Soviet Law and Government

Broad preparations are now under way for the forthcoming elections to the supreme Soviets of the union and autonomous republics and the local Soviets of working people's deputies. As we know, elections will take place on March 3 in the RSFSR, the Ukrainian, Belorussian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Moldavian, Latvian, Tajik and Turkmenian union republics, and on March 17 in the Georgian, Azerbaijan, Lithuanian, Kirgiz, Armenian and Estonian union republics.     

Policing the industrial reserve army: An international study

Over the past three decades, the industrialized world has witnessed four resilient social trends: (1) the consistent erosion of union-membership; (2) an increase in income polarization and inequality; (3) a dramatic resurgence in popular protest; and (4) a steady rise in public and private policing employment. In this paper, we examine the relationship between these trends by theorizing and operationalizing the notion of the “industrial reserve army” and a series of related tenets in order to conduct an international (N = 45), empirical test of a nascent Marxian model of policing. By treating total policing employment as an empirical barometer of bourgeois insecurity we find that this insecurity is conditioned by two elements of Marxian political economy: (1) relative deprivation (income inequality) and (2) the rise of an industrial reserve army (manufacturing employment and unemployment). Second, while surplus value and labour militancy (strikes and lockouts per 100,000 population) rise along with union membership, the presence of higher rates of unionization appears to ameliorate the need for more policing in all but post-USSR countries. While unions assist in checking the immiseration of workers through labour actions, union membership is nonetheless inversely correlated to policing employment, giving credence to the Marxian idea that while unions help mitigate against the exploitation workers, they also act as “lieutenants of capital,” performing an essential policing function under capitalism.     

Explaining Seat Changes in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1950–98

Abstract: Recent U.S. House elections have challenged existing models of congressional elections, raising the question of whether or not processes thought to govern previous elections are still at work. Taking Marra and Ostrom's (1989) model of congressional elections as representative of extant theoretical perspectives and testing it against recent elections, we find that the model fails. We augment Marra and Ostrom's model with new insights, constructing a model that explains elections from 1950 to 1998. We find that, although presidential approval ratings and major political events continue to drive congressional elections, the distribution of open seats must also be taken into account.     

Patterns of renewal and continuity in parliamentary elites. The Greek MPs from 1996 to 2015

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on patterns of renewal and continuity in the Greek Parliament. The data include information about MPs from the parliamentary elections in 1996 through to 2015. Three main concerns are discussed: patterns of circulation of newcomers MPs; patterns of parliamentary turnover in respect to political and electoral transformations introduced by the debt crisis; and patterns of continuity for long-standing MPs. I argue that incoming MPs tend to replicate the mainstream educational and political resources of the core parliamentarians and, at the same time, powerful patterns of perpetuation exist, which sustain the career opportunities of the long-standing MPs. However, a parliamentary turnover is possible during times of crises but also through the renewal of political generations.     

Crimes,arrests, and elections: Predicting winners and losers

Political candidates are frequently identified as being either “law and order” advocates or “soft” on crime; however, the importance of actual arrest and crime levels on election outcomes has not been examined empirically. One particular set of candidates for whom arrest and crime rates might be expected to be predictive is publicly elected law enforcement officials. Using 1976 Florida County Sheriff election data, this article examines the capacity for discriminating between winning and losing incumbent sheriffs by using county arrest and crime data in association with socioeconomic and political information. The findings show that a significant discrimination is obtained (significant = 0.009, canonical correlation = 0.59, and 76 percent of the counties were correctly classified) and that crimes and arrests are significant factors in determining the outcome of sheriff elections. The results indicate that although traditional political factors, such as party affiliation and number of terms in office, and socioeconomic factors, such as income, density, and unemployment rates, do well in discriminating winning from losing candidates, a sheriff-election model must also incorporate crime and arrest information, particularly information on murder and rape.     

Who’s in favour? Same-sex union laws in parliament

The article analyses which parties support registered partnership and same-sex marriage bills in parliament in Western Europe. Existing comparative research indicates that left parties back same-sex union laws. This article shows that support is not limited to the left camp. Liberal and even Christian democratic parties have expressed above-average support as well, albeit with certain exceptions. The chief opponents of same-sex union laws are Protestant parties and the parties of the far right; in terms of numbers, however, both are largely insignificant. Far more relevant for these laws’ chances of success are the positions of the large parties at the centre and at the right of the political spectrum. The analysis reveals considerable inter-country differences in these parties’ attitudes, which can be explained to a large extent with the two-worlds-of-morality-politics distinction introduced by Engeli, Green-Pedersen and Larsen: countries in which centre and right parties continue to oppose same-sex union laws are part of the religious world, with the exception of France. The results for France indicate a need for further research.     

