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The article provides an overview of the recent elections in Pakistan, focusing on the military's dominance in the country's politics. It discusses the military's efforts to protect its interests and preferred candidates, as well as signs that its power may be challenged. The elections shed light on issues such as inflation, unemployment, and stagnant wages that were not adequately addressed by political parties. The article also explores the historical influence of the military in Pakistan, its control over the economy and political elites, and the rise and fall of Imran Khan's PTI party. Ultimately, a coalition government consisting of the PML and PPP parties, under the influence of the military, took power. The article concludes by emphasizing the limitations of the military's power and the importance of the left in Pakistan focusing on revival and building alliances with key constituencies. [Extracted from the article]

The Middle East faces ongoing challenges in democratization and in corruption. This article examines the influence of wasta – a Middle Eastern form of clientelism – on citizens' political attitudes. Although wasta is situated between citizen services and corruption, many citizens view wasta as corrupt. Using Arab Barometer survey data, this article shows that the widespread use of wasta in the Middle East makes citizens less satisfied with their current largely non-democratic governments. Wasta also increases their interest in democracy as an egalitarian alternative regime structure. Wasta users, however, are protective of the personal advantages that wasta networks afford them. Widespread wasta thus represents a challenge to democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the role of patronage in Indonesian State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) by analyzing board appointments between 2004 and 2019 under two different presidential administrations—those of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo. The study is based on a content analysis of board members and their political affiliations in fifteen of the largest Indonesian SOEs and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a former minister, high-ranking officials in the government, political party members, CEOs, and SOE board members. The study identifies how key patrons influence board appointments and how the sitting president, a pivotal patron in the post-authoritarian context, strategically uses patronage for power consolidation and political stability. Given the financial significance and power of SOEs, placing loyalists on boards serves the interests of ruling political parties and elites. This also enables elites to produce even more patronage, which is beneficial for their personal political machinery. This intricate interplay sustains the presence of patronage in Indonesia's democratic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the book "Delta Democracy: Pathways to Incremental Civic Revolution in Egypt and Beyond" by Catherine E. Herrold, the author explores the concept of "Delta democracy," which refers to an incremental change in a variable. Herrold argues that local development NGOs in Egypt, with their focus on community needs and participatory methods, have been more effective in promoting democracy than traditional Western democracy aid. She criticizes the top-down approach of Western democracy aid, which focuses on institutional reform and measurable benchmarks, and advocates for a more grassroots and culturally sensitive approach to democracy promotion. The book emphasizes the importance of respecting local knowledge and actors in democracy promotion. [Extracted from the article]

Since the publication of Horowitz's Ethnic Groups in Conflict, comparative political scientists have increasingly converged on their classification of ethnic identities. But there is no agreement on the definition that justifies this classification— and the definitions that individual scholars propose do not match their classifications. I propose a definition that captures the conventional classification of ethnic identities in comparative political science to a greater degree than the alternatives. According to this definition, ethnic identities are a subset of identity categories in which membership is determined by attributes associated with, or believed to be associated with, descent (described here simply as descent-based attributes). I argue, on the basis of this definition, that ethnicity either does not matter or has not been shown to matter in explaining most outcomes to which it has been causally linked by comparative political scientists. These outcomes include violence, democratic stability, and patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the reasons why some ethnic groups tend to vote along ethnic lines while others do not. We argue that existing explanations for ethnic voting can be grouped into three main approaches: policy-based, grievance-based, and clientelism. However, we contend that inconsistencies in previous empirical research come from a failure to account for the political context in which ethnic voting occurs. Specifically, we argue that ethnic voting in democracies operates on a different logic than in non-democratic regimes. Our argument posits that policy- and grievance-based factors are the primary determinants of ethnic voting in democracies, whereas clientelist networks play a crucial role in understanding ethnic voting in autocratic regimes. