Surges and cuts are explained here by some of the political factors affecting governments' abilities to balance the budget broadly discussed in the literature. We focus on territorial separatism, minority government, grand coalition, single-party government, and the ruling party's ideology....

The link between an introduction of the universal suffrage and the growth of government spending has been established in some literature (Meltzer, Richard, 1981, Aidt et al., 2006, Funk and Guthmann, 2006). In this article we try to identify a more detailed mechanism behind that link. So, we...

The voter - bureaucrat is locked into a situation of a conflict of interests: as a conscientious citizen, he or she should support optimal expenditure levels for providing certain public goods, but as a person whose wellbeing and career depend on the volume of expenditures for providing public...

Russian Abstract: Анализ литературы и примеров санкций в исторической ретроспективе показывает, что санкции не являются в общем случае заменой военному противостоянию...

One could define Leftist politician as a "happiness promoter", prioritizing care over defense as the Government principal goal. The present article traces the dynamics of the priorities chosen by leftist parties in Israel. During the period of the British Mandate they maintained...

Ideology is pretty efficient machinery to decrease collective action's costs. People not need to communicate or even to be familiar one another to participate the joint action, to support the policy or resist the same. The chapter studies the impact which new ideologies of the 21st century...

Notes on the Endogenous Generation of Political Competition. An attempt at a formalized description of the formation process of constitutionally limited Government when a balance of forces is preserved among the "bandits" (strongmen) competing for power. Magna Carta treaty as institution,...

In April 2013, rumors of the RF Government's impending sacking suddenly became much more than simply rumors after Vladimir Putin had announced that this option was now on the table. He made that statement at a government meeting at Elista, and the corresponding footage of the event was then...

The shooting down of a Russian bomber by a Turkish warplane at the Turkey-Syria border has led to a sharp increase in international tensions. Russia has slammed Turkey with economic sanctions, which can likewise be damaging to the Russian economy because of Russia's huge trade surplus with...