Imke Harbers
Biographic Data
| ID | 796525 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Imke Harbers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Imke |
| FAMILY NAME | Harbers |
| SIGNATURE | HARBERS I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1221-4236 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 271 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Going the Last Mile: How Social Pensions Make Marginalized Elders Legible and Build the State’s Informational Capacity
The state’s reach across societal groups is often uneven. Lacking documents that provide official proof of age and identity, many elderly people in countries of the Global South have long resided in the blind spot of states, especially if they are poor, indigenous, live in rural areas, and have labored outside the formal sector. How can states go the last mile and build informational capacity by incorporating particularly marginalized groups? Wha…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Shaping Electoral Outcomes: Intra- and Anti-systemic Violence in Indian Assembly Elections
Electoral violence is perpetrated by anti-systemic actors opposed to the democratic system, as well as by those vying for power through the electoral process. Even though the motivations for violent tactics are distinct, we do not know whether intra- and anti-systemic violence differ in their effects. Focusing on state-level elections in India – a country that combines nationwide elections with persistent political violence – we demonstrate that …
Legal identity at the margins: The impact of violent conflict on birth registration in India
In India, armed groups characterised by a diversity of ideologies and aims have emerged and persisted even in the presence of a fairly strong state. These groups often operate in areas that have long suffered from state neglect. We examine how violent conflict influences patterns of birth registration. State-recognised documents are crucial for establishing legal identity, and accessing citizenship rights. We draw on the 2015-16 National Family a…
The subnational electoral coercion in India (Seci) data set, 1985-2015
This research note introduces the Subnational Electoral Coercion in India (SECI) Data Set, which provides comprehensive data on electoral coercion in 186 Indian Vidhan Sabha elections between 1985 and 2015. SECI draws on news reports to capture instances of electoral coercion, including coercive fraud, election boycotts by non-state armed groups, and deaths resulting from electoral violence at the assembly constituency level. SECI differs from ex…
Thirty years of Regional and Federal Studies
Regional and Federal Studies’ 30th anniversary offers an opportunity to take stock of the state of the discipline and of the journal. We make four claims. First, the multi-level nature of the political world has intensified in the last 30 years. Second, the approaches to studying this changing world have evolved through a quantitative and comparative turn. Regional and Federal Studies has embraced these developments whilst remaining faithful to i…
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
Spatial Tools for Case Selection: Using Lisa Statistics to Design Mixed-Methods Research
Mixed-methods designs, especially those in which case selection is regression-based, have become popular across the social sciences. In this paper, we highlight why tools from spatial analysis—which have largely been overlooked in the mixed-methods literature—can be used for case selection and be particularly fruitful for theory development. We discuss two tools for integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis: (1) spatial autocorrelation in…
Legal identity for all? Gender inequality in the timing of birth registration in Mexico
Conceptualizing and measuring subnational democracy across Indian states
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy, but variation in subnational democracy across its states has not been systematically incorporated into scholarship on subnational regimes. This paper develops a conceptualization of subnational democracy based on four constitutive dimensions – turnover, contestation, autonomy and clean elections – and introduces a comprehensive dataset to measure each of the dimensions betw…
Measuring and theorizing regional governance
This symposium Regional Authority and the Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance engages two recent books on regional governance. The first sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific between 1950 and 2010. The second theorizes how regional governance is shaped by functional and communal pressures. These pressures are detected in many historical episodes of jurisdictional…
Geo-Nested Analysis: Mixed-Methods Research with Spatially Dependent Data
Mixed-methods designs, especially those where cases selected for small-N analysis (SNA) are nested within a large-N analysis (LNA), have become increasingly popular. Yet, since the LNA in this approach assumes that units are independently distributed, such designs are unable to account for spatial dependence, and dependence becomes a threat to inference, rather than an issue for empirical or theoretical investigation. This is unfortunate, since r…
Incorporating Space in Multimethod Research: Combining Spatial Analysis with Case-Study Research
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Spatial effects and party nationalization: The Geography of partisan support in Mexico
Taxation and the Unequal Reach of the State: Mapping State Capacity in Ecuador
Even though the unequal reach of the state has become an important concern in the literature on developing democracies in Latin America, empirical measures of intracountry variation in state capacity are scarce. So far, attempts to develop valid measures of the reach of the state have often been hampered by inadequate data. Leveraging insights from national‐level scholarship, this article proposes a tax‐based measure to capture such intracountry …
States and strategy in new federal democracies: Competitiveness and intra-party resource allocation in Mexico
A growing body of research demonstrates that parties are vital for the health of democracy. While party activities are therefore increasingly supported by direct public subsidies, we know relatively little about the ways in which parties spend this money. Using an original dataset of intra-party cash transfers, this article examines resource allocation in three major Mexican parties. The analysis demonstrates that parties’ spending patterns diffe…
Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries
The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustratin…
Attitude Variability Among Latin American Publics: How Party System Structuration Affects Left/Right Ideology
Political scientists often describe party competition, political behavior or public preferences in left/right terms. Nevertheless, the usefulness of the concepts “left” or “right” is rarely explored. This study assesses whether the left/right continuum resonates with publics in developing Latin American democracies. Using data from the 2008 wave of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), the authors measure variability in left/right se…
On the Local Politics of Administrative Decentralization: Applying for Policy Responsibilities in Ecuador
Variation in the behavior and preferences of subnational governments is one of the areas that remain poorly understood by students of comparative decentralization and federalism. Yet, evidence suggests that this variation plays an important role in shaping intergovernmental relations. Ecuador provides an especially interesting case for systematically exploring variation in the behavior of municipalities. Rather than establishing a uniform divisio…
Latin American party systems
Decentralization and the Development of Nationalized Party Systems in New Democracies: Evidence From Latin America
The extent to which a party system is nationalized—with nationalization being defined as the degree to which major political parties obtain similar vote shares throughout the national territory—has considerable consequences for political representation, public policy making, and even the survival of democracy. Yet, so far there is little empirical evidence about the conditions that promote or inhibit the development of nationalized party systems …
Democratic Deepening in Third Wave Democracies: Experiments with Participation in Mexico City
After the initial transition to democratic rule the question of how to improve the quality of democracy has become the key challenge facing Third Wave democracies. In the debate about the promotion of more responsive government, institutional reforms to increase direct participation of citizens in policy-making have been put on the agenda. The Federal District of Mexico City constitutes a particularly intriguing case in this debate. This article …
Decentralization and the Development of Nationalized Party Systems in New Democracies: Evidence From Latin America
The extent to which a party system is nationalized—with nationalization being defined as the degree to which major political parties obtain similar vote shares throughout the national territory—has considerable consequences for political representation, public policy making, and even the survival of democracy. Yet, so far there is little empirical evidence about the conditions that promote or inhibit the development of nationalized party systems …
Taxation and the Unequal Reach of the State: Mapping State Capacity in Ecuador
Even though the unequal reach of the state has become an important concern in the literature on developing democracies in Latin America, empirical measures of intracountry variation in state capacity are scarce. So far, attempts to develop valid measures of the reach of the state have often been hampered by inadequate data. Leveraging insights from national‐level scholarship, this article proposes a tax‐based measure to capture such intracountry …
Attitude Variability Among Latin American Publics: How Party System Structuration Affects Left/Right Ideology
Political scientists often describe party competition, political behavior or public preferences in left/right terms. Nevertheless, the usefulness of the concepts “left” or “right” is rarely explored. This study assesses whether the left/right continuum resonates with publics in developing Latin American democracies. Using data from the 2008 wave of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), the authors measure variability in left/right se…
Conceptualizing and measuring subnational democracy across Indian states
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy, but variation in subnational democracy across its states has not been systematically incorporated into scholarship on subnational regimes. This paper develops a conceptualization of subnational democracy based on four constitutive dimensions – turnover, contestation, autonomy and clean elections – and introduces a comprehensive dataset to measure each of the dimensions betw…
Democratic Deepening in Third Wave Democracies: Experiments with Participation in Mexico City
After the initial transition to democratic rule the question of how to improve the quality of democracy has become the key challenge facing Third Wave democracies. In the debate about the promotion of more responsive government, institutional reforms to increase direct participation of citizens in policy-making have been put on the agenda. The Federal District of Mexico City constitutes a particularly intriguing case in this debate. This article …
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
Spatial effects and party nationalization: The Geography of partisan support in Mexico
On the Local Politics of Administrative Decentralization: Applying for Policy Responsibilities in Ecuador
Variation in the behavior and preferences of subnational governments is one of the areas that remain poorly understood by students of comparative decentralization and federalism. Yet, evidence suggests that this variation plays an important role in shaping intergovernmental relations. Ecuador provides an especially interesting case for systematically exploring variation in the behavior of municipalities. Rather than establishing a uniform divisio…
Shaping Electoral Outcomes: Intra- and Anti-systemic Violence in Indian Assembly Elections
Electoral violence is perpetrated by anti-systemic actors opposed to the democratic system, as well as by those vying for power through the electoral process. Even though the motivations for violent tactics are distinct, we do not know whether intra- and anti-systemic violence differ in their effects. Focusing on state-level elections in India – a country that combines nationwide elections with persistent political violence – we demonstrate that …
Legal identity for all? Gender inequality in the timing of birth registration in Mexico
Geo-Nested Analysis: Mixed-Methods Research with Spatially Dependent Data
