Honorary papers

Second, leaders’ ratings provide hints about the future. This is true in both democracies and authoritarian states. In democracies, the incumbent’s poll numbers suggest the odds of reelection. The ratings-obsessed democratic politician has become a cliché. Such officials may change their policies when falling in the polls. Low approval may also prompt challenges to the leader from within his own party. In systems where election dates are discretionary, popular incumbents may call an early vote hoping to cash in their advantage.

The leader’s ratings might seem less important in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, which are usually thought to depend on repression rather than on consent. In fact, in some dictatorships ratings matter even more than in democracies. It is not always true that force can compensate for low approval—sometimes, low approval makes it hard to use force. To do so, the dictator must rely on his police and security service. But officers may hesitate to follow orders if they think the regime about to fall. As Arendt (1969) put it: “Where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use. Hence obedience is not determined by commands but by opinion, and, of course, by the number of those who share it.”

The belief that a leader is loved can silence potential critics, creating a self-fulfilling faith in the regime’s stability. Conversely, low ratings may suggest vulnerability, encouraging opportunistic attacks and elite defections. In postcommunist Russia, presidents’ support among regional governors and parliamentary factions waxed and waned with their approval numbers (Treisman 2011). And the threat may be more immediate in systems where leaders are removed from office by coup or revolution rather than electoral defeat. An unpopular leader in a democracy must worry about replacement at the next election; an unpopular dictator needs to worry about it every day.

For these reasons, authoritarian leaders sometimes seem more obsessed with polls than their democratic counterparts. Some invest heavily in their own surveys. General Pinochet hired Gallup in the late 1970s to question the Chilean masses (Singer and Scotto 2004, p.478). President Salinas of Mexico set up three separate polling agencies to serve the ruling PRI party, the president’s office, and the government newspaper, while also appointing fulltime pollsters to his staff (Moreno 1996, p.152). Poland’s Communist leaders in the 1980s, reluctant to rely on secret police reports, commissioned multiple surveys to test the effectiveness of martial law (Nalepa and Pop-Eleches 2014).

Besides providing hints of future leader or regime change, approval ratings affect the incumbent’s ability to achieve his goals. High poll numbers constitute a form of “political capital” that can be “spent” on enacting policies. In the US, popular presidents can better determine the agenda and enlist Congress’s backing (Canes-Wrone and de Marchi 2002; Barrett and Eshbaugh-Soha 2007). A similar logic applies in some authoritarian and hybrid systems. Lacking an organized political party, Peru’s President Fujimori “used public opinion polls to fight his opponents in Congress and gain political momentum” (Carrión 2006, p.128).

This paper is, we believe, the first systematic, global, comparative study of political approval. We examine a panel of country averages from up to 128 countries, spanning all continents, over the years 2006-2014. Our source, the Gallup World Poll, uses a standard question to assess government approval and includes a variety of other useful measures of opinion and attitudes. The availability of data for up to 9 years makes it possible to control for fixed country characteristics and explore the dynamics of approval in a global setting. Although we cannot make strong causal claims, the broad coverage and panel structure allow for the most comprehensive and detailed picture of this phenomenon to date.

We explore, among other questions: the impact of economic conditions, wars, and other plausible determinants of leader popularity; whether patterns of government approval differ in democracies and non-democracies; and the role of propaganda, censorship, and political repression on the expression of approval and disapproval.

To ground the basic hypothesis, I consider three areas where recently the competition or the authority institutions dominated - the spheres of international relations as well as internal political and economic interactions. The evolution of legislation on bankruptcy and antitrust laws are discussed as well as coopetition effects, changes in the political systems in developed countries (consensus democracy by Arend Lijphart, the role of parliamentary committees), the emergence of international institutions, the role of civil society. It is shown that in the long-term evolution, the contradictions of the competitive and the state coordination mechanisms gradually softened, but not only and not so much due to their rational combination, but because of the increasing role of collaboration.

The described transformation increases the effectiveness of institutions: the scope of coercion, inevitably generated by the state institutions and also by the institutions of unrestricted competition, is being reduced, and targets of interactions are being achieved at lower costs. It concerns the reduction not just material, but also socio-psychological costs due to expanding possibilities of collaboration in the framework of moral norms (including the golden rule), that are widely recognized in modern societies.

 In the Middle East, the Islamic court system was openly biased in favor of Muslims, members of the dominant religion. Judicial biases reduced Muslims’ incentives to comply with contracts, making them relatively untrustworthy as borrowers, business partners, and sellers. In the Middle East, even where essentially secular court systems replaced the Islamic system several generations ago, interpersonal trust remains low. This is among the deep reasons why its development record has been disapppointing in spite of abundant natural resources.

