‘Neutral’ experts? How input of scientific expertise matters in international environmental negotiations

This contribution analyses under what conditions expert input is most likely to be regarded by government representatives as useful and how government representatives use input provided by experts. It widens the analytical lens examining multilateral negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between 2009 and 2011. The findings confirm the importance of deep knowledge, long-term involvement in the policy subsystem and networks. This research illustrates the importance of policy-entrepreneurial strategies such as proactively approaching government representatives and volunteering knowledge. Joining government delegations can increase expert input as they may gain access to the negotiation text. It is crucial to provide input early on in the negotiation cycle before the national negotiation position is decided. Scientific consensus on climate change facilitated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in a convergence of the actor’s beliefs towards understanding climate mitigation and adaptation as normative imperative. Actors, however, interpret expert input based on the consensual IPCC findings differently depending on their conflicting political objectives. Thus, instrumental and political use of expert input by the interest groups overlaps in the UNFCCC.     

Ideas and experts: Indonesian approaches to economic and security cooperation in the Asia‐Pacific region

Indonesia has been a key player in various initiatives to promote both economic and security cooperation in the Asia‐Pacific region in recent years. This essay explores the role of policy experts in facilitating these moves. The central argument is that in both policy spheres it is indeed possible to identify networks of policy experts who have been directly and indirectly associated with efforts to strengthen regional cooperation. Although the dearth of primary research into policy‐making processes in Indonesia makes it difficult to weigh the inputs of experts against other likely causal factors, there are reasonable grounds for believing that their contribution has been an important one.     

Can experts judge elections? Testing the validity of expert judgments for measuring election integrity

Expert surveys have been used to measure a wide variety of phenomena in political science, ranging from party positions, to corruption, to the quality of democracy and elections. However, expert judgments raise important validity concerns, both about the object being measured as well as the experts. It is argued in this article that the context of evaluation is also important to consider when assessing the validity of expert surveys. This is even more important for expert surveys with a comprehensive, worldwide scope, such as democracy or corruption indices. This article tests the validity of expert judgments about election integrity – a topic of increasing concern to both the international community and academics. Evaluating expert judgments of election integrity provides an important contribution to the literature evaluating the validity of expert surveys as instruments of measurement as: (1) the object under study is particularly complex to define and multifaceted; and (2) election integrity is measured in widely varying institutional contexts, ranging from electoral autocracies to liberal democracies. Three potential sources of bias are analysed (the object, the experts and the context), using a unique new dataset on election integrity entitled the ‘Perceptions of Electoral Integrity’ dataset. The data include over 800 experts in 66 parliamentary and presidential elections worldwide. It is found that validity of expert judgments about election integrity is increased if experts are asked to provide factual information (rather than evaluative judgments), and if they are asked to evaluate election day (rather than pre‐election) integrity. It is also found that ideologically polarised elections and elections of lower integrity increase expert disagreement about election integrity. The article concludes with suggestions for researchers using the expert survey data on election integrity on how to check the validity of their data and adjust their analyses accordingly, and outlines some remaining challenges for future data collection using expert surveys.     

Pedagogical changes in curricula in higher education in Central Asia： A case study in psychology

This paper has three goals. First, to introduce a major pedagogical transition and discuss the challenges faced during the transition. Second, to provide a specific example of course changes that were required to meet this pedagogical transition and the challenges faced in adoption of new teaching techniques. The third goal of this paper is to provide faculty and universities with useful information to enhance their programs and meet the challenges faced during pedagogical transitions.     

Who Participates in Collective Petitions in Rural China?

This article examines the question of why the risks posed by collective petitioning in China deter some villagers from participating but not others. Based on the statistical analysis of an original dataset and an ethnographic study of one case, this article finds that higher household income is the only significant factor that increases a villager??s probability to participate in collective petitions. Economic security empowers a peasant??s political participation. Contrary to the existing literature, being a demobilized soldier does not significantly increase a villager??s probability to participate in collective petitions. The implication of this finding is that petitioning as a form of ??managed participation?? in Chinese politics may face more and more challenges if the average Chinese household income continues to grow.     

Risk Misallocation in Public–Private Partnership Projects in China

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to compare the preferred and actual risk allocation and then to evaluate the impact of risk misallocation (if any) on project performance. The results show a significantly negative relationship between project performance and risk misallocation. The smaller the degree of risk misallocation was, the more successful the project would be. One group of three risks (including “Corruption,” “Government's intervention,” and “Government's reliability”) and the other group of three risks (including “Approval and permit,” “Immature juristic system,” and “Land acquisition”) were found to contribute considerably to the prediction of project performance. This article provides information on the impact of risk misallocation on project performance in China's public–private partnership (PPP) projects. To enter and perform well in China's PPP market, private firms should pay particular attention to the identified risks.     

Ambassadors in the community? Labour Party members in society

A political party's members are its ambassadors in the wider community. Based on a survey of Labour party members in Nuneaton, this article investigates the extent to which party members qua party members are visible amongst their friends and colleagues. It finds that there are few closet Labour party members. Most are known to friends and (slightly less commonly) colleagues. Party members also articulate a political message, discussing politics with friends and work colleagues. Around half of party members believe that they influence others as a result of their discussions; of those who are asked their opinions by friends, almost three-quarters believe that they influence others. Labour party members in Nuneaton are thus a visible and articulate manifestation of the party. The article ends by considering whether this is likely to be true in other constituencies, for other parties, and at other times.     

