APSA-CP Newsletter of the Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association Volume 11, Issue 1 Winter 2000 Letter from the President Table of Contents American Imperialism in Comparative Politics Letter from the President 1 Michael Wallerstein Symposium Northwestern University The New Political Economy [email protected] of Decentralization and Federalism Comparative politics is under assault. Scholars armed Introduction with quantitative technologies and schooled in the research Daniel Treisman 4 tradition dominant in American politics have invaded our A Comparative Theory turf. Signs of the onslaught abound. Comparativists com- Of Federal Economic Performance plain that the American Political Science Review only pub- Barry R. Weingast 5 lishes the type of comparative article that an Americanist Fiscal Federalism in would write. World Politics, long the bastion of traditional Developing Economies scholarship in comparative politics and international rela- Robert P. Inman 10 tions, increasingly publishes articles containing tables of re- The Economics and gression coefficients. Young scholars must traverse a mine- Politics of Federalism field to get tenure. The best scholars using non-quantitative Susan Rose-Ackerman16 methods are vulnerable to the sort of tenure letter that says Formal Theory and so-and-so is very good at he does, but what he does is not Federalism "cutting edge work." At the same time, the best young schol- Jenna Bednar 19 ars using quantitative methods are vulnerable to the sort of Decentralization and tenure letter that says so-and-so may know something Hard Budget Constraints about game theory, but she doesn't know anything about Jennie Litvack Argentine (or French or Chinese) politics. In a divided disci- Jonathan Rodden 23 The Political Economy pline, no one can please all sides. Of Decentralization in Comparative politics has been invaded before. In the Latin America early postwar period, the behavioral revolution in American Karen Remmer politics spawned a generation of comparativists who ap- Erik Wibbels 28 Copyright 2000 American Political Science Association. Published with the financial assistance of the College of Letters and Science, UCLA. APSA-CP Newsletter, Winter 2000 1 plied the new technology of public opinion research around the globe. The introduction of survey research in compara- tive politics had a longlasting impact. Today, public opinion Section Officers research is well-established in every rich and middle income democracy. Nevertheless, the first invasion was largely re- sisted and survey researchers in comparative politics were President Michael Wallerstein marginalized. Twenty years ago, young comparativists were Northwestern University captivated by the sweeping historical-comparative analyses [email protected] of Barrington Moore, Karl Polanyi, Immanuel Wallerstein or Joseph Schumpeter. For a while, it was the Americanists Vice-President, President-Elect turn to be invaded as the comparative-historical approach Michael Wallerstein Northwestern University was applied to the study of politics in the United States by [email protected] Walter Dean Burnham, Theda Skocpol, Stephen Skow- ronek and others. Secretary-Treasurer The current generation of invaders differs from the sur- Atul Kohli Princeton University vey researchers in fundamental ways. Economics, rather [email protected] than social psychology, is now the dominant source of im- ported theories and methods. While the standards of statisti- 1999 APSA Program cal work have grown over time, many of the new quantita- Coordinator tive scholars are more concerned with deductive theory- Ellen Comisso University of California, San Diego building than with data analysis. Most importantly, the new [email protected] generation of quantitative comparativists are generally con- cerned with impact of political institutions as opposed to the earlier concern with individual attitudes or class conflict. At-Large Committee Members So what should the response of comparativists be to the Barry Ames new generation of scholars who insist on studying "our" University of Pittsburgh countries in the same way that Americanists study the US barrya+@pitt.edu Congress. The first response should be to celebrate that central fact that makes such an invasion possible, that is the Ian McAllister Australian National University spread of democracy. However one evaluates the function- [email protected] ing of democracy in the US, it is surely a great advance that politics in much of the world is much more similar today to Sidney Tarrow politics in the US than it was twenty five years ago. Cornell University [email protected] The second response to the invaders should be to incor- porate the new technologies that the invaders have intro- George Tsebelis duced. When theory becomes sufficiently complex, mathe- University of California, matical language becomes indispensable for ascertaining Los Angeles [email protected] what conclusions follow from a given set of assumption. When our data can be put in quantitative form without los- Jennifer Widner ing essential information, quantitative techniques are the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor only way to determine with precision what can and cannot [email protected] be inferred from the evidence. I hasten to say that I am not advocating the abandonment of traditional methods of re- search in comparative politics. My argument is that the more varied the research tools in our toolbox, the likelier we 2 APSA-CP Newsletter, Winter 2000 are to have access to the best tool for the particular task we face. New research tools lead to new research questions. Until Newsletter Staff recently, no one in comparative politics paid much attention to Duverger's law. Suddenly, the impact of the rules whereby votes are turned into seats in parliament is a thriv- Editor Miriam Golden ing area of research. The institutional details of how parlia- University of California, ments, or the courts, are organized may have important Los Angeles consequences that have been largely neglected until re- [email protected] cently. The new emphasis on the potentially large effects of small differences in political institutions has added an im- Associate Editor Daniel Treisman portant dimension to the study of comparative politics. University of California, Yet, if comparative politics abandoned its traditional Los Angeles questions in the rush to embrace a new research agenda, [email protected] the loss would exceed the gain. The problems studied by Assistant Editor most Americanists are narrowly political from the perspec- David Yamanishi tive of traditional comparativists. In part, it is inevitable that University of California, single-country specialists will engage in a more extensive di- Los Angeles vision of labor than comparative scholars. In part, the nar- [email protected] rowness of the research topics reflects the stability of Ameri- can political institutions and the small range of differences Regional Editors-at-Large with regard to policy choices from one administration or Congress to another. Middle East The connections between political institutions and eco- Leonard Binder University of California, nomic outcomes have greater salience in a comparative Los Angeles context where the variation of both political and economic outcomes is many times greater. Similarly, democratic poli- Latin America tics is neither so widespread nor so stable where it exists Barbara Geddes that comparativists can take the existence of democratic in- University of California, Los Angeles stitutions for granted. Why regimes change from authoritar- ian to democratic and back again remains one of the funda- Formal Analysis and mental questions that comparativists will continue to ad- Methodology dress. Nor, in a world in which ethnic and religious conflict John Londregan University of California, is not diminishing, can comparativists neglect the study of Los Angeles the political causes of inter-group violence. Thus, the third and final response of comparativists to Africa the invaders should be to adapt the new research tools in Daniel Posner order to gain fresh insights regarding the big questions of University of California, Los Angeles institutional change and of the relationship between political institutions and the economy or the patterns of social inter- Europe action that have defined comparative politics but are sel- Ron Rogowski dom asked in American politics. In the long run, the migra- University of California, Los Angeles tion of ideas from one field to another strengthens both, es- pecially if the field that imports the new ideas is not afraid to modify and adapt them for its own ends. APSA-CP Newsletter, Winter 2000 3 Symposium The New Political Economy of Decentralization and Federalism Introduction Daniel Treisman University of California, Los Angeles [email protected] Political and fiscal decentralization have hit the headlines in recent years. At the turn of the 21st century, it is hard to find a corner of the globe where there are not at least two or three projects un- derway to devolve political or economic authority down to regional or local governments. Re- sponding to these events, research on decentralization and federalism has undergone a remarkable renaissance. For this issue, we asked a number of political scientists and economists to share their thoughts on what recent experience has taught us. The contributions that follow are both