One effect of the cosmopolitan turn in recent political philosophy is that widely held beliefs and intuitions are being called into question. My purpose here is to scrutinize one of these beliefs—that we should attend to the needs of our compatriots before the needs of the foreigners—from the perspective of a rights-based theory. After sketching a theory that takes the right of autonomy as its cornerstone, I consider four arguments that might support the intuition that compatriots take priority. Only one of the four is sound, I conclude, and even this argument, the argument from reciprocity, supports the intuition only in a highly qualified form.

A full history of the English cabinet would be one of the seminal works on the technique of representative government; for, as Bagehot was the first to point out, the cabinet has been the primary source of decision in the modern English institutional system. Few books, it must be added, would be so difficult to write. Until 1917, the cabinet was without a secretary or authentic records; and there are even today purists who regret these obvious innovations. What account we have of its working is thus necessarily spasmodic and partial in character. A statesman who took a note of some meeting where his department was affected, a debate in the House of Commons after some dispute which has entailed resignation, a chance entry in a diary, the occasional revelation of autobiography–it is upon materials such as these that we are largely dependent for our knowledge. Even semi-official accounts, like those of Lord Morley and Mr. Gladstone, hardly give us more than the formal outline of the cabinet as it functions.

Yet one clue to its character has been curiously neglected; and it illustrates, as it happens, the nature of the social system in England in a quite special way. We know the men who occupied cabinet office; and by a careful study of who they were we can at least draw some inferences of interest and even importance. These inferences, let it be said at once, will not explain in any way the technique of the cabinet system. But at least they will serve to measure the way in which the changes in the structure of English social life are reflected in the choice of those responsible for the nation's effective governance.

In a recent paper, Banks (2000), adopting the framework of our model (Groseclose and Snyder 1996), derives several new and noteworthy results. In addition, he provides a counterexample to our proposition 4. Here we explain the error in our proposition but note that we can correct it easily if we invoke an additional assumption: In equilibrium the winning vote buyer constructs a nonflooded coalition, that is, she does not bribe every member of her coalition. We conclude with a brief discussion of the substantive implications of Banks's proposition 1; we note that it provides additional support for our general claim that minimal winning coalitions should be rare in a vote-buying game.

This study of the House Public Works committee examines the relationship between membership goals and the degree of party conflict, identifies conditions of party conflict and cooperation, and links party conflict and cooperation to policies adopted by the House.

Party conflict is the Public Works committee's most striking behavioral characteristic. This party conflict stems from (a) the issues processed by the committee and (b) the partisan program orientations of committee members. Beyond these initial sources of party conflict on Public Works, there is a norm of partisanship adopted by each of the parties on the committee in order to achieve an extra measure of party cohesion. Public Works committee party conflict is, to be sure, often modified by shared interests cutting across party lines. Committee party cooperation stems, however, not from widespread shared interests but, instead, from a fundamental distrust between the parties respecting the allocation of federal largesse. To preclude porkbarreling, Congress has adopted fixed allocation formulas for distributing the boodle on programs likely to involve a majority in each party, thereby constraining the parties on the committee to cooperate on such proposals.

Whether Public Works is united or divided when reporting legislation, the House of Representatives will typically adopt its proposals. This success of the Public Works committee is attributable to a mixture of anticipation and influence.

Our earlier article established that pairs of democracies trade more freely than country-pairs composed of a democracy and an autocracy (Mansfield, Milner, and Rosendorff 2000). Xinyuan Dai (2002) incorrectly asserts that our conclusion depends on the preferences of the decision makers who formulate trade policy. We show that Dai fails to accurately replicate our model, and hence erroneously claims that the new equilibria she deduces are consistent with it. In addition, we demonstrate that in altering one of our assumptions, Dai offers a model that is less realistic as well as inconsistent with the substantive literature on international bargaining. Finally, we question the robustness of her approach. Due to these problems of replication, realism, and robustness, we conclude that Dai's model is of limited utility.

