This article outlines the concept of Global Experimentalist Governance (GXG). GXG is an institutionalized transnational process of participatory and multilevel problem solving, in which particular problems (and the means of addressing them) are framed in an open-ended way, and subjected to periodic revision by various forms of peer review in light of locally generated knowledge. GXG differs from other forms of international organization and transnational governance, and is emerging in various issue areas. The Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances is used to illustrate how GXG functions. The conditions for the emergence of GXG are specified, as well as some of its possible benefits.

The widespread opposition to unprecedented austerity measures in Greece provides a unique opportunity to study the causes of mass protest. This article reports the results of a survey of the adult population in which two-thirds of the respondents supported protest and 29 per cent reported actual involvement in strikes and/or demonstrations during 2010. Relative deprivation is a significant predictor of potential protest, but does not play any role in terms of who takes part in strikes or demonstrations. Previous protest participation emerges as a key predictor of actual protest. This study seeks to place these results within a comparative context, contrasting Greece with other countries facing similar challenges, and discusses the implications for the future of austerity politics.

The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations indicate that the classic presidential-parliamentary distinction, and the semi-presidential category, may not be systemic. This article investigates whether the defining attributes that separate presidential and parliamentary constitutions predict other attributes that are stereotypically associated with these institutional models. The results suggest the need for considerable skepticism of the ‘systemic’ nature of the classification. Indeed, the results imply that in order to predict the powers of a country's executive and legislature, it is more useful to know where and when the constitution was written than whether the country has a presidential or parliamentary system.

Is technology competition between commercial rivals an impediment to international co-operation? Or could it instead help states collaborate? Our game-theoretic model suggests that technology competition impedes international co-operation when states hold ‘techno-nationalist’ preferences but have starkly asymmetric abilities to capture new markets. States that expect to lose refuse to co-operate, so treaty formation fails. However, technology competition may also facilitate co-operation. While states invest in new technologies out of self-interest, doing so also reduces consumer prices for other states. Comparative case studies of environmental co-operation demonstrate the model's utility. For example, European co-operation on climate policy was easier to achieve because forerunner countries, such as Denmark and Germany, implemented industrial policies that enhanced the competitiveness of their renewable energy industries. This technology competition reduced the cost of renewable energy for other European countries, and thus lowered the economic costs of their emissions reductions.

Inequality and democracy are far more compatible empirically than social conflict theory predicts. This article speaks to this puzzle, identifying the scope conditions under which democratization induces greater redistribution. Because autocrats sometimes have incentives to expropriate economic elites, who lack reliable institutions to protect their rights, elites may prefer democracy to autocratic rule if they can impose roadblocks to redistribution under democracy ex ante. Using global panel data (1972–2008), this study finds that there is a relationship between democracy and redistribution only if elites are politically weak during a transition; for example, when there is revolutionary pressure. Redistribution is also greater if a democratic regime can avoid adopting and operating under a constitution written by outgoing elites and instead create a new constitution that redefines the political game. This finding holds across three different measures of redistribution and instrumental variables estimation. This article also documents the ways in which elites ‘bias’ democratic institutions.

This article argues that human rights could be improved by motivating politicians and bureaucrats to put more effort into protecting human rights. It conceptualizes the production of human rights practices as the outcome of two principal-agent relationships that constrain politicians and bureaucrats. Reliance on taxes is a non-electoral, fiscal factor that makes politicians more willing to protect human rights. Increased government revenue, no matter the source, raises bureaucratic compensation and helps create a more accountable bureaucracy. Thus both a higher reliance on taxes and larger state revenues lead to the better protection of human rights. Each fiscal factor promotes a different type of accountability, both of which independently contribute to good human rights practices.

The institutional turn in comparative authoritarianism has generated wide interest. This article reviews three prominent books on authoritarian institutions and their central theoretical propositions about the origins, functions and effects of dominant party institutions on authoritarian rule. Two critical perspectives on political institutions, one based on rationalist theories of institutional design and the other based on a social conflict theory of political economy, suggest that authoritarian institutions are epiphenomenal on more fundamental political, social and/or economic relations. Such approaches have been largely ignored in this recent literature, but each calls into question the theoretical and empirical claims that form the basis of institutionalist approaches to authoritarian rule. A central implication of this article is that authoritarian institutions cannot be studied separately from the concrete problems of redistribution and policy making that motivate regime behavior.

A strong statistical association between legislative opposition in authoritarian regimes and investment has been interpreted as evidence that authoritarian legislatures constrain executive decisions and reduce the threat of expropriation. Although the empirical relationship is robust, scholars have not provided systematic evidence that authoritarian parliaments are able to restrain the actions of state leaders, reverse activities they disagree with, or remove authoritarian leaders who violate the implied power-sharing arrangement. This article shows that authoritarian legislatures, by providing a forum for horse trading between private actors, are better at generating corporate governance legislation that protects investors from corporate insiders than they are at preventing expropriation by governments. The statistical analysis reveals that the strength of authoritarian legislatures is associated with corporate governance rules and not expropriation risk.

While studies of the motives for intentional insurgent violence against civilians are now common, relatively little academic research has focused on the impact of victimization on conflict processes or war outcomes. This article addresses this gap in the literature. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of civilian victimization on bargaining between the regime and insurgents during a civil war. A curvilinear relationship between the level of civilian victimization used by insurgents and the likelihood that conflict ends in negotiated settlement is posited. The probability of settlement is highest for groups that engage in a moderate level of civilian killing but declines at particularly high levels. A competing risk analysis using monthly conflict data on African civil wars between 1989 and 2010 supports this argument.