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of 428 ethnic groups from 33 African countries between 2005 and 2018, as well as a novel survey-based measurement of voting preferences among ethnic group members. Our findings support our hypotheses: in democratic regimes, grievance-based and policy-based explanations have strong explanatory power, whereas clientelism is the primary driver of ethnic bloc voting in autocracies. We conclude that both regime type and the different underlying mechanisms of clientelism require greater consideration in the research on ethnic voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the mechanisms that contributed to the 30-year predominance of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in Montenegro. The authors pay particular attention to the DPS' programmatic flexibility, use of co-optation, repression and control, as well as clientelism, examining their role in shaping state–society relations and party competition over time. In doing so, the article also seeks to explain the DPS' setback in the 2020 elections and the ongoing transition from a dominant party system towards a more competitive multiparty system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades, cross-national scholars have aimed to understand why democracy tends to be related to increased forest loss, despite theory suggesting the exact opposite directional relationship. Recently, Sanford (2021) finds that closer elections in democratic nations tend to increase forest loss. The author attributes this finding to be the result of clientelism or the targeted distribution of goods, services, jobs, and money in exchange for the political support of a candidate. However, we are not aware of any cross-national research that considers if higher levels of clientelism are related to increased forest loss in low- and middle-income nations. To fill this gap, we analyze data for 80 low- and middle-income nations using a two-stage instrumental variable regression model. We find that higher levels of clientelism correspond with increased forest loss after controlling for various economic, political, and demographic factors hypothesized to explain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing consensus that data driven elections are a winner, irrespective of variables that may affect the elections. The question of how these data are obtained in the first place is highly disputed. This paper analyzes Albania and looks at one of its prime indicators like voter fraudulence that leads to distorted election results. Our findings show that the factors that have led to such an outcome are the patron-client relationship, shadow financing, and the use of public administration as an arm extension of the ruling party. There are many mechanisms used by ruling political parties in non-consolidated democracies to obtain an outright advantage in elections, ranging from political assassination or imprisonment of political opponents to staffing the ballot boxes. But as the Albanian case testifies, more refined measures are more legitimate both domestically and in seeking international legitimacy. This article advances the present debate on the impact of patronage schemes on electoral competition and results in semi-consolidated democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains youth political mobilization in Uganda – or lack thereof? This article challenges the simple dichotomy of youth as either a dangerous or disengaged political constituency. Instead, we analyze the conditions that determine whether youth can coalesce as a politically salient category. For many, the outcome of the 2021 Ugandan elections defied expectations. A large and underemployed youth population combined with the emergence of self-proclaimed 'youth candidate' Bobi Wine, led both international and domestic analysts to predict a strong youth challenge to National Resistance Movement (NRM) dominance. However, while Bobi Wine captured the opposition vote, he was unable to create a new youth constituency that could overcome existing political and regional cleavages. This article draws on interviews and fieldwork on youth political mobilization during the 2021 elections to identify and analyze a range of historically rooted methods that the NRM effectively deploys to mobilize and fragment youth. The findings confirm the need to look beyond rallies and rhetoric to analyze whether the conditions are right to allow youth to emerge as a politically salient category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Godfatherism as a phenomenon has been in existence since time immemorial and continues to feature in many human endeavors. It is a sui generis practice that depicts political might, political survival and power sustenance. In Nigeria, it indicates political relevance and significance that guarantees meteoric rise in political careers. This dominant political culture has been sustained by a privileged few that have held sway over the political directions and fortunes within Nigeria's polity. Drawing case studies from Northern and Southern Nigeria, this study explores the characteristics of presumed godfathers in Nigeria's political sphere. It details the basic information about godfathers, their ideology, the goals that inform their kind of politics and their primordial engagements with the phenomenon. The study has major policy implications for the seemingly uneven gradation that party politics has assumed in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Koper further examines the bargain made between the elites in Kenya, which was marked by a lack of consensus and eventually led to violent inter-ethnic clashes. In Koper's analysis of these five East African countries, he demonstrates that "elite exclusion" can lead to fragile political institutions and even the collapse of the state. As in a few other sister African countries, the elites of the East African states of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda are strongly divided along ethnic and regional lines. [Extracted from the article]