The UN is intimately involved in efforts to restore the rule of law in conflict and postconflict settings. Yet despite the importance of the rule of law for peace, good governance, and economic growth, evidence on the impact of these efforts is scant. I develop a theory to explain when UN rule-of-law reform is likely to succeed, then test the theory using original datasets capturing the number of civilian personnel deployed to each UN mission in Africa, the number of personnel assigned specifically to rule-of-law-related tasks, and the extent and nature of actual rule-of-law-related activities in the field. The correlation between UN presence and the rule of law is weak while conflict is ongoing, but robustly positive during periods of peace. The relationship is stronger for civilian than uniformed personnel, and is strongest when UN missions engage host states in the process of reform.

For many governments, enacting green policies is a priority, but such policies often impose on citizens substantial and uneven costs. How does the introduction of green policies affect voting? We study this question in the context of a major ban on polluting cars introduced in Milan, which was strongly opposed by the populist right party Lega. Using several inferential strategies, we show that owners of banned vehicles—who incurred a median loss of €3,750—were significantly more likely to vote for Lega in the subsequent elections. Our analysis indicates that this electoral change did not stem from a broader shift against environmentalism, but rather from disaffection with the policy’s uneven pocketbook implications. In line with this pattern, recipients of compensation from the local government were not more likely to switch to Lega. The findings highlight the central importance of distributive consequences in shaping the political ramifications of green policies.

Research on public opinion about economic redistribution has made important progress by incorporating the psychological microfoundation that shapes support for redistribution to the poor. However, one piece is missing: the microfoundation shaping support for redistribution from the rich. I provide a novel theory about this facet of redistributive attitudes and how it is distinct. Observational data from three nationally representative samples in two different welfare systems and an experiment show that attitudes about taking from the rich are mainly driven by perceptions of their prosociality—whether they are greedy or generous. This contrasts with public opinion about giving to the poor that is mainly driven by perceptions of the efforts of poor people. Furthermore, while compassion shapes attitudes about giving to the poor, the emotions of admiration and envy shape attitudes about taking from the rich. These findings have important theoretical and empirical implications for public opinion about economic redistribution.

Deliberative democratic theorists argue that important moral questions turn on whether regimes are sufficiently deliberative. To attribute “deliberativeness” to a regime, we need an account of “deliberative integration” that connects such a holistic assessment to the acts or qualities of individuals and smaller groups. I turn to Aristotle's Politics for instruction in developing such accounts, arguing that he judges regimes according to how reliably they act pursuant to excellent common deliberation—a manner of excellent rule that I call the “rule of reason.” I then interpret Aristotle's metaphorical argument for the “wisdom of the multitude” to establish the claim that democracies may best integrate citizens’ deliberations. This interpretation illuminates Aristotle's complex evaluation of regimes, including his ambivalent views on the rule of the many. It also suggests a structure for contemporary accounts of deliberative integration helpful even for those who differ from Aristotle in their basic moral concerns.

Today it is all the rage for political theorists and even philosophers to have theories of justice. Looking back on the history of political thought, we cannot help but notice that not all previous philosophers have taken justice and theories of justice so seriously. Among those who did not was Aristotle. To be sure, he had a theory of justice, and from this fact we might infer that he thought it necessary to have one. But I shall presently argue, primarily from Aristotle's treatment of the problem in the Nicomachean Ethics, that Aristotle thought all theories of justice, including his own, to be unsatisfactory. In his opinion, a politics that understands its highest purpose as justice and a political science that attempts to comprehend all political phenomena within a theory of justice are practically and theoretically unsound.

The seniority system ordinarily rates no more than two or three pages in books devoted to Congress. There is likely to be a brief description and a weighing of the arguments, pro and con, followed generally by the conclusion that the system is a poor one; occasionally an author will defend it stoutly. Regardless of the conclusions, the analyses are rarely thorough. This article attempts to fill a gap in the literature on Congress by describing and analyzing various aspects of its seniority system.

