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In the literature on international financial institutions (IFIs), state-centered perspectives emphasize the role of wealthy countries in shaping the policies of institutions such as the World Bank. More recently, constructivist sociological approaches have argued that IFIs can be powerful actors in their own right, taking on missions that cannot be reduced to donor preferences. Neither approach has appreciated the "borrower power" that recipients of IFI assistance can possess. No other developing country has influenced the World Bank's thinking and practice as much as India has. Today, there is a saying about the Bank's relationship with its largest borrower that increasingly crops up in candid conversations with officials: "The World Bank needs India more than India needs the World Bank." This paper uses a theoretical synthesisâ??treating the Bank both as creature of state interest and as independent innovatorâ??to shed light on an important juncture. The Bank is determined to stay relevant in India, even as India is deliberately decreasing its aid dependency in line with its "emerging power" self-image and diplomacy. The Bank needs India both in a material senseâ??as a responsible borrower that allows the Bank to make higher-risk loans elsewhereâ??and as a symbolic success story of market reform and economic growth. Caught between increasing donor skepticism about India's needs and burgeoning aid demands from the lowest-income countries, India's impending "graduation" from the International Development Association (IDA, the Bank's concessionary aid facility) will radically alter the relationshipâ??unless creative ways are found to preserve India's eligibility. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the role of political party strength in producing better trade policies. Aspects of party strength being focused; Discussion of the concept of party strength and its link with trade policy outcomes; Statistical analysis of rich and poor democracies.

In comparison to all other industrialized countries, America has the highest rates of poverty. So, why is it that the world's top economic superpower has failed miserably in addressing the issue of poverty? Some believe that it is because our country was built on Lockean principles of private property, free market, and limited government. They would state that government does not have a role in fighting poverty. Others would say this is due to our political structure, mainly the two-party system, as well as the increasing role of money in politics. There is also a fairly large contingent of people that would say that America's values promote self-sufficiency, a diligent work ethic, and individual responsibility. While there is some truth in all of these three perspectives, my hypothesis is that is that issues and perceptions of race have played a major role in why America has generally been apathetic towards, and at times even against government action to reduce poverty. In terms of how race affects public policy issues, I will discuss the New Deal, civil rights legislation, the Great Society (especially the War on Poverty), and policies since then. Also, I will argue how since the New Deal all the way through the Reagan years, the perceptions of race on poverty has played a major role in elections, coalitions, and realignments. Finally, I will compare and contrast three types of possible solutions that could potentially reduce poverty in America: 1) class based policies targeted towards the poor, 2) race-based policies targeted towards the black and Hispanic communities, and 3) universal policies that are both class-neutral as well as race-neutral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do variations in institutional design influence the inward flows of foreign direct investment (FDI)? The concept that membership in international institutions can affect flows of FDI has only recently been addressed. However, the application of distinctions in the creation of organizations to FDI has been limited. Applying and advancing recent theoretical contentions, I contend that variation in regional trade agreements (RTAs) greatly affects the inflow of foreign direct investment into both developed and developing nations. The variation in RTA economic scope and independence gives foreign investors comparable signals as to the extent to which governments will apply liberal economic reforms as well as the ability of external agencies to enforce these reforms and protect investments. I apply an original data set of FDI inflows for both developing and developed nations from 1970 to 2003. Controlling for alternative explanations and concerns of endogeneity, I find that elevated levels of independence produce superior inflows of FDI into developing nations, while RTAs that encourage greater economic scope promote inward FDI movement into developed nations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in assisting the plight of poor coffee farmers to access the global market. The author cross-compared NGO who work with farmers and analyze the organizations' strengths and constraints relative to their government and private-sector partners. Conflicts arising from the situation wherein coffee consumers reside mostly in the western world and coffee producers reside almost exclusively in the developing world are considered.

