Politische Kommunikation, Priming und Wahlverhalten

This study examines Cho’s (2005) argument of priming-effects of political communication on the electorate choice. Hypotheses about the priming-effects of public and private television, of tabloids and mainstream newspapers as well as interpersonal communication in strong and weak community networks are deduced. The empirical analysis of the German Federal State Election 2005 reveals a priming-pattern that gains plausibility when discussing the election campaign and theoretical assumptions regarding human information processing.     

Ethnography of a policy process: a case study of land redistribution in Bangladesh

Throughout the developing world, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are involved in various aspects of an increasing number of policy interventions. The donor community has lent considerable support to this strategy. One of the key assumptions behind the strategy is that the greater involvement of NGOs in policy processes will result in more resources being distributed to the poor, and will also facilitate the establishment of a policy process which is more inclusive and egalitarian. Here the involvement of NGOs in an important land redistribution policy initiative is used to examine both these assumptions. While there is strong evidence that more land was redistributed to the poor as a result of NGO involvement, the actual mechanism or process for deciding the distribution of land was not found to be all inclusive or completely egalitarian. This ambivalence serves as a timely critique to the naive optimism and simplified assumptions underpinning development thinking and practice. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Domestic migrants' responsiveness to electoral mobilization under authoritarianism: Evidence from China's grassroots elections

This study examines citizens' responsiveness to electoral mobilization under authoritarianism by studying the turnout of domestic migrants in China's grassroots elections. While a large literature on authoritarian elections has focused on coercion and material benefits as tactics dictators often use to promote turnout, we argue that social pressure from the community and its leaders plays a crucial role in mobilizing authoritarian constituents. Employing data from the China Labor Dynamics Survey (2012), we show that migrants who share traits with local residents, such as dialect, are more likely to be mobilized to vote, because they are more responsive to local cadres' mobilization efforts and feel more connected to the community. Conversely, we find no support for an explanation rooted in channels of communication. We confirm the findings using an instrumental variable approach. Our findings imply that street-level mobilization for authoritarian elections takes advantage of various social factors in more subtle and embedded ways than is typically assumed.     

Means of support,fertility, and social reproduction among peasants: three approaches

This article examines interpretations regarding the relationship between means of support and fertility, taking into account views on social reproduction among peasants, with emphasis on the way they are expressed in terms of indicators. The author begins with a brief summary of theories put forth by Malthus, and then examines Neo-Malthusian models which use as an independent variable, the amount of land and as a dependent variable, the number of children. He notes the existence of a positive ratio between these variables, and then demonstrates that in Chayanov's model, the number of children is used as an independent variable, while the idea of a positive ratio with the amount of land is still maintained. He compares these assumptions with those of Palerm, who suggests the existence of an inverse ratio between the amount of land available and fertility; this leads to policy implications contrary to those arising from neo-Malthusian models. The paper ends with a discussion of assumptions about the rationality, motivations, and guiding values the different approaches attribute to economic and demographic behavior among peasants.     

The adult worker model family,gender equality and care: the search for new policy principles and the possibilities and problems of a capabilities approach

There is evidence that policy-makers in most Western welfare states are moving towards a new set of assumptions about the contributions that men and women make to families, based on an adult worker model. This paper first examines this shift in policy assumptions at the EU level and goes on to argue that there are real limits to the pursuit of a full adult worker model based on the commodification of care. In respect of gender equality, this in turn raises the issue of the terms and conditions on which such a shift in policy assumptions are made, particularly about the valuing and sharing of the unpaid work of care. The final part of the paper examines the possibilities offered by the capabilities approach of addressing these issues.     

