Suchergebnisse

Although central banks possess a similar function across the industrial democracies, their institutional structures - their levels of independence - differ greatly. My explanation of this variation emphasizes the informational asymmetries of monetary policymaking. Government ministers have informational advantages in the policy process, potentially creating conflicts with backbench legislators and, in a multiparty government, coalition partners. An independent central bank can help alleviate these conflicts. Politicians will choose an independent bank (1) if government ministers, party legislators, and coalition partners have different monetary policy incentives and (2) if government ministers fear that party legislators and coalition partners will withdraw their support over a policy dispute. I statistically test the argument against the cross-national variation of central bank institutions. I also use the theoretical framework to examine episodes of institutional choice and reform in Germany, Britain, and Italy. (American Political Science Review / FUB)

As soon as the sovereign debt crisis began, it was widely understood that Germany's response would dictate its ultimate resolution. Whereas the initial round of bailouts stabilized markets and preserved the Euro, the purpose of the second Greek bailout is less clear. We argue that the German government's decision to support a second Greek bailout reflected domestic political calculations. While a bailout would involve short-term political costs, Merkel's government also recognized the social and economic consequences of potential Greek default. In particular, a default entailed the prospect of a massive inflow of migrants from Southern Europe into Germany, which would have hurt labor markets and, in turn, could have cost Merkel's coalition electoral support. To evaluate the political, economic, and social costs of the second Greek bailout, we use models of credit default swap spreads, studies of international migration, and research on vote intention.

This study assesses how political parties' candidate selection strategies influence women's descriptive parliamentary representation. Focusing on proportional elections, it explores what determines whether parties place women in viable list positions. Evaluating party rankings at the individual level, it directly examines a mechanism – party nomination – central to prevailing explanations of empirical patterns in women's representation. Moreover, it jointly evaluates how incumbency and gender affect nomination. This study uses European Parliament elections to compare a plethora of parties, operating under numerous institutions, in the context of a single legislature. It finds that gender differences in candidate selection are largely explained by incumbency bias, although party ideology and female labor force participation help explain which parties prioritize the placement of novice women.

Parties in list systems must select candidates to best accomplish their electoral, organizational, and policy goals. In particular, parties must balance nominees' policy-making potential against other aspects of candidate quality, such as electoral viability. We exploit the unique variation in candidates and parties in European elections to study this trade-off. We develop a statistical ranking model to examine how parties facing varying strategic contexts construct electoral lists and apply it to a novel data set chronicling the political backgrounds of candidates in the 2009 European parliamentary elections. Parties that place high salience on the target legislature, are well positioned to influence policy once in office, and have less access to competing policy-making venues place particular emphasis on institution-specific policy-making experience relative to other types of candidate experience. This systematic variation in parties' candidate nomination strategies may fundamentally alter legislative output and partisan policy influence.