2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Friday, April 13 – 12:45 pm – 2:20 pm
1-104 AUTHOR MEETS CRITICS: MCCARTY, POOLE,
AND ROSENTHAL'S POLARIZED AMERICA
Room Parlor F, 6 th Floor, Fri at 12:45 pm
Chair David Brady, Stanford University
Panelist Sarah Binder, George Washington University
Jeff Stonecash, Syracuse University
Michele Swers, Georgetown University
Rodney Hero, University of Notre Dame
Richard Johnston, University of Pennsylvania
Keith Poole, University of California, San Diego
Nolan McCarty, Princeton University
Overview: Panelists on this roundtable will discuss the recently
published book, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and
Unequal Riches, by Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard
Rosenthal.
2-7 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SKILLS AND
PRODUCTIVITY
Room Salon 1, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 12:45 pm
Chair Cathie Jo Martin, Boston University
Paper Institutional Change in the German Vocational Training
System
Marius R. Busemeyer, Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies
Overview: This paper argues that the German vocational training
system has undergone incremental, yet transformative change
during the last decades. The challenges of upskilling and
Europeanization put pressure on the classical dual system model.
Paper The Politics of Coalitions for High-Skilled Immigration
Policies
Lucie Cerna, University of Oxford
Overview: Why are some advanced industrial countries more open
to high-skilled immigration than others when they focus on both
filling similar labour market shortages and recruiting ‘best
brains’?
Paper New Skills Institutions in Old Industrialized Economies? The
Case of IT
Sara Jane McCaffrey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Overview: Though education and training remain deeply
embedded in national settings, rapid technological change and
standardization has boosted the power of international firms and
standard setting organizations at the expense of domestic actors.
Paper Economic Openness, Skills-Based Coalitions, and Service
Sector Development
Anne T. Wren, Stanford University
Overview: Where the capacity exists for the formation of political
coalitions around the expansion of high-productivity export lead
service sectors, distributional conflict along the lines predicted in
Iversen and Wren's (1998) service sector trilemma is substantia
Disc. Cathie Jo Martin, Boston University
2-201 INFORMAL ROUNDTABLE: PERSPECTIVES ON
JAPANESE POLITICS
Room State, 4 th Floor, Table 1, Fri at 12:45 pm
Presenter Career Ambitions of Local Politicians in Pre- and Post-
Reform Japan
Ko Maeda, University of North Texas
Jun Saito, Wesleyan University
Overview: We explore how the 1994 electoral law reform in Japan
changed the pattern in which local legislators step up to the
national politics. The implications for the future of the Japanese
party system will also be discussed.
Presenter Arenas for Pork or Policy? Committee Debates in the
Japanese Diet
Akitaka Matsuo, Rice University
Shunta Matsumoto, Meijo University
Overview: This research conducts computer content analyses for
committee discussion in the Japanese lower house. The
dimensionality of discussion in each committee is determined by
the nature of its jurisdiction.
2-202 INFORMAL ROUNDTABLE: POLITICS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Room State, 4 th Floor, Table 2, Fri at 12:45 pm
Presenter The Influence of Electoral Cleavage Patterns on Social
Movement Activity
Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger, Northern Arizona University
Overview: This study examines the influence of electoral cleavage
patterns on activity choice among environmental organizations in
the UK, France and Germany by asking if changes in electoral
politics influenced the political opportunity structure for activity.
3-6 EFFECTS OF INDIGENOUS POLITICAL
INSTITUTIONS
Room Salon 2, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 12:45 pm
Chair Todd A. Eisenstadt, American University
Paper Indigenous Custom and Democratic Theory in Southern
Mexico
Matthew R. Cleary, Syracuse University
Overview: This paper uses evidence from Oaxaca, Mexico, to
inform debates about multiculturalism and liberal democratic
theory that, to this point, have largely been disengaged from actual
empirical cases.
Paper Communitarianism and Individualism in Southern Mexico
Todd A. Eisenstadt, American University
Overview: Based on an unprecedented survey in Southern
Mexico, this paper shows that pluralist and class - rather than
ethnic - identities, have been rural Mexico’s most salient social
cleavages even since the post-1994 Zapatista-inspired indigenous
rights movement.
Paper Elections Without Parties: Authoritarian Survival and the
Politics of Multiculturalism in Oaxaca, Mexico
Guillermo Trejo, Duke University
Rodrigo Elizarraras, New School for Social Research
Overview: This paper seeks to explain why incumbent ruling
elites in electoral autocracies would willingly decentralize
political power to ethnic communal assemblies at the expense of
political parties, the incumbent party included.
Paper Indigenous Parties and Institutional Innovation in the Andes
Donna Lee Van Cott, Tulane University
Overview: The author examines how indigenous peoples' political
parties are incorporating what they claim to be traditional cultural
practices into the design of local government institutions where
such parties control the mayor's office.
Disc. Edward Gibson, Northwestern University
4-6 PROBLEMS OF TRANSITION IN EASTERN
EUROPE
Room PDR 4, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 12:45 pm
Chair Vladimir V. Popov, New Economic School
Paper A Multi-Level Model of Strategic Media Use in Democratizing
Countries
Paul M. Loveless, Georgetown University
Overview: Using the Czech and Slovak Republics as a quasiexperiment,
this paper demonstrates how citizens’ informationseeking
during democratic transition both manifests itself in media
choices and is determined by the processes of institutional reform.
Paper After the Revolution: The Fate of Independent Media in Post-
Transition Polities
Eric Schwartz, Binghamton University
Overview: The media play an important role in opposition to
authoritarian regimes, yet too often they are rewarded with
repression by new regimes. The character of pre-transition
competition is a key factor in explaining the fate of post-transition
media.
Paper Comparing the Democratic and the New Electoral Revolutions
in Eastern Europe
Klara Sogindolska, SUNY, Geneseo
Overview: The paper provides a comparative review of the new
Electoral Revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine and the
1989 Democratic Revolutions in East Central Europe.
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