Suchergebnisse

Resource populism is a dominant feature of today's energy market: politicians around the world are attacking oil companies with both words & deeds. This battle has caused tension & has amplified business risk, the result being reduced investment in future energy projects. And although there appears to be no end in sight, there is still hope that the trend towards more resource populism is not sustainable in the long term; sooner or later politicians will need to reach out to the oil companies they have made a habit of demonizing. Adapted from the source document.

What explains the variation of trade protection across countries and years? The author argues that other things equal, democracies with strong parties will choose freer trade policies. He focuses on two aspects of party strength—organizational centralization and stable party linkages to large groups of the electorate. He contends that legislative logrolls leading to high protection are significantly less likely when parties are centralized. Furthermore, because parties with stable connections to the electorate have longer time horizons, the author argues that they will generally support more open trade policies that provide long-run economic benefits. Finally, he contends that parties linked to large electoral groups—as measured by district size—will prefer public goods such as freer trade over trade patronage. After coding a measure of party centralization developed by Cary and Shugart (1995), the author conducts a quantitative analysis of democracies from 1975-2000. His results support the theory and highlight an understudied institution in trade policy.