In this paper, I explore how parties exercise power in Congress. I analyze the legislative history of the annual appropriations bills over a 33-year time period to show how party leaders routinely use their agenda-setting powers to work around pivotal voters and advance their party’s...

This paper uses co-voting rates between members of the European Parliament as a social network measure and investigates the structure of EP co-voting networks. It argues that the propensity of members of the same legislative party to cast like-votes is largely attributable to 'perceived...

This paper questions the claim that the European Parliament (EP) is a legislature with strong committees. It examines the extent to which the plenary draws its legislative position on the basis of the draft committee reports under the codecision procedure. It is expected that the committees’...

This paper exploits new data from original representative surveys of municipal, county, and township congress delegates and their constituents in mainland China. It presents descriptive evidence that: (1) local congress delegates have a sense of constituency, reflected in both attitudes and...

The importance of democratization in Africa heighted at the end of the Cold War while also making aid flow a salient feature in the democratization process. As well as encouraging development, many scholars maintain that aid flow has also promoted democratization. Some scholars argue that aid...

While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like to keep their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious effects in democracies is no secret. Numerous scholars have brought into the limelight the impact of corruption on a range of...

How is government spending used strategically in the emergent Asian democracies of South Korea and Taiwan? As nations generally considered to have weathered democratization, a study of government spending in South Korea and Taiwan is instructive on how allocations may be used strategically...

Recent research has found that economic liberalization undermines democracy in the short-term, while reinforcing it over the long run, producing a J-curve relationship between economic liberalization and democracy. The widespread belief that economic liberalization demobilizes societal actors is...

War is an exogenous shock – allowing opportunities for vast changes in the political landscape or solidifying changes underway. War played a significant role as a catalyst that moved France (and then other countries in Europe) toward citizen armies in the nineteenth century. This was an...