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This paper addresses the question of how national party leaders set their party’s policy positions. Currently, the literature on this question exhibits a gap between theory and reality; spatial models predict convergence of party policy positions in a two-party setting, while empirical scholars found divergence in real world situations. Our paper is an attempt to fill in this gap. We do so by introducing two additional issues that have been relatively neglected in the existing literature. First, we stress the importance of establishing a party label for national party leaders as part of a strategy for the goal of seat-maximization in addition to the Downsian convergence strategy. Second, we address the issue that national party leaders are likely to adjust their party policy positions in response to heterogeneous preference distributions of voters across districts, in which the party has varying degrees of success. Incorporating these two issues, we show in a simple spatial model that in a two-party, single-member plurality system, two parties’ positions on a given policy issue are likely to converge if the given policy issue is at stake in closely competed districts, while two parties’ positions on a given policy issue are likely to diverge if the given issue is at stake in districts where one of the parties already has a secure majority. We use the case of the US party system (1945-2000) as the empirical test and find that the regression results are consistent with this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe the efforts of women's organizations to attract public attention for the issues that concern them, and we ask how successful they are, and why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will assess the distinctive aims and dynamics of third parties in American politics by drawing from historical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ability of the National Rifle Association to affect turnout in House races in 1994, 1996, and 1998. We construct models of turnout in congressional elections that include NRA candidate endorsements and membership numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconstructs the history and politics of the Mendez v. Westminster School District (1946) case and its impact on the NCAAP's strategy in the Brown case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that party aggregation and more broadly electoral coordination should be explained in part by both the vertical and the horizontal centralization of government. Hypotheses are tested using an original time-series cross-section data set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a theoretical and empirical analysis of the associational structures and patterns of competition, cooperation and coordination between important business associations in the U.S. information and communications sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I suggest that debates about the relative success of development organizations and the associated the concept of "bridging" social capital can be linked and be enriched by insights from the literature on interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines why interest groups concerned with abortion issues disproportionately use independent expenditure campaigns, and how they strategically use these expenditures to accomplish their organizational and political goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the civic potential of community-based energy. Through content analyses and participant surveys, we examine citizens' motivations for joining and participating in such organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a comparison of Japanese koenkai and American political machines in order to build an analytical framework with which to better understand reciprocal relationships between those in power and their constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an examination of the NRA's recent freedom of speech agenda, aimed at both the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and the Patriot Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a formal model of organizational change in interest groups, combining theories of agenda change and conditional cooperation. The results are illustrated in a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines feminist organizations? failure to respond to the next generation of challenges to the feminist movement.I will discuss the ability of existing theories to account for this phenomenon using studies of nine feminist organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the European Union changes national-level politics, focusing on the role of Euroskeptic political parties. I argue that (1) Euroskeptic parties are less likely to participate in government coalitions than are Europhile parties; (2) parties with an elite-mass division over the EU will have a Europhile leadership and Euroskeptic masses; (3) when parties change their positions on the EU, they will be more Euroskeptic when in opposition and more Europhile when in government; and (4) parties that are extremist on non-EU dimensions are more likely to be Euroskeptic. These results will not be found in majoritarian political systems because they stem from the party coalition formation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-private partnerships have existed in the United States since the colonial period. However, in particular, government and nonprofit interactions?embedded in social, economic, and political structures?have taken different forms and have varied over time, among different fields of service, and in different contexts. In recent times, especially in the last two and a half decades, not only has there been an expansion in the types of human services once provided primarily by government agencies, but also the list of viable not-for-profit providers continues to broaden including a variety of organizations. Scholars note that in this era of devolution, the trend towards ?privatizing? human services is expected to continue the advancement of networks and network structures between the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors in public policy implementation. Even the widespread use of terms like ?cooperation?, ?collaboration,? ?strategic alliances,? ?joint ventures,? and ?partnership? across the sectors have become commonplace. Moreover, public discourse in policy circles, academic arenas and in practice seem to accept the taken-for-granted benefits of such alliances with the increasing popularity of such approaches to address America?s social problems, even though there is limited research evaluating the actual nature and process of the effects of existing partnerships in light of theory. The following paper attempts to begin to fill this gap by exploring collaboration between government agencies and faith-based organizations