Modernization without the market? The case of the ‘Soviet East’

This paper examines the contradictory nature of the ‘modernizing’ encounter between the former Soviet state and Cnetral Asian societies with a view to exploring more fully a path that purported to be transformative in the absence of a market economy. This encounter was evaluated by some as a radical break with the past and by others as an instance of cultural stasis and continuity. This apparent paradox is explained with reference to the specific features of the command economy and Soviet nationalities policy and their interplay with local forms of social organization. The main argument is that what appeared to some commentators as ‘traditionalism’ was as much a response to and creation of the system itself as a feature of local communities.     

The governance of the European patent system: effective and legitimate?

Abstract

This article argues that effectiveness and legitimacy are two inseparable issues for the success of economic governance systems. Moving beyond the conventional market failure and state failure approaches, the article develops the notion of network governance success, a notion that looks at the formal and informal dimensions of interactions in economic systems. This is further developed into an analytical framework which is then used in the assessment of the structural features of the current European patent system, one of the most advanced, complex, and contested economic systems in Europe. The conclusions elaborate on the normative implications regarding the current weaknesses of the European patent system, and examine the general theoretical implications of the findings, particularly looking at the effectiveness and legitimacy of technically complex governance systems.     

Scotland Out the Union? The Rise and Rise of the Nationalist Agenda

The election of the Scottish National party as a majority government in 2011 is as challenging to the British state as it was unexpected. While explanations for SNP success focused on Labour's faulty campaign and poor leadership, the last half‐century has seen the rise and rise of the nationalist agenda in Scotland. Scotland's politics are now more different from England's than at any time since the 1950s. The Scottish parliament is the effect of that change rather than its cause, while party competition between Labour and the SNP north of the border has shifted political gravity centre‐left in contrast with England. It is not inevitable, however, that Scots would vote for Independence in a referendum. Nevertheless, Scotland is a more semi‐detached country than at any point in the history of the Union, and the future of the British state, at least in its present form, cannot be taken for granted.     

Designing stakeholder consultations: Reinforcing or alleviating bias in the European Union system of governance?

Consultations with stakeholders are a policy instrument widely used by policy makers to design policies and prepare legislative proposals across national and supranational systems of government. The European Union has recently reviewed its stakeholder consultation regime and asked for stakeholders’ policy input. This offers an opportunity to examine empirically stakeholders’ own evaluation of the regime and to ask a fundamental question about its democratic credentials: Do stakeholders recognise the EU consultation regime as reinforcing bias in interest representation by benefiting policy insiders, or conversely as an instrument that alleviates bias in supranational policy making? Building on rational choice institutionalism, this article outlines the potential distributional outcomes of the regime and argues that they are likely to vary along the lines of a classic divide in policy making that opposes policy insiders to outsiders. Two competing narratives are discussed in relation to the expected direction of this variation by focusing on insiders’ incentives to support or oppose the regime. The observable implications are tested empirically on an original dataset containing information about stakeholders’ positions on the evaluation of the regime status quo, its proposed further institutionalisation and their recommendations for change. The findings describe a consultation regime that seems to have created conditions alleviating bias in stakeholders’ participation in supranational policy making. This is evident in the lack of systematic, significant differences between insiders and outsiders in the evaluation of the consultation regime. Where differences do occur, they are consistent with the image of a consultation regime that has not reinforced bias in favour of policy insiders. These actors are found to be more critical of the regime status quo, its institutionalisation and more inclined to recommend policy improvements. This supports an optimistic view over the democratic credentials and legitimacy of the EU consultation regime and outlines an additional scenario under which policy actors that are traditionally associated with exerting more power and influence find themselves stripped of their privileged position in the context of European supranational governance.     

New economy housing markets: Fast and furious—but different?

Abstract

This article explores the effects of metropolitan industrial structure on housing market outcomes. Housing prices in new economy metropolitan areas are found to be higher, peakier, and more volatile than in old economy markets. Homeownership rates are found to be lower in new economy metropolitan areas, while crowding is higher. Although the distribution of housing values, costs, and rents was more equal in new economy markets, the cause would seem to be differences in area income levels, with poorer metropolitan statistical areas having greater inequalities.

Regression analysis is used to identify the contribution of traditional supply and demand factors, such as job growth, income, and residential construction, as well as new economy indicators, to housing market outcomes. Rather than being fundamentally different, new economy housing markets are found to be faster and more extreme versions of traditional housing markets.     

Where do electronic markets come from? Regulation and the transformation of financial exchanges

Abstract

The practices of high-frequency trading (HFT) are dependent on automated financial markets, especially those produced by securities exchanges electronically interconnected with competing exchanges. How did this infrastructural and organizational state of affairs come to be? Employing the conceptual distinction between fixed-role and switch-role markets, we analyse the discourse surrounding the design and eventual approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation of Exchanges and Alternative Trading Systems (Reg ATS). We find that the disruption of the exchange industry at the hands of automated markets was produced through an interweaving of both technological and political change. This processual redefinition of the ‘exchange’, in addition, may provide a suggestive precedent for understanding contemporary regulatory crises generated by other digital marketplace platforms.     

Using housing vouchers to move to the suburbs: How do families fare?

Abstract

When families with Section 8 housing vouchers move from inner‐city communities to the suburbs, are they more likely to move to neighborhoods with higher socioeconomic status and to perceive improvements in housing and neighborhood conditions than those who make local moves or those who first move to the suburbs but then return to the central city? Both crosstabular and logistic regression analysis are applied to a telephone interview sample of 300 Section 8 voucher recipients in Oakland and Berkeley, CA.

