Giving the People What They Want? The Distribution of Earmarks in the U.S. House of Representatives

The common wisdom in journalistic accounts of earmarking is that Congress distributes earmarks on a purely political basis, without any consideration for the demand for federal spending. Academic accounts similarly argue that factors internal to Congress are preeminent in determining where earmarks go, even more than for other types of pork‐barrel spending. Using earmarks appearing in the fiscal year 2008 Appropriations bills, I search for both chamber‐based and demand‐side determinants of the distribution of earmarks. I find that both types of factors are significantly related to the number of earmarks that a House member receives. This result indicates that even while earmarking, members of Congress are at least minimally responsive to voter preferences and calls into question whether earmarks should be treated as an outlier within the universe of spending allocation mechanisms.     

Explaining variation in the competitiveness of U.S. Senate elections, 1922–2004

We develop and test predictions about the factors determining the competitiveness of elections to the U.S. Senate. To do so, we deliberately abstract away from candidate-specific conditions that have often been used to study political competitiveness in order to focus on basic structural features of the electoral landscape. In our framework, party-specific constraints on the ideological positioning of local candidates, linked to the national party organization and its contributors, interact with the heterogeneity of state electorates to determine the number of highly competitive Senate contests. Three hypotheses emerge from this model: (1) the greater the diversity of a party’s national legislative delegation, the more highly competitive Senate elections we will observe; (2) states in which the ideological heterogeneity of the electorate is relatively high will exhibit a greater number of highly competitive elections; and (3) highly competitive Senate contests will be more common in states with closed primaries than in states with open primaries. We provide strong evidence in support of the first two hypotheses and some evidence in support of the third.     

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission: What Role in the Administration of Elections?

What role in the administration of elections will the new U.S.Election Assistance Commission (EAC) play, and how does thatrole differ from past federal involvement? The answers are uncertainbecause delays in appointing the commission members and insufficientfunding severely handicapped early activities. This articleexamines the factors that influence the EAC's emerging role:the commission's background, structure, tasks and tools, start-upactivities, and recent issues. Because the principal impactof the EAC is indirect, affecting election administration throughthe states, we draw on the "tools of government" literatureto frame the discussion. Although the Help America Vote Actof 2002, which created the EAC, continues a long line of federalregulatory mandates in the elections arena, the EAC has almostno regulatory authority. Its principal tools are grants andinformation—instruments of cooperative, rather than coercive,federalism. Given that the major grant programs are ending,the EAC's long-term contribution will likely be to create anddisseminate information.     

The afterlife of modernity in the politics of the postmodern∗

Abstract

Though poststructuralist and postmodern critiques provide a powerful tool for deconstructing contemporary power relations, when they are overextended, they lose their subversive edge and actually begin to serve the development of new forms of social domination. Taken as an example, Baudrillard's theory of postmodern society reflects this very tendency. While on the surface Baudrillard has abandoned the hierarchies of modernity upon which order and domination have depended, his critique reintroduces its own countersubversive hierarchy upon which a postmodern order depends. As parts of a postmodern conceptual framework, these hierarchies serve to expand the system of domination manufactured in contemporary communications industries and to undermine resistance through the production of simulated social and political realities.     

Do vehicle recalls reduce the number of accidents? The case of the U.S. car market

The number of automobile recalls in the U.S. has increased sharply in the last two decades, and the numbers of units involved are often counted in the millions. In 2010 alone, over 20 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, and the massive recalls of full model lines by Toyota have brought this issue to the front pages around the country and the world. However, there is no quantitative evidence of the effect of recalls on safety. Without that evidence, the government and insurance companies have been reluctant to request and use more detailed recall information to increase correction rates, and regulators have not studied the possible link between the growing number of recalls and the risk of life for consumers. In this paper we empirically quantify the effect of vehicle recalls on safety using repeated cross‐sections on accidents of individual drivers and aggregate vehicle recall data to construct synthetic panel data on individual drivers of a particular vehicle model. We estimate the effect of recalls on the number of accidents and find that a 10 percent increase in the recall rate of a particular model reduces the accidents of that model by between 0.78 percent and 1.6 percent when using the full sample of accidents in our data. We also find that recalls classified as “hazardous” are more effective in reducing accidents, and the recall effect is especially strong when we restrict attention to accidents that lead to personal injuries and only include vehicles more likely to be at fault for the accident, but much less so for accidents that only lead to property damage. We also find that vehicle models with recalls with higher correction rates have on average fewer accidents in the years following a recall, which indicates the importance of the role of drivers' behavior regarding recalls on safety. Our findings suggest that policymakers should consider, for example, policies to allow insurance companies to take into account recall correction behavior when pricing auto insurance, which could be made possible through regulatory changes by the U.S. government, and should revisit the complex trade‐offs between pre‐ and post‐market regulation in this important industry. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Magnitude and durability of electoral change: Identifying critical elections in the U.S. Congress 1854–2010

