Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A growing body of research now shows that competition, not consolidation, improves school efficiency. By fully exercising Arizona’s existing open enrollment law, school efficiency could rise by 10 percent, achievement could be roughly three to six percentile points higher, and spending could be almost eight percent lower. Expanding Arizona’s charter schools could improve test scores of charter students and students attending nearby traditional public schools by one to three percentile points, while yielding a per-pupil savings of $1,531, over 90 times greater than consolidation’s best-case-scenario savings of $17.34 per-pupil.

Like policymakers in Arizona, policymakers in dozens of other states are weighing the potential savings from projected administrative efficiencies against the potential pitfalls of consolidation. What is the potential fiscal impact of statewide school district consolidation? What other educational quality issues might be affected? This paper examines those questions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the book, “Sources of Democratic Consolidation”
Alexander states that democratic consolidation occurs when the Right
changes its perceptions of the Left and the dangers that the Left poses
to the Right’s security and well being. Yet, this leaves one with
several questions: Why does the Right perceive the Left as being less
dangerous? More importantly, what events occur which cause the Right to
change its views about the dangers posed by the Left? It would be
foolish to think that the perceptions of the Right were formed in a
vacuum, without any relation to the actions of the Left. If democratic
consolidation occurs in part because of the interactions between the
Right and the Left, then this relationship raises some interesting
questions about the structural explanations of democratic
consolidation.
This paper will contend that in nations where there is a push for
democratization there is a direct relationship between the ideology of
the Left and the willingness of the right to either support or defect
from a democratic regime. When this relationship is expressed in game
theoretic form one finds that the possibility exists that the cycle of
Democratic Transitions and Regressions might not be detrimental to the
process of consolidation but instead, is a necessary component of it,
as the Right uses defection and the threat of defection to
authoritarianism in a Tit-for-Tat strategy to moderate the ideology of
the Left.
To prove this proposition we will construct three tests. The first test
will test our first hypothesis: that Authoritarian regime can have a
moderating effect on the Left. To do this we will test whether the
presence of an Authoritarian regime has an moderating effect on the
Leftist parties or if the economic development achieved under
Authoritarian regimes is responsible for such an effect. This second
test will test our second hypothesis: that a Moderate Left is necessary
for the Consolidation of democracies. This test will attempt to test
Party Ideology of the Leftist parties within consolidated democracies
against other factors known to contribute to consolidation, including
values and economic factors. Finally we will look at an individual case
to uncover the mechanics of this process in a democratizing
nation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Theorists of deliberative democracy argue that open and inclusive public debate legitimizes social justice, offering feminists an enticing claim: participatory parity and gender justice in one comprehensive package.

Does more open and inclusive debate promote greater popular support for gender justice? This paper proposes a framework for evaluating both the justness of public debate and the legitimacy of gender justice. Applying that framework to South Africa at the end of the 1990s, I find that the legitimacy of gender equality varied with the degree of just debate, although at a lower level. Why were the levels of legitimacy lower? I offer two possible suggestions: the nature of the South African transition and the content of feminist rhetoric.


Email: dmwlsh@hotmail.com

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper examines ideological polarization in the Mexican party system, utilizing content analysis of electoral platforms and portions of a survey of congressional candidates conducted by the author with Kenneth F. Greene in the weeks prior to the 2006 presidential election. From these data, I conclude that ideological polarization did increase in the 2006 elections relative to more recent elections, but remains lower than in the pre-democratization period of the early 1980s. The shifting incentives created by changing conditions for electoral competition, particularly the likelihood of opposition party wins, explains this pattern in part. However, the constraints on Mexican governments imposed by neoliberal reform and NAFTA may also limit the Left's ability to shift farther from the center.