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Political Competition, Agenda Power, and Incentives to Innovate: An Empirical Examination of Vested‐Interest Theory
Author(s) -
Balalaeva Dina
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/ropr.12130
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , politics , incentive , argument (complex analysis) , power (physics) , economics , mechanism (biology) , sample (material) , public economics , industrial organization , economic system , microeconomics , political science , law , ecology , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , chromatography , quantum mechanics , biology , philosophy , epistemology
Technological innovations are by no means Pareto‐improving. I build on the argument that incumbent innovators can use political means to block rival innovations by emphasizing that the competitiveness of political system and some political institutions may diminish their ability to do so. I specify an institutional mechanism of agenda power, which provides newcomers with an improved ability to enter the game. The number of agenda power holders varies significantly among political systems, electoral systems, and administrative structures. With a sample of about 100 countries and across 20 years I show that politically competitive regimes, majoritarian electoral rules, and federal structures supply more holders of agenda power in comparison to their counterparts and, other things being equal, produce more innovations.