Re‐casting the politics of steel in Europe: The impact on trade unions

In this article we explore the response of European trade unions to the 1990s steel crisis. Trade unions have faced wide ranging challenges including: the globalisation of the industry; steel companies becoming increasingly international; privatisation; the eastern European steel market; the liberalisation of world trade; the new emerging priorities of the EU and internal company reorganisation. Our key argument is that their response has been highly traditional and unsuited to the new challenges. When we consider the more progressive responses they have made, there is little sign that these alternatives will be anymore successful.     

Cyberbabble: The grammatology of on‐line communications

This paper considers the discursive conditions within on‐line communication spaces. The increasing use of electronic mail and internet relay chat as a form of communication, and the growing facination with multi‐user domains as a powerful dialogic space, has contributed to an emergent culture of virtual communities, in which participants engaged in dialogue no longer need to be present to ‘talk’ to one another. Indeed, the concept of telepresence is predicated on the idea that remote speakers can engage in a shared experience that is every bit as compelling as actually being in the same location. In order for this virtual communication space to be vivid, and to create the illusion o; f procimity, it has to efface itself as a signifying system. In other words, it has to behave according to the logic of oral rather than written communication. One assumption considered in the paper is that on‐line discursive practice is usually conducted as if it were a mode of speech, rather than writing.     

The excessive costs of creative finance: Growing inefficiencies in the production of low‐income housing

Abstract

The paper examines creative finance as a means of low‐income housing production and preservation. The low‐income tax credit has evolved as the main federal housing production program in recent years. But this evolution can only be understood as a last resort. The inefficiencies of this approach outweigh any advantages. High transaction costs, inappropriate targeting of benefits, and insufficient monitoring are among the problems. Recent changes in the tax credit may actually cost the government more. Furthermore, current policy in fact creates the same time bombs now exploding in the prepayment projects. Current proposals for housing reform and revitalization have positive features, but are either underfunded or still rely on creative finance. What is needed is a direct one‐ or two‐step low‐income production program.     

Introduction to session 3: Estimating the costs: Perspectives on preservation of the nation's lower‐income housing stock

Abstract

This article uses survey data from the Moving to Opportunity demonstration program in Chicago to explore changes for households moving from public housing. The focus is on two key areas: housing and neighborhood conditions, and labor force participation and employment of householders. The experimental design of the program allows the differences between comparison households, which moved with a regular Section 8 voucher, and experimental households, which moved to low‐poverty neighborhoods with housing counseling assistance, to be examined.

The findings, based on interviews an average of 18 months after families moved, reveal dramatic improvements in neighborhood and housing conditions for all participating families; experimental families experienced even greater gains in terms of housing and especially neighborhood conditions. Labor force participation and employment increased for householders in both groups, likely fueled by the robust economy throughout much of the country and supporting similar findings for program participants in New York and Boston.     

Mature suburbs,property values,and decline in the midwest? The case of Cuyahoga county

Abstract

For most U.S. homeowners, a home represents the biggest investment they will ever make, and until recently, most expected the value of their property to rise. If the mature suburbs in which many of these homeowners live have problems or are in decline, property values could decrease and investment value will be lost.

We define mature suburbs for Cuyahoga County, OH (the Cleveland area), and analyze the property values of single‐family homes there. We examine how property values have behaved in mature suburbs compared with the central city and developing suburbs and analyze specific factors that have influenced the property value of single‐family homes in these three submarkets from 1985 to 2000. Our analyses show that there is no overall decline in nominal property values. Housing space, nearness to workplaces and transportation networks, and tax rates are important variables in the model, affecting mature suburbs and developing suburbs differently.     

Property values in inner‐city neighborhoods: The effects of homeownership,housing investment,and economic development

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of property values in Cleveland with a focus on three approaches to improving or maintaining neighborhood quality: investing in new housing, attracting and retaining homeowners, and encouraging economic development. Data comprise home sales in 1996 and 1997, investments in new housing from 1991 to 1995, homeowner migration between 1991 and 1995, and changes in the number of business establishments from 1991 to 1995.

The results suggest that (1) investments in new houses have a positive impact on housing values, especially for houses close to the new investment; (2) homeowner out‐migration has a negative effect; and (3) growth in the number of business establishments, except for social service establishments, also has a negative effect. These results further suggest that while programs to encourage housing investment and homeowner‐ship can increase neighborhood property values, care should be taken to avoid an inappropriate mixing of land uses.     

Regime transition in the regions of Russia: The freedom of mass media: Transnational impact on sub-national democratization?

Abstract.  The mass media have the main function of serving as a mediator between society and the authorities and is, therefore, positioned to be a catalyst for change in society. From the end of the 1980s into the 2000s, under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the development of the independent mass media played a key role in Russia's regime transition. It is also a good reflection, or indicator, of the pace of transition on the regional level, and an objective criterion of regional democratization. The regional media markets are not shaped entirely by the national government. Each of the 88 regional mass media markets is 'the product of the cultural traditions of a region, its economy, the unique local relationship between the state and society, the tendency of a region towards a traditional/modernized or agrarian/urban society'. However, while these factors are important and have been analyzed in a number of articles, the role of foreign, transnational, factors has hardly been taken into account. This article is an attempt to single out the European impact on the development of the freedom mass media in the regions through different forms of transnational regional cooperation.     