Negotiating constitutions for political unions

This paper provides a cradle-to-grave model of political merger between two states and highlights the role of cross-border disparities in material and technological endowments in state formation. This issue has not received adequate theoretical attention in the existing scholarship that has largely focussed on factors like defence, trade, and public goods provision. In this paper, merger negotiations are modelled using a bilateral bargaining model with inside options and contest as an outside option. It is shown that the threat of contest constrains the set of mutually acceptable taxes and, more importantly, it provides stability to the federal constitution by making the punishment strategy in the secession rule credible. The existence of negotiated and contested constitutional merger agreements that are path dependent but time-consistent is shown. Also, the rent extracted by the advanced province in the union for transferring technology to the backward province is shown to be increasing in the complexity of technology but bounded from above. Finally, the impact of demographic heterogeneity on the feasibility of inter-state mergers is discussed.     

跨国公司工会问题的法理分析

经济全球化促进了跨国公司的发展，跨国公司的发展不仅影响到各国的经济和社会生活，也影响到工会运动。工会在跨国公司的活动面临许多新的问题和困难。跨国公司的工会问题，关系到跨国公司的巨大国际影响力与东道国国家主权的关系，关系到国际人权的保护，涉及到企业的社会责任问题。在全球化的大背景下，维护跨国企业劳动者的利益，必须充分发挥工会的作用。     

Unemployment,business cycles,crime, and the Canadian provinces

Purpose

Test the Cantor and Land (1985) model using multiple measures of the state of the economy.

Methods

A panel data set of the 10 Canadian provinces, 1981 – 2009, is analyzed using a hybrid modeling approach called a decomposition model. Rather than one economy-related model, four are included in the analysis: gross provincial product, gross provincial product per capita, unemployment rate, and low income.

Results

All economy-related variables matter for property and violent crime, but the sign and magnitude of the estimated parameters vary based on context.

Conclusions

The relationship between the economy and crime is complex. Only including one economy-related variable appears to result in omitted variable bias. As such, any evaluation of the relationship between the economy and crime must consider multiple measures of the economy.     

控权与保权的统一:现代宪政发展新趋势

控权的宪政设计像任何制度设计一样 ,是随着社会发展而不断演进的。产生于近代资本主义商品经济时代的传统控权理论 ,经过现代市场经济时代的转换发展到当代知识经济条件下 ,要求控权与保权的辩证统一 ,呈现出宪政发展新趋势。     

Regional Unemployment in Transitional China: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to explain the pattern of regional unemployment in transitional China. A model is developed to explore how urban unemployment in the provinces is influenced by peasants' wages, formal sector wages, and the size of the formal sector. Evidence from panel data suggests that a significant indicator of high unemployment rates is greater Urban–Rural Income Inequality within the province. The hypothesis is that the urban–rural income gap produces migration, and more rural migrants substitute for urban workers, causing further urban unemployment. Since the economic reforms began in 1978, the non-state owned enterprises have been carrying an increasing weight in the economy, and they have contributed significantly to the rapid economic growth of China. Empirical evidence shows that economic reforms have reduced unemployment. The provinces that are still heavily dependent on the state sector are therefore more likely to experience higher unemployment.     

Uncivic Society as a Sociopolitical Phenomenon in Ukraine: Reflections of the Social Character of the "Average" Ukrainian in the Electoral Process

Among the many remarkable peculiarities of the electoral process in Ukraine during the eighteen-month electoral cycle (from the parliamentary elections in March 1998 to the presidential elections in October-November 1999), the features of most interest to political scientists are those that, if properly explained, will enable us, first, to outline the basic parameters of citizens' behavior under the political regime that has evolved during the last ten years and, second, to determine the value orientations and the potential of the principal social and political actors. Above all, I have in mind the sociopolitical and sociocultural components of the elections or, to use a term of Erich Fromm's, the social character [1] of what is called the mean statistical (average) Ukrainian.     

A tale of two counties: Unemployment and sentence severity

This study explores the relationship between the offender's employment status and sentence severity. We use data on felony offenders sentenced in 1993 in Chicago and in Kansas City to test a number of hypotheses concerning the effect of unemployment on the likelihood of incarceration and the length of the prison sentence. Our analyses reveal a complex relationship between unemployment and sentence severity: Unemployment had a direct effect on the decision to incarcerate or not only in Kansas City, and directly affected sentence length only in Chicago. In addition, unemployment interacted with other offender characteristics. The offender's employment status had no effect on either measure of sentence severity in either jurisdiction if the offender was white. In Chicago, unemployment increased the odds of incarceration for young males and for young Hispanic males, and increased the length of the sentence for males, young males, and black males. In Kansas City, unemployment had no effect on sentence length for any subgroups of the population but influenced the decision to incarcerate if the offender was a black male. We suggest that our results support the proposition that certain types of unemployed offenders are perceived as “social dynamite” (Spitzer 1975) in need of formal social control.     

