The house size effect and the referendum paradox in U.S. presidential elections

Barthélémy et al. (2014), extending the work of Neubauer and Zeitlin (2003), show that some U.S. presidential elections are subject to a ‘House size effect’ in that the winner of the election, i.e., the candidate who wins a majority of electoral votes, depends on the size of the House of Representatives. The conditions for the effect relate to the number of ‘Senate’ versus ‘House’ electoral votes won by each candidate, but the relationship is not straightforward due to ‘locally chaotic’ effects in the apportionment of House seats among the states as House size changes. Clearly a Presidential election that is subject to the House size effect exhibits the referendum paradox, i.e., the electoral vote winner is the popular vote loser, for some House sizes but not for others.     

The labor migration sending regions in the state of Zacatecas

"In a preliminary survey in the state of Zacatecas, [Mexico,] we identified those municipalities which contribute most to the migration of Mexican workers to the United States; later, we corroborated our findings in situ and drew up an approximation of the geographic and economic characteristics of those municipalities, which make up 'migration sending zones or regions' in the state." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Democratization and the size of government: evidence from the long 19th century

We study the consequences of franchise extension and ballot reform for the size of government in Western Europe between 1820 and 1913. We find that franchise extension exhibits a U-shaped association with revenue per capita and a positive association with spending per capita. Instrumental variables estimates, however, suggest that the U-shaped relationship may be non-causal and our fixed effects estimates point to substantial cross-country heterogeneity. Further, we find that the secret ballot did not matter for tax revenues per capita but might have expanded the size of government relative to GDP.     

Mexican households and family networks in the United States: several life histories,one family history

"The authors analyze the Mexican household in the United States, emphasizing its complexity...as well as...its changes over time. The authors seek to understand the composition of relatives within exiled families, their life-cycle evolution, and the interaction of civil and migratory calendars. They also consider household changes related to the migratory process, changes in marriage and birth civil calendars, changes produced by work or marital events, and the type of migratory decisions developed within families." (EXCERPT)     

Attitudes,behaviors, and the influence of the family: A reexamination of the role of family structure

Political socialization researchers have long declared the importance of the family to the socialization of young people. But political science has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in family over the last 25 years. Where, in the past, family was generally a two-parent family, today more than 25 percent of the families with children under 18 are single-parent families. This research seeks to reexamine the traditional assumptions about how family structure influences socialization by testing the hypothesis that young adults raised in single-parent families experience different patterns of political socialization than those raised in two-parent families. However, the data provide no support for this hypothesis. There is no relationship between family structure and political efficacy, political knowledge, or political participation, and only a weak one between structure and political trust.     

On the pricing and benefit structure of a private club or public utility

In this study the structure-induced equilibrium approach for modeling democratic institutions is extended to allow for the added structural features of executive veto and legislative override. A multidimensional model is presented for a budgetary process involving three actors — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive. In order to focus attention on the role of the veto and override possibilities, simplifying assumptions are made with regard to other aspects of the agenda formation process. In particular, the committee has monopoly agenda power, a closed amendment control rule is operative, and perfect-foresight expectations are held by the committee and the executive. Given these assumptions, utility maximization by the several actors generates a budget outcome characterized as a structure-induced equilibrium. The general model is illustrated geometrically with a two-dimensional example, permitting budget outcomes to be analyzed for various combinations of veto rules and override provisions. The analysis demonstrates that budget outcomes are sensitive to alternative specifications of veto rules and override provisions. In the illustration, executive veto power is shown to vary directly with both the permissiveness of the veto rule and the stringency of the override provision. Similar relationships, however, are not found to exist for total budget expenditures.     

The private safety net: The role of charitable organizations in the lives of the poor

Abstract

As welfare reform unfolds, nonprofit social service agencies will increasingly be called upon to help fill the gap between what unskilled and semiskilled mothers can earn in the low‐wage labor market and what they need to meet their monthly expenses. This article draws on in‐depth interviews with low‐income single mothers and multiyear observational studies of two nonprofit social service agencies.

Using these data, the authors show what kinds of resources these agencies provide low‐income single mothers, how mothers mobilize the resources available, to what degree agencies actually contribute to mothers’ cash and in‐kind resources, how agencies distribute their resources, and what effect agencies’ distribution practices have on these women. The analysis shows that although nonprofit social service agencies are a crucial part of many low‐income mothers’ economic survival strategies, they cannot come close to substituting for the eroding public safety net.     

The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century

Demographic, political, and technological trends are fueling an unprecedented growth in direct democracy worldwide. If the trends continue, direct democracy threatens to eclipse legislatures in setting the policy agenda. This article reviews existing scientific knowledge about the initiative and referendum – the main institutions of direct democracy – and highlights key issues for the future.     

