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Correcting the relative lack of attention to the supply side of trade policy, this article addresses how political institutions channel societal demands for protection. I hypothesize that strong presidents with significant legislative powers and strong party leaders—empowered through electoral rules that rein in the personal vote—can help overcome protectionist biases. These arguments compare with two institutional alternatives: first, that protectionism should decrease as electoral district size grows because elections become more proportional; and second, that the collective‐action problems in fragmented party systems thwart trade reform. I evaluate these hypotheses empirically using pooled time‐series–cross‐sectional data involving 18 developing countries from 1971 to 1997. I find that delegation to presidents and party leaders is significantly related to trade liberalization, and some evidence suggests that the effective number of parties and the size of electoral districts may also influence levels of protectionism.

In July of 2013 two of us (undergraduates Herrick and Matthias) found ourselves in the foothills of the towering Rwenzori Mountains on Uganda's tumultuous western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We were working with the Basongora and Bakonzo tribes, who have a long history of ethnic tension. However, we were not there to perform humanitarian work but to study it. During the prior six months, we had designed a lab-in-the-field experiment to learn the causes of intergroup cooperation when members of rival tribes anticipate new development projects that might come to their village. After recruiting and training 10 Ugandan enumerators, we ran a group-level Prisoner's Dilemma-esque experiment on groups of six with three members from each rival tribe. In the key experimental condition, we stated that if the members of the two teams failed to cooperate, that the awaited development project would go to Rwandans. We compared this to a control condition in which no such threat was made. We ultimately completed the experiment in more than 100 villages and collected data from more than 1,000 individuals. The evidence suggested that the threat of benefit to a common enemy in the form of Rwandans did not significantly improve cooperation between members of the rival tribes compared to control. The research experience took abstract ideas and methods from sometimes convoluted articles and texts and found a tangible, reinforcing, and self-directed way to put the principles into practice. While our Ugandan border experiment was not perfect, we had indeed collected enough information to learn. And the entire process, from start to finish, embodied the important blend of teaching and research--a convergence of distributing 'old' knowledge and producing 'new' knowledge (Druckman 2015). Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the puzzle of why Mexico's long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) implemented a series of electoral reforms in 1996 that precipitated its own downfall. Previous work explaining the process of Mexican democratization focuses on foreign pressures, interparty bargaining and a unified PRI. Alternatively, we argue that internal divisions in the PRI–conjoined with the threat of a presidential deal with the opposition–determined the particular shape of the reform. The article uses a bargaining model to illustrate the conjunction of interests between the President and PRI hard-liners while taking into account the shadow role played by the opposition. We argue, finally, that the model can be extended to aid explanations of other democratic transitions, as well as general cases of majority-party decision-making and coalition bargaining.

Current international relations theory struggles to explain both the autonomy and transformation of international organizations (IOs). Previous theories either fail to account for any IO behavior that deviates from the interests of member states, or neglect the role of member states in reforming IO institutions and behavior. We propose an agency theory of IOs that can fill these gaps while also addressing two persistent problems in the study of IOs: common agency and long delegation chains. Our model explains slippage between member states' interests and IO behavior, but also suggests institutional mechanisms—staff selection, monitoring, procedural checks, and contracts—through which states can rein in errant IOs. We evaluate this argument by examining multiple institutional reforms and lending patterns at the World Bank from 1980 to 2000.