The past three decades saw different trends of income inequality in the developed countries. The debate on the resurgence of income inequality in some advanced industrial societies, like US has often focused on changes in immigration policy (Borjas, 2000; Borjas, Freeman, and Katz, 1992; Borjas, 1994, 2000). However, the impact of immigration on inequality is not universally accepted. In this paper, I argue that immigration does have a positive relationship with income inequality in general, but it is contingent on the type of welfare policy of that country. In other words, immigration and welfare policy interactively affect income inequality. In order to test the hypothesis, I collect data on the number of immigrants, welfare policy type, and income inequality in the 16 OECD countries from 1970 to 2004 and employ a time series vs. cross sectional model. My finding is that immigration and welfare policy indeed interactively impact the income inequality. More specifically, for countries which have welfare policies beneficial to immigrants, immigration causes a rising income inequality, but the relationship becomes much weaker for those countries which have a welfare policy beneficial to the immigrants ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks the question of whether or not pro-FDI policies can be states' signal to preserve peace. Since a global competition for FDI between states has been a prevalent phenomenon since the 1980s, it is important for researchers to examine whether this newly economic competition between states has any repercussion on interstate relations in terms of war and peace. This paper argues that pro-FDI policies may represent states' signals to pursue peace, since the consequences of conflict will directly offset states' efforts to promote FDI inflows. Hence, a state launching pro-FDI policies is less likely to initiate military conflict, which will be more conspicuous in developing countries than in developed countries. This paper uses the macro-pro-FDI policies (e.g. capital market controls, property rights, economic freedom, etc.) and the treaty-pro-FDI policies (e.g. bilateral investment treaty) as independent variables to conduct statistical analysis by adopting the rare event model. This study covers most countries from the 1970 to 2001 period. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign Direct Investment, or multinational corporation activities, is one of the most striking features of economic globaliztion. Along with economic globalization, there has been a surge in the number, size and influence of FDI over the past couple of decades. In this sense, FDI in the developing countries has captured great attention of policy makers and academic scholars in recent years. There were bulks of paper focusing on the impact of the quality of institutions and the level of governance on the location of FDI. However, the reverse causal relationship of FDI on democratic governance received much less atteniton by scholars.In this paper, I will test the globalization-democracy nexus by exploring the effect of Foriegn Direct Investment on democratic governance in over 100 less developed countries from 1995 to 2004 using a pooled time-series cross-section statistical model. My hpothesis is that: Foreign Direct Investment, or activities of multinational corporations, has a positive impact on democratic governance in the less developed countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central research question in this paper is to investigate the sequence of economic development and democracy in the process of democratization of developing countries. Basically, at least, there are five theoretical models arguing the issue of the priority of development and democracy: First, modernizationists, such as Seymour Lipset, argue that economic growth would lead to democracy, so that "development first, democracy later." Second, however, Samuel Huntington proposes an alternative explanation of democratization from the perspective of "process" arguing that the outcome of economic development would lead to political decay; then the political system under instability would move toward democracy after institutionalization. Third, in contrast to modernization theory, scholars, who support "democracy first, development later," such as Joseph Siegle, Michael Weinstein, and Morton Halperin, argue that democracies consistently outperform non-democracies on most indicators of economic and social well-being, so that promoting democracy should be prior to expanding economic development in developing nations. Forth, some scholars, such as Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, argue that although politics indeed influences economic performance, the impact of regime type might not be significant on states' economic growth; and people do not know whether democracy improves or limits economic development. Fifth, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George Downs find that in the case of China, the result of economic development would not lead to democracy because authoritarian regimes and autocracies around the world show people that they can enjoy the benefits of economic development on the one hand and avoid political liberalization on the other. Their finding runs counter to the argument of modernizationists that democracy is the necessary result of economic development. After reviewing these five models above, this paper would not have any inclination of supporting any specific theoretical position but attempts to point out that the controversy over the priority of development and democracy should depend on particular cases. In other words, in some cases development leads to democracy: South Korea and Taiwan; in others, democracy is prior to development: India, Dominican Republic, and Mozambique. In addition, this study would attempt to pre-hypothesize that the shift of the international system-from the Cold War to the post-Cold War-is the key to influence the debate of development and democracy: "development first, democracy later" in the era of the Cold War; then "democracy first, development later" under the period of the third wave of global democratization, the post-Cold War, and Anti-terrorism War. Finally, according to these debates above, what would be the implication of American foreign policy of promoting democracy in the world? To the underdevelopment world, should the U.S. assist to develop economy first or to improve democracy first? Or should the U.S. do these two simultaneously? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, concerns about energy security in Europe, North America, and elsewhere have reached levels not seen since the 1970s and early 1980s. And each of the largest advanced industrialized countries has undertaken a major review of energy policy, initiated significant policy changes, or both in large part because of such concerns. That is largely where the commonalities end, however. In contrast to the earlier period, when the principal source of concern in all countries was high oil prices and uncertain oil supplies, today's energy security concerns are more diverse. In the United States, for example, the focus continues to be on oil, while in much of Europe, worries tend to center on the availability and reliability of natural gas supplies. This paper describes and explains these disparities and explores their implications. It argues that the differences are due in good measure to the differing policies pursued in response to the oil shocks of the 1970s. It also argues that the present differences will make meaningful cooperation to promote energy security by the advanced industrialized countries, which was never easy even during earlier periods, yet more difficult, if not impossible. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. This paper aims to analyze the differences in the effect of economic globalization on the economic development and quality of life between developing and developed countries. 215 countries will be classified into developing and developed countries. The time spans the 2005-9 period. 