The private stake in public goods: overcoming the illogic of collective action

Conclusion According to the Logic of Collective Action, most actions in the service of common interests are either not logical or not collective. In a large group, the argument goes, individual action counts for so little in the realization of common interests that it makes no sense for a person to consider group interests when choosing a course of personal conduct. Only private interests are decisive. Their fulfillment, at least, depends in a substantial way on one's own behavior. Individual actions designed to achieve private advantage are therefore rational. Actions aimed at collective goods are a waste of time and effort. Occasionally, of course, a person acting on the basis of private interests may inadvertently provide some collective good from which many other people derive benefit. This is what happens in the case of the Greek shipping tycoon. But it occurs only because one person's private good fortuitously coincides with the collective good of a larger group. From the tycoon's perspective, there are no collective interests at stake in the sponsorship of an opera broadcast, only his own private interests. Nor does his decision to underwrite a broadcast take account of the other people who will listen to it. His action is a solitary one designed to serve a private interest, and it is perfectly consistent with Olson's argument concerning the illogic of collective action, because it is not grounded in collective interest and is not a case of collective behavior. Olson's theory permits people to share collective interests but not to act upon them voluntarily. The only acknowledged exception occurs in the case of very small groups, where each member's contribution to the common good represents such a large share of the total that any person's default becomes noticeable to others and may lead them to reduce or cancel their own contributions. In this instance, at least, one person's actions can make a perceptible difference for the chance of realizing collective interests, and it is therefore sensible for each person to consider these collective interests (and one another's conduct) when deciding whether or not to support group efforts. Outside of small groups, however, Olson finds no circumstances in which voluntary collective action is rational. But in fact the conditions that make collective action rational are broader than this and perhaps more fundamental to Olson's theory. They are inherent in the very ‘collectiveness’ of collective goods - their status as social or group artifacts. In the absence of a group, there can be no such thing as a collective good. But in the absence of mutual awareness and interdependence, it becomes extremely difficult to conceive of a social group. The assumption that group members are uninfluenced by one another's contributions to a collective good is no mere theoretical simplification. It may be a logical impossibility. Being a member of a group, even a very large one, implies at the very least that one's own conduct takes place against a background of group behavior. Olson's assumptions do not acknowledge this minimal connection between individual and group behavior, and they inhibit recognition of the elementary social processes that explain why slovenly conduct attracts special attention on clean streets, or why the initial violations of group norms are more momentous than later violations. It may be argued, of course, that the groups of Olson's theory are not functioning social groups with a collective existence, but only categories or classes of people who happen to share a collective interest. The logic of collective action is intended precisely to show why these ‘potential’ groups are prevented from converting themselves into organized social groups whose members act in a coordinated way. In such latent groups, perhaps, members are unaware of one another, and Olson's assumption that they are uninfluenced by one another's conduct becomes a reasonable one. Another implication, however, is that Olson's theory is subject to unacknowledged restrictions. The logic of the free ride is for potential groups. It may not hold for actual ones. The distinction is exemplified, in the case of public sanitation, by the difference between what is rational on a clean street and what is rational on a dirty one. The logic of the free ride does not make sense for the members of an ongoing group that is already operating to produce collective goods such as public order or public sanitation. While this represents a notable limitation upon the scope of Olson's theory, it apparently leaves the logic of collective action undisturbed where potential or latent groups are concerned. But suppose that a member of an unmobilized group wants her colleagues to contribute to the support of a collective good that she particularly values. Her problem is to create a situation in which such contributions make sense to her fellow members. As we have already seen in the case of the neighborhood street-sweeper, one possible solution is to provide the collective good herself. If it has the appropriate characteristics, its very existence may induce other members of the latent group to contribute to its maintenance. This is not one of those cases in which one person's private interest fortuitously coincides with the collective interest of a larger group. The neighborhood street-sweeper is acting on behalf of an interest that she is conscious of sharing with her neighbors. Her aim is to arouse collective action in support of that interest. She does not expect to pay for public cleanliness all by herself, or to enjoy its benefits all by herself. Her role bears a general resemblance to the one that some analysts have defined for the political entrepreneur who seeks to profit personally by supplying a collective good to the members of a large group (Frohlich, Oppenheimer, and Young 1971). Like the neighborhood street-sweeper, the entrepreneur finds it advantageous to confer a collective benefit on others. But the similarity does not extend to the nature of the advantage or the manner in which it is secured. The entrepreneur induces people to contribute toward the cost of a collective good by creating an organizational apparatus through which group members can pool their resources. The existence of this collection mechanism can also strengthen individual members' confidence that their colleagues' contributions are forthcoming. What the entrepreneur gains is private profit - the difference between the actual cost of a collective good and the total amount that group members are prepared to pay for it. By contrast, the neighborhood street-sweeper induces support for a collective good, not by facilitating contributions, but by increasing the costs that come from the failure to contribute. As a result of her efforts, she gains a clean street whose benefits (and costs) she shares with her fellow residents. She takes her profit in the form of collective betterment rather than private gain, and her conduct, along with the behavior of her neighbors, demonstrates that effective selfinterest can extend beyond private interest. Self-interest can also give rise to continuing cooperative relationships. The street-sweeper, acting in her own interest, brings into being a cooperative enterprise in which she and her fellow residents jointly contribute to the production of a collective good. Cooperation in this case does not come about through negotiation or exchange among equal parties. It can be the work of a single actor who contributes the lion's share of the resources needed to establish a collective good, in the expectation that its existence will induce others to join in maintaining it. The tactic is commonplace as a means of eliciting voluntary collective action, and it operates on a scale far larger than the street or the neighborhood. Government, paradoxically, probably relies on it more than most institutions With its superior power and resources, it may be society's most frequent originator of voluntary collective action. Its policies, imposed through coercion and financed by compulsory taxation, generate a penumbra of cooperation without which coercion might become ineffectual. By providing certain collective goods, government authorities can move citizens to make voluntary contributions to the maintenance of these goods. The stark dichotomy between private voluntary action and public coercion - one of the mainstays of American political rhetoric - may be as misleading as the identification of self-interest with selfishness. There is more at stake here than the voluntary production of collective goods. Continuing cooperative behavior can have other results as well. Once group members begin to expect cooperation from one another, norms of cooperation and fairness are likely to develop. Axelrod (1986) has suggested that modes of conduct which have favorable outcomes for the people who pursue them tend to evolve into group norms. Public-spirited action that serves self-interest could therefore engender a principled attachment to the common good, undermining the assumption of self-interestedness that gives the logic of collective action its bite. Laboratory studies of cooperative behavior have already demonstrated that experimental subjects have far less regard for narrow self-interest than rational choice theory requires (Dawes 1980). In one extended series of collective action experiments, however, Marwell and Ames (1981) found a single group of subjects who approximated the self-interested free-riders of Olson's theory. They were graduate students in economics.     

