Parties’ issue strategies on the drawing board: the 2017 Austrian case

Abstract

Parties may rely on different issue agendas when tailoring their electoral campaigns in an attempt to win elections. This paper compares two key party issue strategies to examine which one the victorious Austrian Peoples’ Party (ÖVP) relied on the most during the 2017 Austrian election campaign vis-à-vis its main competitors. These two key party strategies are the ‘riding-the-wave’ model, which posits that parties focus on issues that currently concern voters the most and the recent ‘issue-yield model’, which instead suggests that parties adopt strategic behaviour targeting all those issues with genuine opportunities for electoral expansion. It is found that, compared to the other main parties in the 2017 Austrian election campaign, the ÖVP was the one most clearly relying on the issue-yield approach. These results have important implications for our understanding of electoral campaigns, party’s exploitation of issue strategies, and voter representation beyond the Austrian case.     

Nuclear DNA typing from ancient teeth

Because of the adverse effects that diagenesis exert on ancient skeletal remains, DNA from these samples is often compromised to the point where genetic typing can be challenging. Nevertheless, robust and reliable methods are currently available to allow successful genotyping of ancient specimens. Here we report nuclear DNA-based methods and typing strategies used to analyze 2 human skeletons from a medieval burial. Reliable DNA nuclear profiles were obtained from teeth, whereas mitochondrial DNA analyses in bones were inconclusive. A complete nuclear mini short tandem repeat profile was obtained from a well-preserved premolar, but only a partial one from the femur. Increasing the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction system allowed a full profile from the latter, but the presence of artifacts reinforced the idea that the interpretation of this kind of analysis must be performed with caution. The results presented here also indicate that DNA from dental pieces can be better preserved than from bones, even in the case of well-preserved long bones with thick cortical tissue such as the femurs, and have a better chance of successful genetic typing, probably because of the high degree of protection conferred to the DNA by the enamel.     

Agricultural research organisations’ role in the emergence of agricultural innovation systems

Poor farmers seldom benefit from new agricultural technologies. In response, research and extension approaches based on agricultural innovation systems are popular. Often agricultural research organisations are the network brokers, facilitating the emergence of the innovation system. Based on an analysis of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Mexico, this viewpoint suggests that such organisations are more often suitable network brokers when the objective is the development and scaling out of a technology by itself. When the objectives are multi-faceted and include extension and education, other actors are better placed to be the network broker.     

Central Bank Independence in the World: A New Data Set

This article introduces the most comprehensive dataset on de jure central bank independence (CBI), including yearly data from 182 countries between 1970 and 2012. The dataset identifies statutory reforms affecting CBI, their direction, and the attributes necessary to build the Cukierman, Webb and Neyapty index. Previous datasets focused on developed countries, and included non-representative samples of developing countries. This dataset’s substantially broader coverage has important implications. First, it challenges the conventional wisdom about central bank reforms in the world, revealing CBI increases and restrictions in decades and regions previously considered barely affected by reforms. Second, the inclusion of almost 100 countries usually overlooked in previous studies suggests that the sample selection may have substantially affected results. Simple analyses show that the associations between CBI and inflation, unemployment or growth are very sensitive to sample selection. Finally, the dataset identifies numerous CBI decreases (restrictions), whereas previous datasets mostly look at CBI increases. These data’s coverage not only allows researchers to test competing explanations of the determinants and effects of CBI in a global sample, but it also provides a useful instrument for cross-national studies in diverse fields, such as liberalization, diffusion, political institutions, democratization, or responses to financial crises.     

Regulatory lags,liberalization, and vulnerability to banking crises

This article explores the effect of delays in updating prudential regulation on the likelihood of a country experiencing banking crises, and it disentangles the impact of different aspects of regulation on crisis onset. I argue that delays in revision to banks' prudential regulation allow banks to adopt risky behavior, which increases a country's vulnerability to systemic banking crises. This effect, however, is conditional on the level of liberalization of the financial market. At lower levels of liberalization, banks have stronger incentives to escape the constraints of regulation and to take advantage of regulatory lags. At high levels of liberalization, the effect of regulatory lags is curbed, possibly by market discipline. Statistical analyses on a sample of developed and developing countries from 1974–2005 support this argument and help rule out the competing learning hypothesis. These results suggest that the effects of institutions can vary with the passage of time.     

Primary breast lymphoma with sudden death

Primary breast lymphoma is a rare form of extranodal lymphoma. B cells constitute the most common type involving the breast. T cells represents only 3%. Even though lymphomas have a high predilection to metastasize to the heart, there are no specific clinical or radiological findings, and most of the cases are diagnosed at autopsy. We discuss the case of a 49-year-old woman with primary breast lymphoma who presented with sudden death. Autopsy revealed a primary T-cell lymphoma of the breast with tumoral infiltration of the atrioventricular node and transmural myocardial permeation with focal necrosis.     

Complete Cardiac Rupture Associated with Closed Chest Cardiac Massage: Case Report and Review of the Literature

Chest skeletal injuries are the most frequent complications of external chest massage (ECM) during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but heart and great vessels lacerations that are indeed very rare. We report the case of a 35‐year‐old workman who collapsed and underwent ECM by his co‐workers for almost 30 min. At autopsy, no external injuries, fractures or bruises of the ribs or sternum, were observed. A hemopericardium with a rupture of the heart was found, with no signs of pre‐existent cardiac disease. Bruises of thoracic aortic wall, lung petechiae, a contusion of the liver, and bruises of lumbar muscles were found. The cause of death was due to sudden cardiac death with an extensive cardiac rupture. This is an unusual report of massive heart damage without any skeletal or muscle chest injuries, secondary to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This kind of cardiac lesions may be considered when thoracic–abdominal trauma, or medical history, is unclear.     

Education Policy and Philanthropy—The Changing Landscape of English Educational Governance

This article explores some hitherto neglected but nonetheless important aspects of the changing landscape of education policy and governance in England. It sketches some particular features of the increasingly complex and “congested” terrain of the education state and traces some of the primary discourses that currently inform and drive education policy (and, indeed, social policy more generally) both in relation to governance and substance. The article draws on an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC–-funded study (RES–000–22–2682), “Philanthropy and Education Policy.” This research involved three sets of activities; extensive and exhaustive Internet searches around particular (corporate) philanthropies, philanthropists, and philanthropically funded programs; interviews with some key “new” philanthropists and foundations interested and involved in education; and the use of these searches and interviews to construct “policy networks.” Together these constitute a “method” of “network ethnography.”