| 1. |
- Sundström, Aksel, 1983
(författare)
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Not to be used during fire: Performance-related pay for civil servants as an anticorruption tool
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The last decades’ restructuring of public administrations has in numerous countries included the use of performance-related pay (PRP) programs. Such reforms have been said to reduce civil servants’ incentives for corrupt behavior and have therefore been promoted as an anticorruption tool. However, the article hypothesize that such schemes’ suppressing effect on corruption in- centives is questionable in highly corrupt settings because the absence of noncorrupt senior managers—and hence independent performance evaluations—may lead to the capture of such programs. An in-depth study of reforms in the South African civil service provides micro-level insights to the process in which such reforms may fail. The investigation outline how PRP- bonuses are used as rewards from corrupt senior managers to colluding subordinates. Honest bureaucrats are instead isolated and receive no addition to their salary. These selective rewards make honest behavior increasingly costly and function as an incentive for civil servants to en- gage in bribery.
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| 2. |
- Povitkina, Marina, et al.
(författare)
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Democracy, development and the marine environment - A global time-series investigation
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ocean & Coastal Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0964-5691 .- 1873-524X. ; 105, s. 25-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Is democracy favorable or adverse for the management of marine resources? While some studies find democracy to increase the likelihood of achieving sustainable development, others propose that democracy rather has negative effects on the environment. This paper contributes explicitly to this debate, but also adds insights from research arguing that the effects of democracy are conditioned by surrounding institutions. Building on this literature, we argue that the way democracy works - whether it is an instrument for collective action beneficial to the environment or an instrument for patronage and clientelism - depends on levels of economic development. The overall objective of the article is to test this proposition empirically. Employing time-series cross-section analysis and using Marine Trophic Index as a proxy for the health of marine ecosystems, we investigate the impact of democracy on the marine environment in a global sample from 1972 to 2006. The analysis provides interesting insights regarding the conditional role of economic development. We report negative effects of democracy in low income settings, but find that this pattern is reversed when economic development has reached a certain threshold. Finally, we discuss how democracy affects the prospects for sustainable development and based on our conclusions offer suggestions for future research. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 3. |
- Stockemer, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Can institutions pave the way for the young? Electoral systems and age representation in parliament
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Middle-aged to senior men of the ethnic majority and higher income groups are generally overrepresented in parliaments. While research on group representation has examined issues of gender, economic standing and, more recently, ethnicity, few studies exami ne age groups. We argue that the design of political institutions influences the average age of parliamentarians across nations and suggest that, compared to majoritarian systems, PR systems should grant younger politicians entry. Analyzing an original dat aset we corroborate this argument in a global cross-national sample. After controlling for a range of potential explanatory factors, we find that PR systems produce, on average, a parliament with younger representatives.
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| 4. |
- Wang, Yi-ting, et al.
(författare)
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No democratic transition without women’s rights : A global sequence analysis 1900-2012
- 2015
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- What determines countries’ successful transition to democracy? Research has focused on socioeconomic and institutional factors, yet the assumption that political liberalization has to precede democratization has not been systematically examined. We explore the impacts of granting civil rights in authoritarian regimes and especially the gendered aspect of this process. We argue that both men’s and women’s liberal rights are essential conditions for democratization to take place: giving both men and women rights reduce an inequality that affects half of the population, thus increasing the costs of repression for authoritarian rulers, and enabling the formation of women’s movements – historically important as a spark of protests in initial phases of democratization. We test this argument empirically using data that cover 160 countries over the years 1900–2012 and contain more nuanced measures than commonly used. Through sequence analysis we obtain results suggesting that liberal rights for both men and women enhance civil society organizations, and then lead to electoral democracy. The results suggest that influential modernization writings – stressing the role of economic development in democratization processes – may partly have been misinformed in their blindness for gender. The reported pattern may be at least part of the explanation of the ‘Arab spring’ failures.
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| 5. |
- Wang, Yi-ting, et al.
(författare)
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Women's rights in democratic transitions : A global sequence analysis, 1900-2012
- 2017
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : WILEY. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 56:4, s. 735-756
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What determines countries' successful transition to democracy? This article explores the impact of granting civil rights in authoritarian regimes and especially the gendered aspect of this process. It argues that both men's and women's liberal rights are essential conditions for democratisation to take place: providing both women and men rights reduces an inequality that affects half of the population, thus increasing the costs of repression and enabling the formation of women's organising - historically important to spark protests in initial phases of democratisation. This argument is tested empirically using data that cover 173 countries over the years 1900-2012 and contain more nuanced measures than commonly used. Through novel sequence analysis methods, the results suggest that in order to gain electoral democracy a country first needs to furnish civil liberties to both women and men.
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| 6. |
- Sjöstedt, Martin, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Donor coordination or donor confusion? How disputed facts and problem framing affect the prospects for aid harmonization
- 2017
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Ingår i: Development Policy Review. - : Wiley. - 0950-6764 .- 1467-7679. ; 35:S2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A declared commitment in international development assistance is to promote donor co-ordination. Yet, how this objective plays out in practice, or how feasible and realistic it is, have rarely been evaluated. Using the fisheries sector as a critical case, this article explores whether two major international actors, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank, meet the demands of policy harmonization as spelled out in the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness. Through a systematic qualitative analysis, the article investigates whether the policies of these actors are complementary or contradictory. It also assesses how the potential challenges to harmonization can be understood and what the broader implications for aid and development policies in general might be.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Sundström, Aksel, 1983
(författare)
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Understanding illegality and corruption in forest management: A literature review
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This review synthesizes the literature studying illegality and government corruption in forest man-agement. After discussing the theoretical connections between different types of corruption and illegal forest-related activities it describes the major trends in previous studies, examining cross-national patterns as well as local in-depth studies. Both theory and available empirical findings pro-vide a straightforward suggestion: Bribery is indeed a “door opener” for illegal activities to take place in forest management. It then discusses the implications for conservation, focusing first on international protection schemes such as the REDD+ and second on efforts to reduce illegality and bribery in forest management. Key aspects to consider in the discussion on how to design monitor-ing institutions of forest regulations are how to involve actors without the incentive to engage in bribery and how to make use of new technologies that may publicize illegal behavior in distant localities. The review concludes by discussing avenues for future research.
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| 10. |
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