The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century

One of the most important developments affecting electoral competition in the United States has been the increasingly partisan behavior of the American electorate. Yet more voters than ever claim to be independents. We argue that the explanation for these seemingly contradictory trends is the rise of negative partisanship. Using data from the American National Election Studies, we show that as partisan identities have become more closely aligned with social, cultural and ideological divisions in American society, party supporters including leaning independents have developed increasingly negative feelings about the opposing party and its candidates. This has led to dramatic increases in party loyalty and straight-ticket voting, a steep decline in the advantage of incumbency and growing consistency between the results of presidential elections and the results of House, Senate and even state legislative elections. The rise of negative partisanship has had profound consequences for electoral competition, democratic representation and governance.     

Winning at the polls and in the polls: the incumbency advantage in surveys of U.S. house voters

The success of House incumbents at the polls is well known and has been studied extensively. This paper focuses on the incumbents' success in the polls: the support bestowed upon incumbents by survey respondents is substantially higher than that received from the voters. The incumbency advantage at the polls, estimated at about 10% in the most recent elections, is almost doubled when measured in the polls. The data, drawn from the 1982–1996 National Election Studies, show that respondents do not reward all winners; candidates elected to open seats have not benefitted from the kind of bounce consistently enjoyed by winning incumbents. In addition, the pattern of respondents' misreports appears to be inconsistent with earlier explanations based on instrument effects. Respondent bias should be accounted for in order to reach correct estimates of the incumbency advantage in individual-level data.     

Philanthropy and the housing crisis: The dilemmas of private charity and public policy

Abstract

American philanthropy has historically sought to address the nation's housing crisis, especially among the poor. This article compares private philanthropy's response to the housing crisis in two important eras of economic transformation: the period between the Civil War and World War I (the Progressive Era), when the United States was undergoing large‐scale urbanization and industrialization, and the period from the 1980s through today, when the United States became integrated in a global economy and confronted the shock of deindustrialization, widening economic disparities, and deepening urban decay.

Following the historical review, the article focuses briefly on the current housing crisis and the dilemmas that private foundations and nonprofit organizations face in trying to develop a coherent strategy to address the problem. It closes with a proposal for a partnership between private foundations and housing organizations that can address the need to change both public opinion and public policy toward housing.     