As predicted, compared with the other two groups, suburban‐bound movers were more likely to move to neighborhoods with higher socioeconomic status and to experience better residential conditions, even when relevant background characteristics were controlled. Furthermore, few suburban‐bound movers experienced adjustment problems with neighbors or landlords, and their children quickly and smoothly adjusted to their new schools. The implications of these results for the Section 8 housing voucher program are discussed.     

Why do corporations contribute to the Nature Conservancy?

Treating corporate contributions as purchases of valuable inputs, we hypothesize that firms for which genetic diversity, advertizing, and reputations of environmental responsibility are more valuable and firms for which the cost of contributing is less will be more likely contributors to the Nature Conservancy. These hypotheses are supported by logit estimations which find firms in industries where biological inputs are important, firms with high advertizing expenditures, firms in industries with high costs of meeting environmental regulations, and large firms are more likely to contribute and so become Corporate Associates of the Nature Conservancy.     

Optimists and skeptics: Why do people believe in the value of their single vote?

We investigate the origins of voters' beliefs about the value of their single vote. We construe such beliefs as a function of psychological predispositions and exposure to information about the competitiveness of the electoral race. We test this theoretical model using data from the 2008 Canadian federal election and a new survey question tapping voters' beliefs about whether their vote can make a difference. Our results show that sense of efficacy has a strong effect, efficacious voters being more prone to optimism. Competitiveness of the race also matters, but only among attentive voters.     

Politics and the implementation of public policy: The case of the US military housing allowance program

Are bureaucracies in fact controlled by the president, Congress, or legislation? We analyze a 1998 policy change in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) $6.5 billion annual military housing allowance program. Results show that both the president and Congress were able to influence the bureaucracy, even in the presence of an exceedingly specific law that outlined the manner in which the DoD was to allocate the funds. After policy implementation, allowances were disproportionately higher in locations that (a) supported the president in the 1996 election and (b) were represented by members of the House or Senate Armed Services Committees.     

Comment on Shishir Mathur's “do impact fees raise the price of existing housing?”

Abstract

Impact fees raise the price of new homes, which pay the fee directly, and existing homes, which serve as substitutes for new homes. I argue that such fees are excessive because the net economic benefit of additional homes is not included in the calculation and because more efficient financing tools exist. An impact fee actually pushes prices higher than the fee because it is paid when construction begins but collected at the time of sale. Costs are increased by construction period interest and other costs determined as a percentage of the sale price.

Local governments calculate impact fees incorrectly by not including the indirect and positive impacts from construction and occupancy. If these added net benefits were also considered, the fiscal impact would be less and little or no fee would be required. Moreover, other methods for financing infrastructure are available in most states, so impact fees are unnecessary.     

The Italian party system in transition: The end of polarised pluralism?

This article examines Giovanni Sartori's polarised pluralist model and its application to the Italian party system. It suggests a more appropriate alternative method for testing the model's applicability to present‐day Italy. This modification, far from changing the model of polarised pluralism, improves its empirical usefulness. The suggestion then is put forward that Italy, rather than being an example par excellence of polarised pluralism, as Sartorisees it, is neither characterised by increased polarisation nor by centrifugal competition. Instead, Italy today witnesses the prevalence of depolarisation and centripetal electoral competition.     

Why do street-level bureaucrats risk themselves for others? The case of Israeli police officers

What factors influence police officers’ willingness to risk themselves for others? Police officers are street-level bureaucrats, who are not only given the mandate to use deadly force in order to keep public order but also risk their most important resource – their lives – to protect society. We suggest three factors that prompt police officers to risk their lives: individual characteristics (a desire to gain respect and recognition, and testing one's courage, ideology, and personality), organizational conditions (expectations of peers and supervisors, promotion opportunities), and environmental context (a hostile working environment and the importance of public opinion to them). Using an abductive approach combined with a triangulated qualitative method, our findings indicate that personal characteristics are indeed important, but so too are organizational conditions and environmental context. The practical insight, therefore, is that decision makers ‘can’, in various formal and informal ways, influence street-level bureaucrats’ behaviour. Here, the interactions among managers, workers, and clients are a crucial element.     

Government or governance? The case of the French local political system

The structure of the local political system has completely changed since decentralisation. However, the presentation of peripheral power made by Pierre Grémion before decentralisation has not really been updated. Most academic research concentrates on either rural or urban issues. From the analysis of the current attempt of the French state to enhance co‐operation between communes, it is possible to make a general presentation of the current decentralised political system. Local authorities are increasingly part of a multi‐actor system combining many public and private institutions. However, they also are developing a specific political mode of organisation and relationship with one another. Local governments are the political cores of the multi‐actor system, in charge of local management.     

Public housing desegregation: What are the options?

Abstract

This paper examines policy and programmatic options for the desegregation of low‐income public housing. Desegregation is a strategy for relocating public housing residents or units to communities that offer a better quality of life. This paper considers the likelihood of achieving desegregation, given the factors that created segregation, by exploring the role of past and present policies and programs in producing segregation and the effects of efforts to ameliorate it.

The major finding is that public housing segregation is firmly entrenched in many major cities, and attempts to reverse it have produced marginal changes. Although the federal government has ceased to play a major role in perpetuating racial segregation, it has not taken a strong, consistent, and clear stand on desegregation policy. Some innovative desegregation programs with promising outcomes are currently under way, but it is unlikely that public housing segregation will be abated in the future.