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Presidential Partisanship and Legislative Cooperation in the U.S. Senate, 1993–2021
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Nothing to See Here: Republican Congressional Members’ Twitter Reactions to Donald Trump
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Public auditing: What impact does the quality of the institutional framework have on the level of corruption?
International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are a component of a nation's institutional system. This article defines the concept of an institutional anti-corruption system centered on the SAI through four main characteristics: independence, accountability, mandate and collaboration. The article aims to assess the impact that the quality of the anti-corruption system has on perceived levels of corruption. Data from the 2019 International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey covering 117 countries are used for this purpose. The regression results show that the quality of the institutional anti-corruption system centered on the SAI is associated with a low level of perceived corruption. However, other elements must be implemented to create an anti-corruption environment, such as citizens’ involvement as controlling actors.Points for practitionersIt is important that policy makers recognize and leverage the potential of SAIs in reducing corruption. Contemporary governance and the complexity of corruption require the protection of SAI's independence, but also call for the establishment of collaborative mechanisms that engage civil society and the media.
Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are a component of a nation's institutional system. This article defines the concept of an institutional anti-corruption system centered on the SAI through four main characteristics: independence, accountability, mandate and collaboration. The article aims to assess the impact that the quality of the anti-corruption system has on perceived levels of corruption. Data from the 2019 International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey covering 117 countries are used for this purpose. The regression results show that the quality of the institutional anti-corruption system centered on the SAI is associated with a low level of perceived corruption. However, other elements must be implemented to create an anti-corruption environment, such as citizens’ involvement as controlling actors.Points for practitionersIt is important that policy makers recognize and leverage the potential of SAIs in reducing corruption. Contemporary governance and the complexity of corruption require the protection of SAI's independence, but also call for the establishment of collaborative mechanisms that engage civil society and the media.
The politics of patrolling ‘safety guards’ in Sweden: outsourcing, depoliticization, and immunization
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Media and the staging of policy controversy: obesity and the UK sugar tax
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The politics of eviction and citizenship in the Brahmaputra valley, Assam, India
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Inequality in Healthcare Access at the Intersection of Caste and Gender
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Volume 15, Issue 1_suppl, Page S75-S85, August 2023.
Health equity is of particular concern in the Indian context in the light of widening economic inequality and healthcare reforms which have wider ramifications on healthcare access. Despite various programs and interventions, a wide gap in health condition is observed in society among different castes, groups and income-classes. In this article, the inequality in healthcare access is studied at the cross-section of gender (man and women) and social groups—Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (SC-ST), Other backward classes (OBC) and Others—and an attempt has been made to explore how much the women from SC-ST community are deprived of healthcare access in comparison to other gender-group intersections. To proceed with analysis, data on ‘National Sample Survey (NSS), 75th Round (2017–2018) on Health Consumptions’ are taken. Analyses are carried on in SPSS Ver.18 and Stata-16. Regression Analysis shows that women from SC-ST are 1.37 times more likely to non-access to healthcare services than men from the general category. Further, to measure the intensity of inequality in healthcare access, Wagstaff’s Concentration Index (CI) is calculated at –0.195 that shows income-related inequality highly persists among the poor. At last, the decomposition analysis of CI reveals that gender, income and social groups are some of the major contributory factors to CI, that is, health inequality. The results indicate despite the mandate of universal healthcare access, India is lagging in achieving equity in healthcare as the poor and marginalized are deprived of it.
Health equity is of particular concern in the Indian context in the light of widening economic inequality and healthcare reforms which have wider ramifications on healthcare access. Despite various programs and interventions, a wide gap in health condition is observed in society among different castes, groups and income-classes. In this article, the inequality in healthcare access is studied at the cross-section of gender (man and women) and social groups—Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (SC-ST), Other backward classes (OBC) and Others—and an attempt has been made to explore how much the women from SC-ST community are deprived of healthcare access in comparison to other gender-group intersections. To proceed with analysis, data on ‘National Sample Survey (NSS), 75th Round (2017–2018) on Health Consumptions’ are taken. Analyses are carried on in SPSS Ver.18 and Stata-16. Regression Analysis shows that women from SC-ST are 1.37 times more likely to non-access to healthcare services than men from the general category. Further, to measure the intensity of inequality in healthcare access, Wagstaff’s Concentration Index (CI) is calculated at –0.195 that shows income-related inequality highly persists among the poor. At last, the decomposition analysis of CI reveals that gender, income and social groups are some of the major contributory factors to CI, that is, health inequality. The results indicate despite the mandate of universal healthcare access, India is lagging in achieving equity in healthcare as the poor and marginalized are deprived of it.
Blurred positions: The ideological ambiguity of valence populist parties
Party Politics, Ahead of Print.
While the diversity of populism has received considerable attention, surprisingly little is known about populist parties that defy clear-cut left-right categorization. We show that valence populist parties are non-positional and substantially different from both left-wing and right-wing populist parties. First, we demonstrate that valence populist parties deliberately take blurry positions on both the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of competition. Second, we show that such an ambiguity is counterbalanced by a disproportionate emphasis on anti-corruption appeals, the most paradigmatic example of a non-positional dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of varieties of populism, in particular, and the positional and non-positional competition strategies of political parties, in general.
While the diversity of populism has received considerable attention, surprisingly little is known about populist parties that defy clear-cut left-right categorization. We show that valence populist parties are non-positional and substantially different from both left-wing and right-wing populist parties. First, we demonstrate that valence populist parties deliberately take blurry positions on both the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of competition. Second, we show that such an ambiguity is counterbalanced by a disproportionate emphasis on anti-corruption appeals, the most paradigmatic example of a non-positional dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of varieties of populism, in particular, and the positional and non-positional competition strategies of political parties, in general.
Mapping the Poetics of Memory: A Critical Reading of Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life as Cultural Archive
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The article analyses the idea of a text as a cultural archive by mapping the question of personal and collective or social memory with particular reference to the acclaimed Bengali Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit. The memoir is a chronicler of the collective history of the marginal Namashudra community/ties of Bengal, their saga of pain and excruciating experiences of peripherality of existence that is perceived through the lens of the author. Located in the historical centre of the Dalit worldview, the autobiography investigates how the trajectories of collective histories, memories and shared identity of the Dalit community result in the emergence of what Derrida calls an ‘archive’ or a ‘palimpsest.’ Drawing on theories with regard to the role of cultural memory in the formation of a cultural archive, this article addresses questions as to how a text becomes a cultural archive and testimonies to history through the excavation and circulation of knowledge of the collective historical past.
The article analyses the idea of a text as a cultural archive by mapping the question of personal and collective or social memory with particular reference to the acclaimed Bengali Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit. The memoir is a chronicler of the collective history of the marginal Namashudra community/ties of Bengal, their saga of pain and excruciating experiences of peripherality of existence that is perceived through the lens of the author. Located in the historical centre of the Dalit worldview, the autobiography investigates how the trajectories of collective histories, memories and shared identity of the Dalit community result in the emergence of what Derrida calls an ‘archive’ or a ‘palimpsest.’ Drawing on theories with regard to the role of cultural memory in the formation of a cultural archive, this article addresses questions as to how a text becomes a cultural archive and testimonies to history through the excavation and circulation of knowledge of the collective historical past.