, not least because what held the Confederation together was not so much institutions as a sense of common identity and mutual obligation forged during the Burgundian Wars of the 1470s.


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