2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Sunday, April 15 – 8:00 am – 9:35 am
2-15 NEW PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL
OPENNESS AND WELFARE STATES
Room Salon 1, 3 rd Floor, Sun at 8:00 am
Chair Alex Hicks, Emory University
Paper Economic Volatility, Openness and the Welfare State
Ian Down, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Overview: This paper challenges the standard assumption in much
of the welfare state and globalization literature that the effects of
greater openness on the domestic economy are to increase
domestic economic volatility, and thus insecurity.
Paper An Agent-Based Model of the Diffusion of Welfare State
Reforms
Fabrizio Gilardi, University of Lausanne
Stephane Luyet, University of Lausanne
Marek Blaszczyk, University of Lausanne
Overview: This paper affirms the importance of interdependence
and diffusion for the study of the welfare state, and develops an
agent-based model of the diffusion of welfare state reforms that
sheds light on how policy diffusion processes unfold.
Paper More Rights, Fewer Pensions? Pension Portability in
Germany and the EU
Alexandra Hennessy, Boston University
Overview: Why does Germany support parts of a single European
pension market, but not others? I argue that EU mandated
corporate pension policies jeopardize unfunded book reserve
pensions, a corner stone of Germany’s comparative institutional
advantage.
Paper The Impact of Government Partisanship on Redistribution in
Open Economies
Evelyne Huebscher, European University Institute
Overview: I analyze whether government partisanship still has an
impact on policies in open economies. Using data from the LIS
database, I test the influence of partisanship on redistribution in
general, and on different income categories and economic sectors.
Disc. Alex Hicks, Emory University
3-14 ORDER AND DISORDER
Room Salon 2, 3 rd Floor, Sun at 8:00 am
Chair Jennifer Gandhi, Emory University
Paper Dynastic Succession in Modern Autocracies
Jason Brownlee, University of Texas, Austin
Overview: This paper tests prevailing theories of dynasticism
among post-World War II authoritarian regimes. Finding that the
phenomenon defies standard cultural and developmental variables,
I propose an alternative explanation that recasts dynastic
succession.
Paper Recreating Political Order: Political Parties and Hybrid
Regimes
Adrienne LeBas, Michigan State University
Overview: This paper arguing that the strategies chosen by elites
to win constituencies and build party organizations during
democratization shape the structure of politics and the degree of
political order.
Paper Why Minorities Don't Rebel: Accounting for the Missing
Separatists Among the Basques and Kurds
Benjamin Smith, University of Florida
Overview: This paper develops a state-focused theory of
ethnonational conflict and its absence, arguing that differential
patterns of material state building account for variation in
separatist mobilization among the Kurds of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and
Turkey.
Paper Government Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes
Milan Svolik, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Overview: I study a model of authoritarian politics in which the
joint desire of the dictator and the governing elite to rule is
complicated by a conflict of interest between them. Two powersharing
regimes, contested and established dictatorships.
Disc. Dan Slater, University of Chicago
Jennifer Gandhi, Emory University
3-24 THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC
LIBERALIZATION
Room Salon 4, 3 rd Floor, Sun at 8:00 am
Chair Heiner Schulz, University of Pennsylvania
Paper Capital Controls and Openness in Resource-Rich Economies
Nancy E. Brune, University of Pennsylvania
Overview: Using original data on financial openness (1970-2004),
this paper explores the impact of a country’s natural resource
endowments (and mediating effects of external actors) on the
variation of financial openness in the developing world.
Paper The Chinese State and Foreign Capital: Who Controls
Whom?
Roselyn Hsueh Romano, University of California, Berkeley
Overview: China's accession to the WTO forced the economic
liberalization of previously closed industries. An examination of
the recalibration of government control of FDI across industries
reveal, however, that reregulation has accompanied economic
liberalization.
Paper Globalization and Ethnic Discrimination
Jason P. Sorens, SUNY, Buffalo
Overview: Effects of international economic openness on
discriminatory policies against ethnic minorities, conditional on
natural resource abundance.
Disc. Heiner Schulz, University of Pennsylvania
4-15 PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRATIZATION IN
AFRICA
Room PDR 4, 3 rd Floor, Sun at 8:00 am
Chair Eric McLaughlin, University of Illinois
Paper The Authoritarian Past and Democratic Support in Southern
Africa
Jason M. Wells, University of Missouri
Overview: I ask how citizens think about their experiences with
past authoritarian regimes, relative to their experiences with new
democratic regimes, and whether these thoughts influence their
commitment to, or satisfaction with, democracy.
Paper Patterns of Democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa
Anna Brigevich, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Overview: This paper examines the process of democratic
transition in Sub-Saharan African countries, and argues that three
distinct patterns of democratization and stability have emerged.
Paper Criminalization of the State and the Crisis of Governance in
Africa
Raphael O. Ogom, DePaul University
Overview: Examines why democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa is
“widely approved, but everywhere in doubt” and contends that the
‘criminalization of the state’ is the antithetical cankerworm
weakening the foundations of democratic consolidation in the subcontinent.
Paper Democratic Consolidation and Riots in South Africa
Beth E. Harkavy, Columbia University
Overview: The following paper examines the increasing number
or riots that have occurred in South Africa’s townships using
democratic theory. I use both quantitative and qualitative analysis
to argue that these riots have occurred because South Africa’s
democracy has developed in a way that does not adequately link
citizens to governmental institutions.
Paper Trust, Social Capital and Democracy in Newly Transitioned
States: The Role of Civil Society in Kenya
Henry K. Wambuii, University of Central Missouri
Greg Streich, University of Central Missouri
Overview: Using the case of Kenya, we disentangle the causal
paradox of social capital, trust, and democratization in ethnically
homogeneous states by examining the role of civil society
organizations that have emerged to fight against the HIV/AIDS
pandemic.
Disc. Eric McLaughlin, University of Illinois
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