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Policy Stringency, Political Conditions, And Public Performances Of Pandemic Control: An International Comparison, Dan Chen, Yong Li, Jiebing Wu Feb 2023

Policy Stringency, Political Conditions, And Public Performances Of Pandemic Control: An International Comparison, Dan Chen, Yong Li, Jiebing Wu

Political Science Faculty Publications

What factors might explain the cross-country variations in COVID-19 public performances and what lessons can be drawn to be better-prepared for future pandemics? This study focuses on the effects of policy stringency on COVID-19 public health outcomes to gain insights into national-level state responses to COVID-19 and the conditions for their effectiveness. Using data from 136 countries comprising 91.4% of the global population, we find that more stringent policies lead to lower infection and death rates. More importantly, the negative effects of restrictive policies on infection and death rates are moderated by political trust and democracy levels, possibly through the …


Aristotle On Democracy And Democracies, Kevin M. Cherry Jan 2018

Aristotle On Democracy And Democracies, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

It is a commonplace that Aristotle, like his teacher Plato, was a critic of democracy. This is, to a certain extent, true: Plato and Aristotle both saw democracy, at least as practiced in Athens, as prone to tumultuousness and imprudence. The failed Sicilian expedition, the execution of Socrates, the failure to heed Demosthenes's warnings about Philip of Macedon and Aristotle's own reported flight from Athens all highlighted the weaknesses of Athenian democratic institutions. Yet Aristotle's understanding of political science requires him to consider not only what the simply best regime might be, as Socrates purports to do in the Republic, …


Egypt's Civic Revolution Turns 'Democracy Promotion' On Its Head, Sheila Carapico Jan 2012

Egypt's Civic Revolution Turns 'Democracy Promotion' On Its Head, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

Did western political aid agencies encourage the 25 January uprising with their civil society promotion projects? Did they encourage mass mobilization against the regime, or perhaps tutor dissidents in how to organize grassroots opposition? At the same time as the United States and other NATO powers were providing economic and military assistance to the Egyptian regime, did they also foment popular defiance? Some people seem to think so; different narratives about foreign provocation of Egypt's uprising circulated in Arabic and in English.


Between Apprehension And Support: Social Dialogue, Democracy, And Industrial Restructuring In Central And Eastern Europe, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee Mar 2010

Between Apprehension And Support: Social Dialogue, Democracy, And Industrial Restructuring In Central And Eastern Europe, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article explores the attitudes of trade union organizations to restructuring and privatization of their enterprises to strategic foreign investors in Central and Eastern Europe's biggest steel producers: Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia. Contrary to advocates of insulating technocratic decision-makers from social partners, this article argues that higher quality of democracy and concomitant social dialogue carried out at the level of the sector with union organizations that are autonomous of the government in power (as was the case in the Czech Republic and Poland), are associated with greater restructuring and with support for privatization to strategic foreign investors. In …


What Does It Mean, "Promoting Democratization"?, Sheila Carapico Jan 2009

What Does It Mean, "Promoting Democratization"?, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

Political speeches and even policy analysis from Washington, Ottawa, and the capitals of Europe in the past two decades about promoting democratization tend towards generalities and platitudes. This research asks what Western and international agencies actually do, on the ground in the Middle East, by way of fomenting democracy. Taking my inspiration from the sociologist Albert Hirschman who decades ago observed that projects are “privileged particles”[i] of socio-economic development assistance, I’ve collected well over twelve hundred examples.[ii] This summary table illustrates the aggregate finding that most projects cluster around electoral representation, legal or judicial development, and support for …


Comment On Benhabib's "Dismantling The Leviathan": A Republican-Liberai Perspective, Richard Dagger Jul 2001

Comment On Benhabib's "Dismantling The Leviathan": A Republican-Liberai Perspective, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Those who think of themselves as republican or civic liberals, as I do, will surely be of two minds about Seyla Benhabib's "Dismantling the Leviathan: Citizen and State in a Global World" [Spring 2001 ]. In some respects, Professor Benhabib' s thoughtful essay is quite congenial to republican liberalism. She insists on the importance of human rights, for instance, and she looks for ways to expand political participation. Her indictment of "civic republicanism," however, requires a republican-liberal response.


Mission: Democracy, Sheila Carapico Jan 1998

Mission: Democracy, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

Incumbent national leaders invite foreign election monitors only when it is in their interest to do so. Rarely is significant financial assistance "conditional" on holding elections, although it does improve a regime's image abroad to do so. For governments being observed, the trick is to orchestrate the process enough to win, but not enough to arouse observers' suspicions.


Introduction To Part One, Sheila Carapico Jan 1997

Introduction To Part One, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

The end of the Cold War brought with it a temporary euphoria about prospects for a worldwide "third wave" of democratization to sweep the globe. If civil society had triumphed in the former Soviet bloc, perhaps political liberalism would spread elsewhere. No sooner had the sweet taste of victory over communism subsided, however, than Western observers turned their attention to another, allegedly uniquely, antidemocratic current- Islam-whose civilizational values seem to clash with Western liberalism even more fundamentally than Marxism. Whereas people in other parts of the world crave civil society, so the argument goes, political openings in the Muslim world …


Computers, Cables, And Citizenship: On The Desirability Of Instant Direct Democracy, Richard Dagger Jan 1983

Computers, Cables, And Citizenship: On The Desirability Of Instant Direct Democracy, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Mulford Sibley is not the sort of scholar who makes a career of elaborating variations on a theme. There are recurring themes in his work, however, and I want to sound two of them, participatory democracy and technology, in this essay. These themes may be joined in a number of ways, but here I shall take up only one - the possibility that advances in communications technology may actually promote democracy by extending and enhancing opportunities for political participation.