Coevolution of capitalism and political representation: The choice of electoral systems

Protocorporatist West European countries in which economic interests were collectively organized adopted PR in the first quarter of the twentieth century, whereas liberal countries in which economic interests were not collectively organized did not. Political parties, as Marcus Kreuzer points out, choose electoral systems. So how do economic interests translate into party political incentives to adopt electoral reform? We argue that parties in protocorporatist countries were representative of and closely linked to economic interests. As electoral competition in single member districts increased sharply up to World War I, great difficulties resulted for the representative parties whose leaders were seen as interest committed. They could not credibly compete for votes outside their interest without leadership changes or reductions in interest influence. Proportional representation offered an obvious solution, allowing parties to target their own voters and their organized interest to continue effective influence in the legislature. In each respect, the opposite was true of liberal countries. Data on party preferences strongly confirm this model. (Kreuzer's historical criticisms are largely incorrect, as shown in detail in the online supplementary Appendix.). © 2010 American Political Science Association.

GIS-based Association Between PM10 and Allergic Diseases in Seoul: Implications for Health and Environmental Policy.

PURPOSE: The role of PM10 in the development of allergic diseases remains controversial among epidemiological studies, partly due to the inability to control for spatial variations in large-scale risk factors. This study aims to investigate spatial correspondence between the level of PM10 and allergic diseases at the sub-district level in Seoul, Korea, in order to evaluate whether the impact of PM10 is observable and spatially varies across the subdistricts. METHODS: PM10 measurements at 25 monitoring stations in the city were interpolated to 424 sub-districts where annual inpatient and outpatient count data for 3 types of allergic diseases (atopic dermatitis, asthma, and allergic rhinitis) were collected. We estimated multiple ordinary least square regression models to examine the association of the PM10 level with each of the allergic diseases, controlling for various sub-district level covariates. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) models were conducted to evaluate how the impact of PM10 varies across the sub-districts. RESULTS: PM10 was found to be a significant predictor of atopic dermatitis patient count (P<0.01), with greater association when spatially interpolated at the sub-district level. No significant effect of PM10 was observed on allergic rhinitis and asthma when socioeconomic factors were controlled for. GWR models revealed spatial variation of PM10 effects on atopic dermatitis across the sub-districts in Seoul. The relationship of PM10 levels to atopic dermatitis patient counts is found to be significant only in the Gangbuk region (P<0.01), along with other covariates including average land value, poverty rate, level of education and apartment rate (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings imply that PM10 effects on allergic diseases might not be consistent throughout Seoul. GIS-based spatial modeling techniques could play a role in evaluating spatial variation of air pollution impacts on allergic diseases at the sub-district level, which could provide valuable guidelines for environmental and public health policymakers.