It is well to remember at the outset that very few human institutions ignore seniority entirely. Champ Clark, in his autobiography, noted that it is observed in all the affairs of life:

No sane man would for one moment think of making a graduate from West Point a full general, or one from Annapolis an admiral, or one from any university or college chief of a great newspaper, magazine or business house. A priest or a preacher who has just taken orders is not immediately made a bishop, archbishop or cardinal. In every walk of life “men must tarry at Jericho till their beards are grown.”

John F. Kennedy's narrow popular vote margin in 1960 has already insured this presidential election a classic position in the roll call of close American elections. Whatever more substantial judgments historical perspective may bring, we can be sure that the 1960 election will do heavy duty in demonstrations to a reluctant public that after all is said and done, every vote does count. And the margin translated into “votes per precinct” will become standard fare in exhortations to party workers that no stone be left unturned.

The 1960 election is a classic as well in the license it allows for “explanations” of the final outcome. Any event or campaign strategem that might plausibly have changed the thinnest sprinkling of votes across the nation may, more persuasively than is usual, be called “critical.” Viewed in this manner, the 1960 presidential election hung on such a manifold of factors that reasonable men might despair of cataloguing them.

Nevertheless, it is possible to put together an account of the election in terms of the broadest currents influencing the American electorate in 1960. We speak of the gross lines of motivation which gave the election its unique shape, motivations involving millions rather than thousands of votes. Analysis of these broad currents is not intended to explain the hairline differences in popular vote, state by state, which edged the balance in favor of Kennedy rather than Nixon. But it can indicate quite clearly the broad forces which reduced the popular vote to a virtual stalemate, rather than any of the other reasonable outcomes between a 60-40 or a 40–60 vote division.

The attempt to give international society a minimum of government and order through the establishment of a League of Nations has proved only moderately successful. It is true that states have begun to play politics in Geneva, but they have not ceased the older and grimmer struggle for power in the world at large. The state is still today, as far as its international relations are concerned, primarily a military organization. Its specific aims in its struggle for power may be many, but among them the geographic objectives, the attainment of which will increase the state's relative military strength, are the oldest and the most persistent.

There are several types of geographic objectives, but in this analysis we shall concern ourselves with the strategic geographic objectives of foreign policy. Before we attempt to analyze these specific objectives, however, it is essential to consider briefly the phenomenon of expansion as such, which may be defined as a mere advancement of frontier in contrast to the conquest of a particular bit of territory for strategic reasons.

The purpose of this article is to test a series of propositions about budgetary decision making, in the form of linear decision models, for the municipal government of Oslo, Norway, and to assess the consequences of such strategic choices for the long-term growth of agency activities. Budgetary decisions for forty-seven agencies at each of the four principal decision-making levels over a nineteen-year period serve as the basis for analysis. Results indicate that while the complexity of strategic choice is not related to long-term agency growth, the acquisitiveness of the agency strategy is an important determinant of growth. Intermediate budgetary reviewers are only partially successful in reducing the relationship between acquisitiveness and growth. Reference to a set of systematic interview materials in these same agencies, relevant to the cognitive assumptions of the models, suggests some reservations about model validity, at least in a minority of cases.

Does motivated reasoning harm democratic accountability? Substantial evidence from political behavior research indicates that voters have “directional motives” beyond accuracy, which is often taken as evidence that they are ill equipped to hold politicians accountable. We develop a model of electoral accountability with voters as motivated reasoners. Directional motives have two effects: (1) divergence—voters with different preferences hold different beliefs, and (2) desensitization—the relationship between incumbent performance and voter beliefs is weakened. While motivated reasoning does harm accountability, this is generally driven by desensitized voters rather than polarized partisans with politically motivated divergent beliefs. We also analyze the relationship between government performance and vote shares, showing that while motivated reasoning always weakens this relationship, we cannot infer that accountability is also harmed. Finally, we show that our model can be mapped to standard models in which voters are fully Bayesian but have different preferences or information.

