Observation shows that while democracy is fragile in poor countries, it is impregnable in developed ones. To explain this pattern, I develop a model in which political parties propose redistributions of incomes, observe the result of an election, and decide whether to comply with the outcome or to launch a struggle for dictatorship. Democracy prevails in developed societies because too much is ...

A law professor, who was a member of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council committee which authored The Use of Laboratory Animals in Biomedical and Behavioral Research, argues that political attacks by animal rights organizations constitute the most important practical aspect of this issue because they lead to restrictions that severely inhibit the ability of researchers to...

In this paper we analyze the endogenous determination of migration quota viewing it as an outcome of a two-stage political struggle between two interest groups: those in favor and those against the proposed migration quota. We first compare the proposed policies of the two interest groups under random behavior of the government, with and without lobbying. The paper proceeds with the examination...

Perhaps the crowning achievement of mature democracies is the peaceful acceptance of the ballot box as the primary instrument for deciding who should hold power in society. We do not have to go far back in the history of most democratic states, however, to find a distinct role for political violence. Moreover, many inhabitants of the globe still remain at risk of falling prey to widespread viol...

This article aims to show how elements from the work of Michel Foucault and actornetwork theory can be used as complementary strategies for grasping the constitution of the ‘subject’ and the ‘social’ through political technologies. In particular, I try to show that the ontological separation of human from nonhuman and culture from nature is enacted within specific techniques of government, whic...

Robin Munro’s review of “political psychiatry” in China during the past half-century is a reminder that psychiatry has a political as well as a professional and scientific context. In the authoritarian state governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) no aspect of collective experience can be separated from politics. The party has a structure parallel to that of the government, and each work ...

Recent work by political sociologists and social movement theorists extend our understanding of how religious institutions contribute to expanding democracy, but nearly all analyze religious institutions as institutions; few focus directly on what religion qua religion might contribute. This article strives to illuminate the impact of religious culture per se, extending recent work on religion ...

Rooted in ideology critique, this dissertation studies the construction of democracy in the coverage of Venezuela during the era of President Hugo Chávez. The aim of this endeavor is twofold. First, the dissertation aims to understand the relationship between ideology and the construction of democracy in journalism on foreign political phenomena. Second, it attempts to explore the ways in which...

Although Habermas’ sophisticated conception of constitutional patriotism successfully avoids the charge of trying to ground patriotism in a set of principles that is too thin and abstract to sustain a real sense of solidarity and belonging, his optimism regarding the prospect in modern pluralist societies of building a genuinely shared political culture is misplaced. The march of modernisation ...