Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe sport of surfing is best enjoyed with one rider on one wave, but crowding makes that optimal assignment increasingly hard to attain. This study examines the phenomenon of surf localism, whereby competitors are excluded from waves by intimidation and the threat of violence. An alternative way to accommodate crowds is contained in the surfer's code, which sets informal rules and self-enforced regulations to avoid conflict in the water. Both regimes establish property rights over common pool resources with no state intervention, creating a setting wherein users face the question of cooperation or conflict. The disposition to cooperate and follow norms has been shown to vary substantially across different cultures, though. Employing data from over seven hundred surf spots on the European Atlantic coast, this study reports evidence that certain informal cultural norms significantly reduce the probability of violent exclusion, while formal state institutions mostly are irrelevant. The results also indicate that informal norms become more important with greater resource quality and, possibly, with increasing scarcity.

openAccessArticle: False ; Page Range: 607-607 ; doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2012.07.001 ; Harvest Date: 2016-01-12 15:12:22 ; issueName: ; cover date: 2012-12-01 ; pubType:

AbstractClaims that colonial political institutions fundamentally affected the probability for democratic governance in the post-colonial period are probably among some of the most contested in institutional analysis. The current paper revisits this literature using a previously unused source of empirical information – the Statesman's Yearbook – on a large number of non-sovereign countries in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Our analysis shows that neither the size of the European population nor the existence of institutions of higher education appear to be important for the subsequent democratisation of countries decolonised during the latter half of the 20th century, while the existence of representative political bodies during the late colonial period clearly predicts the existence and stability of democracy in recent decades. Successful transplants of democracy to former colonies thus seem to crucially depend on whether recipients had time available to experiment around and adjust the imported institutions to local practices.

Social scientists have created a variety of datasets in recent years that quantify political regimes, but these often provide little data on phases of regime transitions. Our aim is to contribute to filling this gap, by providing an update and expansion of the Democracy-Dictatorship data by Cheibub et al. (Public Choice, 143, 67–101, 2010), originally introduced by Alvarez et al. (Studies in Comparative International Development, 31(2), 3–36, 1996), where we add the following three features: First, we expand coverage to a total of 192 sovereign countries and 16 currently self-governing territories between 1950 and 2018, including periods under colonial rule for more than ninety entities. Second, we provide more institutional details that are deemed of importance in the relevant literature. Third, we include a new, self-created indicator of successful and failed coups d'état, which is currently the most complete of its kind. We further illustrate the usefulness of the new dataset by documenting the importance of political institutions under colonial rule for democratic development after independence, making use of our much more detailed data on colonial institutions. Findings indicate that more participatory colonial institutions have a positive and lasting effect for democratic development after transition to independence.

Debates about the appropriate role of markets and governments are often shaped by sharply contrasting opinions. Based on individual data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study for up to 190,000 respondents in a sample of 68 democratic countries, we find that social trust is associated with tempered attitudes regarding government intervention and redistribution. Results corroborate ideas from socio-psychological research that trusting people have personality attributes which work towards a moderation on politically divisive topics. Complementary to the existing literature on political polarisation, this opens the possibility that trusting societies may be superior at implementing controversial policy reforms because social trust reduces the probability of extreme attitude formation.

Proper government reaction to economic crisis has long been a central element of public policy debate and is experiencing a revival after the Great Recession of 2008. Previous studies argue on theoretical and empirical grounds that crises may lead to more interventionist policies, but also cause deregulation and liberalization. This article claims that policy responses will partly depend on the core economic ideology of government, causing ideologically heterogeneous post-crisis strategies. Employing a panel of 69 countries for which salient ideology measures can be constructed, we find that growth crises between 1975 and 2015 caused larger increases in government size and regulatory policy when countries have left-wing governments. We also find some evidence of policy ratchets, meaning that certain crisis policies present a tendency to become permanent, regardless of the ideology of successive governments in power. Rolling back the public sector in size and scope seems to be possible, but our results show that, on average, it does not clearly occur as an ideologically driven reaction to anti-crisis policies.

Proper government reaction to economic crisis has long been a central element of public policy debate and is experiencing a revival after the Great Recession of 2008. Previous studies argue on theoretical and empirical grounds that crises may lead to more interventionist policies, but also cause deregulation and liberalization. This article claims that policy responses will partly depend on the core economic ideology of government, causing ideologically heterogeneous post-crisis strategies. Employing a panel of 69 countries for which salient ideology measures can be constructed, we find that growth crises between 1975 and 2015 caused larger increases in government size and regulatory policy when countries have left-wing governments. We also find some evidence of policy ratchets, meaning that certain crisis policies present a tendency to become permanent, regardless of the ideology of successive governments in power. Rolling back the public sector in size and scope seems to be possible, but our results show that, on average, it does not clearly occur as an ideologically driven reaction to anti-crisis policies.

AbstractA popular explanation for economic development is that 'individualistic values' provide a mind-set that is favorable to the creation of growth-promoting institutions. The present paper investigates the relationship between individualistic values and personal attitudes toward government intervention. We consider two key components of an individualistic culture to be particularly relevant for attitude formation: self-direction ('social' individualism) and self-determination ('economic' individualism). Results indicate that both are negatively associated with interventionist attitudes. Effects of self-direction are much weaker though, than self-determination. Moreover, the effects of self-direction are mitigated through higher trust in the state and lower confidence in companies, while that is not the case for self-determination values. We conclude that especially economic individualism supports attitudes conducive to the formation of formal market-friendly institutions.