Polis Under Construction

One quick, interesting story.

The LA Times yesterday reported that Barron Hilton, Paris Hilton’s grandfather is giving away 97% of his fortune, about 2.3 billion.  Half is going to the family foundation now, and the rest after his death.

Story here (registration required).

The foundation receiving, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, funds the largest annual humanitarian prize in the world.

This is the third incarnation of a blog begun in 2005, and continued with one of the spottier records in the blogosphere.

Now, I begin again, with a few changes.  Polis, as always, is dedicated to political and economic changes around the world.  But I also hope to focus on international development issues, democratization, and world stories to a greater degree than before.

Personally, I’m a university student in the US studying Political Science and Economics.  I’m interested in, what else, international development and democratisation.  I was extraordinarily happy when the Colour Revolutions were taking place, but that has dimmed.  Kyrgyzstan’s expulsion of Akayev seems to have caused little progress, Ukraine remains locked with an increasingly assertive and authoritarian Russia, and the protests of Burma’s monks seem to have been alarmingly easily silenced.

To my knowledge, Nepal has been the most successful democratiser of any country these past few years.  Gyanendra’s seizure of power was resisted, the parliament has reduced the King to a constitutional monarch, and Nepal is on track to become a republic in 2008.

It is not that I am an endless cheerleader for democracy.  I have a laundry list of complaints about the system here at home.  But I desire freedom, and that other people have it.  To have it requires both political and economic capabilities, and so those then interest me.

So that is the topic of this blog.

Via Greg Mankiw. Anyone with a passing understanding of national politics and primaries knows that some states matter more than others, but here comes the first attempt to quantify that lead I’ve come across. Two Brown economists say they’ve estimated the numerical benefit of an Iowa or New Hampshire vote compared to those cast in later primaries, finding up they’re worth up to 20 times other votes.

The paper is located here, and I’m still picking through it. A quick glance indicates that they’re arguing that at least a portion of the marginalization of later voters stems from their likelihood to follow the cues given by early primaries. Later voters base part of their opinion of a candidate on how they perceive others’ opinions.

Most responses so far are looking at this in a negative light. Lawrance Lux points to this disproportion as a source of dysfunctional democracy. Josh Patashnik on The New Republic goes further than the paper and pessimistically ascribes no influence to many states in 2004.

In 2004, at least, given that all the major candidates besides John Kerry dropped out after Super Tuesday, didn’t all the subsequent states have essentially no influence on the process? Shouldn’t the number be a little closer to, you know, infinity?

On the other hand, the argument put forward by a number of New Hampshirites is that the conditions that have existed in New Hampshire allow a small number of educated citizens to question candidates, and are not replicable elsewhere. That’s part of the reason this 2002 paper is interesting me (pdf). In studying the 96 primary in New Hampshire, the authors looked at the impact various forms of candidate contact had on voter opinion.

Our results indicate that candidate contacts are an important influence on primary
voters’ knowledge and attitudes. Meeting the candidates face-to-face, receiving direct
mail, and getting phone calls on behalf of candidates all have systematic effects on
voters’ uncertainty, knowledge, and attitudes about candidates. Voters’ personal
interactions with candidates are most important in reducing their uncertainty about how
to rate candidates.

It’s complicated, and not at all suited to blog interpretation. The sheer number of primaries held on Super Tuesday this year may take away some of the discussion.

Salon.com’s War Room has a write up of Giuliani’s appearance on Meet the Press Sunday. Nothing really big there, but he does make an odd set of statements regarding the release of his financial information. I don’t remember any recent financial issues for Giuliani, aside from the $9.11 for Rudy disaster and rumours that the California ballot initiative was a “front” for Giuliani’s campaign. Still, there’s this..

Giuliani on financial disclosures he’s willing to make: “We do all the financial disclosures. I did a very complete financial disclosure, I think it was in May. I’ll do some more complete financial disclosures. But I’m, I’m not going to do more than what is absolutely required, and we’ll go further than that.”

Shall we parse that?

• We do all the disclosures
• In May, we did a “very complete” disclosure
• We will do more of those complete disclosures
  • Less charitable interpretation, we’ll do a more complete version of the very complete version we already did
• But, we’re not going to do a bit more than legally necessary
• However, we’ll go beyond what’s legally necessary

Naturally, he then goes on to avoid the question of whether he’ll release his tax returns, saying that while his standards are “pretty darned high,” he’ll have to wait and see what everyone else does.