An 'elite' party caters to 'elite' voters, while a 'non-elite' party caters to 'non-elite' voters. Now, the 'elite' party wants to expand its support base to include 'non-elite' voters. It can do so using one of two possible strategies—it can provide them public goods or it can dole out clientelistic benefits to them. We present a probabilistic voting model to study the conditions under which the 'elite' party is likely to choose one or the other strategy. Our findings are supported by several historical and contemporary political experiences like that of the BJP in India, and the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties in Egypt, Yemen, and Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on the political consequences of smallness, focusing on the case of Saint Lucia. Interviews with 19 MPs and senators reveal a political reality of patronage and corruption that occurs in daily encounters with constituents, but also within formal institutions. The study shows that politicians who habitually grant personal favours to constituents, most times do so because there is a genuine need due to economic hardship. Thus, though it is not their intent to get involved in patronage practices, their actions nevertheless create exactly such practices. When it comes to patronage and corruption within formal institutions, however, MPs and senators are fully aware of its existence. Regardless of political affiliation, they also acknowledge that there is no interest in coming to terms with these occurrences, since the shared sentiment is that keeping the status quo is politically convenient for all parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the vast seam of scholarship on parliamentary history the evolution and role of select committees in the house of lords, particularly in relation to investigatory or policy‐focused committees, has been almost completely overlooked. They have been 'institutions ignored'. This gap in the existing research base is particularly stark when compared with the very large literature on the history of select committees in the house of commons. This article fills this gap by providing the first detailed historical account of the evolution of investigatory or policy‐focused committees in the house of lords. This account reveals the evolution of a distinctive 'scrutiny style' moulded around the notion of complementarity, a highly specialised approach and an understanding of the merits of self‐restraint. However, during 2018–21 a fundamental review of the investigatory committee system was undertaken within the house of lords which led to significant change in relation to both the structure and ambition of committees. The impact of this reform agenda is likely to ensure that select committees in the Lords are far more visible in the future, within and beyond the Palace of Westminster, than they were in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the relationship that exists between state capture, party patronage, and the conduct of electoral processes in the settings of post-communist countries, of which Albania is one. A characteristic of the political developments of the transition period in many post-communist countries has been the phenomenon of state capture, which has occurred mainly through the endemic party patronage and politicization of state institutions. The phenomenon of state capture by the ruling political parties has had a negative conditional impact on the conduct of competitive, free and fair elections in these countries, leading to distrust regarding the credibility and integrity of the process. This study argues that phenomena such as state capture and extensive party patronage as informal practices/mechanisms in the hands of the ruling political parties affect the creation of a skewed playing field and the production of hyper-incumbency advantages in holding electoral contests between political parties, making the possibility of political power rotations difficult. Albania, in the case of its last parliamentary elections, held on 25th April 2021, constitutes the case study (Section IV) to which the theoretical framework of the paper is applied, by identifying the informal practices and methods through state capture that the ruling political party used to provide structural, institutional, and financial advantages in its favour regarding elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manuel L. Quezon is often credited by historians like Encarnacion Alzona (1937) as a staunch advocate of women's right to vote. Indeed, the history of the struggle for women's suffrage often highlights the role that Quezon played in terms of supporting the 1937 plebiscite as the president of the Philippine Commonwealth. Various print media of the period like dailies and magazines depicted him, and consequently, the success of the women's suffrage movement, in the same light (e.g., Philippine Graphic, Manila Bulletin). However, closer scrutiny of Quezon's speeches, letters, and biography in relation to other pertinent primary sources would reveal that Quezon was, at best, ambivalent, on the cause of the suffragists. His appreciation of the women's suffrage's merits was tied and anchored on certain political gains that he could acquire from it. In contrast to the appreciation of his contemporaries like Rafael Palma, Quezon's appreciation of the women's right to vote was based on patronage politics and not on the view that the right to suffrage is a right of women and not a privilege. His support for the cause was aimed at putting himself at the forefront of this landmark legislation and thus the real champions of the cause--the women--at the sidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses U.S. foreign policy in Africa. It mentions that Niger government decided to do as a number of West African countries had done and institute the election of local officials. It reveals that traditional chiefs received allowances from the central government, which also maintained local administrative offices.

