Reflections on the Independent Mass Media of Post-Soviet Countries and Political Competitiveness

The aim of this paper is to analyse political activity in the mass media discourses of states with more democratic and more authoritative regimes respectively, so as to show a clear difference in the context of a formal analysis of mass media content. The current study examines political news on qualitative online media portals in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Thirty years ago, these states began their independent transition from a closed system to openness/democracy. However, at today’s transition point, only Lithuania is considered a democratic country. In different periods Ukraine has been considered an example of competitive authoritarianism, while Belarus deviated towards complete authoritarianism and dictatorship. All political news items between 2005–2020 (for delfi.lt – since 2007) were collected with the help of the Python program. To measure the indicators, several Python programs were designed. The results of the research confirmed that the intensity of political activity differs in the mass media discourses of states with more democratic (Lithuania, Ukraine) and more authoritative (Belarus) regimes. Furthermore, a clear difference was shown in terms of five indicators, average indicators and the dynamics thereof.

Toward a Political Sociology of Dispossession: Explaining Opposition to Capital Projects in India

Land dispossession is a major source of protest in many countries. This article asks, How common are cases of mobilization against land dispossession relative to cases of nonmobilization? Why do we see protests against land dispossession for some projects and not others? These questions are taken up in the context of India, a major global hotspot for land dispossession protest. Using a database of all major capital projects in the country, the article looks at the effects of project characteristics and context on incidence of delays or cancellations due to land acquisition problems. The findings demonstrate that a project’s sector and subnational location affect the emergence of opposition to land dispossession. Further, differences in political competitiveness and agrarian social structure are significant factors driving subnational variation. By identifying important factors shaping opposition to land dispossession, the article aims to stimulate comparative research that can advance a political sociology of dispossession.

Political competitiveness and the private–public structure of public expenditure: a model and empirics for the Indian States

Studies of government size usually try to identify the factors that explain what parts of economic activity are brought within the public sector and what parts are left strictly in private hands. Modern governments are now so large that the question of what determines the private/public composition, or privateness, of public expenditure is of comparable importance for understanding the role of government in society. In this paper, we use a model of the composition of public budgets to uncover the importance of electoral competitiveness and other factors in the evolution of the privateness of public expenditure across the Indian states. These states vary widely in their socioeconomic characteristics while sharing a common political heritage based on parliamentary government. New measures of public expenditure on private targetable goods and of electoral competitiveness at the Indian state level accompany the paper along with a primer on Indian public finance accounting practices in an Online Appendix. The empirical analysis shows that the degree of privateness in India’s more developed states falls substantially with greater political competition and with rising incomes, while in the less developed states it responds more weakly to these key factors and in some cases even inversely.

Blessing and Curse

Recent studies on the subnational resource curse contend that subnational rentier units suffer from the same nondemocratic tendency as their national counterparts. However, subnational rentier states worldwide exhibit contrasting political outcomes. Why are some subnational rentier units politically competitive whereas others are not? This article argues that rent-sharing regimes—the fiscal institutions for sharing resource revenues among levels of government—condition political competitiveness at the provincial level. Using novel time-series cross-sectional data on Argentina, a case with several hydrocarbon-rich units with exogenously created rent-sharing regimes, I show that oil creates negative political effects at the provincial level only when these institutions do not share—or share minor amounts of—rents with municipal governments. Conversely, political competition emerges when rent-sharing regimes distribute rents to municipal governments, as this shrinks large provincial budgets, allows municipalities to deliver public and private goods, and gives municipal politicians fiscal independence from provincial governments.

International Real Estate Review

This paper tests for evidence of political manipulation in the allocation of subsidized mortgage loans in Mexico during the 1990’s. First, I develop a baseline model of loan allocation across states as a function of housing need, eligibility for lending programs, and administrative capacity to deliver housing. Then, I add measures of political competitiveness to the model. Empirical results suggest that the two largest lenders generally allocated loans according to their eligibility criteria, granting more loans to states with more income- and employment-eligible households and poorer quality housing. Tests for political manipulation suggest that more loans were, in fact, granted in federal election years and in states where the ruling party did not perform well in the previous election. However, the numbers lack statistical significance. As a result, it can be assumed that political motivation played a relatively small role in the allocation of loans.

Macro-Political Origins of Micro-Political Differences: A Comparison of Eleven Societies in East and South Asia

This article examines the cross-level causal relationship between macro-political settings and micro-political attitudes in eleven Asian societies using the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey (China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan) and the 2006 South Asian Survey (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). After extracting the four underlying dimensions of political attitudes from the broadly comparable questions used in the two surveys, the study first detects national differences in terms of (1) citizens' attitudes toward political activities other than voting, (2) their commitment to a democratic system, (3) their political frustration, and (4) their confidence in their ability to govern themselves. Then, regression analysis examines the possibility that the micro-level variations in each of the four dimensions of political attitudes are related to the abundant macro-level variations found in these Asian countries. The results show that although the country-level predictors for citizens' attitudes toward direct political actions are common to both regions (ethno-linguistic fractionalization and the degree of institutionalization of preference articulation), factors influencing the variations in other dimensions are different. Specifically, the effects of political competitiveness and inclusiveness are more salient in South Asia than in East Asia.