APSA Comparative Democratisation Section 2017-11-29, 1804 Comparative Democratization Section 35 of the American Political Science Association Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2, May 2007 Table of Contents 1. Current Section Officers 2. Report from the Chair 3. Section News 4. News From Members 5. Professional Announcements 6. Recent Conferences 7. Future Conferences 8. New Research 1. CURRENT SECTION OFFICERS Chair (2006-2008) Jonathan Hartlyn Professor of Political Science University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill e-mail: [email protected] Vice-chair (2007-2009) Catherine Boone Professor of Government University of Texas, Austin [email protected] Secretary (2007-2009) Ellen Lust-Okar Assistant Professor of Political Science Yale University [email protected] Treasurer (2006-2008) Michael Coppedge Associate Professor of Political Science University of Notre Dame e-mail: [email protected] Acting Newsletter Editor (ex officio) Melissa Aten Research and Conferences Coordinator International Forum for Democratic Studies National Endowment for Democracy e-mail: [email protected] 2. REPORT FROM THE CHAIR I look forward to seeing many of you at the APSA Convention in Chicago. Our Program Chair, Valerie Bunce, has organized an extensive and rich array of panels. Don’t forget that your attendance at these http://www.compdem.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/May07.html Page 1 of 16 APSA Comparative Democratisation Section 2017-11-29, 1804 panels not only is crucial to sustaining the lively intellectual exchanges which make our section so vital, but also helps determine our allocation for subsequent conventions. Do save early Saturday evening for our business meeting and reception, where we will celebrate the winners of our book, article, best paper and field work awards, as well as the winner of our Juan Linz dissertation award. The Committee for the Section’s Best Field Work Award has extended its deadline for nominations until June 15. The requirements for the Award are described below. As much as our research is enriched by the use of datasets and internet resources, in the study of comparative democratization these cannot ever completely replace field work. Do urge all eligible graduate students to apply. Over the summer, watch your e-mail for our electronic ballot for the Section positions of chair and treasurer. Our Nominations Committee, chaired by Catherine Boone, has identified excellent candidates for each of these positions. See more information below in the Newsletter. Our section is open to your views and recommendations. Please don’t hesitate to contact me, especially regarding any items that you might want on the agenda for our business meeting in Chicago. Jonathan Hartlyn 3. SECTION NEWS Deadline for Best Field Work Award Extended: The deadline for the Best Field Work Award has been extended to June 15, 2007. Criteria for the award include the originality and importance of the research (especially the research sources) and the difficulty of the research. Scholars who are currently writing their dissertations or who have completed their dissertations in 2006 are eligible. Candidates must submit three chapters of their dissertation, and a letter of nomination from the chair of their dissertation committee. One or two of the chapters should describe the field work, and key insights from it. The chapters and nominating letter may be sent electronically or in hard copy directly to each committee member. Revised Deadline: June 15, 2007 Chair: Professor Milada Anna Vachudova University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Political Science CB3265 Hamilton Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3265 Phone: 919-962-0415 Fax: 919-962-0432 Email: [email protected] Member: Professor Sherrie Baver CUNY / City College of New York Department of Political Science, North Academic Center, Room 4/150 138th St. at Convent Ave. New York, NY 10031 Phone: 212-650-7491 Fax: 212-650-5464 Email: [email protected] Member: Professor Lily Tsai Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://www.compdem.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/May07.html Page 2 of 16 APSA Comparative Democratisation Section 2017-11-29, 1804 Department of Political Science 77 Massachusetts Avenue Room E53-470 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Phone: 617-253-6243 Email: [email protected] Elections to the Comparative Democratization Executive Committee This summer, the Section will hold elections for Section Chair and Treasurer. The nominees for Chair are Nancy Bermeo, professor of politics, Princeton University, and Steven Fish, professor of political science, University of California at Berkeley. The nominees for Treasurer are Mark Jones, associate professor of political science, Rice University, and Marc Morjé Howard, associate professor government and core faculty member of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Georgetown University. You will receive an electronic ballot with candidate statements and instructions on voting in June. Section Member Running for APSA Council Leonard Wantchekon, currently a professor of politics and economics at New York University, previously taught at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University and his M.A. in economics from Laval University and the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several articles on post-civil war democratization, resource curse, electoral clientelism and experimental methods in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Political Science Review, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Constitutional Political Economy, Political Africaine and Afrique Contemporaine. Mr. Wantchekon is currently serving on the APSA international committee as well as the APSA Africa Initiative comittee. His goal is to improve the interaction between comparativists working on developing nations with those working on western democracies and the U.S. 4. NEWS FROM MEMBERS Catherine Boone, professor of government, University of Texas at Austin, and vice-chair of APSA's Comparative Democratization section, received an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) research fellowship for 2006–2007 for research on land-related conflict and electoral politics in sub- Saharan Africa. She also published “Africa's New Territorial Politics: Regionalism and the Open Economy in Côte d'Ivoire” in the April 2007 African Studies Review. Archie Brown, Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony’s College, published Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2007). The book provides an interpretation of the liberalization and partial democratization of the Soviet system, the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet state, and the role of political leadership, particularly the part played by Mikhail Gorbachev. Matthew R. Cleary, assistant professor of political science, Syracuse University, published “Electoral Competition, Participation, and Government Responsiveness in Mexico” in the April 2007 American Journal of Political Science. Using an original dataset that combines electoral, socioeconomic, and public-financial indicators for Mexico’s 2,400 municipalities from 1989–2000, Mr. Cleary tests two competing visions on how democracy produces responsive government: electoral and participatory theories. Based on his results that show electoral competition has no effect on municipal government performance, he concludes that the quality of municipal government in Mexico depends on an engaged citizenry and cooperation between political leaders and their constituents, rather than the threat of electoral punishment. Mr. Clearly also published “A ‘Left Turn’ in Latin America? Explaining the Left’s Resurgence” in the October 2006 Journal of Democracy, in which he attempts to explain the recent increase in leftist victories in the region and to predict how far it will spread. http://www.compdem.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/May07.html Page 3 of 16 APSA Comparative Democratisation Section 2017-11-29, 1804 Javier Corrales, associate professor and chair of political science, Amherst College, and Michael Penfold examine the rise of Hugo Chávez and his recent comprehensive centralization campaign in the April 2007 Journal of Democracy article “Venezuela: Crowding out the Opposition.” The authors argue Chávez’s regime demonstrates how a public desire for change plus state resources can be exploited to undermine democracy. James L. Gibson, Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government, Washington University in St. Louis, published “‘Truth’ and ‘Reconciliation’ as Social Indicators” in the April 2007 Social Indicators Research, in which he examines whether truth causes reconciliation and if reconciliation contributes to democratization. Based on a large survey conducted in South Africa, Mr. Gibson finds that truth does contribute to reconciliation, but because reconciliation is capable of changing over times, efforts must be made to track reconciliation as an important social indicator. Mary Alice Haddad, assistant professor of government and East Asian studies, Wesleyan University, recently published Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Noting that our current understandings of civil society have been based on a U.S. model that does not adequately consider participation patterns found in other parts of the world, Ms. Haddad builds a Community Volunteerism Model, which explains and predicts both the types and rates of volunteering