Institutionalizing Personalism: The Russian Presidency after Constitutional Changes

The 2020 constitutional changes considerably increase presidential powers while sending mixed signals about presidential transition. The main driver of the amendments were term limits. The “zeroing” of Putin’s presidential terms enhances certainty for himself by fostering uncertainty for others. But there is more to the amendments: Numerous changes are not new, they simply align the constitutional text with subconstitutional powers the presidency had been accumulating. The embedding of term limit circumvention in a comprehensive constitutional overhaul is a risk-hedging strategy to avert resistance by weakening the signal about Putin’s intentions. Constitutional changes are therefore an instrument of elite coordination. The amendments also increase presidential flexibility. This expedited regime personalization is detrimental to governance and will make repression more prevalent. But it also creates more risks for Putin. Regardless of how presidential succession will play out, Putin’s legacy will be a highly personalized authoritarian regime with a constitutionally unconstrained presidency.

Cooperation or Confrontation? —— Prediction of COVID-19 Pandemic Situation via Deep Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious catastrophe since the Second World War. To more accurately observe the epidemic under the influence of policies and provide policy adjustments before the official presidential transition in the United States, we use a three-layer superimposed Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) model to predict the epidemic development trend to mid-January, 2021. The proposed model provides more accuracy and stability relative to Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Recovered (SEIR), modified stacked au-to-encoder, and single-layer LSTM models. The performance effects of the measures in China and five countries with severe epidemics are analysed and summarised. The model shows that the error rate of China, five countries and the world is less than 1.4%. According to forecasts, the epidemic situations in the United States, India, and Brazil, caused by untimely, inappropriate policies, lax regulations and insufficient public cooperation, remain very severe, with cases continuing to increase by tens of thousands. The number of cumulative confirmed cases worldwide will exceed 84.58 million by mid-January, 2021; however, the mortality rate will gradually decrease. Based on analysis of measures (including China’s effective prevention and control policies), we found that there are performed tremendous different efficiency even using same positive policy for different countries because of various cooperation between people and governments. It is essential to maintain self-protection to prevent the epidemic from deterioration or regenerating, especially, wearing mask and maintaining a safe distance.

Is There a Trump Effect? An Experiment on Political Polarization and Audience Costs

Does President Trump face domestic costs for foreign policy inconsistency? Will co-partisans and opposition-partisans equally punish Donald Trump for issuing flippant international threats and backing down? While the president said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters, the literature consistently shows that individuals, regardless of partisanship, disapprove of leaders who jeopardize the country’s reputation for credibility and resolve. Given the atypical nature of the Trump presidency, and the severe partisan polarization surrounding it, we investigate whether the logic of audience costs still applies in the Trump era. Using a unique experiment fielded during the 2016 presidential transition, we show that Republicans and Democrats impose equal audience costs on President Trump. And by varying the leader’s identity, between Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and “The President,” we demonstrate that the public adheres to a non-partisan logic in punishing leaders who renege on threats. Yet we also find Presidents Trump and Obama can reduce the magnitude of audience costs by justifying backing down as being “in America’s interest.” Even Democrats, despite their doubts of Donald Trump’s credibility, accept such justifications. Our findings encourage further exploration of partisan cues, leader-level attributes, and leader-level reputations.

NAFTA moves imply more US-China trade conflict

Significance The US–Mexico Trade Agreement leaves the core NAFTA provisions intact but contains new provisions including on rules of origin for automobiles, intellectual property, digital economy, agriculture and dispute settlement. If the three parties can agree, they will have the opportunity to sign an updated agreement in late-November during the US Congress lame duck session and prior to Mexico’s presidential transition on December 1. Impacts If implemented, higher rules of origin for autos and new provisions for Mexican auto workers will complicate supply chains, raising costs. Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum remain unaddressed by the NAFTA negotiations. G20 goods trade fell in April-June 2018 for the first time since 2016 and dollar strength may amplify countries’ protectionist sentiment.