utilizing principal-agent theory. Such arrangements may pose serious legal and administrative challenges that may not be easily overcome. Providing government services through contracts with private organizations raises traditional management and accountability concerns and have implications for public management, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last twenty years virtually every country in the western hemisphere attempted to either create regional integration pacts like NAFTA and MERCOSUR or revitalize existing accords like the Central American Common Market and the Andean Pact. In some of these efforts countries overcame longstanding rivalries to develop cooperative relations with their neighbors, while others failed in similar efforts. What accounts for the different outcomes? While the projects’ simultaneity suggests that common international factors were catalysts for regional integration, different outcomes suggest that domestic factors had a significant impact. This paper explores the influence of domestic institutional arrangements - presidencies, legislatures, party systems, and militaries – on interstate relations, using a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of ten South American countries from 1980-1995. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late Cornelius P. Cotter is a towering figure in the study of American party organizations: his work with Bernard Hennessey on national party committees, and his leadership of the team of researchers who studied the renaissance of local party organizations are widely cited as major contributions to the field. This paper presents excerpts from his manuscript on Presidential Party Leadership, supplemented by commentary from major scholars in presidency, parties, and in use of the historical methods. Neil Cotter’s ms. is based on original research in the national party committee, White House and other archival sources available principally at the presidential libraries, as well as limited other archival sources and secondary materials to chart the interactions between presidents and their national parties--the Republican and Democratic National Committees--and illustratively, presidential interventions in state and local politics. The period covered by the ms. focuses on the development of institutionalized parties and the evolution of the modern presidents. As discussed in the ms., the institutionalization of the two national parties, beginning in the 1920s, includes the processes of conversion from committees of correspondence to party bureaucracies with fixed headquarters in Washington, operating twelve months in the year, in election and non-election years. Attendant features are regularized budgeting, staff specialization and professionalization, development of programs, and generally, a sense of institutional identity transcending presidencies. While the roles of the party organizations and their chairmen do vary with in-party and out-party status, the national party committees were not mere passive instruments of candidates and presidents. According to Cotter, the resulting need for candidates and presidents to reach accommodation with the party apparatus has been mistakenly read as evidence of declining presidential party leadership. Instead, as Cotter stresses, it should be read to reveal transformation of the presidential parties and of the nature of presidential party leadership. This manuscript, being edited for publication by Denise L. Baer, represents a major contribution to the fields of both presidential leadership and in political parties, and represents an highly developed use of the historical method using political concepts, theories, and tools in ways that advance our understanding of contemporary American institutions and processes. This ms. includes a number of overarching themes about parties, about presidents, and about political science theorizing: 1. Institutionalization of parties is a process that began much earlier than previously thought by political scientists -- as early as 1928. 2. Presidents played and play a key role -- largely unrecognized -- in party institutionalization in the period of 1928-1968. 3. These efforts not only encompassed party reform and congressional party reform, bu7t they led to a restructuring of how the electorate relates to parties. 4. The incentives for presidents to have a strong hand in party organizations are enduring, even as the techniques of campaigning and organization have constantly changed. 5. While the influence of individual presidents is fleeting, just as presidential scholars have noted in their assessments of the institutionalization of the White House, their collective influence on the institutionalizaiton of party is palpable and measureable. 6. Responsible party govenrment in an empirical quesiton. 7. The APSA Report excluded the presidency - focusing primarily on the party organization. 8. Presidents are the center of American politics and the focus of national voting. 9. Efforts to lead both prior to 1968 and since have little staying power unless infused with organizational impact. 10. The key organizations are the national parties. 11. Political parties are greatly affected by the short-term and the long-term strategies of political leaders -- which are impacted by what they understand a political party to be, as well as their operational goals. 12. Political scientists -- and political leaders who work within them -- do democracy a disservice when they misunderstand and perpetuate misunderstandings about political parties. The ms. and the Roundtable commentary is designed to review both the contributions of Cornelius Cotter, as well as to make this ms. and its research available to the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational theorists contend that democracy rests on compromise between groups, however, recent evidence indicates that a large number of organizations lobby without encountering countervailing pressure. In this paper, I consider numerous institutional and organizational conditions that may create countervailing pressure in the public policy process. Hypotheses are tested with data collected from a survey of nearly 200 organizations that lobbied before the federal government in 2003. I find that countervailing pressure is more likely to occur when organizations: a) are labor unions; b) have highly visible lobbying agendas; c) lobby a government agency; or d) lobby against a policy that the public views favorably. These findings indicate that the expectations of organizational theorists for democracy are fully satisfied by institutional and organizational conditions that characterize the experience of only a minority of lobbying organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many analyses of comparative political systems, particularly in the study of coalitions and party systems, rest on assumptions about issue dimensionality. However, empirical measures of issue dimensionality have not kept pace. No cross-national measure exists that captures both variation between countries and within countries over time. Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project this paper develops a measure of the effective number of issues dimensions, constructed similarly to Laakso and Taagepera?s Effective Number of Parties, that incorporate the relative weight of issues and their similarity. The measure is explained in detail theoretically, and empirical results for the postwar period for 17 West European countries are shown. The added value of this measure is shown in analyses of government durability. While prior cross-sectional estimates of issue dimensionality have not performed well, the effective number of issue dimensions has a significant, robust impact on government durability. The higher the dimensionality, the less durable government is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party identification and core values are central elements in mass belief systems that influence a wide range of more specific political evaluations, preferences, and behaviors. But how do these predispositions relate to one another? Does partisan bias color core values, or are partisan identities grounded in core values? My paper tackles this question as follows. I draw upon theoretical work on partisan bias and value-based reasoning to generate competing hypotheses about whether partisanship shapes values or values shape partisanship. I test these hypotheses by using structural equation modeling techniques to estimate dynamic models of attitude constraint with data from the 1992-94-96 National Election Panel Study. The statistical analyses reveal that (1) partisan identities are significantly more stable than the core values of equal opportunity, limited government, traditional family values, and moral tolerance; (2) party identification systematically affects these values; and (3) these values do not affect party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the function of voluntary associations, such as neighborhood groups and churches, within highly segregated low-income communities have changed over the last thirty years as a result of urban renewal policies, and how this has affected the opportunity for political mobilization in these communities. I argue that the civic lives of low-income neighborhoods have been dramatically altered by urban renewal policies, and as a result the organizational and mobilizing capacities of voluntary associations have declined. Relying on open-ended interviews conducted in four geographically diverse case-study cities, I show that the organizational and mobilizing capacities of civic and religious organizations have been diminished as a result of the urban policies implemented throughout the last half-century. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the introduction of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) among municipalities in Sweden from a diffusion perspective. The point of departure in the article is that there is a gap in our understanding concerning the diffusion of new management accounting constructs. Over the last decade, research has largely been based on empirical evidence regarding early adopters. Furthermore, these studies have largely been based on case study evidence and on interviews with managers at high organisational levels. We have far less knowledge of the diffusion process over time and the use of such constructs throughout individual organisations. The article is based on a survey of 190 municipalities, and their adoption and use of the BSC. The empirical findings demonstrate that there has occurred a diffusion of the BSC among Swedish municipalities and that the diffusion process in large follows a S-shaped pattern. The diffusion seems to follow a time lag in comparison to the private sector. The empirical findings demonstrate that the BSC is primarily used in soft services (elderly care and education). The findings also show that the BSC is associated with interpretative viability, both concerning use and content. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses interpretive methods to examine the lived experiences of people in neighborhood associations and how social identities such as gender, race, and ethnicity might be relevant to these experiences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of voluntary associations on democratization in the Middle East. It analyzes the role of professional associations and labor unions in fostering democratic ideals and virtues in Jordan and Egypt. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tests interest group hypotheses on state PACs in the health sector. A unique feature is a dataset connecting individual lobby groups registered in 1998 with individual PACs contributing money in ‘98. We also track nonconnected PACs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship between voluntary group activity to political participation, hypothesizing and testing six unique means by which voluntary group members participate disproportionately in American politics. It also examines differential effects for local versus nationally-targeted participatory acts. A final section discusses implications of the chief findings: the multitude of ways in which voluntary organizations promote participation and their differential effects at the local and national levels. Data from the 1990 American Citizen Participation Study is employed.

The responsible party model is a benchmark for theorizing about political party reforms. I demonstrate the attractions of reconceptualizing party responsibility by emphasizing economic elements rather than the executive-legislative relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Green Party hitched its wagon to the Nader Star in 2000, but split with him in 2004. Can the party return to a local emphasis and still maintain its growth? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case study documents the creation, activities, and impact of an innovative, multidisciplinary organization established to give students practical experience in designing and managing political campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the connections between the degree of party policy dispersion in 15 party systems, and two important system-level variables: the electoral laws used to select representatives to the national legislature, and the number of political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes a spatial model of policy-seeking political parties contesting multiparty parliamentary elections under Proportional Representation. The key assumption of the model is that party elites believe that the median parliamentary party will control government policy outputs. The model is likely to support stable configuration of party policy strategies. The model also implies a centripetal effects of valence result.

