Political Institutions, Decision Styles, and Policy Choices*

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz W. Scharpf
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Decision Styles

scholarly journals Political institutions, lobbying and corruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 917-939 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAURO F. CAMPOS ◽  
FRANCESCO GIOVANNONI
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Enterprise Level ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAlthough firms use various strategies to try to influence government policy, with lobbying and corruption chiefly among them, and political institutions play an important role in determining policy choices, very little research has been devoted to these topics. This paper tries to fill this gap. Using cross-country enterprise-level data, it investigates (1) the effect of a key political institution, namely electoral rules, on the probability that a firm engages in lobbying activities and (2) the impact of lobbying on influence, accounting for corruption and political institutions. The main conclusion is that lobbying is a significantly more effective way of generating political influence than corruption, and that electoral rules are a key mediating political institution. Our baseline estimate is that the probability of influencing government policy is 16% higher for firms that are members of lobbying groups than for those firms that are not.

Political Cycles, Political Institutions and Public Expenditure in India, 1980–2000

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Sáez ◽  
Aseema Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Education And Health ◽  
Election Timing ◽  
Western Democracies

In Western democracies it is held that parties and their positions affect how politicians choose to make public expenditure and investment. This article examines the public policy choices of politicians in India, a large well-established democracy with remarkable subnational variation. Public expenditure, from education and health to agriculture and irrigation, is analysed. Counterintuitive findings – that election timing and political factors play a strong role in the subnational states, and that party competition increases investment in education – are explained by highlighting the role economic and political uncertainty plays in politicians’ choices. Building a ‘Polanyi’ argument enhanced by a supply-side mechanism highlights the importance of compensation and insurance and the imperatives of political stability for subnational politicians, who attempt to maximize re-election chances in an uncertain environment.

scholarly journals Foreign Influence and Domestic Policy

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 426-487
Author(s):  
Toke S. Aidt ◽  
Facundo Albornoz ◽  
Esther Hauk
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Voluntary Agreements ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Foreign State ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Foreign Influence ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Target Country

In an interconnected world, economic and political interests inevitably reach beyond national borders. Since policy choices generate external economic and political costs, foreign state and non-state actors have an interest in influencing policy actions in other sovereign countries to their advantage. Foreign influence is a strategic choice aimed at internalizing these externalities and takes three principal forms: (i) voluntary agreements, (ii) policy interventions based on rewarding or sanctioning the target country to obtain a specific change in policy, and (iii) institution interventions aimed at influencing the political institutions in the target country. We propose a unifying theoretical framework to study when foreign influence is chosen and in which form, and use it to organize and evaluate the new political economics literature on foreign influence along with work in cognate disciplines (JEL D72, D74, F51, F53, P26, P33).

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita ◽  
James D. Morrow ◽  
Randolph M. Siverson ◽  
Alastair Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Domestic Political Institutions ◽  
Extra Effort ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Empirical Regularities

We examine formally the link between domestic political institutions and policy choices in the context of eight empirical regularities that constitute the democratic peace. We demonstrate that democratic leaders, when faced with war, are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats. This follows because the survival of political leaders with larger winning coalitions hinges on successful policy. The extra effort made by democrats provides a military advantage over autocrats. This makes democrats unattractive targets, since their institutional constraints cause them to mobilize resources for the war effort. In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets. Because defeat is more likely to lead to domestic replacement for democrats than for autocrats, democrats only initiate wars they expect to win. These two factors lead to the interaction between polities that is often referred to as the democratic peace.

scholarly journals How Prior Military Experience Influences the Future Militarized Behavior of Leaders

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Horowitz ◽  
Allan C. Stam
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Personal Attributes ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Militarized Disputes ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Heads Of State

AbstractPolicy-makers and the electorate assume political executives' life experiences affect their policy choices once in office. Recent international relations work on leaders focuses almost entirely on how political institutions shape leaders' choices rather than on leaders' personal attributes and how they influence policy choices. This article focuses the analytic lens on leaders and their personal backgrounds. We theorize that the prior military background of a leader is an important life experience with direct relevance for how leaders evaluate the utility of using military force. We test several propositions employing a new data set, building on Archigos, that encompasses the life background characteristics of more than 2,500 heads of state from 1875 to 2004. The results show that the leaders most likely to initiate militarized disputes and wars are those with prior military service but no combat experience, as well as former rebels.

scholarly journals The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 1218-1244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Besley ◽  
Torsten Persson
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Fiscal Capacity ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
Cross Country

Economists generally assume that the state has sufficient institutional capacity to support markets and levy taxes. This paper develops a framework where “policy choices” in market regulation and taxation are constrained by past investments in legal and fiscal capacity. It studies the economic and political determinants of such investments, demonstrating that legal and fiscal capacity are typically complements. The results show that, among other things, common interest public goods, such as fighting external wars, as well as political stability and inclusive political institutions, are conducive to building state capacity. Some correlations in cross-country data are consistent with the theory. (JEL D72, E62, H11, H20, P14)

scholarly journals The disempowering Goverati: e-Aristocrats or the Delusion of e-Democracy

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismael Peña-López
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Socioeconomic Changes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Information And Communication

When disaffection on political parties and politicians is pervasive, most argue whether it could be possible, thanks to the Internet – and Information and Communication Technologies in general – forget the mainstream political system and let the citizenry express their own opinion, debate in virtual agorae and vote their representatives and policy choices directly. In other words, the claim is whether the actual intermediaries can be replaced by citizen networks or, in the limit, just be overridden.Our aim in the following lines is to (1) explain that some dire (socioeconomic) changes are actually taking place,(2) why these socioeconomic changes are taking place and (3) infer, from this, what conditions shall take place in the future for (4) another wave of changes to happen that could eventually a much acclaimed new (e-)democracy. In a last section, we will discuss that despite lack of data, the trend seems to be just in the direction of the impoverishment of democracy, partly due to the weakening of political institutions.

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