Mixed-methods designs, especially those where cases selected for small-N analysis (SNA) are nested within a large-N analysis (LNA), have become increasingly popular. Yet, since the LNA in this approach assumes that units are independently distributed, such designs are unable to account for spatial dependence, and dependence becomes a threat to inference, rather than an issue for empirical or theoretical investigation. This is unfortunate, since r…
Thirty years of Regional and Federal Studies
Regional and Federal Studies’ 30th anniversary offers an opportunity to take stock of the state of the discipline and of the journal. We make four claims. First, the multi-level nature of the political world has intensified in the last 30 years. Second, the approaches to studying this changing world have evolved through a quantitative and comparative turn. Regional and Federal Studies has embraced these developments whilst remaining faithful to i…
States and strategy in new federal democracies: Competitiveness and intra-party resource allocation in Mexico
A growing body of research demonstrates that parties are vital for the health of democracy. While party activities are therefore increasingly supported by direct public subsidies, we know relatively little about the ways in which parties spend this money. Using an original dataset of intra-party cash transfers, this article examines resource allocation in three major Mexican parties. The analysis demonstrates that parties’ spending patterns diffe…
Latin American party systems
Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries
The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustratin…
Legal identity at the margins: The impact of violent conflict on birth registration in India
In India, armed groups characterised by a diversity of ideologies and aims have emerged and persisted even in the presence of a fairly strong state. These groups often operate in areas that have long suffered from state neglect. We examine how violent conflict influences patterns of birth registration. State-recognised documents are crucial for establishing legal identity, and accessing citizenship rights. We draw on the 2015-16 National Family a…
Measuring and theorizing regional governance
This symposium Regional Authority and the Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance engages two recent books on regional governance. The first sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific between 1950 and 2010. The second theorizes how regional governance is shaped by functional and communal pressures. These pressures are detected in many historical episodes of jurisdictional…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Spatial Tools for Case Selection: Using Lisa Statistics to Design Mixed-Methods Research
Mixed-methods designs, especially those in which case selection is regression-based, have become popular across the social sciences. In this paper, we highlight why tools from spatial analysis—which have largely been overlooked in the mixed-methods literature—can be used for case selection and be particularly fruitful for theory development. We discuss two tools for integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis: (1) spatial autocorrelation in…
Incorporating Space in Multimethod Research: Combining Spatial Analysis with Case-Study Research
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Democratic Deepening in Third Wave Democracies: Experiments with Participation in Mexico City
After the initial transition to democratic rule the question of how to improve the quality of democracy has become the key challenge facing Third Wave democracies. In the debate about the promotion of more responsive government, institutional reforms to increase direct participation of citizens in policy-making have been put on the agenda. The Federal District of Mexico City constitutes a particularly intriguing case in this debate. This article …
Decentralization and the Development of Nationalized Party Systems in New Democracies: Evidence From Latin America
The extent to which a party system is nationalized—with nationalization being defined as the degree to which major political parties obtain similar vote shares throughout the national territory—has considerable consequences for political representation, public policy making, and even the survival of democracy. Yet, so far there is little empirical evidence about the conditions that promote or inhibit the development of nationalized party systems …
Latin American party systems
On the Local Politics of Administrative Decentralization: Applying for Policy Responsibilities in Ecuador
Variation in the behavior and preferences of subnational governments is one of the areas that remain poorly understood by students of comparative decentralization and federalism. Yet, evidence suggests that this variation plays an important role in shaping intergovernmental relations. Ecuador provides an especially interesting case for systematically exploring variation in the behavior of municipalities. Rather than establishing a uniform divisio…
Attitude Variability Among Latin American Publics: How Party System Structuration Affects Left/Right Ideology
Political scientists often describe party competition, political behavior or public preferences in left/right terms. Nevertheless, the usefulness of the concepts “left” or “right” is rarely explored. This study assesses whether the left/right continuum resonates with publics in developing Latin American democracies. Using data from the 2008 wave of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), the authors measure variability in left/right se…
States and strategy in new federal democracies: Competitiveness and intra-party resource allocation in Mexico
A growing body of research demonstrates that parties are vital for the health of democracy. While party activities are therefore increasingly supported by direct public subsidies, we know relatively little about the ways in which parties spend this money. Using an original dataset of intra-party cash transfers, this article examines resource allocation in three major Mexican parties. The analysis demonstrates that parties’ spending patterns diffe…
Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries
The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustratin…
Taxation and the Unequal Reach of the State: Mapping State Capacity in Ecuador