The single‐issue party thesis: Extreme right parties and the immigration issue

This article examines the single‐issue party thesis for the specific case of contemporary extreme right parties (ERPs) and the immigration issue. I define the single‐issue party as (1) having an electorate with no particular social structure; (2) being supported predominantly on the basis of one single issue; (3) lacking an ideological programme; and (4) addressing only one all‐encompassing issue. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of electoral studies and party literature the single‐issue party thesis is rejected on all counts. At best, immigration has been a catalyst for most ERPs in certain periods of time. Their ideology and broader programe will keep ERPs in the political arena for some time to come, even in the unlikely event that immigration would cease to be an important political issue.     

The family policy positions of conservative parties: A farewell to the male-breadwinner family model?

Since the Golden Age of the Welfare State ended, the male-breadwinner family model traditionally supported by conservative parties has been put under pressure. Familialism appears to be no longer attractive to a changing, more volatile constituency. By comparing four different European countries – namely, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom – this work investigates the evolution of the conservative parties’ family policy positions in the post-Fordist era (1990s–2010s). The article has two goals. First, relying on a multidimensional theoretical framework where both social consumption and social investment policy instruments are at stake, it probes whether conservatives have switched their positions by backing de-familialism and thus the dual-earner family model. Second, it explains policy position change or stability over time and cross-country differences through a multicausal analytical framework. The content analysis of party manifestos shows that, in the post-Fordist era, the conservative parties have supported ‘optional familialism’, thus upholding both familiarizing and de-familiarizing measures. However, such positions are not static. In the 1990s, support for familialism was higher while, since the 2000s, there has been a constant, increasing backing of de-familialism. While the shift is evident for all the parties, cross-country differences remain. The comparative historical analysis has pointed out that the specific ‘optional familialism’ positions taken by the conservative parties over time result from the interaction of constituency-oriented, institutional, contextual and political factors.     

Greasing the wheels? The impact of regulations and corruption on firm entry

This paper investigates the question of whether corruption might ‘grease the wheels’ of an economy. We investigate whether and to what extent the impact of regulations on entrepreneurship is dependent on corruption. We first test whether regulations robustly deter firm entry into markets. Our results show that the existence of a larger number of procedures required to start a business, as well as larger minimum capital requirements are detrimental to entrepreneurship. Second, we test whether corruption reduces the negative impact of regulations on entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. Our empirical analysis, covering a maximum of 43 countries over the 2003–2005 period, shows that corruption facilitates firm entry in highly regulated economies. For example, the ‘greasing’ effect of corruption kicks in at around 50 days required to start a new business. Our results thus provide support for the ‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis.     

Does fraud trump partisanship? The impact of contentious elections on voter confidence

Fraudulent elections can reduce citizen trust in elections and other political institutions. But what about the impact of contentious elections that resolve successfully, leading to democratizing change? Do national movements toward democracy trump individual experiences with electoral manipulation? Using public opinion survey data collected before and after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, we evaluate changes in voter confidence in electoral practices, political institutions, and democracy. Although national trends show increased voter confidence overall, subnational variation suggests pervasive partisan differences in opinions about election quality and institutional confidence. Remarkably, we find that direct exposure to fraud matters far less than anticipated; voters who were personally exposed to fraud felt no more or less confident than their co-partisans. We show that partisanship and the national electoral context may interact in ways that complicate the effects of democratizing elections, suggesting important avenues for future research.     

The impact of anti-democratic actions on a country’s international image,as projected in the foreign press and on social media: The case of Israel

The notion of soft power suggests that actions that contradict international standards will harm a country’s international image. The current study focuses on the impact of anti-democratic action taken by Israel during 2015 on its international image, as projected in the foreign press (N = 4,425 articles) and on social media (N = 23,797 tweets). The findings indicate that anti-democratic actions did not have an immediate or long-term effect on the tone of coverage toward Israel, while other factors, such as the circumstances and the topics discussed, did influence the tone of coverage.     

Democracy for the youth? The impact of mock elections on voting age attitudes

Should 16-year-olds be entitled to participate in elections? We theorize that mock elections for adolescents, who are not eligible to vote, affect the short-term support among the general public for lowering the voting age. To test our theoretical expectation, we utilize variation among municipalities in the organization of mock elections during the Danish local elections in 2009. Difference-in-difference estimates with data from the subsequent local elections in 2013 demonstrate that citizens in municipalities with mock elections for adolescents were more supportive of lowering the voting age and that their support was strongly rooted in ideological differences.     

Changing your political mind: The impact of a metaphor on citizens’ representations and preferences for federalism

Federalism is often presented through metaphors, but little is known about the impact of such metaphors. Two experiments were conducted in Belgium presenting federalism as Tetris – with control and treatment groups – in order to grasp the influence of this metaphor. The first experiment reveals that being exposed to text with the Tetris metaphor influences respondents’ representations of federalism towards a more institutional representation and towards more regional autonomy. The second experiment confirms the importance of the text, and more specifically of the metaphor, if political knowledge is taken into account. Respondents with a lower level of political knowledge are those who are influenced by the metaphor, whereas respondents with a higher level are not. Therefore, framing the future of Belgian federalism using the metaphor of Tetris does matter: it affects both individuals’ representations of the federalization process and, consequently, their preferences vis-à-vis the institutional future of the country.     

The impact of at-large elections: vote dilution or choice dilution?

Multi-member, at-large legislative elections result in election outcomes different from outcomes in single-member district elections for two reasons: they cancel out the voting strength of geographically concentrated groups of voters (e.g., party groups, racial groups), and they make it difficult for a voter to vote for an individual candidate, rather than for one of the competing lists of candidates. An electoral setting in Long Island, New York, presents an opportunity to test which of these two aspects of at-large elections—vote dilution or choice dilution—accounts for the usual pattern of one party (or group) winning all the legislative seats at stake.