Privatization in Kosovo: ‘Liberal Peace’ in Practice

This article examines internationally led privatization in Kosovo as an example of international statebuilding. It concentrates on the period from 1999 to 2008, when privatization was planned and implemented under formal international management. International statebuilding is typically sought justified with the idea of ‘liberal peace’, and this article shows how the tension between the political and economic tenets of the idea of liberal peace manifested itself in Kosovo's internationally led privatization.     

Success in opposition – failure in government: explaining the performance of right-wing populist parties in public office

Drawing on a conceptual distinction between traditional right-wing extremist and right-wing populist parties, this article examines the performance of the latter in public office. The central argument is that the specific populist aspects of such parties allow them to succeed in opposition and to do well at the game of elections. Once in government, their unique strengths turn into disadvantages. Significant structural weaknesses inherent in populist parties pose nearly insurmountable problems that make their long-term success in government questionable. The analysis also shows that the rise of right-wing populism has substantially increased the opportunity structures of conservative parties. Following the theoretical discussion, the article examines the case of the Austrian Freedom Party and draws parallels with the Italian and Dutch cases.     

Reformation in Islam?

Large segments of the Muslim world are experiencing a radical return to ancient doctrine, not a reformation. Unlike Christianity with a separation of legal structures from religious dogma, many groups within the Islamic world are moving toward the imposition of severe Islamic law (Sharia) while theology as understood in the West is blocked. Simultaneously the issuance of Islamic religious injunctions (fatwas) is becoming more arbitary and unregulated.

Integration period of e-learning in universities： A survey in Turkey

E-learning is an important subject for successful university education. It is known that during the integration period of e-learning, universities face difficulties and trade-offs that will discourage their adoption. This study concentrates on e-learning with benefits and problems faced throughout the integration period by stakeholders and finally the university as a new education program method. The study aims to look at the factors which affect the integration period of e-learning programs and measure the drivers that affect the adoption process The research method is based on quantitative analysis which generally searches information about the factors＇ effectiveness related to the integration level of e-learning. During the empirical analysis, factors are categorized and measured according to their effectiveness, and then questionnaire study has examined the factors＇ effectiveness related to the adoption success of e-learning by using statistical analysis methods. The information about the factors that is effective for e-learning integration provides considerable educational framework for universities, instructors, students and also for information technology experts and other decision makers that manage the electronic environment for e-learning.     

Lessons in disguise: multivariate predictive mistakes in?collective choice models

Many political processes can be characterized as repeated collective decisions, in which individual choices rendered by the same actors are combined to produce salient outcomes (e.g., voting in legislatures). The inherent interdependence among the choices within repeated collective decisions is often missed in statistical analysis. I introduce the joint prediction error (JPE)—a?grouping of individual decisions that is poorly predicted by a model. JPEs capture the intersecting information missed by conventional diagnostics. I?demonstrate the use of JPEs on data from two published articles—one on U.S. Supreme Court voting and another on international defense alliances.     

Washington’s Cold War Diplomacy in Italy in the 1970s

This article examines Washington’s cold war diplomacy in Italy as a case study of policy making. Italy caused concerns to US leaders throughout the cold war because of its strong and dynamic communist party (PCI). Worries became even more acute in the 1970s after the PCI spelled out its “historic compromise” strategy whose objective was to propel the communists into cabinet positions within a broad coalition government. How did the White House, Foggy Bottom, the Rome embassy, the CIA and Congress view such a development and who got the final word? How strong were domestic factors? This paper tries to analyze the differences in opinions and their influence in policy making.     

Adapting to Europe? Regional MPs' Involvement in EU Affairs in Germany

The Lisbon Treaty has led to an expansion of the rights of parliaments in scrutinizing EU decision making, including—for the first time—also regional parliaments. Yet, theoretically informed empirical work on how regional legislatures adapt to the increasing relevance of the EU for subnational jurisdictions remains scarce. Drawing on data from an original survey of 251 MPs, conducted in seven German Länder in 2011, we explore regional MPs' involvement in EU affairs. We find strong variation among MPs' level of EU involvement. Exploring different sets of explanations, we show that individual-level factors—the perceived salience of the EU and MPs' perceived influence in EU matters—hold the highest explanatory power.     

A revolution in Whitehall? Changes in British central government since 1979

Since the Conservatives came to power in 1979 there have been important changes in British central government which have their intellectual origins in managerialist thinking of the 1960s, but owe their recent implementation to the commitment of the Prime Minister to reform the civil service along lines advocated by ‘new right’ or ‘public choice’ theorists. While most institutional reforms of departments were for political reasons, changes in the processes of the civil service can be seen as an extension of developments beginning with the Rayner Scrutinies, and moving through the Financial Management Initiative and the Efficiency Strategy to Executive Agencies. The British unified civil service is challenged by pressures for fragmentation, but limits to the changes are set by the dominance of the concepts of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, parliamentary audit, and of Treasury control.