Copyright of Sociedad y Economia is the property of Universidad del Valle and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At its core was George Price, the Father of the Nation and a revered figure in Belize today, who led the People's United Party (PUP) for 40 years. Belize since independence in 1981 appears at first sight to meet all the requirements of a fully functioning Westminster-style democracy. Promoting what seemed at the time innocent practices, in which voters would be rewarded with small gifts to help them in difficult circumstances, George Price was never interested in personal enrichment and had genuine concern for those facing the greatest hardships in Belize. [Extracted from the article]

Objective: this research is aimed at identifying how patronage erodes the construction of citizenship in the municipality of Acapulco, Guerrero. Methodology: through semi-structured interviews it was found that the lack of coverage of political, social, and civil rights in the population, motivates the entry of citizens into client networks in the municipality. The descriptive study is novel because it is carried out at the subnational level and allows an in-depth look at the case. Results: it was found that citizens do not actively participate in democracy because they do not believe in a real change that benefits them through formal institutions. Conclusions: the main findings lie in the fact that citizens become passive agents in the face of democracy, due to the lack of trust in institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Analecta Política is the property of Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper seeks to create a theoretical link between land reform and development as a means to alleviate poverty in South Africa, particularly in rural areas. The then apartheid regime used unjust laws to violently dispossess the indigenous black South African landowners of their land and distributed the land to the whites who utilised them for different socio-economic purposes including farming. Methodologically this paper used a literature review (qualitative) research approach to assess the extent to which the redistributed land to the blacks have been put to use for productive purposes to alleviate poverty, create jobs and combat hunger in South Africa. The democratic dispensation which started in 1994-ushered in a black majority government, black South Africans are now clamouring for the return of all the land that was illegally acquired by the white South Africans during the apartheid regimes. To this end, previously dispossessed blacks were given back some of their lands for productive usage. Some of the findings include the following: various land reforms laws, policies, measures, strategies have dismally failed due to corruption, nepotism, charisma and patronage. In conclusion, the paper points out that land reforms were embarked upon to eradicate the land injustices and inequalities of apartheid and to alleviate poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) are commonly established to increase electoral legitimacy by designing, implementing and/or enforcing rules surrounding nominations, polling, voting, and tabulation. Globally however, EMB design, governance, and efficacy vary considerably. Utilizing four EMB data sources, this article asks (1) to what extent do EMBs form a new pillar of constitutional governance; and (2) how effective are they in managing and increasing the legitimacy of elections? We begin by detailing the global diffusion of EMBs, temporally and geographically, together with trends in governance methods, constitutionalization, and degrees of autonomy and capacity. We then turn to examine the extent to which existing EMBs are effective, empirically testing a global sample of states on two measures associated with electoral legitimacy. Four results of our analyses stand out. First, independent EMBs are most abundant in democratizing regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Second, while EMBs are increasing in number, only a slight majority of states enshrine these institutions in their constitutions. Third, while independent EMBs are the most common systems, autonomous bodies are largely found in democracies. Finally, EMBs characterized by greater degrees of autonomy and capacity are associated with lower levels of both electoral violence and concerns regarding electoral legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi —AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political economy account. We contend that the coalitional ties that the AKP forged with businesses and the urban poor through the distribution of public resources has altered the cost of toleration for the party leadership and their dependent clients, while reducing the cost of suppression for incumbents. This new political calculus led to increasing authoritarianism of the AKP government through securitization of dissent, mounting repression, and systematic violation of civil liberties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do labor unions still motivate their members to participate in politics, or have social and economic changes undermined their political importance? This question is important to revisit, as globalization and economic reform have weakened many popular sector organizations in Latin America, reducing some to mere patronage machines. This article examines the case of the teachers' union in Bogotá, Colombia to assess whether and how labor unions are able to promote the political activation of their members. Employing a multimethod research design that begins with a quantitative analysis of a survey of Colombian teachers, this study finds that union affiliation is associated with higher levels of motivation to vote. It then uses evidence from interviews to show how union advocacy and internal elections for leadership positions shape political behavior, contributing to civic engagement. This research engages with broader debates about democratic quality and political representation in contemporary Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights are essential pillars of democracies. But under populism, they are a proclaimed nemesis of political leaders who claim to represent the common people. This article argues that the discourses of strongman, patronage and fake news constitute three prominent right-wing populist ploys that erode human rights in Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines. It interrogates the communicative power of populism as a means of disfiguring free expression and press freedom. Drawing from human rights and media reports and interviews, the pro-human rights current is reformatted by strongman pronouncement in the war on drugs, unity of long-established blocs of power through patronage, and belligerent charge of fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tunisian political transition has succeeded in building a working, yet fragile governance beyond ideological and political divides. Political debate across media platforms has become open and dynamic, but the media–politics