Enacting citizenship in a post-disaster situation: the response to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

This paper examines the domestic response to the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March 2011. The demand to (re)build a new ‘community’ in Japan was triggered by the fatal destruction of towns by the earthquake and the tsunami, and the uncertain future of these towns – and of Japan – due to the subsequent prolonged crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Drawing on the political theory of Jean-Luc Nancy, the paper examines what kinds of communities were realised in the aftermath of the disaster. It argues that two distinctively different types of communities emerged. The first type of community was based on the inside/outside logic, whereby Japan was imagined as one unified entity surrounded by a boundary which separated the safe inside from the dangerous outside. The second type of community was based on sharing. Immigrants in Japan identified themselves with the survivors since both of them shared the experience of losing home and the same home (called Japan). In this way, the immigrants challenged the idea of community as one unified entity and realised a new form of community.     

Lacan et la philosophie

This review article examines certain of the assumptions that inform Juranville's philosophical reading of Lacan and demonstrates that, whilst his foregrounding of phenomenology is an important contribution to Lacanian studies in that it suggests that Lacan's reference to linguistics may have been overstated and that it is more productive to read his work as a more general reflection on language and signification, it depends ultimately upon the unfounded assumption that Lacan's discourse is a system to be read purely in terms of its self-development or synchrony. It is further argued that Lacan's relationship with philosophy is more ambiguous than the author suggests and that Juranville's vision of the philosophical field requires a certain problematization     

STRENGTHENING THE REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY DESIGN USING ADDITIONAL DESIGN ELEMENTS: A WITHIN‐STUDY COMPARISON

The sharp regression discontinuity design (RDD) has three key weaknesses compared to the randomized clinical trial (RCT). It has lower statistical power, it is more dependent on statistical modeling assumptions, and its treatment effect estimates are limited to the narrow subpopulation of cases immediately around the cutoff, which is rarely of direct scientific or policy interest. This paper examines how adding an untreated comparison to the basic RDD structure can mitigate these three problems. In the example we present, pretest observations on the posttest outcome measure are used to form a comparison RDD function. To assess its performance as a supplement to the basic RDD, we designed a within‐study comparison that compares causal estimates and their standard errors for (1) the basic posttest‐only RDD, (2) a pretest‐supplemented RDD, and (3) an RCT chosen to serve as the causal benchmark. The two RDD designs are constructed from the RCT, and all analyses are replicated with three different assignment cutoffs in three American states. The results show that adding the pretest makes functional form assumptions more transparent. It also produces causal estimates that are more precise than in the posttest‐only RDD, but that are nonetheless larger than in the RCT. Neither RDD version shows much bias at the cutoff, and the pretest‐supplemented RDD produces causal effects in the region beyond the cutoff that are very similar to the RCT estimates for that same region. Thus, the pretest‐supplemented RDD improves on the standard RDD in multiple ways that bring causal estimates and their standard errors closer to those of an RCT, not just at the cutoff, but also away from it.     

To the beat of a different drummer: Ideological nonconformity and issue scales

This study examines and tests assumptions about the dimensionality of issue scales commonly used in attitude research. Researchers assume that a respondent designation of his or her position on an issue represents an ideal point on a single-peaked preference scale. However, in comparing actual respondent preference orderings with the liberal-conservative ordering assumed by the scale, it is found that many respondents do not conform to the assumption. Furthermore, in a sample of relatively well-educated respondents, those who do not conform to the dominant scaling dimension are found to be as interested in politics, as efficacious, and as predictable in their voting as those who do conform. However, nonconformists do appear to be somewhat more internally directed and more dogmatic than conformist respondents.     

John Macmurray and the'Forgotten'Lessons on Capitalism and Community

Tony Blair has made no secret of his admiration for the philosophical works of John Macmurray. This article shows that Blair recognises Macmurray's contribution to the understanding of the individual in society. Blair readily acknowledges Macmurray's overriding desire for philosophy to place individuals in their rightful social setting. Yet Blair views this philosophical shift as a reinforcement of modern notions of community that emphasise an obligation to others as well as to oneself. It is my contention that this may be a misreading of the specifics that lay behind the works of Macmurray. By implication, this error in understanding could have led New Labour to pursue a social policy direction that contradicts Macmurray's visions of capitalism and its effects upon human agency, behaviour, rationality and morality. Consequently, this article examines the works of Macmurray in an attempt to show that Tony Blair and New Labour are in danger of making false assumptions on how to revive a contemporary sense of community through the bedrock of a traditional family unit supported by the model of the 'rational economic man'.     

