Previous events - Page 8

Title of the presentation "The Politics of COVID-19 Containment: The Curious Case of Tanzania"

Lecturer: Arie Perliger, University of Massachusetts Lowell

In this online seminar, we will discuss Erik Lin-Greenbergs paper "Cheap Tweets: Crisis Signaling in the Age of Twitter".

Life at the top - Understanding top bureaucrats’ roles as the link between politics and administration

Title of the presentation "Vox Populi. Public Support for the Popular Initiative"

In this seminar, Klaus Theweleit, Eviane Leidig and Iris Beau Segers will present some of their recent work on the topic of gender and extremism.

In this online seminar, we will discuss Caitlin Talmadge's draft paper with Vipin Narang and Lisa Michelini, “When Actions Speak Louder than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No First Use Pledges.”

Policy Integration, Institutional Change and the Governance of Complex Problems

With Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath) and Aaron Winter (University of East London)

Title of the presentation "International Sports Events, Media Attention, and Repression: Evidence from the 1978 FIFA World Cup"

Abstract

How do international sports events shape repression in authoritarian host countries? International tournaments promise unique gains in political prestige through global media attention. However, autocrats must fear that foreign journalists will unmask their wrongdoings. We argue that autocracies solve this dilemma by strategically adjusting repression according to the spatial-temporal presence of international media. Using original, highly disaggregated data on the 1978 World Cup, we demonstrate that the Argentine host government largely refrained from repression during the tournament, but preemptively cleansed the streets beforehand. These adjustments specifically occurred around hotels reserved for foreign journalists. Additional tests demonstrate that: 1) before the tournament, repression turned increasingly covert, 2) during the tournament, targeting patterns mirrored the working shifts of foreign journalists, 3) after the tournament, regime violence again spiked in locations where international media had been present. Together, the paper highlights the human costs of mega-events, contradicting the common whitewashing rhetoric of functionaries

Lecturer: Elizaveta Gaufman, University of Groningen

Student Financing for Social Equity in Norway, 1947–2020

Title of the presentation "Ethnic Inequality and Regime Change: Investigating an Asymmetric Relationship"

Abstract

Title: The Institutional Sources of Economic Transformation: Energy Policy from the Oil Crises to Climate Change

Abstract

Why are some governments more effective in promoting economic change than others? We develop a theory of the institutional sources of economic transformation. Domestic institutions condition the ability of policymakers to impose costs on consumers and producers. We argue that institutions can enable transformation through two central mechanisms: insulation and compensation. The institutional sources of transformation vary across policy types—whether policies impose costs primarily on consumers (demand-side policies) or on producers (supply-side policies). Proportional electoral rules and strong welfare states facilitate demand-side policies, whereas autonomous bureaucracies and corporatist interest intermediation facilitate supply-side policies. We test our theory by leveraging the 1973 oil crisis, an exogenous shock that compelled policymakers to simultaneously pursue transformational change across OECD countries. Panel analysis, case studies, and discourse network analysis support our hypotheses. The findings offer important lessons for contemporary climate change policy and low-carbon transitions.

Politics and administrative turnover in highly meritocratic systems

With Stephen D. Ashe (Durham University), John P. Jackson (Michigan State University) and Rae Jereza (New Jersey Institute of Technology)

Lecturer: Richard Javad Heydarian

With Maura Conway (Dublin City University)

Title of the presentation "Land Property Rights, Cadasters and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Panel 1000-2015 CE”

Abstract

Since the transition to agricultural production, property rights to land have been a key institution for economic development. Clearly defined land rights provide economic agents with increased access to credit, secure returns on investment, free up resources used to defend one's land rights, and facilitate land market transactions. Formalized land records also strengthen governments' capacity to tax land-owners. Despite a large body of extant micro-level empirical studies, macro-level research on the evolution of formal rights to land, and their importance for economic growth, has so far been lacking. In this paper, we present a novel data set on the emergence of state-administered cadasters (i.e. centralized land records) for 159 countries over the last millennium. We also analyze empirically the association between the development of cadastral institutions and long-run economic growth in a panel of countries. Our findings demonstrate a substantive positive effect of the introduction of cadasters on modern per capita income levels, supporting theoretical conjectures that states with more formalized property rights to land should experience higher levels of economic growth.

Title of the presentation "Regime Threats and State Solutions”

Lecturer: Cristina Moreno Almeida, King's College London