nexus thrives within a complex system of clientelism forged on shifting alliances between politicians and business tycoons, including recapture by agents of the former regime. The media–politics interplay is taking competitive and antagonistic forms, effectively exacerbating polarized conflicts. This paper reflects on the notions of hybrid media systems, agonistic pluralism, and civic culture, based on data collected in a focus group conducted in Tunis in May 2019 that brought together representatives from media, politics, and civil society complemented by interviews with leading journalists and media stakeholders. This paper argues that the relationship between media and politics is interdependent and marked by confrontation and adaption; the uncertainty of the transition is leading to a complex and volatile power struggle in which neither media nor politics have the upper hand in defining the terms of the game. This ambivalent relationship, taking place within a new system of clientelism, has had a mixed outcome on the process of democratic consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, despite the tremendous influence exerted by Islam on public life, religious parties and organisations have historically failed to do well at the ballot box, receiving an average of only 6% of votes cast in elections since the 1980s. Focusing on the case of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a new Barelvi political party and social movement that has campaigned on the emotive issue of blasphemy since being formed in 2015, this article argues that the clientelistic, patronage-based nature of democratic politics in Punjab, coupled with factionalism and competition within the religious right, continues to play a role in limiting the electoral prospects of religious parties. Nonetheless, as was seen in the General Elections of 2018 in which the TLP outperformed expectations, there are particular circumstances in which the religious parties are able to make electoral breakthroughs. While the TLP was able to make effective use of populist rhetoric to garner some genuine support for itself, this article argues that the organisations sustained campaign of protests over the issue of blasphemy fed into broader efforts by the military establishment and opposition political parties to destabilise and weaken the government of the PML-N prior to the 2018 elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2016 introduction of a proportional open-list voting system to Jordan's parliamentary elections, the Jordanian government has faced ongoing demands for reform. In response, the government has continually pointed to the many liberal democracies in Europe that use similar electoral systems. However, the issue is not that an undemocratic system is in place but rather that the system is unconducive to democratic reform given Jordan's broader socio-political environment. This legal comment will explore the key facets of Jordan's 2016 election law, discussing how the system – which could be effective in other contexts – impedes political change in Jordan and thus maintains the same patronage-fueled electoral dynamics that have prevailed since the reintroduction of parliamentary life in Jordan three decades ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do Indian citizens access the state? While a standard answer would be "through patronage," three recent books show that clientelism, while important, is just part of the story. Not just passive clients at the mercy of their political patrons, Indian citizens actively engage the state and their representatives to make claims and secure what is due to them. Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner's Claiming the State--Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India shows how rural dwellers navigate the local government system to access social welfare. Adam Auerbach's Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums documents how local political workers make claims on behalf of their neighbours and provide their settlements with essential services. Jennifer Bussell's Clients and Constituents: Political Responsiveness in Patronage Democracies persuasively demonstrates the importance of higher-level representatives in providing assistance to their constituencies. Together, these books not only demonstrate how political the daily life of ordinary citizens is, but also how the Indian state, while far from its Weberian ideal, is much more inclusive than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent scholars in recent years have expressed alarm about political polarization, weakened civil liberties, and growing support for authoritarianism in the United States. But discussions of democratic backsliding pay short shrift to the value citizens place on one of the most fundamental democratic institutions: the act of voting. Drawing on nationally representative survey data, we show that despite traditional portrayals of the U.S. as the embodiment of a democratic "civic culture," a substantial share of Americans express readiness to sell their votes for cash: 12% of respondents would do so for just $25, as would nearly 20% for $100. Citizens who place low importance on living in a democracy are significantly more willing to sell their votes. We argue that heightened attention to US voters' attitudes toward clientelism would provide an additional barometer of democratic skepticism, help to integrate the study of American and comparative politics, and stimulate novel research agendas about the historic decline of vote buying in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of Mcebisi Ndletyana's Analysis of the ANC in Power draws on previous research on elections, democracy and development in the township of Kwazakhele in Nelson Mandela Bay, as well as on current literature on the ANC and corruption in South Africa. It argues that a political economy analysis best enables us to understand the failure of the democratic project in Nelson Mandela Bay, while contesting the arguments around class formation (as argued by Von Holdt) and moral depravity (as argued by Ndletyana). It concludes that the solution to the current politics of patronage is a stronger democracy combined with a more inclusive, redistributive economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important quality of representative democracy is the strength of the linkage between citizens and the state. To provide a strong incentive for this relationship, Ghanaian legislators are elected on First-Past-The-Post system which in principle should foster close links between legislators and their constituents. In contrast to this expectation, there is an observed disconnect between the country's legislators and their constituents. This paper investigates why Ghana's electoral system is producing a starkly different outcome and which explanations could account for the gap between the country's representatives and the represented. Previous studies have not assessed patron–client networks mediating legislators' pathway to power in Ghana and how it complicates the