Then the presentation will argue why is it particularly crucial to invest in education in a context of job automation, growth stagnation, demographic shifts and productivity challenges. Then, it will move to the inequality problems derived from lack of opportunities in many countries in the region and how this leads to segregated and fragmented systems. It will elaborate on two country examples to better describe such challenges: Hungary and Poland. Finally, the presentation will conclude on a series of policy directions that have been implemented in many of those countries which are crucial foundations to achieve an “equity and excellence” combination.

This presentation addresses the world’s largest Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, with the initial 2000 entries (short/2000-3000 words; medium/3000-5000words, and few long/5000-10,000 words) to be published Online in print by Springer in 2017-2020, and with the ultimate goal of 5000 entries by 2022-2025, to continue with new editions. The Encyclopedia covers over 60 sections, subsections, and all geographical areas and countries of the world with over 100 section editors and co-editors. As Editor-in-Chief of the Global Encyclopedia and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Public Organization Review: a Global Journal (POR:GJ), Professor Farazmand cordially invites new section editors for the growing sections and areas of the Encyclopedia and authors for a large of number new entry topics to expand this truly global source of advancing knowledge and expanding horizons into the broad areas of public administration, public policy, and governance. While the Global Encyclopedia publishes short, medium, and long entry essays, Public Organization Review: a Global Journal (POR:GJ) publishes peer reviewed high quality standard articles. Springer is the publisher for both publications. Also, as Editor-in-Chief, Professor Farazmand seeks high quality manuscripts for the refereed International Journal of Public Administration (IJPA), which has begun a new life as of 2016 with a newly streamlined and highly engaged and rigorous editorial board, a focus on high quality manuscripts & publication, a tightened acceptance rate, an IFirst publication Online of newly accepted manuscripts, and a new tradition of annual Board Meeting with refreshments/reception at the Annual Conferences of ASPA (American Society for Public Administration), starting this year in Seattle, Washington, on March 19, 2016, in St. Helen Room, 12:30-1;45 PM—please join us if planning to attend the conference.

Similar trends are discernible in other developed countries. This paper considers how research on these issues can translate to policy options. What lessons from the American experience with making social science “useful” might be helpful to other countries pursuing the challenges of inequality and educational opportunity?

Those groups are real; they don’t resemble their counterparts in the West, but are not for that reason less genuine. Still, unlike in many other countries that have undergone political opening in recent decades, independent organizational life has never flourished in Russia. In the absence of a strong party system, civil society, and social movements, politics in Russia remains largely an elite matter. Why is Russian society relatively inarticulate and underdeveloped?

Why does infant mortality continue to vary so widely across countries of the world system? Various explanations have been offered, but little attention has focused on examining the validity of these explanations simultaneously with recent data. This gap in the literature was addressed in a cross-sectional analysis of the determinants of infant mortality in 2010 for a sample of 144 countries. The empirical validity of four macrosocial change theories was examined: gender stratification theory, modernization theory, dependency/world-systems theory, and developmental state theory. Strong support was found for gender stratification theory: female education had a negative effect on infant mortality. Support was also found for modernization theory: as industrialization increased, the infant mortality rate decreased. No support was found for developmental state theory (the level of state intervention in the economy) and dependency/world-system theory (position of the country in relation to the core countries). Several control variables were examined (population growth and democracy, among other variables), but only Sub-Saharan Africa status proved to be an important predictor: Sub-Saharan African countries had a significantly higher infant mortality rate than their non Sub-Saharan African counterparts. Increasing gender equality seems to be the most rational means for reducing infant mortality. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The snapshot will present (i) a brief description of the recent trends of the system as a whole; (ii) a description of efficiency and equity of the system with different socioeconomic groups; (iii) some policy levers both at the systemic and school levels and how do these compare with other international examples; (iv) a detailed description of the type of skills acquired in the Russian Federation (through the PISA sub-scales) and how do these related to teaching practices and new curriculum approaches. The presentation will conclude with some potential policy directions following the analysis.

The distribution of skills is a significant factor in determining the distribution of adult earnings and therefore has an important bearing on income inequality. Hence the current policy discussions about how ‘pre-distributive’ social policies in education and other spheres can be used to reduce inequalities in wages and incomes. This paper will use the OECD PISA and Survey of Adult Skills data to examine the variation across countries in the distribution of the literacy and numeracy skills of young people and adults, how these change over the life course, and how the characteristics of education and training systems affect this.