The two hallmarks of a critical election and, hence, of a critical realignment are the magnitude of the observed change and the durability of that change. In addition to offering a new approach to measuring durable change in national party dominance, and providing a non-parametric criterion to identify unusual changes in seat/vote shares, we provide fresh insights via a unifying statistical approach that reflects both of these factors simultaneously. Furthermore, we assess the robustness of critical election determinations in two ways. First, we compare the magnitude of inter-election shifts with both average volatility over the entire time period and volatility relative to a particular time period. Second, as an alternative to the usual perspective, we consider critical elections not as a one-time cataclysm, but rather as a pair (or perhaps even triple) of consecutive substantial shifts, generated by the same underlying factors. Overall, we distinguish six elections that marginally or provisionally meet our criteria to be critical elections. But focusing on pairs of elections, 1858–60 and 1930–32 stand out as critical among all elections since the 1850s.     

The Dilemmas of China’s Political Science in the Context of the Rise of China

The rise of China has changed the global balance of power, which could also have an impact on the international development of political science scholarship. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the impact of China’s rise on the development of political science within China. This article examines how the rise of China has posed serious challenges to political studies in China. It addresses critical issues concerning the contemporary features and strategic direction of the discipline. It first analyzes three different meanings of what constitutes China’s political studies and discusses three different intellectual production models. It then highlights the dilemmas that political science faces in China, and exposes problems of and obstacles to its development, such as an unwarranted sense of pride, the bureaucratization of the scholarly community, and, critically, the absence of democracy and academic freedom. The paper examines and engages several ongoing debates on China’s political studies. In responding to the debate over whether it is desirable for Chinese political studies to move towards scientification, this paper presents four arguments for a balance between science and the humanities and outlines four strategies for achieving this balance. It also examines the debate on the localization of Chinese political studies and the doctrine of China’s uniqueness; and points out that the rise of China requires Chinese political studies to be cosmopolitan, global and universal, but the current regime is interested in reproducing the discourse of China’s uniqueness to maintain its political legitimacy.     

Comment on Elvin K. Wyly and Daniel J. Hammel's “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification”

Abstract

Gentrification ought to be examined, for policy purposes, as part of a general restructuring of the space of cities resulting from broader changes in the nature, location, control, and effects of economic processes. However, even if it is narrowly seen as simply residential change, as in the article by Wyly and Hammel, the displacement of poor households by an upper‐income gentry ought not be confused with the effort to mix moderate with low incomes in public housing through the best of HOPE VI.

Despite this confusion, Wyly and Hammel provide some interesting data showing the extent to which investment in inner‐city areas has accelerated in recent years, paralleling changes in financial arrangements and contradicting any notion that degentrification is a continuous, long‐term process. Their data, although short on demographic detail, also implicitly highlight the role of government in pushing the market to respond rationally to economic demand and the continuing danger that gentrification will displace African‐American families.     

NGO Interventions in the Post-conflict Memoryscape. The Effect of Competing ‘Mnemonic Role Attributions’ on Reconciliation in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are a constituent part of post-conflict Transitional Justice interventions and as such their projects shape but are also constrained by various narratives about the past. This article introduces the concept of mnemonic role attributions defined as the sum of how actors, their roles, their responsibility and their suffering are categorised as they are remembered regarding a certain period of time. The article analyses how different mnemonic role attributions that are propagated during interventions by Transitional Justice experts in civil society influence the potential for reconciliation in post-conflict Cambodia.     

Determinants of the probability and timing of commercial casino legalization in the United States

The adoption of lotteries by state governments has received significant attention in the economics literature, but the issue of casino adoption has been neglected by researchers. Casino gambling is a relatively new industry in the United States, outside Nevada and New Jersey. As of 2007, 11 states had established commercial casinos; several more states are considering legalization. We analyze the factors that determine a state’s decision to legalize commercial casinos, using data from 1985 to 2000, a period which covers the majority of states that have adopted commercial casinos. We use a tobit model to examine states’ fiscal conditions, political alignments, intrastate and interstate competitive environments, and demographic characteristics, which yields information on the probability and timing of adoptions. The results suggest a public choice explanation that casino legalization is due to state fiscal stress, to efforts to keep gambling revenues (and the concomitant gambling taxes) within the state, and to attract tourism or “export taxes.”     