expected effects of electoral institutions. The paper argues that the relationship between legislators and their constituents in Ghana is mediated by the strong presence of clientelistic networks in intra-party primaries that tamper with the constraining effects of formal electoral rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Taiwanese Sociology is the property of Taiwanese Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In an article published in 2016, János Kornai proposes to add a third form of governance between democracy and dictatorship to his binary model of system paradigm. It is an autocratic capitalist system, marked by the dilution of the principle of the separation of powers in favor of a strongman and an institutionalized clientelism. This paper proposes to analyze Kornai's third modality of economic and political organization in the context of national authoritarian capitalism (NACa), a variety of capitalism with more or less severe forms of authoritarian social control and mobilization of a nationalist culture. The main characteristics of NACa, of which Victor Orban's Hungary is a significant example, are outlined and the question of the stability of that form of government is raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a qualitative interpretive analysis of genocide, nationhood and the dearth of democratic aspirations of the Rwandese population following a violent ethnic or tribal conflict that saw nearly a million people dead in 1994. The historical drama depicts harrowing acts of brutality against a specific tribal group perpetuated by the national leadership that had failed to uphold its social contract with the masses. The conflict is reflective of the postcolonial anti-pluralistic tendencies characteristic of some African states where ethnicity, tribalism and patronage have displaced the democratic order. Both qualitative visual content analysis and ideological criticism were used to formulate specific cinematic elements to generate discursive themes. The film demonstrates how poorly managed tensions among peoples within corrupt political and undemocratic systems have the potential to degenerate into atrocious human rights calamities in post-colonial Africa. Thus, the cinema verite and composition of the film go beyond merely engaging the audiences on the aftermath of conflict but serve as a moral lesson on the dangers of malignant approaches to conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study of the Chilean executive, focusing on the civil service in the period after the Pinochet dictatorship and the country's transition to democracy. It provides synchronic and diachronic analysis of the organisation of the executive, public employment and the civil service. Both the qualitative description and statistical evidence reveal the establishment of a flexible regime of public employment with low levels of stability in senior public management positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze how legislator–voter relationships influence legislative organization. We argue that legislators who engage in clientelistic practices to gain votes will create much larger committee systems, with more committees, than legislators who engage in more programmatic practices. We test these arguments using an original dataset on the number of committees in the lower chambers of seventy-seven democracies throughout the world. Our analysis demonstrates that the number of committees is higher in legislatures with clientelistic practices than in legislatures with programmatic practices. The results provide a new understanding of how legislator–voter relationships influence legislative organization and lay the groundwork for a series of studies that examine how the clientelism-programmatic spectrum influences legislative organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Contemporary adult readers' advisory aims to adhere to (what I term) a pure preference satisfaction model in which librarians provide nonjudgmental book recommendations that satisfy their patrons' aesthetic tastes rather than improve upon them. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether readers' advisors really ought to treat all such tastes as essentially benign, even when doing so may conflict with core commitments to diversity and social responsibility. Design/methodology/approach: This paper utilizes a thought experiment to interrogate our intuitions regarding the practice of recommending recreational materials featuring marginalized protagonists. The author also draws on theoretical insights from feminist aesthetician A.W. Eaton's innovative work on taste in bodies to formulate argumentation addressing the ethical dilemma presented here. Findings: Our reading tastes can, in fact, be oppressive, working to maintain unjust power relations that are often thought to be the product merely of bad beliefs. On the view advanced here, oppressive tastes function as real obstacles to collective self-governance because they systematically distort our judgments of the credibility, empathic accessibility, and fundamental worth of our fellow democratic citizens. Librarians' obligation to protect and promote democracy, therefore, provides practitioners with a crucial justification for recommending diverse books to all readers, even (and perhaps especially) those who actively disprefer them. Originality/value: The paper illustrates how contemporary work in analytic (and specifically feminist) aesthetics can furnish LIS scholars with the intellectual resources to resolve political problems in the library. The author's analysis also lays the groundwork for further consideration of alternative ideals for readers' advisory that will capitalize on the service's educative and emancipatory potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are rapidly increasing across the world. While national governments are usually seen as having the power, authority, and ability to make significant reductions in their CO2 outputs, cross-national research rarely focuses on the institutional structures of states that moderate their CO2 emissions. Previous research that focuses on internal state factors largely focus on democracy and find wildly conflicting results. This research argues that clientelism is a missing piece of the puzzle in explaining how democracy impacts CO2 emissions. Building on the extant contradictory research, the present study uses two-way fixed effects regression analysis for 150 nations from 1971-2014 to understand how the interaction between clientelism and democracy impacts CO2 emissions. The findings reveal that controlling for clientelism reduces CO2 outputs more in high-income and low-income nations with higher levels of participatory democracy. However, the interaction is not statistically significant for all nations, nor for middle-income nations. These results suggest that reducing clientelist relationships in nations with high- and low-incomes, but not middle incomes will make participatory democracies more effective at reducing CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]