Economic and physical insecurity are conducive to xenophobia, strong in-group solidarity, authoritarian politics and conformism to traditional cultural norms. Conversely, secure conditions lead to tolerance of outgroups, openness to new ideas and more egalitarian social norms. Consequently, the rapid economic growth and expanding welfare states experienced by developed societies after World War II brought an intergenerational shift from emphasizing economic and physical security above all, toward greater emphasis on free choice, environmental protection, gender equality and tolerance of gays. This contributed to major societal changes such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and a sharp increase in the number of democracies around 1990. Subsequent economic stagnation, rising inequality and high unemployment have retarded this value shift, encouraging growing xenophobia and authoritarianism. Nevertheless, acceptance of gender equality and homosexuality have become socially desirable attitudes in secure societies and continue to spread rapidly.

First, how many Russian firms were forced to exit from the market by the global financial crisis and how did corporate governance quality affect firm survival during the period? Second, how did surviving firms evolve their governance system in the crisis? My study relies on results of an enterprise questionnaire survey conducted in 2005 in cooperation between Higher School of Economics (Moscow) and Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo) and its follow-up survey in late 2009.

I will report that the vast majority of exiting firms were forced to discontinue operation during the two years of 2008 and 2009, and the quality of the corporate governance system observed in 2005 had a statistically robust and positive correlation with the company’s subsequent survival probability. Furthermore, I will mention that my empirical analysis revealed that, in the Russian industrial sector, the quality of corporate governance has been improved through the crisis. I will also argue that, corresponding to the alignment hypothesis, in firms that decisively reformed their management and supervisory bodies in response to the 2008 financial shock, the total number of worker representative directors significantly declined, as did their proportion to all board members. On the other hand, I will also report that, in firms that substantially reorganized their audit system to cope with the crisis, the independence of the audit system was undermined remarkably, corresponding to the expropriation hypothesis.

Transformative action learning involves real people resolving and taking action on real problems in real time and learning while doing so. Transformative action learning makes inquiry and reflection central to the group as members learn with and from each other while attempting to change the organization.

In transformative action learning, group members question their own mindsets as well as the basic taken-for-granted assumptions of the organizational culture. The change implemented in the organization is termed “action” and the change in the mindset, assumptions and beliefs of group members is termed “transformative learning.”

Transformative action learning has been widely adopted by Fortune 100 companies, the US Government, and the European Commission as the preferred method for solving urgent problems, building teams, developing leaders and changing organizational culture.

I will demonstrate how transformative action learning can turn urgent problems or challenges into actions, new ideas and creative thinking.

However, less than one-fifth of such students succeed in completing the two year associate degree. This presentation reviews the costs and benefits of a public investment to increase the community college completion rate of the disadvantaged. As an investment there are public benefits from degree completion in the form of increased tax revenues of graduates and reduced public costs of crime, health, and public assistance. The economic benefits of this public investment are found to be far greater than their costs, contributing to greater equity and social efficiency.

The talk has three goals related to these trends. The first is to describe and interpret the evidence on trends in inequality in educational outcomes based on family income. The second is to describe the evidence on the mechanisms through which increases in family income inequality resulted in increases in inequality of educational outcomes. The third is to describe the data sources that have been important in documenting trends in educational outcomes and the explanations for these trends, and to assess the strengths and limitations of these data sources.

The case of China is very different. China made a major institutional innovation in world history: establish a successful market economy under absolute communist rule, with the goal of consolidating the power of the Chinese communist party. The Chinese system faces specific survival challenges in the future (ideological vacuum, corruption, external environment), that I will review, but there are few hopes of major political reform in the short and medium run.

Cultural influences were also important: Religious people are less trusting while people who have lived abroad are more trusting. Trust in government largely reflects attitudes toward President Putin, but also how well laws are enforced and the level of corruption. Perceptions that corruption has increased since the Soviet era reflect generalized trust, whether it is acceptable to make “gift” payments, how adequate people see their income, and the level of inequality in their oblast. Also people who identify more as Europeans than as Russians are more likely to see increased levels of corruption.

The purpose of this presentation is to acquaint the broader community of HSE and visiting academics with network research done on Russian data at NRU HSE International Laboratory for Applied Network Research. The team of approximately 30 young scientists from a diverse set of fields have been working for the past two years on a variety of problems, united by common methodology of network science. This presentation will provide a broad overview of research done by the lab, some peculiarities inherent to Russian data collection, encountered by our team, and insights from analysis that appears to be unique for the Russian sets of data. We will also address currently unresolved issues and outline directions for future research.

Had we followed a reflective measurement approach, we simply had to conclude that notions of democracy are not comparable across countries and that's where we end. All the insights of this analysis would have been left in the dark because only a formative approach to concept construction can unearth them.