Strom C. Thacker

The High Politics of IMF Lending

Analysts have long suspected that politics affects the lending patterns of the International Monetary Fund (imf), but none have adequately specified or systematically tested competing explanations. This paper develops a political explanation of imf lending and tests it statistically on the developing countries between 1985 and 1994. It finds that political realignment toward the United States, the largest power in the imf, increases a countrys probability of receiving an imf loan. A countrys static political alignment position has no significant impact during this period, suggesting that these processes are best modeled dynamically. An analysis of two subsamples rejects the hypothesis that the imf has become less politicized since the end of the cold war and suggests that the influence of politics has actually increased since 1990. The behavior of multilateral organizations is still driven by the political interests of their more powerful member states.

Political Institutions and Corruption: The Role of Unitarism and Parliamentarism

A raft of new research on the causes and effects of political corruption has emerged in recent years, in tandem with a separate, growing focus on the effects of political institutions on important outcomes such as economic growth, social equality and political stability. Yet we know little about the possible role of different political institutional arrangements on political corruption. This article examines the impact of territorial sovereignty (unitary or federal) and the composition of the executive (parliamentary or presidential) on levels of perceived political corruption cross-nationally. We find that unitary and parliamentary forms of government help reduce levels of corruption. To explain this result, we explore a series of seven potential causal mechanisms that emerge out of the competing centralist and decentralist theoretical paradigms: (1) openness, transparency and information costs, (2) intergovernmental competition, (3) localism, (4) party competition, (5) decision rules, (6) collective action problems, and (7) public administration. Our empirical findings and our analysis of causal mechanisms suggest that centralized constitutions help foster lower levels of political corruption.

Democracy and Human Development

Does democracy improve the quality of life for its citizens? Scholars have long assumed that it does, but recent research has called this orthodoxy into question. This article reviews this body of work, develops a series of causal pathways through which democracy might improve social welfare, and tests two hypotheses: (a) that a country’s level of democracy in a given year affects its level of human development and (b) that its stock of democracy over the past century affects its level of human development. Using infant mortality rates as a core measure of human development, we conduct a series of time-series—cross-national statistical tests of these two hypotheses. We find only slight evidence for the first proposition, but substantial support for the second. Thus, we argue that the best way to think about the relationship between democracy and development is as a time-dependent, historical phenomenon.

Centripetal Democratic Governance: A Theory and Global Inquiry

Why are some democratic governments more successful than others? What impact do various political institutions have on the quality of governance? This paper develops and tests a new theory of democratic governance. This theory, which we label centripetalism, stands in contrast to the dominant paradigm of decentralism. The centripetal theory of governance argues that democratic institutions work best when they are able to reconcile the twin goals of centralized authority and broad inclusion. At the constitutional level, our theory argues that unitary, parliamentary, and list-PR systems (as opposed to decentralized federal, presidential, and nonproportional ones) help promote both authority and inclusion, and therefore better governance outcomes. We test the theory by examining the impact of centripetalism on eight indicators of governance that range across the areas of state capacity, economic policy and performance, and human development. Results are consistent with the theory and robust to a variety of specifications.

Do Neoliberal Policies Deter Political Corruption

This article probes the relationship between neoliberal economic poli- cies and political corruption, focusing in particular on the impact of trade and invest- ment policies, regulatory policy, and the overall size of the public sector on corruption+ Using a large cross-national data set from the mid- to late 1990s, we test the neolib- eral hypotheses that market-oriented economic policies are associated with lower lev- els of political corruption, and state intervention in the economy with higher levels+ Consistent with the neoliberal argument, we find that open trade and investment pol- icies and low, effective regulatory burdens do correlate with lower levels of political corruption+ However, we find no consistent relationship between the aggregate size of the public sector and political corruption+ While the neoliberal hypothesis on polit- ical corruption has initial empirical support, its lessons cannot be applied wholesale+ Market-oriented states may be less corrupt, but interventionist states, as measured by public spending, are not necessarily more corrupt+

Are Parliamentary Systems Better

The institutional differences between presidential and parliamentary rule are well known, yet the practical effects of these divergent constitutional arrangements within democratic polities have received scant attention. This article employs a global data set to test the relationship between a historical measure of parliamentary rule and 14 indicators ranging across three policy areas: political development, economic development, and human development. The study revealed a strong relationship between parliamentarism and good governance, particularly in the latter two policy areas. To the extent that these institutions influence the quality of governance, parliamentary systems may offer advantages over presidential systems of democratic rule.

Values in global health governance.

Abstract In the 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated, the promise of achieving respect for the human rights, health and well being of all is becoming an ever more distant prospect. We have not even remotely met the challenge of improving health for a large proportion of the worlds population, and the prospects for improving global health seem to be receding in the current deteriorating economic and political climate. As global health remains one of the most pressing problems of our time, we must question the values that direct our actions and current approaches, which proclaim ‘human rights to health’ but which subsume these rights to a broader paradigm of unregulated global market economics and national politics, rather than working to make these oft-contradictory goals mutually compatible through justifiable and accountable global governance processes. We suggest that a new balance of values and new ways of thinking and acting are needed. These must transcend national and institutional boundaries and recognise that health in the most privileged nations is closely linked to health and disease in impoverished countries. Sustainable development of health and well-being is a necessity for all, and values for health should permeate every area of social and economic activity.

Private Sector Trade Politics in Mexico

Business plays a critical yet poorly understood role in trade policymaking. This paper develops an analytical framework that focuses on the distribution of business trade preferences, the forces that cause those preferences to change, and the ability of different groups to exert political influence over policy. It then applies this framework to Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s. Large, exporting firms increased their weight due to shifts in the international context, the condition of the domestic economy, and previous government policies. Policymakers granted political access to actors whose economic and political leverage had risen, typically those who controlled numerous investment resources and sought out a direct role in policymaking. Many of these actors also favored free trade. Business participation in trade policy reflects these patterns. Large, outward-oriented firms played an increasingly important role in Mexicos adoption of free trade policies over the 1980s and early 1990s.