Even though the unequal reach of the state has become an important concern in the literature on developing democracies in Latin America, empirical measures of intracountry variation in state capacity are scarce. So far, attempts to develop valid measures of the reach of the state have often been hampered by inadequate data. Leveraging insights from national‐level scholarship, this article proposes a tax‐based measure to capture such intracountry …
Geo-Nested Analysis: Mixed-Methods Research with Spatially Dependent Data
Mixed-methods designs, especially those where cases selected for small-N analysis (SNA) are nested within a large-N analysis (LNA), have become increasingly popular. Yet, since the LNA in this approach assumes that units are independently distributed, such designs are unable to account for spatial dependence, and dependence becomes a threat to inference, rather than an issue for empirical or theoretical investigation. This is unfortunate, since r…
Incorporating Space in Multimethod Research: Combining Spatial Analysis with Case-Study Research
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Spatial effects and party nationalization: The Geography of partisan support in Mexico
Measuring and theorizing regional governance
This symposium Regional Authority and the Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance engages two recent books on regional governance. The first sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific between 1950 and 2010. The second theorizes how regional governance is shaped by functional and communal pressures. These pressures are detected in many historical episodes of jurisdictional…
Legal identity for all? Gender inequality in the timing of birth registration in Mexico
Conceptualizing and measuring subnational democracy across Indian states
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy, but variation in subnational democracy across its states has not been systematically incorporated into scholarship on subnational regimes. This paper develops a conceptualization of subnational democracy based on four constitutive dimensions – turnover, contestation, autonomy and clean elections – and introduces a comprehensive dataset to measure each of the dimensions betw…
Subnational Variation Across States: A Typology and Research Agenda
This special issue is concerned with how the state varies subnationally. Prominent conceptualizations of the state imply that strong states provide public goods, especially order and protection, throughout their territory (e.g., This understanding informs Mann's influential definition of infrastructural power as "the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm" …
Spatial Tools for Case Selection: Using Lisa Statistics to Design Mixed-Methods Research
Mixed-methods designs, especially those in which case selection is regression-based, have become popular across the social sciences. In this paper, we highlight why tools from spatial analysis—which have largely been overlooked in the mixed-methods literature—can be used for case selection and be particularly fruitful for theory development. We discuss two tools for integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis: (1) spatial autocorrelation in…
Thirty years of Regional and Federal Studies
Regional and Federal Studies’ 30th anniversary offers an opportunity to take stock of the state of the discipline and of the journal. We make four claims. First, the multi-level nature of the political world has intensified in the last 30 years. Second, the approaches to studying this changing world have evolved through a quantitative and comparative turn. Regional and Federal Studies has embraced these developments whilst remaining faithful to i…
Shaping Electoral Outcomes: Intra- and Anti-systemic Violence in Indian Assembly Elections
Electoral violence is perpetrated by anti-systemic actors opposed to the democratic system, as well as by those vying for power through the electoral process. Even though the motivations for violent tactics are distinct, we do not know whether intra- and anti-systemic violence differ in their effects. Focusing on state-level elections in India – a country that combines nationwide elections with persistent political violence – we demonstrate that …
Legal identity at the margins: The impact of violent conflict on birth registration in India
In India, armed groups characterised by a diversity of ideologies and aims have emerged and persisted even in the presence of a fairly strong state. These groups often operate in areas that have long suffered from state neglect. We examine how violent conflict influences patterns of birth registration. State-recognised documents are crucial for establishing legal identity, and accessing citizenship rights. We draw on the 2015-16 National Family a…
The subnational electoral coercion in India (Seci) data set, 1985-2015
This research note introduces the Subnational Electoral Coercion in India (SECI) Data Set, which provides comprehensive data on electoral coercion in 186 Indian Vidhan Sabha elections between 1985 and 2015. SECI draws on news reports to capture instances of electoral coercion, including coercive fraud, election boycotts by non-state armed groups, and deaths resulting from electoral violence at the assembly constituency level. SECI differs from ex…
Permanent Membership: The Prohibition of Citizenship Renunciation
Dual citizenship is often seen as an indication that states are adopting more open membership policies. In some cases, however, dual citizenship is imposed because states lay claim to populations beyond their borders, and prohibit the renunciation of citizenship. This research note presents new data to describe which countries prohibit renunciation. First, we find that some states prohibit renunciation in administrative practice, even though nati…
Going the Last Mile: How Social Pensions Make Marginalized Elders Legible and Build the State’s Informational Capacity
The state’s reach across societal groups is often uneven. Lacking documents that provide official proof of age and identity, many elderly people in countries of the Global South have long resided in the blind spot of states, especially if they are poor, indigenous, live in rural areas, and have labored outside the formal sector. How can states go the last mile and build informational capacity by incorporating particularly marginalized groups? Wha…
Political science (18 works) · Law (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Economics (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Politics and Society in Latin America (10 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Democracy (7 works)