A practical analysis of shared‐appreciation mortgages

Abstract

When the development of large‐scale public housing projects was discontinued in the 1970s in both Canada and the United States, the policy response was very different. This article reviews the nature of the dissimilar low‐income housing policy paths, documenting the role of federal housing policy in the evolution of a significant nonprofit “third sector” in Canada's housing system; the decision of the U.S. federal government to rely on the private sector for subsidized rental supply; and, with very little help from the federal government, the ‘bottom‐up” attempt to develop a nonprofit housing sector in communities throughout the United States. In Canada, a permanent stock of good‐quality, nonprofit social housing was created along with a growing and increasingly competent community‐based housing development sector.

The Canadian experience demonstrates that it takes time to build the capacity of the nonprofit sector. The U.S. experience demonstrates that there is a great deal of community‐based talent ready and willing to provide nonprofit housing if reliable and adequate funding is available. Canada has made outstanding progress relative to the United States in the area of affordable housing supply, creating yet another small but significant difference in the quality of life for lower income households. The general Canadian approach to consistent national support of nonprofit and cooperative housing can be applied in the United States. Canada's relative success is not based on unique structural or systemic differences—that is, it is a matter of political choice and political will. The United States should look to Canada's 20‐year experience to determine whether some of the mechanisms used to support Canada's nonprofit sector might be transferable to the United States.     

Right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland: A comparative analysis of electoral support and conditions of success

This article analyses the electoral support and parliamentary representation of right‐wing populist parties in Austria (FPO) and Switzerland (SD, AP/FPS, Lega dei Ticinesi). Contrary to the empirical evidence in many other fields of the political systems in these two Alpine republics, the analysis reveals strong differences rather than similiarities in the electoral support of right‐wing populist parties in both countries. This is explained by the differences in political culture and historic circumstances, performance of the established (governing) parties, party political penetration of social institutions, structure of the party system and the contrasting importance of direct‐democratic structures in the two countries. The exceptional skill of the right‐wing populist leader in Austria can also be seen as a significant factor. In contrast, neither social and economic variables, such as the economic situation, the unemployment rate and the overall number of asylum‐seekers, nor the strength and performance of green‐alternative parties seem to be important factors in explaining the differing success of right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland.     

The ‘new’ rhetoric of new labour in comparative perspective: A three‐country discourse analysis

Over the past two decades, social democratic‐labour parties (SDLPs) have been confronted by various challenges which have had a dramatic impact upon their ideological orientation. These include, not least, emerging challenger parties, as well as the Neo‐Liberal discourse of the New Right. In this article, we compare the ideological positioning of three parties in Sweden, Germany, and particularly Great Britain. We conclude that the ideological profile of ‘New Labour’ now largely mirrors those of other SDLPs. The results are based upon a content analysis of the 1994 (Germany and Sweden) and 1997 (Great Britain) election rhetoric in party manifestos and television debates. The analysis centres on the extent to which the three SDLPs refer to the discourses of socialism, the welfare state, neo‐liberalism and ecologism.     

A tale of three cities: Washington‐Paris‐Bonn and triangular asymmetry

This article has two main aims: to identify the sources of Presidential power under the long‐serving Urho Kekkonen and to delineate his important, if at times strictly unconstitutional, role in the domestic policy process. Stress is given to the prestige accruing from his successful handling of Fenno‐Soviet relations and how, when traditional cleavages have threatened the central task of economic management, Kekkonen has used his enhanced authority to mediate. At such times of consensualism in crisis, the Finnish system has been both President‐dominant and President‐reliant.     

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.     

British intelligence and counter‐insurgency in the era of decolonisation: The example of Malaya

This article uses two approaches to show the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and intelligence were reaching a turning point before the 1952 appointment of a single commander; and to show the reason for this success was a counter‐insurgency technique which placed population control at its core. First, the article outlines the development of intelligence, in order to identify when and why it became effective. Second, it re‐examines intelligence on the Malayan Communist Party's (MCP) so‐called ‘October’ 1951 Directives. It argues these confirm the MCP was virtually forced to change its tactics by late 1951. Together, these approaches challenge existing historiography, which makes Sir Gerald Templer's era of 1952–54, when he was both High Commissioner and Director of Operations, the turning point.     

Conditions of success and political problems of a ‘media‐mediated personality‐party’: The case of Forza Italia

The emergence of Forza Italia should not be exclusively reduced to specific Italian conditions. This article attempts to explain the development and establishment of Forza Italia as part of a general change of politics in a modern, highly media‐oriented western society. The type of party represented by Forza Italia can be defined as a ‘media‐mediated personality‐party’. With regard to its structural organisation, it presents itself as an answer to tendencies of differentiation, individualisation and consumerisation in modern society. The leading organisational principle is not inner‐party democracy but inter‐party capability to compete. This model of organisation is seen as functional for a marketing‐based, media‐orientated political strategy. It represents a challenge for the type of democratic, mass‐membership party in western Europe. The 1996 elections in Italy, however, have also pointed out the limits of the model of the media‐mediated personality‐party.     

The left‐wing opposition in Denmark,Norway and Sweden: Cases of Euro‐phobia?

This article maps the three major Left‐Socialist parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and their attitude towards European integration. It focuses on why the three parties, despite a common vision of Europe, differ when it comes to the question of membership in the European Union. The analysis stresses that both differences in party history and political context have to be accounted for when explaining the parties’ policy stands.     

Intelligence scholarship as all‐source analysis: The case of Tom Bower's the perfect English Spy

Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90 (London: Heinemann, 1995). Pp.385, 24 photos, biblio., index. £16.99. ISBN 0–434–0080–9     

Social preferences and private provision of public goods: A ‘double critical mass’ model

We set up an evolutionary game-theoretic model aimed at addressing the issue of local public good provision via direct commitment of voluntary forces (private donors and nonprofit providers) only. Two classes of agents are assumed to strategically interact within a ‘double critical mass’ model and we investigate the critical factors affecting the dynamic outcomes of such interaction. Further, we explore the conditions under which (what we term) ‘evolutionary crowding-out/in’ occurs, depending on agents’ degree of opportunism, social comparison and positive selective incentives (such as subsidies given by the government to ‘virtuous’ citizens or nonprofits only).     

Class formation and democracy: The decline of working‐class power in Britain

The debate about the future of working‐class power in Britain raises for class theory an important, if neglected, question about how internal politics affects class formation and power. To provide an answer, this article develops an analysis that conceptualises class representation as a particular power relation in a pluralist system, and assesses recent changes in the internal power relations in the labour movement. The conclusion that the fragmentation and disorientation of traditional practices of internal democracy has weakened the movement's collective strength demonstrates that internal politics does matter to class formation.     

The effect of electoral outcomes on political trust: A multi–level analysis of 23 countries

Competing theoretical claims exist in the literature on the effect of proportionality on political trust. To date, empirical studies yielded mixed results. In this paper, we examine a curvilinear effect of the proportionality of election outcomes on political trust using data from the European Social Survey (2006–2009). The findings show that political trust is indeed highest in countries with very proportional as well as in countries with very disproportional election outcomes and lowest in countries that fall in between. Election outcomes that are more fully inclusive and those that provide more accountability can both lead to higher levels of political trust. Next to the proportionality of the translation of votes into seats, this study investigates a broad range of election outcomes that are associated with (dis)proportionality i.e. the effect of the number of parties in elections, parliament and government, voting for the winning or losing party under different levels of proportionality and the clarity of responsibility.