Suchergebnisse

Contains much of the material in the author's The Federal Government and functional democracy, published in 1940. ; "Selected bibliography": p. 29. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Nous nous penchons sur la politique d'étatisation à l'aide de la décision en 1975 du gouvernement néo-démocrate de la Saskatchewan de prendre en main l'industrie de la potasse. Cette décision ne correspond pas aux normes régissant l'intervention de l'Etat en Amérique du Nord puisqu'il s'agit de la première nationalisation d'une industrie vaste et rentable dans le secteur de la production de marchandises. Nous analysons les réactions de deux milieux, les Etats-Unis et le gouvernement fédéral à la décision de nationaliser l'industrie de la potasse durant la période qui va de l'annonce de la décision (novembre 1975) à la première entente pour l'achat d'une mine de potasse appartenant a des intérêts américains (août 1976).Nous avons trouvé qu'en dépit d'une opposition initiate bruyante, les sociétés multinationals, le gouvernement américain et le gouvernement fédéral canadien ont accepté la décision. Nous montrons quels furent les principaux adversaires de la politique d'étatisation et nous expliquons comment ils se sont adaptès à cette mesure en analysant la façon dont on a tenu compte des intérêts économiques en présence: des garanties d'approvisionnement pour le gouvernement américain, un rendement honorable pour les investissements des sociétés multinationales et la sauvegarde de l'impôt de base pour le gouvernement fédéral. Le capitalisme ne peut done plus être identifié à la propriété privée inaliénable ou à la concurrence sauvage. On doit au contraire le rattacher de plus en plus a un système économique dominé par les oligopoles à la fois privés et publics et marqué par la réglementation des échanges. L'Etat joue maintenant un rôle économique important, il ne se limite pas à l'intervention indirecte, c'est-à-dire à la réglementation mais il a recours à l'intervention directe dans la production. Les sociétés multinationales ont dû modifier leur stratégie d'ensemble en abandonnant l'idée de la propriété privée de tous les moyens de production au profit de la collaboration avec les entreprises publiques. Dans ce contexte l'étatisme en Saskatchewan n'est pas et n'était pas en réalité une question purement idéologique. L'avenir de l'étatisation en tant que politique gouvernementale dépend, du moins en partie, de la façon dont on concilie les intérêts économiques menacés par le transfert de propriété.

The conceptual meaning of and the empirical evidence for the nationalization of the American electorate is explored. Two conceptually distinct dimensions of nationalization are identified: nationlization in terms of a convergence in the level of partisan support across geographical subunits of the electorate, and nationalization in terms of a uniformity of response by geographical units to political forces. Empirical estimates for both types of nationalization are derived for the American electorate for the period from 1842 to 1970. Unlike previous scholars, we find no trend toward increasing nationalization of the vote. Possible reasons for this lack of nationalization of the vote are suggested.

This thesis is focused on the nationalization of party systems in Western Europe and combines four different approaches. Despite the literature claiming that political decentralization reduces party system nationalization, the first paper shows that this effect depends on the level of personalism that the electoral system allows. The second article shows a new effect of the nationalization of party systems. This variable is shown to be a crucial element to explain turnout differences across districts within a country. The third article of this thesis is centered on the impact of the electoral system on party system nationalization through a crucial-experimental approach based on electoral reforms in Western Europe. Finally, the last part of the thesis focuses on describing and analyzing the nationalization of political parties in Spain, paying particular attention to differences among national and subnational parties. ; Esta tesis doctoral está centrada en la nacionalización de los sistemas de partidos en Europa Occidental desde cuatro perspectivas diferentes. Una hipótesis clásica de la literatura es que la descentralización política reduce la nacionalización. En el primer artículo se muestra que el efecto de esta variable depende de que haya un grado suficiente de personalismo en el sistema electoral. En el segundo artículo se demuestra un nuevo efecto de la nacionalización de los sistemas de partidos; esta variable determina las diferencias en la participación electoral entre distritos dentro de un mismo país. El tercer artículo se aproxima al fenómeno mediante experimentos cruciales centrados en las reformas del sistema electoral en Europa Occidental a fin de estimar su efecto sobre la nacionalización. Finalmente, el último artículo analiza la nacionalización de los partidos en España y sus principales determinantes, distinguiendo particularmente entre partidos de ámbito nacional y subnacional.

This dissertation is about the institutional choices governments make to manage their petroleum wealth. It is about the determinants of these choices, but more importantly, their consequences for effective governance and how they explain variations in political outcomes in oil-producing countries. I begin by describing several different institutional pathways -- involving national oil companies (NOCs) and their varying characteristics -- that governments can take in extracting petroleum and regulating its production. My goal, then, is to show how these seemingly technical institutional choices can have profound impacts on governance, ranging from effects on state revenue collection to incentives for corruption to ultimately the survival of the regime itself. To this aim, I collected original longitudinal data on the formation of NOCs in 62 countries since 1900; data from U.S. Department of Justice transcripts on the prosecution of corrupt practices in the energy sectors of 80 countries in the 2006-12 period; and existing cross-national data on government revenue capture from the sale of oil and natural resources. I analyze the determinants of NOC formation in the first empirical chapter, where I use Bayesian analysis informed with interview-based data from oil consultants to test and confirm leading theories of state revenue-maximization as the primary determinant of expropriation. In the following chapter, I analyze the process of extortion in the oil sector where I show cross-nationally how NOC institutional design influences bribery to high-level government officials. In the penultimate chapter, I expand on the governance consequences of NOCs by showing that nationalization ultimately increases state resource revenues, creating pathways for regime stability and duration. In the last chapter, I discuss the theoretical implications of my argument and findings. I make two broad claims in this dissertation. First, while there is much agreement that oil is not always and everywhere a curse for political development, there is little consensus about the specific conditions or institutions that do and do not matter. I help turn the ``institutions matter'' phrase from a vague stylized fact into a well-measured, clearly-specified phenomenon. Second, when it comes to the production of natural resources, classical economics theories would suggest that state intervention will lead to inefficiency, lower outputs and therefore lower revenues. In contrast, I argue and show evidence that some forms of state intervention -- that is, certain types of NOCs -- actually increase both production levels and revenues when compared to periods of no state intervention. Taken together, my dissertation applies novel ways to measure and test theories about oil's conditional effects on politics that are widely circulated but often assumed rather than tested.

The postwar electoral dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was founded on (1) strong incumbency advantage, which insulated its legislators from declining party popularity, and (2) the malapportionment of districts, which overvalued the electoral clout of the party's rural base. The LDP's demise in 2009 was due to the reversal of both factors, each of which was related to electoral reforms in the 1990s. First, I demonstrate that elections are becoming more "nationalized," due to the growing weight that voters attach to the attractiveness of party leaders. Past performance has become a poorer predictor of incumbent reelection, giving way to large partisan swings that are increasingly correlated across districts. Second, malapportionment was reduced by almost half in 1994, meaning that rural votes are now worth fewer seats. As a result, parties that can attract swing voters nationally are better positioned for victory than those with a narrow regional base.