The capacity to sustain policies over time and the capacity to adjust policies in the face of changing circumstances are two desirable properties of policymaking systems. The veto player approach has suggested that polities with more veto players will have the capacity to sustain policies at the...

Public policies are the outcomes of complex intertemporal exchanges among politicians. The basic institutional characteristics of a country constitute the framework within which those transactions are accomplished. We develop a transactions theory to understand the ways in which political...

The effects of public policies on social and economic outcomes depend on some fundamental state capacities, such as the ability to commit to a policy course; the ability to adjust policies when circumstances change; and the ability to coordinate, enforce, and implement policies. In a democratic...

This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of federalism and decentralization as dependent on the incentives of national and subnational political actors. It studies the mechanisms by which subnational actors affect decisions at the central level, in the context of a highly...