Many countries have reduced refugee admissions in recent years, in part due to fears that refugees and asylum seekers increase crime rates and pose a national security risk. Existing research presents ambiguous expectations about the consequences of refugee resettlement on crime. We leverage a natural experiment in the United States, where an Executive Order by the president in January 2017 halted refugee resettlement. This policy change was sudden and significant—it resulted in the lowest number of refugees resettled on US soil since 1977 and a 66% drop in resettlement from 2016 to 2017. In this article, we find that there is no discernible effect on county-level property or violent crime rates.

If perfectionism is understood as the state's non-neutral promotion of a valuable way of life, Confucian political theory, often pursued as a pluralist correction to global monism of liberal democracy, is ineluctably perfectionist. But how can Confucian perfectionism, committed to particular Confucian values, reconcile with the societal fact of value pluralism within the putative Confucian polity? This article argues that a potential tension between Confucian perfectionism and value pluralism can be avoided by making Confucian perfectionist goods the core elements of public reason with which citizens can justify their arguments to one another and by which the state can justifiably exercise its public authority to reasonable citizens who otherwise subscribe to various comprehensive doctrines. By defining a mode of Confucian perfectionism working through Confucian public reason broadly shared by citizens as public reason Confucianism, this article attempts to balance the Confucian polity's internal societal pluralism and the people's collective self-determination.

This paper seeks to revive the old theory of a “Lockean consensus” in early American political thought against the prevailing “republican” view. The language of “virtue” and “slavery,” which was pervasive at the time of the founding, and which many have been eager to take as evidence for the influence of civic humanism, in fact has a perfectly plain Lockean provenance. This is established first through a reexamination of Locke that links his account of virtue to a Christian asceticism (i.e., the Protestant Ethic) rather than republican philosophy. That the founders understood virtue in this way is then established through an exploration of Adams and Jefferson. In both cases, it was a Lockean slavery which they feared and a Lockean virtue which they sought. A Lockean sympathy did exist among the founders; in order to understand it, however, it must be distinguished from modern liberalism, with which it has only tenuous connections.

Despite or because of a decade of research that yielded conflicting results, the question of whether or not military coups or regimes brought into power through coups have an impact on subsequent military spending remains open. A review of the relevant literature suggests that part of the analytical problem may result from assumptions about military political behavior as well as various limitations associated with cross-national analyses of change, and the use of exclusively cross-sectional or longitudinal research designs. In addition, some of the disparity in research findings may result from the reliance on different indicators—both dependent and independent—by a number of different analysts. In response to these potential technical problems, this analysis of military spending patterns in 66 less-developed states applies a GLS routine, pooling cross-sectional and time-series data, to the 1967–1976 relationships between two measures of military spending and several predictor variables, including regime type, coup occurrences, level of conflict, economic development, arms imports, and previous military spending. Although the empirical outcome varies according to which dependent variable is examined, we find, in general, that information on the distribution and timing of regime types—military, civilian, and mixed—and successful military coups is not very helpful in predicting post-coup military spending policies. This finding suggests, in turn, that the crucial presumption that military personnel participate in politics primarily to defend or advance their corporate interests is not a very useful predictive foundation for the examination of post-coup military spending.

There is wide recognition that in the non-Western world profound social and cultural changes are taking place as traditional societies have been exposed to the ideas and the ways of the West. There is also general agreement that new political patterns and relationships are evolving in these countries. However, with respect to most non-Western countries, it remains difficult to foresee whether the consequences of social change are to be stable, viable political practices or endemic instabilities in government. In many cases, it is still an open question whether the future will bring them a liberal democratic form of politics or some type of authoritarian rule such as communism.

This state of affairs can be a challenge to the comparative method of political analysis. This is particularly so because most of the non-Western political systems have many features in common. They are generally the product of a traditional past in which the administration of government was the preserve of a select few. Many show the influence of a previous colonial rule, some even that of the same country. More important, they are often quite self-conscious about the problem of moving from a definite past to an idealized future.