To fight or not to fight?

Public Choice - This paper considers the players' behaviour in an asymmetric two-player contest. When do they decide to “struggle” and when to “subjugate”? Analysing...     

The Contribution of Local Public Infrastructure to Private Productivity and its Political Economy: Evidence from a Panel of Large German Cities

This paper proposes a simultaneous-equation approach to theestimation of the contribution of infrastructure accumulationto private production. A political economy model for theallocation of public infrastructure investment grants isformulated. Our empirical findings, using a panel of largeGerman cities for the years 1980,1986, and 1988, suggest thatcities ruled by a council sharing the State (`Bundesland')government's current political affiliation were particularlysuccessful in attracting infrastructure investment grants.With regard to the contribution of infrastructure accumulationto growth, we find that public capital is a significant factorin private production. Moreover, at least for the samplestudied, we find that simultaneity between output and publiccapital is weak; thus, feedback effects from output toinfrastructure are negligible.     

Who’s in favour? Same-sex union laws in parliament

The article analyses which parties support registered partnership and same-sex marriage bills in parliament in Western Europe. Existing comparative research indicates that left parties back same-sex union laws. This article shows that support is not limited to the left camp. Liberal and even Christian democratic parties have expressed above-average support as well, albeit with certain exceptions. The chief opponents of same-sex union laws are Protestant parties and the parties of the far right; in terms of numbers, however, both are largely insignificant. Far more relevant for these laws’ chances of success are the positions of the large parties at the centre and at the right of the political spectrum. The analysis reveals considerable inter-country differences in these parties’ attitudes, which can be explained to a large extent with the two-worlds-of-morality-politics distinction introduced by Engeli, Green-Pedersen and Larsen: countries in which centre and right parties continue to oppose same-sex union laws are part of the religious world, with the exception of France. The results for France indicate a need for further research.     

Violence prevention in psychiatry: an umbrella review of interventions in general and forensic psychiatry

Relative risks of violence in psychiatric patients are high compared to the general population and existing evidence in non-psychiatric populations may not translate to reductions in violence in psychiatric populations. We searched 10 databases including Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus, from inception until August 2015 for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of violence prevention interventions in psychiatry. Reviews were included if they used a hard outcome measure (i.e. police or hospital recorded violence, or reincarceration) and contained randomized or non-randomized controlled studies. Five reviews met our inclusion criteria (n = 8876 patients in total), of which four received a GRADE rating of ‘low’ or ‘very low’. Three randomized studies (n = 636) reported that therapeutic community interventions may reduce reincarceration in drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental illness (‘moderate’ GRADE rating). The lack of intervention research in violence prevention in general and forensic psychiatry suggests that interventions from non-psychiatric populations may need to be relied upon.     

Getting Armed Groups to the Table: peace processes,the political economy of conflict and the mediated state

Abstract

This article connects the literature on the political economy of conflict with the mediation of peace processes and elaborates the conceptual and practical value offered by this perspective. It shows that armed conflicts and groups have economic dimensions that should be recognised and managed in peace processes. An economic perspective helps to understand the multiple disputes within an armed conflict, the disposition of armed groups to engage, and the economic interests of the parties. Focusing on mediated states opens new avenues of engagement through perceiving alternative sub-state authorities and economic networks as an opportunity for dispute resolution. Overall the political economy of conflict and the mediated state offer new vantage points to shape the planning and management of peace processes.