A genealogy of corporate governmentality in the realm of the ‘merchant-king’: the Netherlands Trading Company and the management of Dutch paupers

Abstract

The emergence of the modern corporation occurs at the same time as that of the modern state and liberal governmentality, although its role in the development of ‘bio-power’ has not been carefully examined. This article examines the royal use of corporations to manage the poor through work creation schemes and hence effect a capitalist transformation of the eastern Netherlands; specifically, the creation of the Dutch textile industry. These work creation schemes drew on the cameralistic ‘police sciences’ that Foucault cites in his genealogy of bio-power. This article traces the means by which cameralistic disciplinary techniques for the control of paupers were adopted by entrepreneurs who replaced Willem I, the ‘merchant-king’ as the ‘visible hand of the market’. It highlights the origins of managerialism in ‘social’ not ‘political economy’.     

The groupuscularization of neo-Nazism in Germany: the case of the Aktionsbüro Norddeutschland

Since the beginning of the 1990s, in the aftermath of a series of brutal attacks on foreigners and asylum-seekers, seventeen neo-Nazi organizations have been banned in Germany. In addition, public events such as the yearly marches in honour of Rudolf Hess have been prohibited. It is for this reason that some members of the neo-Nazi movement have turned to the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany), which, under a new leadership, has opened its ranks to neo-Nazi skinheads. Another part of the violent far right has developed new organizational modes of operation, without central, rigid or formal structures. Small, locally based groups—the so-called freie Kameradschaften (free fellowships) have been set up and are operating mainly at a local or regional level. Co-operation between them is ­guaranteed by regular meetings and by longstanding contacts between their leaders. If the freie Kameradschaften are analysed as a social movement, one can identify numerous groupuscules within the German neo-Nazi scene that contribute, each in its own specific way, to its continuity, development and diversification. One of the more relevant of these groupuscules is the Aktionsbüro Norddeutschland (Northern Germany Action Bureau), whose ideology is openly neo-Nazi. Its main field of activity is its Internet website, from which it appeals to its supporters to take part in neo-Nazi demonstrations and virtually organized campaigns.     

Gorillas in the closet? Public and private actors in the enforcement of transnational private regulation

This paper examines to what extent the background presence of state regulatory capacity – at times referred to as the “regulatory gorilla in the closet” – is a necessary precondition for the effective enforcement of transnational private regulation. By drawing on regulatory regimes in the areas of advertising and food safety, it identifies conditions under which (the potential of) public regulatory intervention can bolster the capacity of private actors to enforce transnational private regulation. These involve the overlap between norms, objectives, and interests of public and private regulation; the institutional design of regulatory enforcement; compliance with due process standards; and information management and data sharing. The paper argues that while public intervention remains important for the effective enforcement of transnational private regulation, governmental actors – both national and international – should create the necessary preconditions to strengthen private regulatory enforcement, as it can also enhance their own regulatory capacity, in particular, in transnational contexts.     

In the Eye of the Beholder? Motivated Reasoning in Disputed Elections

This study uses an experimental design to simulate the ballot counting process during a hand-recount after a disputed election. Applying psychological theories of motivated reasoning to the political process, we find that ballot counters’ party identification conditionally influences their ballot counting decisions. Party identification’s effect on motivated reasoning is greater when ballot counters are given ambiguous, versus specific, instructions for determining voter intent. This study’s findings have major implications for ballot counting procedures throughout the United States and for the use of motivated reasoning in the political science literature.     

The Good of Banality? The Emergence of Cost—Benefit Analysis and Proportionality in the Treatment of Aliens in the US and Germany

In this essay, I argue that the gap between 'citizen' and 'alien' has been shrinking in both American and German law. Despite the recent hostility toward immigrants and aliens in both countries, the longer-term tendency has been to grant aliens greater rights. In part this is because the courts have moved to a more functionalist and prosaic perspective and away from grand theories of citizenship and rights. In part, however, this development also points to the reduction of solidarity within these societies and the decline in the power and viability of citizenship as a political and socioeconomic category. The result has been a gain in 'recognition' but at the expense of 'redistributive' politics.     

Stakeholder citizenship: the complexities of Polish migrants’ citizenship attachments in the context of the Scottish independence referendum

This article focuses on the experiences of Scotland’s largest foreign-born minority group, namely Poles, in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. We draw on 20 in-depth interviews to explore our participants’ intentions and justifications for voting (or not) in the referendum. We found that our participants tended to emphasise the jus domicili principle when justifying their eligibility to vote in the referendum. However, our participants extended the jus domicili principle in their justifications to also include the intention to stay in Scotland as a central aspect of their continuing stake in (and right to vote in the referendum to determine) Scotland’s future. Through exploring our participants’ justifications for voting in the referendum, we were able to examine and better understand how migrants constitute their citizenship through articulating their substantive attachments (social, economic and relational or familial) in their adoptive country and in their country of origin.