Progressive Reform and the Decline of Democratic Accountability: The Popular Election of State Supreme Court Judges, 1850-1920

This essay probes the relationship among different kinds of political cultures, the conduct of judicial elections, and the extent of dissent on the state supreme courts of California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas from 1850 to 1920. The introduction at the turn of the twentieth century of Progressive election reforms—most notably the secret ballot, the direct party primary, and the nonpartisan ballot—reduced levels of turnout in judicial contests and increased roll-off from major statewide political to judicial elections. These reforms made judicial elections the tail on the electoral kite and denied the public its best means of regulating judicial policy making. Yet these changes in the electorate's behavior were seemingly unrelated to variations in the rate of dissent in these four state courts, whose judges apparently viewed popular partisan election as more a potential than a real threat to their independence.     

A negative relationship between religion and the percentage of women state legislators in the United States

State contextual variables strongly associated with the percentage of women state legislators include the percentage of Christians and political culture. The percentage of Christians is inversely related to the percentage of women state legislators. This is a new finding. The relationship with political culture, noted by previous researchers, is confirmed by our research. Other state contextual variables associated weakly with the percentage of women legislators include the percentage of labour union members and multi‐member districts. Using multiple regression analysis, over 70 per cent of the variation in the percentage of women state legislators has been accounted for. Thus election of women state legislators in 1991 is primarily associated with ideological rather than political or demographic factors. Data from all 50 states are used in the analysis.     

Editor's Introduction

Fear is the unifying theme of the articles that follow. Not the strakh about which Anatolii Rybakov wrote, but rather the fear for the future of stability, democracy, and social justice in Russia. But most of our authors conclude either on a hopeful note or with recommendations for action. In the first article ("The Electoral Map of Contemporary Russia"), Vladimir Kolosov and Rostislav Turovskii present the findings of their analysis of voting behavior in Russia's many regions. While not unlocking individual motivations at this level of analysis, they examine the commonplace assertion that the presidential election of June-July 1996 turned on the decline in people's living standards since the overthrow of Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost all press commentary has reported, or assumed, that the anti-Yeltsin vote reflected disillusion with a government that has increasingly impoverished most Russians. Conceding that "the political stratification of Russian regions into reformist and oppositional regions has intensified," the authors nevertheless find that poorer regions sometimes supported Yeltsin over the Communist candidate, Gennadii Ziuganov. Thus, for example, Yeltsin carried Ivanovo Oblast despite its having the highest unemployment rate in the country. They find no direct connection between quality of life and voting patterns in the elections. Political criteria, not economic determinism, offer the best explanation for why people voted the way they did.     

社会利益格局调整中的工会利益表达

当前利益格局调整过程中的关键问题是建立和完善相应的利益表达机制以化解严重的利益协调危机。强化中国工会利益表达功能,使其能够真正成为工人利益表达和实现的组织,不仅是形成有效的利益协调机制的重要内容,而且是化解社会矛盾与冲突,促进社会和谐的有效方式。但由于工会的定位导致其利益表达角色冲突、工会组织的行政化导致其利益表达缺乏独立性、工会利益表达手段和方式的简单化导致其利益表达效能不足,应从结构体制和功能机制的更新入手推进中国工会改革。     

Political Trust and Judicial Retention Elections

Retention elections are that part of the merit selection plan designed to hold judges accountable to the public. While more than one scholar has concluded that votes cast in a retention election are often not informed evaluations of the judge's qualifications and/or conduct on the bench, the few existing systematic empirical studies have failed to explain why people vote for or against retention. This study fills part of this void by testing the hypothesis that political trust is a major cue in judicial retention voting. In contrast to most previous work which was either limited to the appellate level or to elections in a single state, the data set consists of 1,864 retention elections held from 1964 through 1984 for major trial court judges. The national trends in political trust in the last two decades are found to be reflected in the trends in the mean vote for retention.     

当前企业工会维权的困境及法律对策

随着社会主义市场经济体制的建立和完善,企业的劳动关系总体上是稳定的,大多数职工的权益得到了保障,但是随着劳动关系的日益市场化、复杂化,在部分企业里,职工合法权益的实现遇到了新情况、新问题。《中华人民共和国工会法》的实施,为工会组织依法维权提供了强大的法律武器,履行工会的基本职责,切实代表和维护职工的合法权益,是工会贯彻"三个代表"重要思想的根本要求。它既是工会服从服务于党和国家工作大局的重要手段,又是工会工作的出发点和落脚点。     

Midterm Elections and Economic Fluctuations: The Response of Voters Over Time

Abstract: Recent empirical work (Alesina and Rosenthal 1995; Erikson 1990) has shown that economic conditions may not have influenced House midterm elections since 1915. I argue that economic conditions may have influenced House midterms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Congress dominated economic policy‐making, parties offered starker positions on economic issues, and national issues dominated House elections. As the 20th century progressed, congressional power over the economy declined, the parties converged over certain economic policies, and district‐level forces grew more important in elections. I test the stability of the relationship between the economy and House midterms over time, using F‐tests to show how the impact of macroeconomic conditions has changed in House midterm elections from 1872 to 1994. The results indicate that the gross national product (GNP) influenced House races before 1913 but, as the 20th century continued, the importance of the economy on House midterms declined.