The Political Economy of Group Membership

1985 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mark Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rational Model ◽  
Farm Bureau ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Group Mobilization ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Despite its normative importance, the question of why people join interest groups remains open. It has certainly provoked a wealth of theoretical attention. Regrettably, however, it has inspired only a handful of empirical tests. The introduction of this article places the empirical debate into its normative context. The first section develops a rational model of individual evaluations of group membership, focusing upon the effect of changing personal circumstances—preferences, needs, resources, insecurity, and information—on the calculus. In particular, the theory predicts responsiveness to political or collective benefits in threatening times. Analyses of aggregate changes over time in membership in the Farm Bureau, the League of Women Voters, and the Home Builders, reported in the second section, bear the model out. Finally, the conclusion takes on the complementary question of group supply, sketching a theory of group mobilization that emphasizes subsidization.

“Pure Milk Is Better Than Purified Milk”

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Czaplicki
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Practices ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Organizational Processes ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Pure Milk ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Better Than

This article explains how pasteurization—with few outspoken political supporters during this period—first became a primary milk purification strategy in Chicago and why eight years passed between pasteurization’s initial introduction into law and the city’s adoption of full mandatory pasteurization. It expands the current focus on the political agreement to pasteurize to include the organizational processes involved in incorporating pasteurization into both policy and practice. It shows that the decision to pasteurize did not occur at a clearly defined point but instead evolved over time as a consequence of the interplay of political interest groups, state-municipal legal relations, and the merging of different organizational practices. Such an approach considerably complicates and expands existing accounts of how political interests and agreements shaped pasteurization and milk purification policies and practice.

scholarly journals The Case Against Patents

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Boldrin ◽  
David K Levine
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Partial Equilibrium ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Equilibrium Effect ◽  
Equilibrium Effect ◽  
Over Time

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. Both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent, the general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative. A properly designed patent system might serve to increase innovation at a certain time and place. Unfortunately, the political economy of government-operated patent systems indicates that such systems are susceptible to pressures that cause the ill effects of patents to grow over time. Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence that laissez-faire undersupplies it. However, if that policy change seems too large to swallow, we discuss in the conclusion a set of partial reforms that could be implemented

3. Defining Autocracy

2019 ◽  
pp. 36-51
Author(s):  
Andrea Kendall-Taylor ◽  
Natasha Lindstaedt ◽  
Erica Frantz
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The World ◽  
Russian President ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Over Time

Totalitarian regimes 37 Contemporary approaches to disaggregating autocracy 40 Blended regimes and changes over time 48 Conclusion 49 Key Questions 50 Further Reading 50 In Chapter 2, we defined democracy and identified the key characteristics of democratic regimes. In this chapter, we turn our attention to the other side of the political ledger and delve into the world of authoritarianism. Even a casual scan of international news headlines—filled with stories on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest feats, China’s rise, and Turkish President Erdoğan’s consolidation of power—reinforces the notion that today’s autocrats are resurgent. After a turbulent decade following the end of the Cold War, many authoritarian regimes have regained their footing and grown bolder and more capable of dealing with dissent....

Office, land and subjects in the history of the Manwere fekuo of Kumase: an essay in the political economy of the Asante state

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. C. McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
General Consideration ◽  
West African ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Material Basis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The fundamental reasoning underlying this paper is that, in seeking to advance our understanding of the material basis of political power in pre-colonial African polities, particular attention must be paid to the detailed reconstruction over time of the triumviral relationship between office, land and subjects. Acknowledgement is freely made of the fact that, for many (if not most) areas of Africa, this type of reconstruction is either exceptionally difficult or frankly impossible. This paper is concerned with the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ghana) – a case evincing considerable institutional continuity and structural vigour, and one, moreover, sufficiently richly documented to permit the type and level of reconstruction posited. Specifically, and taking into account the substantial body of research already carried out on the general political history of Asante, this paper deals with patterns of authority over land and subjects as evidenced by the offices contained within the Manwere – one of the ten administrative/military fekuo of Kumase. The Manwere was created by Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin (1834–67), and in seeking to account for the political imperatives underlying the foundation, the paper explores the context of the reign and the biography and career of the first Manwerehene, Kwasi Brantuo. Particular attention is paid throughout to the way in which the relationship between office, land and subjects within the Manwere was modified or otherwise altered by the nature of the political vicissitudes through which the Asante polity passed in the period between – broadly – the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Underlying the paper, and supplying context to its conclusions, is a general consideration of the philosophy of the Asante ethic concerning such matters as wealth and accumulation, the nature of authority, and the conceptualization of citizenship.

scholarly journals Geografická reprezentativa poslanců zvolených do Poslanecké sněmovny českého parlamentu za první republiky (1918-1938) a po roce 1989

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 354-380
Author(s):  
Renáta Mikešová ◽  
Tomáš Kostelecký
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Election Laws ◽  
Over Time

Election laws regulate the number of deputies who are elected in individual electoral districts, and set them in relation to the population, respectively to the number of voters participating in elections in individual regions. Elected deputies could thus be regarded as political representatives of citizens living in electoral districts. However, under systems of proportional representation, current deputies represent the ideology of the party to which they belong rather than the region. Nevertheless, it makes sense to study the spatial distribution of the places of origin and residence of members of parliament and their changes over time, because it suggests much about the political system and the system of representative democracy in the country. The spatial distribution of places of residence of candidates and elected members indicates not only the territorial proportionality and geographic representativeness, but also the shifting centers of political power. The analysis clearly confirms the gradual decentralization and regionalization of political power in the country, which stands in contrast to the centralization of power in the economy, this latter trend apparent from the concentration of economic management and decision-making in the largest cities, especially in Prague.

scholarly journals Book Review: S. Narayan. 2018. The Dravidian Years: Politics and Welfare in Tamil Nadu.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swati Narayan
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social History ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Administrator ◽  
Over Time

Narayan’s book The Dravidian Years provides a rare glimpse of the political economy landscape of the most transformative period in Tamil Nadu’s social history from an insider’s perspective of a former public administrator who has served for three decades in the Indian bureaucracy. The book depicts the southern Indian state’s evolution from a deeply casteist British province to one with a radical social justice agenda, which over time however mutates into a more diluted hybrid amalgamation of capitalistic economic development with an ingrained ethos of populist social welfare.

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