Tourism: A Facilitator of Social Awareness in an Indigenous Mexican Community?

As Latin American economies and cultures become increasingly tied to a global political, economic, and social order, indigenous and other marginalized people find themselves at a crossroads where their cultural survival is challenged. Tourism is one important aspect of this new economic order and it is often one of the few resources remaining in countries such as Mexico whose economy has been tied more directly to interests of dominating leaders contributing to this new world order. And while many observers note that tourism often has an exploitative impact on indigenous and marginalized people, this article examines the contradictions in tourism, identifying those economic spaces where the indigenous people have been successful in renegotiating their position with the dominant mestizo group in their community. This article offers provocative insights about the impact of tourism on indigenous people in a community in the northern mountains (Sierra Norte) in Puebla, México. It examines the potential contradictions in tourism under the economic conditions of neoliberalism.     

Adjusting to New Ways of Working: Experiments with Service Delivery in the Public Sector

In response to the perceived failure of both the state and market models of service delivery, governments have embarked on a reform program that draws on the community sector to expand the suite of available policy and service delivery arrangements. This paper explores and identifies the nature of changed relationships between government and the community sector. It uses a case study that examines the operation of a new type of community organisation, and analyses the affectivity and outcomes from the experience of a community based networked arrangement. Although there is evidence of a shift to more relationship‐ oriented models of operation because of either mandate or preference both community and government sectors have found it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to these new ways of working. Community has begun the shift to this new relational approach but finds it difficult to sustain the momentum and tends to revert to more independent and competitive modes. Governments find it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to power‐sharing and resource allocation and continue to operate as ‘business as usual’ through the traditional bureaucratic authority of command and control. In this way, the rhetoric of collaboration and partnership between government and the community sector is not necessarily matched by policy and action supporting the practice of ‘new ways of working’ although these ‘experiments in service delivery’ have opened the way for adopting more innovative and effective approaches to service delivery.     

Bureaucratic Posture: On the Need for a Composite Theory of Bureaucratic Behavior

This article examines the underlying assumptions and main findings of four streams of research on bureaucratic postures. It explores the utility of each school of thought for understanding how perspectives on bureaucratic postures are associated with the advancement of the public interest and bureaucratic performance. A main conclusion is that, although limited in scope of application, each stream has merit. Nonetheless, the existing research is too narrow: The field needs to consider a more complex model of bureaucratic behavior that draws from these four fields to offer a framework that is widely applicable to the range of motives for work found in the public bureaucracy and the variety of behaviors that individuals exhibit. Some attributes that may characterize such a model are sketched out.     

Crossing the Organizational Void: The Limits of Agency Theory in the Analysis of Regulatory Control

This article critically examines the key assumptions of the positive theory of political control. The authors argue that the key assumptions of the theory are flawed and that these flaws seriously limit the importance of much research in the field of regulatory studies. The authors develop a set of new assumptions which would reorient the regulatory studies and force researchers to give greater attention to the role of the bureaucracy in political-bureaucratic relations.     

A Community Leadership Initiative for Scotland?

The Scottish Executive intends to introduce a statutory power of community initiative and of community planning in the forthcoming Local Government Bill. Community planning is developing as an important aspect of local governance in Scotland. It is viewed as a way for councils at the local level to work together with the community, voluntary and private sectors to develop and deliver an agreed joint vision for their communities. This article examines the nature of the community planning concept in Scotland and considers the lessons arising from experience to date. It addresses the tensions in community planning arising from its dual function of bringing some order to the fragmented institutional arrangements for service delivery and providing a strategic, integrated framework for the management of change.