NeoWestern business-government relations: the case of Poland

This article investigates the applicability of Western models of business-government relations to the postcommunist context. Given the absence of a business-government relationship over the forty years of communism, it seems perfectly plausible that postcommunist countries should produce a historically unprecedented form of business-government relations and a new type of capitalist democracy. On the other hand, these countries have for several years been unequivocally regarded as capitalist democracies so it also seems possible that a literature developed for Western capitalist democracies should be useful in the postcommunist context. This article argues that, in spite of their assertions to the contrary, postcommunist studies propose no new concepts or variables for the study of business-government relations. Moreover, a detailed case study of Poland demonstrates the applicability of Western models to a postcommunist context. The confrontation between Western models and postcommunist data does not "stretch" the models but, in some important respects, actually clarifies them

If money talks, what does it say? Varieties of capitalism and business financing of parties

Do business contributions to political parties convey different messages in different countries, and, if so, why? This is the first cross-national study of firm behaviour in political finance. It understands motivations for contributions to parties as either ideological or pragmatic. Motivation is inferred by quantitatively relating the payments of 960 firms to variations in political competition in three countries over periods of between seven and seventeen years. In co-ordinated Germany, a small number of firms make ideological payments. In liberal Canada and Australia, large numbers of firms made pragmatic payments. Australia’s left-right party system created an awareness of policy risk, which motivated ideological payments, but there was no ideological bias in business financing of politics in Canada’s unusually non-ideological party system. The statistical analysis is supplemented by a qualitative investigation of discrete and reciprocal exchanges between businesses and political parties

The logic of post-communist capitalist collective inaction

The relationship between politics and business is obviously a key feature of policy-making in capitalist democracies, and business associations are an important element of that relationship. A consensus has now emerged that organised business is remarkably weak in East-Central Europe. This article proposes a theoretical synthesis with which to explain that weakness. It shows how the strength of trade unions, varieties of capitalism and interest diversity are specifications of Olson’s logic of collective action, specifications without which the logic itself is too general to explain concrete outcomes. Detailed evidence in favour of the theory is provided from the Polish case. It is argued that the analysis should also apply to other post-communist countries

Semi-presidentialism and democratisation in Poland

Polish semi-presidentialism evolved from a pacted transition between the leadership of the communist regime and the Solidarity opposition movement. The mechanics of semi-presidentialism, as well as its effect on democratisation, depend upon the constitution, the party system and the personality of the president. Poland has had three semi-presidential constitutions, a variety of relationships between president and government as well as government and parliament, and two very different presidents. In the early years, the absence of the conditions for stable semi-presidentialism had a negative effect on democratisation. Later on, conditions were more supportive, and semi-presidentialism began to play a more positive role. Before the introduction of semi-presidentialism in November 1990, Polish elites had already established a firm consensus on democracy, which was buttressed by consensus on the economic system and international relations. Therefore, the conflicting legitimacies generated by semi-presidentialism delayed but did not prevent, or seriously threaten, democratic consolidation in Poland

Process and text: teaching students to review the literature

Examiners of dissertations regularly have to endure “literature reviews” that consist of extended lists of mini-summaries of books. Indeed, quite often “dissertations” amount to little more than a list of book-summaries masquerading as an argument. While there are excellent courses on qualitative and quantitative methods, most students have learnt how to conduct literature reviews exclusively through the method of learning by doing. Ultimately, there is no alternative to this age-old method. However, this essay is premised on the belief that a brief attempt to understand the general function of a literature review in political science should make learning by doing easier and more productive

Creating Sustainable Funding for Affordable Housing in Illinois

For more than 30 years, the nation has been losing affordable rental housing for extremely low income households (those earning less than $16,000 a year nationally). Affordable housing is defined as housing stock available at 30 percent of a household's income. From 1993 to 2003, the inventory of these units plunged by 1.2 million. With losses to upgrading, abandonment, or demolition, currently there is a nationwide shortage of rentals affordable and available to low-income households of 5.4 million units.Currently, 30,000 units of assisted affordable housing in the Chicago area and nearly 70,000 units statewide are at risk of being lost to the private market by 2010

Divided executives and democratisation

This article examines the effect of a divided executive on democratisation in mixed systems where presidents are directly elected and prime ministers are responsible to the legislature. A divided executive is where the president and prime minister are not from the same party. The importance of a divided executive is hypothesised to vary according to the relative powers of the president and prime minister. In mixed systems where either the president or the prime minister is the dominant actor, then a divided executive will not affect democratisation. However, where both the president and prime minister have significant independent powers, then a divided executive should have a negative impact on democratisation because of the potential for destabilising intraexecutive conflict. Using an ordinal logit model, the results show that mixed systems with a dual executive do not perform significantly worse than mixed systems where there is one dominant actor. This suggests that the standard wisdom about the impact of a divided executive in a mixed system is misplaced

Assessing Inflation Targeting in Latin America With a DSGE Model

In this paper we assess Inflation Targeting with a unique treatment and control group of strictly Latin American countries. We estimate a small Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model to determine whether economic behavior within an economy fundamentally changes under Inflation Targeting. We find that although Inflation Targeting central banks appear to be if anything, slightly more aggressive in responding to inflation than Non-Inflation Targeting central banks, this has not resulted in more forward looking inflation expectations by economic agents.

Estimates of influenza vaccine effectiveness in primary care in Scotland vary with clinical or laboratory endpoint and method : experience across the 2010/11 season

Aim: This study examines estimation of seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) for a cohort of patients attending general practice in Scotland in 2010/11. The study focuses on the variation in estimation of VE for both virological and clinical consultation outcomes and understanding the dependency on date of analysis during the season, methodological approach and the effect of use of a propensity score model. Methods: For the clinical outcomes, three methodological approaches were considered; adjusted Poissonmulti-level modelling splitting consultations in vaccinated individuals into those before and after vaccination, adjusted Cox proportional hazards modelling and finally the screening method. For the virological outcome, the test-negative case–control study design was employed. Results: VE was highest for the most specific outcomes of ILI (Poisson end-of-season VE = 47% (95% CI:−69%, 83%); Cox VE = 34% (95% CI: −64%, 73.2%); Screening VE = 52.8% (95% CI: 3.8%, 76.8%)) and a viro-logical diagnosis (VE = 54% (95% CI: −37%, 85%)). Using the Cox approach, adjusted for propensity scoreonly gave VE = 46.5% (95% CI: −30.4%, 78.0%). Conclusion: Our approach illustrated the ability to achieve relatively consistent estimates of seasonalinfluenza VE using both specific and less specific outcomes. Construction of a propensity score and usefor bias adjustment increased the estimate of ILI VE estimated from the Cox model and made estimatesmore similar to the Poisson approach, which models differences in consultation behaviour of vacci-nated individuals more inherently in its structure. VE estimation for the same data was found to vary bymethodology which should be noted when comparing results from different studies and countries

Why aren't banks lending more? the role of commercial real estate

Since August 2007, the U.S. and global financial markets have endured the worst crisis since the Great Depression, accompanied by a deep economic recession. At the height of the crisis, whole segments of financial markets froze and market participants hesitated to engage in transactions with even the most creditworthy counterparties.Bank loans ; Commercial loans ; Mortgage loans