We study a model of multi-party multi-dimensional electoral competition. The model accounts for empirically observed features of political systems despite the lack of Nash equilibria in models with more than two parties or more than one dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the socio-economic transformations of post-industrial democracies, one might expect changes in the ways that voluntary associations engage citizens in the democratic process. Specifically, do associations mobilize citizen participation to the extent they once did? Further, do organizations such as unions still ameliorate some of the class biases in participation? By assembling survey data from individual national election study series, and from the Political Action and World Values Studies, I examine the dynamics of the relationship between voluntary organization membership and political participation across a set of 7 post industrial nations from the 1960s to 2000. The results reveal that group-based mobilization is changing in systematic ways. Yet there are significant differences in mobilization patterns based upon national context, type of organization, and participatory activity. Despite the challenges of a shifting electorate and dwindling membership, unions, parties, and religious organizations continue to get-out-the-vote. For protest participation, unions, parties, voluntary organizations and environmental organizations strengthened their mobilization of direct action. This stands in contrast to their slightly weaker relationship with petition drives over the past 30 years. At the same time, there have been subtle shifts in the shape of the participant populations. Education and income levels remain important predictors of all forms of participation in most cases, and education has emerged as a particularly strong predictor of direct actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth and entailing political powers of civic organizations in the Korean society since the 1987 democratization movement influenced the changes of the government?s welfare strategy: from ?naked regulator? to ?hidden regulator?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in International Organization and elsewhere has explored the role of domestic institutions in shaping exchange rate regime choice. These models abstract domestic institutions from the wider international context at a very high cost. We argue that the choice of exchange rate regimes in fact are much more strongly linked to external influences than domestic institutions. By replicating and reevaluating the work of William Bernhard, David Leblang, Mark Hallerberg and Lawrence Broz, we show that the effects attributed to domestic institutions are fragile or even reversible when actual (as opposed to declaratory) exchange rate policies are used as the dependent variable. Furthermore, through both replication and the development of a transition model, we show that governments are likely to learn from observing the performance of foreign exchange rate regimes. This Bayesian learning effect is potentially much more important than the effects of domestic institutions alone. We think it is therefore critical to re-situate the study of exchange rate regime choice in its broader global context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some authors, party identification (PID) may not only increase with time, but can also decrease as a consequence of evaluation of parties’ performance. Theories related to ‘active’ learning state that people could learn from both positive and negative inputs. Campbell and his colleagues acknowledged that PID could consist of positive and negative feelings, although most research has focused on the positive side. It is not only that positive performance will lead individuals to prefer one party to another, but it is also the case that poor performance will lead them to choose a second best party, or in some cases no party at all. In these cases, the ‘hostility’ toward parties may be the main guide in defining PID. It has been argued that there are more chances of disliking one or more parties without liking any other in multiparty systems relative to two-party systems. Evaluations of party performance over time may give rise not just to positive feelings that enhance PID, but also may produce negative sentiments that decrease PID, or in some cases, increase hate toward a party, what has been defined as ‘negative’ PID. Two-party systems, as Britain or the United States, offer a partial setting for studying parties’ negative evaluations, mainly because competition is polarized, and even perhaps this is the reason why very few studies have been found on the subject. Conversely, a multiparty system facilitates the analysis of negative evaluations, expecting to find both people who have developed an attachment to a party and people that may hate other political parties. An ideal context to study such as the impact of negative evaluations is either the one-party systems, as post-Communist countries where it is expected to find certain degree of aversion to the former ruling party, or countries where long-ruling parties had governed but recently lost, like Taiwan or Mexico. Previous studies have distinguished positive from negative PID, by demonstrating the existence of two different kinds of attachment. Those respondents who mention that they would never vote for some party are said to have developed a negative PID. In contrast, I hypothesize that there is one sort of party attachment (that is PID) that may be guided by both positive and negative party evaluations. I hypothesize that positive and negative feelings are determinants of PID. For both Panistas and Perredistas the PRI should be the party they would never vote for. For the case of independents, I also hypothesize that even though these individuals do not hold a clear partisan attachment, they should hold a strong anti-PRI feeling, even stronger than towards any other party. In sum, looking at countries that ended up a one-party period or an authoritarian period gives an interesting but overlooked tweak that may advance research on PID by developing the concept of negative party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the last generation, there has been a decline in the proportion of individuals who identify themselves directly with either of the two major political parties in the United States. Rather than seeing tremendous growth in the proportion of individuals who identify as “pure” independents, most of the growth is in those categorized as “independent leaners.” (Keith, et al 1992) Though we have seen this shift in identification, there has not been a corresponding shift in the fundamental beliefs of any large group of society, indicating that there must be another explanation for the shift in party identification. I propose that the decrease in the proportion of individuals who identify with one of the two major parties can be attributed to a decrease in person-to-person contacting on the part of the two major political parties. This contacting serves as a priming mechanism, causing those who are contacted to be more cognizant of the connections between their own political stances and the stances of the political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the informational rationale for committee specialization introduced