The risks and opportunities of Europe: How issue yield explains (non-)reactions to the financial crisis

The financial crisis subjected the EU to its first truly serious stress test. A majority of citizens is now opposed to further integration. But party systems have barely adjusted, instead perpetuating traditional patterns of an evasive mainstream with Euroskeptic fringes. To explain this unexpected outcome we draw on issue yield (De Sio and Weber, 2014), a general model of political competition that unites public opinion, party unity and electoral support. Issue yield highlights how the crisis affected risks and opportunities differently for pro- and anti-integration parties. For such an asymmetric constellation, the model predicts the muffled choices supplied by most parties on EU matters. We use the European Election Studies 2009/2014 and the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys 2010/2014 to document these patterns.     

Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make Minority and Multiparty Governance Work (with Commentaries by Turnbull,Beith, Evans and Crick)

The return of a hung parliament at the 2010 general election is a serious possibility. But due to Westminster's limited recent experience of parliaments under ‘no overall control’ there is little institutional memory in Whitehall or Westminster, and even less public understanding, of what the implications would be. This article sets out to analyse the principal challenges that would be faced by government, opposition, parliament and the media in the event of a hung parliament. Drawing on experience from Canada, New Zealand and Scotland, we discuss the difficulties that may arise during the immediate government formation process and in the course of making minority or multiparty governance work on an ongoing basis. We conclude that a hung parliament need not undermine political stability or effective governance, but that all actors would need to adapt their behaviour and should therefore prepare carefully for this eventuality.     

Legitimacy and the Privatization of Environmental Governance: How Non–State Market–Driven (NSMD) Governance Systems Gain Rule–Making Authority

In recent years, transnational and domestic nongovernmental organizations have created non–state market–driven (NSMD) governance systems whose purpose is to develop and implement environmentally and socially responsible management practices. Eschewing traditional state authority, these systems and their supporters have turned to the market's supply chain to create incentives and force companies to comply.
This paper develops an analytical framework designed to understand better the emergence of NSMD governance systems and the conditions under which they may gain authority to create policy. Its theoretical roots draw on pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy granting distinctions made within organizational sociology, while its empirical focus is on the case of sustainable forestry certification, arguably the most advanced case of NSMD governance globally. The paper argues that such a framework is needed to assess whether these new private governance systems might ultimately challenge existing state–centered authority and public policy–making processes, and in so doing reshape power relations within domestic and global environmental governance.     

Macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) and experimentalist design of multi-level governance: the case of the EU strategy for the Danube region

Placed within EU Cohesion policy and its objective of European territorial cooperation, macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) aim to improve functional cooperation and coherence across policy sectors at different levels of governance, involving both member and partner states, as well as public and private actors from the subnational level and civil society in a given ‘macro-region’. In forging a ‘macro-regional’ approach, the EU commits to only using existing legislative frameworks, financial programmes and institutions. By applying the analytical lens of multi-level and experimentalist governance (EG), and using the EU Strategy for the Danube Region as a case, this article shows that ‘macro-regional’ actors have been activated at various scales and locked in a recursive process of EG. In order to make the macro-regional experiment sustainable, it will be important to ensure that monitoring and comparative review of implementation experience functions effectively and that partner countries, subnational authorities and civil societies have a voice in what is, by and large, an intergovernmental strategy.     

The importance of children for the elderly and changes in reproductive behavior (a study of three rural communities in Mexico)

"This study analyzes the importance of children in the care of elderly populations in rural communities [in Mexico].... In particular, the perception of elders about the value of their children is analyzed, especially the role children play in their economic contribution to the household or their instrumental value to it at different stages of their lives.... With respect [to] the condition in which children support their parents in their old age the economic assistance given was studied too. Finally, the preference regarding family size of those 60 years or older [is] given, as well as the view points of women on the need to control fertility and reduce family size. Three different types of cost are studied: the economic cost of supporting and caring for children, the emotional cost of their upbringing and the health cost of multiple pregnancies and births." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The internal consistency of corrected labor force data in the census (1960-1980) and the estimation of labor force participation rates by age and sex for 1980

This work examines the internal consistency of corrected estimates of the economically active population in the Mexican censuses of 1960 through 1980, estimates participation rates by age and sex for 1980, and determines the degree of overestimation or underestimation of the 1980 census. The first section reviews results of evaluations of information on the active population and examines the internal consistency of the different estimates. The second establishes criteria for correction of participation rates by age and sex for 1980 and estimates the degree of overestimation or underestimation, and the third assesses the advantages and limitations of the results. Comparison of results from several studies suggests that the labor force was significantly overestimated in the 1960 and 1980 censuses and underestimated in the censuses of 1970 and 1990. Estimates of overestimation in the 1960 census ranged from 8.5 to 14.3%, while estimates of underestimation in 1970 ranged from -0.5% to -0.8%. Estimates of overestimation in 1980 ranged from 6.6% to 21.6%. Internal consistency of labor force data was also assessed through a comparative analysis of average rates of growth of the population aged 12 and over and of the economically active population according to the census and the various corrections. The study concluded that the female labor force was overestimated by 1.6 million workers in 1980, or 27.1%, while the male labor force was overestimated by 610,000 workers, or 4%. The total labor force was overestimated by around 10%. These estimates for 1980 appear more congruent with general trends in male and female labor force participation, and also with the rate of growth of the population over age 12.     

关于联共(布)"一国社会主义"之争的几个问题——两派胜败原因及历史教训

联共(布)的"一国社会主义"之争,最终以多数派的胜利、反对派的失败而告结束,究其原因,主要是多数派在政治上、组织上和策略上占了优势。这场争论的历史教训,一是联共(布)混淆了思想斗争和政治斗争的界限,二是联共(布)在开展党内思想斗争时采取了错误的方式,三是联共(布)以政治权力决定理论是非,遗患无穷。     

The trouble with (supply-side) counts: the potential and limitations of counting sites,vendors or products as a metric for threat trends on the Dark Web

Many national security threats now originate on the Dark Web. As a result of the anonymity of these networks, researchers and policymakers often use supply-side data (i.e. the number of sites) as a threat metric. However, the utility of these data depends upon the underlying distribution of users. Users could be distributed uniformly, normally or in a power law across Dark Web content. The utility of supply-side counts varies predictably based upon the underlying distribution of users. Yet, the likelihood of each distribution type varies inversely with its utility: uniform distributions are most useful for intelligence purposes but least likely and power law distributions are least useful but occur most commonly. Complementing supply-side counts with demand-side measures can improve Dark Web threat analysis, thereby helping to combat terrorism, criminality and cyberattacks.