How Can We Explain Regime Type Differences If Citizens Don't Vote Based on Foreign Economic Policy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-503
Author(s):  
David H Bearce ◽  
V Ximena Velasco-Guachalla
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Behavior Theory ◽  
Open Trade

Abstract Political economy research shows that more democratic governments generally have more open trade policies with more flexible exchange rate regimes, yet political behavior theory argues that citizens do not think of foreign economic policy as salient and do not cast their votes considering such issues. This note investigates the puzzle about how democracies could have different foreign economic policies than autocracies if citizens do not vote based on these international issues. Using a political model with two possible ways for societal actors to influence state policy (electoral and/or special interest pressure), it first considers how voting based on salient domestic outcomes like inflation and unemployment may lead democratic governments towards more open trade and flexible exchange rates. Second, if more societal groups are able to lobby as special interests in more democratic regimes, then governments may also be pushed toward these same foreign economic policies. Thus, there is no fundamental contradiction between the political economy empirical results and the political behavior theory, although scholars need to adjust their theories to explain foreign economic policy differences across political regime type.

scholarly journals The Limits of ‘Securitization’: Power, Politics and Process in US Foreign Economic Policy

2007 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Power Politics

AbstractThe concept of ‘securitization’ has become particularly influential in the post-9/11 world. This paper aims to scrutinize and, ultimately, reject an emerging set of claims about political economy which draw upon this framework. The contention that US foreign economic policy is increasingly subject to a process of securitization misrepresents the substance of contemporary US foreign policy, the political environment in which it is articulated and the process by which it is made. Pursuing this argument, the paper sets out a framework within which to understand the evolution of contemporary US policy, paying attention to distinctive forms of the economic–security nexus; the form of ‘ad hoc reactivism’ that has consistently characterized US foreign economic policy; the set of commercial and wider economic goals to which policy responds; and the dynamics of competition for leadership in key regions.

Foreign Economic Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. Bearce
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Investment Capital ◽  
The Individual

This chapter provides an overview of foreign economic policy. First, it defines the subject as it relates to the discipline of Political Science in order to demonstrate how this discipline’s research on foreign economic policy is problem-centered and what problem is its focus: explaining the variation in policy related to trade, external investment, capital, exchange rates, and immigration. Second, it reviews two major research programs related to this problem: the state-level variation based on political regime type and the individual-level preference variation for different foreign economic policies. Third, this chapter highlights the obstacle to connecting these two research programs: how to explain outcomes at the state-level based on preferences at the individual-level.

The Political Economy of Famine: The Ukrainian Famine of 1933

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-197
Author(s):  
Natalya Naumenko
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Excess Deaths

The 1933 Ukrainian famine killed as many as 2.6 million people out of a population of 32 million. Historians offer three main explanations: weather, economic policies, genocide. This paper documents that (1) available data do not support weather as the main explanation: 1931 and 1932 weather predicts harvest roughly equal to the 1924–1929 average; weather explains up to 8.1 percent of excess deaths. (2) Policies (collectivization of agriculture and the lack of favored industries) significantly increased famine mortality; collectivization explains up to 52 percent of excess deaths. (3) There is some evidence that ethnic Ukrainians and Germans were discriminated against.

The Political Construction of a Coordinated Political Economy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The One

The first chapter motivates the book’s central research question: how did the German variant of capitalism emerge, and what today is its central functioning logic? The chapter argues that past and recent accounts of Germany’s economic performance and economic policy have failed to fully explain how long-term stable economic coordination could have evolved in as large a country as Germany, and that this has also translated into an often biased view of Germany’s current economic policies. The chapter sketches the basic argument of the book—namely that the German welfare state was the prime means of economic coordination for unions and employers, labor and capital—and situates it in two relevant literatures: the Varieties of Capitalism literature on the one hand and the Comparative Welfare State literature on the other. The chapter also presents an overview of the book.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of Policy Reform: Insights from Southeast Asia

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hal Hill
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Economics And Politics ◽  
Political Economy Of Reform

Economists broadly agree on many key economic policy issues, but economics as a discipline has provided much less guidance on why and how economic policy reform occurs and how to develop institutional mechanisms that enable governments to adopt “good” economic policy. Political scientists are adept at identifying coalitions, constituencies, institutions, and interest groups, but they less commonly examine the implications for economic policy. Thus, work at the intersection between economics and politics—of why and how policy reform takes place—remains relatively unexplored territory. This is especially so in developing countries where political processes are more personalistic, institutions often less well established, outcomes more fluid, and the detailed case study literature on economic policy making still in its infancy. This paper provides an analytical survey of economic policy reform in Southeast Asia. It ranges across the major policy U-turns and the incremental reforms, with special reference to macroeconomic management and trade policy. On the basis of several case studies and set against the broader international literature, we advance nine conclusions on the political economy of reform.

The Political Economy of Israeli Neoliberalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronen Mandelkern ◽  
Michael Shalev
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Socioeconomic Inequality ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
State Actors

Israel’s political economy has been transformed since the 1980s from a developmental to a neoliberal model. This chapter describes and explains this transformation, emphasizing the unevenness and incompleteness of liberalization and its impact on socioeconomic inequality. Adopting a historical-institutionalist perspective to explain both the rise of Israeli neoliberalism and its unevenness, the chapter argues that liberalization was led by economic technocrats in state agencies, who were guided by liberal economic ideas and simultaneously pursuing their interest in greater authority and autonomy. The technocrats were empowered by re-engineering economic policy institutions and cooperating with other political actors. However, their ability to fulfill the goal of technocratic management of a competition-driven economy was limited by the continuing power of some sectors of both business and labor and the continuing vibrancy of the state’s national and military projects. The conclusion discusses recent challenges to neoliberalism in Israel as a result of public discontent and conflict between state actors.

Economic culture and foreign policy: the cognitive analysis of economic policy making

1987 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Egon Rohrlich
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Culture ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

Political scientists researching economic foreign policy have generally taken one of two analytic approaches. The first is based on realpolitik, the traditional application of “high” politics to the “low” politics of economics. This approach considers economics subordinate to politics. The concept of the national interest dominates; the pursuit of power—what enables the state to achieve its goals of security, welfare, and other societal values—is seen to underlie most actions. The study of foreign economic policy is thus an analysis of the distribution of power among states within the international system. By understanding a state's sources of strength and areas of vulnerability in relation to other states, the analyst will better understand the creation of foreign policy. Hans Morgenthau notes that while states may sometimes pursue economic policies for their own sake (in which case they should take little interest in their success), the more important economic policies they will favor are instruments of political power.Stephen Krasner views the state as an autonomously motivated actor, able to guide policy in pursuit of state priorities while resisting interest groups and ideologies. According to this “power theory”, the state tries to increase its economic competitiveness, ensure security of material needs, and promote its broad foreign-policy objectives. Economic policy is for the most part subordinate to and best explained by state priorities and prerogatives. Robert Tucker, Klaus Knorr, Robert Gilpin and others have also adopted this framework.

scholarly journals János Kornai as political economist

2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (s1) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Haggard
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
The Political ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Political Economy Of Reform

Although writing as an economist, János Kornai addressed fundamental questions of political economy throughout his career. These considerations began with his model of state socialist economies, but were explicit in his work on transitions and the political economy of reform as well. This paper provides an overview of those contributions, with a particular attention to the relationship between regime type – democracy and authoritarian rule – and economic structures, processes, and outcomes.

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