Adjusting policy implementation frameworks for non‐pluralist conditions: A case study of Ukraine's single tax for small business

Traditional frameworks for assessing policy implementation have been developed almost exclusively in the context of market‐based, pluralist democracies. This research explores policy processes in more diverse contexts, testing the applicability of existing implementation measurement models in the socio‐political context of a post‐Soviet country. Fieldwork conducted in Ukraine examines the factors affecting implementation of the Simplified Single Tax policy and considers the impact of formal and informal institutions on policy processes and small business conditions. Results include an expanded model for assessing policy implementation in non‐pluralist conditions, an original contribution to the fields of policy, small business, and development studies. The research further contributes to the literature concerning policy transfer, policy advocacy, and tax reform in developing nations. For theoreticians, this research may inform design considerations when conducting policy research outside of a pluralist democracy. For practitioners, it may inform efforts to mitigate implementation obstacles in diverse socio‐political contexts.     

What role for trade in food sovereignty? Insights from a small island archipelago

The food sovereignty movement has been gathering momentum in advocating the rights of individuals and nations to control their own food systems. Alongside this is a mounting critical engagement regarding its privileging of local food production as the means through which to achieve this goal. Adopting a place-based approach, we explore the foodways of diverse communities across a small island archipelago – the Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies. Based on interviews and focus groups, we unpack narratives relating to islanders’ changing food practices and aspirations. These are understood as two competing but inter-related themes of disruption and reification of current practices shaped by wider food regimes in interaction with ecological challenges. Given that conditions of historic dependency implicate the islands in a myriad of dependent trade relationships, we argue that small island economies offer, and require, unique cases for understanding how sovereign conditions for trade might be developed in line with a food sovereignty framework. We underline the importance of an inter-disciplinary focus for bringing forth a nuanced understanding of what might be required to shape more sustainable, sovereign and secure food futures. Doing so is necessarily rooted in an appreciation of islanders’ accounts of social, economic, political and ecological change over time.     

Rethinking dependency and development between international and indigenous non-governmental organisations

This article presents a case study detailing how the Netherlands-based international NGO Terre Des Hommes (TDH) works with and impacts the indigenous Tanzanian NGO Umoja wa Maendeleo ya Bukwaya (UMABU) and the Bukwaya region that UMABU serves. The article illustrates how indigenous agency and autonomy are actualised within relationships where indigenous over-reliance and dependency are connected to Western aid organisations. The paper proposes that dependent relationships between Southern and Northern NGO partners can be negotiated by indigenous leaders in order to disseminate resources for development in indigenous communities to a greater extent than previously imagined by Western donor agencies.     

Socio‐economic differentiation and relations of production among rural‐based petty producers in central Peru, 1880 to 1970.

In an attempt to uncover the complexity of socio‐economic differentiation, detailed evidence is presented of the changing production relations among the Huasicanchinos of Central Peru over a period of ninety years.

It is argued that the process of differentiation can only be understood within the context of a quite specific system of production. An examination of the specificity of the relations of production in a particular period then reveals the complexity of this differentiation process and exposes some of the difficulties involved in a class analysis where capitalist relations have not been generalised throughout the social formation.

The study of this group of Central Peruvian petty producers over ninety years reveals that the differentiation process was a function of specific features of the relations of production in each of three periods; these relations were themselves emergent from the articulation of huasicanchino petty production with the changing form of dominant capitalism in Peru. As a function of differing relations to large capital, petty production units took on a variety of forms. Qualitative differences in the form of small production units in one period then gave rise to quantitative differences in control over resources in a subsequent period. Quantitative differences were in turn expressed in variations in relations of production between controllers and direct producers, and so on.

It is concluded that assumptions about inevitable polarisation should not obscure the complexity of a process which can only be understood by reference to the particular history of a social formation.     

The Role of Foreign Direct Investment and State Capture in Shaping Innovation Outcome in Russia

This article explores the linkage between foreign direct investment, grand corruption (that is, state capture) and innovation in Russia's regions in between 1997 and 2010. The results indicate that during the period under investigation both foreign direct investment and state capture were the significant determinants of innovation outcome. What is also interesting is that a positive impact of state capture on innovation through foreign firms, and a negative impact—through exporting—was observed.     

Democratic Representation and the Property Franchise in Australian Local Government

Australia remains one of the last liberal democracies to retain a property franchise at the local government level. This particular feature is both the result of historical particularities and contemporary political arrangements. This article analyses the property franchise in the City of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian State of Victoria, based on democratic theory and an empirical study. It illustrates the tensions between the democratic principles of representation and political equality in defining structures for representation at the local government level. The authors suggest that a more nuanced interpretation of representation can be adopted at a local level based on territorial residency rather than legal citizenship. Despite this, based on analysis of both electoral and non‐electoral mechanisms, the property franchises are found to be anachronistic and indefensible from a democratic perspective and unrelated to the status of capital city. The article concludes that, at a local level, deliberative democracy holds the promise to better represent various interests, including property interests.     

The Effects of Majoring in Political Science on Political Efficacy

This study tests, and finds support, for the hypotheses that a student who majors in political science will have stronger feelings of political competence and will be more willing to engage in hypothetical political actions than two peer groups: (a) those who major in other fields and (b) those who show an interest in politics but have not studied it. In a study of 1,083 undergraduates at two different universities, we find that senior political science majors have higher feelings of internal political efficacy than comparison groups and are more willing than their peers or than interested freshmen to say that they would engage in meaningful political action, especially joining organized groups.     

Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

Despite the expansion of convenience voting across the American states, millions of voters continue to cast ballots at their local precincts on Election Day. We argue that those registered voters who are reassigned to a different Election Day polling place prior to an election are less likely to turn out to vote than those assigned to vote at the same precinct location, as a new precinct location incurs both search and transportation costs on reassigned voters. Utilizing voter file data and precinct shape files from Manatee County, Florida, from before and after the 2014 General Election, we demonstrate that the redrawing of precinct boundaries and the designation of Election Day polling places is not a purely technical matter for local election administrators, but may affect voter turnout of some registered voters more than others. Controlling for a host of demographic, partisan, vote history, and geospatial factors, we find significantly lower turnout among registered voters who were reassigned to a new Election Day precinct compared to those who were not, an effect not equally offset by those voters turning to other available modes of voting (either early in-person or absentee). All else equal, we find that registered Hispanic voters were significantly more likely to abstain from voting as a result of being reassigned than any other racial group.