2. Economic globalization (independent variable) will be defined and measured by the following indicators:(1) International economic interdependence (export +import/GDP)(2) Openness of market to foreign businesses and investors (GDP minus GNI)(3) Foreign direct investment (FDI)3. Economic development (dependent variable) is based on the following indicators :(1) GDP, GNI , and PPP (purchasing power parity)(2) Quality of life: Human Development Index (HDI) (3) Income equality (Gini Coefficient)4. The following variables are selected as they each are theoretically assumed to affect economic development and quality of life in both developing and developed countries. Those variables will be treated as 'control variables' in order to identify a 'pure' effect of economic globalization on economic development and quality of life:(1) Defense spending(2) External debt sustainability/burden(3) Terms of trade(5) Ethnic-racial heterogeneity/composition (6) Population growth, (7) Internal political fragmentation (8) Internal/civil strife (9) Types of political system(10) Urbanization (11) industrialization V. The statistical methods will be based on SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences), in which factor analysis, discriminant analysis, multiple regression, crosstab, and logistic regression, among others, will be extensively utilized. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have addressed the question of which factors influence women's election to national legislatures in a variety of ways. Matland (1998) posed the issue of women's legislative representation in both developed and lesser developed countries and found a substantively significant difference between the two sets countries. Matland's conclusions are quite intriguing, but the small sample size utilized in the study motivates further exploration.In this paper, I expand the scope of Matland's study via the inclusion of data on the percentage of women in national legislatures from the years 1950-2005 on over 160 countries, utilize a more data-appropriate methodological approach, and examine the largely ignored effects of quotas. To deal with the methodological problem of varying electoral cycles, I take a series of cross sections from the data compiled every 5 years. In lieu of OLS, I utilize Poisson Regression to analyze the effects of Matland's key variables on both lesser developed and developed countries for each cross section. Further, I incorporate the crucial effect of quotas to help provide us a better understanding of the impact of this phenomenon on women being elected.By correcting existing methodological flaws and broadening the scope of Matland's analysis, I provide evidence of whether Matland's findings hold for a greater period of time and larger spectrum of countries. This contribution allows us to speak more confidently about the possible influences on women's representation in national legislatures, and on existing differences between developed and developing countries regarding gender and politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between political corruption and electoral outcomes in developed and developing democracies. It is discussed that a democratic government should be accountable to its citizens. It discusses the reason as to why corrupt leaders win the elections and gain public support. The effect of political corruption on electoral outcomes is also discussed which is driven by the government's economic performance.

Recent research has found that the decision to float or peg an exchange rate is contingent on a nation's desire for flexibility to respond to domestic political institutional constraints, sectoral interests, and international investment. However, considering the recent trend of many non-democratic and commodity exporting dependent nations aspiring to move toward a floating exchange rate, extant studies need to be reevaluated. Much of the literature fails to evaluate the influences of the pegged currency, trade and investment agreements beyond the European Union, and a single predominant export. The volatility of pegged currency can greatly impact the instability the domestic economy of local markets, thereby increasing the desire to float the exchange rate. In addition, states that create or join trade agreements are often required to coordinate their exchange rates in an effort to promote institutional unity. Lastly, the significant weight of a principal export compels nations to acquire more control over its trade value. Using a data set spanning the years from 1970-2003, we employ pooled data of approximately 100 under-developed, developing, and developed nations to test the affects of our primary explanatory variables and reconsider existing arguments in light of the many unanticipated recent national decisions to float exchange rates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, governments in developing countries have increasingly chosen to privatize state-controlled enterprises. What explains why governments have chosen to "sell-off" their national assets? We argue that mechanisms of international diffusion, including coercion, competition, learning, and emulation, have spread these policies across the developing world over a relatively short time period. Employing a new data set from the World Bank which reports privatization transactions over $1 million for all countries from 1988 to 2006, we test competing mechanisms of diffusion as well as domestic explanations which draw on demands from societal actors and the interests of governmental institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States citizens enjoy high standards of living. Juxtapose the United States with undeveloped countries. Citizens in these countries do not enjoy high standards of living. In the United States, as well as other developed countries, where needs are met, citizens have the luxury of contributing towards better environmental conditions and voicing this intent in public opinion surveys; in underdeveloped and developing countries, where needs are not met, citizens are more concerned with improving their situation and will be less likely to contribute to a better environment, which will be expressed in public opinion surveys. Presumably, the degree to which respondents in these various countries express concern for the environment in public opinion surveys should depend on country status with undeveloped countries reporting the least concern and developed countries reporting the most concern. From these tenets the following hypothesis emerges: Public opinion in developed countries will reflect a willingness to contribute to better environmental conditions more than will public opinion in undeveloped countries. The data used comes from the International Social Survey Program: Environment II survey conducted in 2000. Predicted probabilities generated from a series of logit regressions show that while Americans are more willing to pay higher taxes and higher prices to protect the environment than are citizens in undeveloped countries, citizens in undeveloped countries are more willing to accept a lower standard of living to protect the environment than are Americans. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines geographic effects on the internal politics the world's major industrialized democratic nations. I theorize that where industrialized democracies are located together, or clustered, in a large group their electorates will tend to have a similar voting ideology with each other (as measured on the left-right political spectrum), but different from industrialized democracies that are not located in such a 'strong democratic cluster.' Specifically, I hypothesize that these clustered European democracies are less likely to be concerned about external military threats and are therefore more likely to vote for leftist parties/candidates when considering defense issues than are non-clustered democracies. I also hypothesize that a greater number of borders shared with other industrialized democracies increases concerns about immigration, since borders between these nations tend to be less protected and controlled than borders with other states. The anticipated result is that, when immigration is an issue, electorates of the clustered European democracies will have a greater likelihood of voting for parties/candidates on the political right, as compared with the nonclustered democracies. Empirical analysis of national elections in 25 industrialized democracies over a 50 year period provides support for both hypotheses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]