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During the 1970s and early 1980s most studies on corporatism indicated that corporatist policies led to lower unemployment and inflation and higher economic growth rates. In the mid- and late 1980s, however, voices claiming that corporatism is in "decline" became more and more frequent although hardly any empirical examinations were undertaken. The purpose of this study is to estimate empirically the influence of corporatist arrangements on macroeconomic performance and industrial disputes in the 1980s as compared with the 1970s and 1960s. This pooled time-series/cross-sectional analysis provides evidence that corporatist policies have not lost their capacity to achieve the desired macroeconomic goals in the 1980s; in addition, corporatism significantly reduces the number of working days lost. However, no evidence was found that corporatism leads to increased economic growth. There is evidence that economic growth is adversely affected by government outlays.

Estimates the influence of corporatist arrangements in the 1980s as compared with the 1970s and 1960s. This pooled time-series /cross-sectional analysis provides evidence that corporatist policies have not lost their capacity to achieve the desired macroeconomic goals in the 1980s; corporatism significantly reduces the number of working days lost. (Abstract amended)

Previous research has suggested that men are more engaged as citizens than are women.Yet, little is known about gender cleavages across a variety of citizenship norms. To what extent do men and women define citizenship differently? To address that question, this study examines the importance men and women assign various citizenship rights and responsibilities using 2004 ISSP data from 18 Western, industrialized nations. Using a disaggregated approach to understanding definitions of citizenship, we examine political, civil, and social rights and responsibilities. After controlling for a variety of demographic and attitudinal influences, we find that men and women are not different in their views regarding the importance of political responsibilities. However, women do view political rights as significantly more important than do men. Further, in comparison to men, women view both civil and social responsibilities and rights domains as significantly more important.

Abstract:
As an analysis of recent electoral results shows, the world's emerging democracies are weathering the global economic crisis surprisingly well. There are three main reasons behind democracy's resilience during the downturn. First, the countries hardest hit economically by the financial crisis have mostly been the wealthy, industrialized democracies or the new European market economies, which are now consolidated and deeply institutionalized. Second, in the newer and weaker democracies, the effect of economic turbulence has been the defeat of democratically elected governments but not the demise of democracy. And third, the breakdowns of democracy that have been occurring largely predate the onset of the global recession and are due to bad internal governance, not unfavorable global conditions.

This article analyzes the influence of four sets of factors on deficit spending in 9 industrialized parliamentary democracies during 1958-1990. This article analyzes the influence of these factors and introduces and tests the importance of an additional potential influence on the size of a country's fiscal deficit: the "strength of fiscal bureaucracy." It is argued that the stronger a country's fiscal bureaucracy, the lower its deficit, ceteris paribus. Empirically, the authors find that the state of a nation's economy heavily affects its deficit. Little systematic relationship is found between the ideology of the ruling political party and a nation's deficit or between the political strength of the ruling party and deficits, in contrast to the findings of Roubini and Sachs. Finally, it is found that the strength of a country's fiscal bureaucracy is an important influence on the deficit in these 9 industrialized parliamentary democracies.

Coalition theories that attempt to predict cabinet coalitions on the basis of the sizes & numbers of the political parties in the legislature perform very poorly. Those that also take the parties' policy preferences into account make more accurate predictions, although, like the policy-blind theories, they tend to predict minimal winning coalitions. Only 55% of the actual coalitions formed in 20 industrialized democracies in the periods 1918-1940 & 1945-1974 were minimal winning coalitions. There is a relationship between the degree to which countries are plural societies & their tendency to have oversized cabinets. A closer analysis of three cases (in Austria, Belgium, & Luxembourg) that at first appear to be deviant confirms this generalization. 3 Tables, 2 Figures. AA.