by Gilligan and Krehbiel. We show that the results of the model change if a committee has gatekeeping power with the status quo as an outside option. In turn, we demonstrate that if gatekeeping power is given to a committee, a policy outcome that is better for both committee and floor is produced. Then we show that some legislative norms or institutions such as restrictive amendment rules, gatekeeping power, and deference, are justifiable with informational rationales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contestation is a central element of democracy. Party competition disciplines political leaders and fosters more responsive government. Higher levels of two-way party competition are hypothesized to lead to more citizen satisfaction, controlling for ideological position and party loyalty. Data from 69 West German regional election studies over 25 years confirm this hypothesis. OLS regression analysis of individual-level data demonstrates a negative relationship between citizen satisfaction and one-party dominance. Time series cross-sectional analysis of regional-level data support this finding. Implications for decentralization and sub-national accountability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the contributions that political scientists have and can make to understand key socio-political aspects of natural and technological hazards and disasters. Such research can help us understand how these phenomena work, but Considerable public attention, at both mass and elite levels, has been paid to the political, policy, and administrative aspects of natural disasters since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. While other social science disciplines have been historically more attentive to natural hazards and disasters as important aspects of social science, a relatively small number of political scientists and policy process scholars have studied or are studying natural disasters. Not, not surprisingly given the scale of Hurricane Katrina, a considerable number of papers on the subject appeared on the program of the 2006 American Political Science Association, and interest in what disasters can teach us in political science has increased considerably. The papers presented at APSA included important aspects of Katrina and of hazards in general, including racial and class issues, urban politics and urban form, and problems of policy design, management, and implementation.Many of these papers were useful, and represent potential advancements in understanding, but many also shared a similar and troubling characteristic: they failed-sometimes in crucial ways-to reference the existing social science literature on natural disasters. Thus, some political scientists accept disaster myths (about looting and panic, for example) as truths. Others fail to fully understand the policy environment in which disaster policy is made or the substance of disaster policy itself. On the other hand, political scientists have a unique ability to understand the importance of institutions and individuals in the process of governance. This avenue of research could extend on the findings of sociologists that networks of people and organizations are important in disaster response and recovery. While networks are important, political scientists can illuminate how these networks perform within a set of formal and informal rules. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do states resist membership in some international organizations? This paper develops a framework that demonstrates the choice of institutions for resolving cooperation problems depends upon the verifiability of players' actions. Action non-verifiability issues can inhibit efficacy of some international organizations and lead to the punishment of compliant states. If actions are observable and verifiability, states can achieve first-best outcomes through a complete contract agreement enforced by a benevolent international organization. If actions are unobservable, second-best outcomes result due to costs of information rents. However, if one state's actions are observable and verifiable but the other state's actions are observable but nonverifiable, then the state with nonverifiable actions will exploit the other's enforced compliance in the international organization. The disadvantaged state will attempt to renegotiate for the enforcement of an incomplete contract by the international organization. If the enforcement of the incomplete contract is too costly, then either the disadvantaged state will continue to be exploited, retaliate with a nonverifiable response, or exit the international organization and devise a bilateral mechanism to capture the gains from trade. The paper examines the effects of nonverifiable nontariff barriers on international trade agreements and develops some policy implications for international organizations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a variety of Muslim communities and congregations in St. Louis, Missouri, particularly in terms of political participation and attitudes. It sheds light on how Muslim Americans are politically similar and different from one another and how various factors including ethnicity, race and gender affect political attitudes and activities. Findings are based on in-depth interviews of Muslims primarily from four main mosques in the greater St. Louis area, imams, and representatives from a variety of Muslim, interfaith, and cultural organizations. This paper is divided into two parts. The first outlines the history of the mosque, its congregations, and is largely based upon interviews with imams. The second half of this paper analyzes important findings from interviews with the larger congregations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the process of 'othering' of Muslims in India through a planned process of vilification executed by Hindu right wing organizations like the RSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the dynamics of political participation after institutional reforms. It derives a four-dimensional theoretical framework for understanding these dynamics over time, applying it to pension policymaking in comparative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper uses an original survey of 1200 Indiana residents to explore the potential mitigating impact of organizational characteristics like membership heterogeneity on the relationship between associational mobilization and political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that political institutions from different regime types reward political participation at different stages of the policy process, leading to difference in the source of political efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development, strategies and goals of the Piqueteros movement in Argentina. We argue that the Piqueteros are a powerful new political actor which can bridge the gap between social movement and political party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the online presence of minor parties in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically measures legislative specialization and assess its relationship with committee membership. While Herfindahl Scores improve on prior measures, the link between committee membership and specialization needs further analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]