The bigger the better? Evidence of the effect of government size on life satisfaction around the world

This paper empirically analyzes whether government size is conducive or detrimental to life satisfaction in a cross-section of 74 countries. We thus provide a test of the longstanding dispute between standard neoclassical economic theory and public choice theory. According to the neoclassical view, governments play unambiguously positive roles for individuals' quality of life, while the theory of public choice has been developed to understand why governments often choose excessive involvement in – and regulation of – the economy, thereby harming their citizens' quality of life. Our results show that life satisfaction decreases with higher government consumption. For low, middle income, and male people, this result is stronger when the government is leftwing, while government consumption appears to be less harmful for women when the government is perceived to be effective. Government capital formation and social spending have no significant impact on life satisfaction.     

Black-white differences in private pensions: findings from the retirement history study.

This article compares older black workers and older white workers on coverage under private pension plans, the receipt of pension benefits upon retirement, and the job characteristics associated with both coverage and receipt. Data are from the 1969 and 1975 interviews of the Retirement History Study and describe pre-ERISA conditions among persons in their late fifties to mid-sixties. Black workers were much less likely than white workers to have been covered by a private pension on their longest job. Moreover, among those who were covered, they were less likely to have received benefits. The racial differences appear to result in part from subtantial differences on job characteristics, particularly industry.     

The housing and neighborhood conditions of America's children: patterns and trends over four decades

This paper uses national and metropolitan area data from American Housing Surveys over four decades to examine the patterns and trends in the housing and neighborhood circumstances of children. Children across the income distribution have experienced dramatic improvements in the physical adequacy of their dwellings and in crowding but significant deterioration in housing affordability. Poor children are often in greatest jeopardy, with the rate of complaints about crime 25 percent higher in 2005 than in 1975, and the rate of school complaints twice as high in 2005 than 1975. Poor children also experience little payoff from residential mobility in terms of physical dwelling adequacy, crowding, affordability, or adequacy of schools, though moves are associated with fewer complaints about crime. However, it is the near poor – those between 101–200 percent of poverty – and not the poor who appear to be most affected by the tightness or looseness of the housing market.     

The role of the state in enabling private sector development: an assessment methodology

There are many ideas about how the state can and should enable private sector development. However, most of these ideas are not derived from the private sector itself. Participatory policy research has so far been confined to public sector development contexts. This article provides some background information about the garment and textile industry in Zimbabwe. It then describes one pioneering attempt to develop and assess an enabling state assessment methodology in this context, for possible use in the private sector more generally. The methodology described consists of a series of participant‐developed checklists, around the predetermined themes of the policy, agency and enterprise environments. These checklists were explored through the use of semi‐structured dialogue, using visual methods such as impact diagramming, Venn diagramming, master charts and problem trees, in the context of enterprise‐based meetings and two subsequent workshops. The article summarizes the main constraints and recommended actions identified by the participants. The participants, the researchers and the author also assess each step of the methodology.These steps include: developing an agenda; designing the process; identifying a target population and research team; developing and applying the methodology; analysing the results and documenting the process. Lessons are also drawn from this assessment for each stage of the methodology. This article concludes with a discussion about the transferability of the methodology and the need to experiment with other methodologies. The final section also draws out the differences and similarities between this and other types of participatory policy research. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The future of the nonprofit sector: Its entwining with private enterprise and government

The nonprofit sector—neither private enterprise nor governmental—is growing rapidly, and not only in the United States. This article explores three questions about the sector, which includes large elements of such service industries as universities, hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers, museums, social services, and organizations promoting medical research, environmental protection, and the arts. These questions are: (a) Why is the nonprofit sector expanding worldwide?; (b) How is the growth of nonprofits affecting other parts of the economy?; and (c) What evidence is there that nonprofits make a difference, that they perform functions which private firms or government cannot perform? A major theme is that the sector's growth necessitates finding ways to increase revenues, and that has brought side effects, particularly as nonprofits have become more and more “commercial.” In the process, borders between the nonprofit and both the for-profit and public sectors are being crossed increasingly, and with consequences that often pose problems.     

传统生命观的诠释与生命教育

生命是人类一切活动或尊严的基石和根本,是构建社会主义和谐社会的前提和基础。只有生命意识深入人心,只有每个人的生命得到珍爱、尊重、敬畏和保障,社会生活才能真正走上和谐。因此,在构建和谐社会的整个过程中,必须加强生命教育,形成珍爱生命、尊重生命、敬畏生命、善待生命的良好社会氛围。