Responding to Terrorism? Human Rights Organization Shaming and Terrorist Attacks

Why do Human Rights Organizations (HROs) target or “shame” countries for human rights abuses? The literature using country-level factors to explain why one country is likely to be targeted over another is growing but many questions still remain. Terrorist activity in a country should have a positive effect on the amount of shaming directed at a country. HROs are in the publicity business and have organizational interests to shame states already receiving attention. Findings show that there is a connection between certain types of transnational terrorist incidents occur in a country and the amount of HRO shaming of governments, even after accounting for the human rights practices within the state.     

Why Are Some States More Generous in Offering R&D Tax Credits than Others? An Empirical Answer

This article examines political cost factors that affect a state's propensity to adopt a corporate income tax credit to encourage research and development (R&D) activities in the United States. Assuming state elected officials are vote-maximizers, this article hypothesizes that politicians' consideration of potential revenue losses and influence from organized interests are critical in a state's decision to provide a R&D tax credit. To test the hypothesis, two statistical models are specified. With a dichotomous dependent variable of whether or not a R&D tax credit is offered, a Logit regression model is utilized. For the interval level dependent variable of effective R&D credit rates, this article specifies a Tobit model. The results show that politicians' concerns about revenue losses loom much larger than private organized interests.     

Why Do Some Insurgent Groups Agree to Cease-Fires While Others Do Not? A Within-Case Analysis of Burma/Myanmar, 1948–2011

This article uses Burma/Myanmar from 1948 to 2011 as a within-case context to explore why some armed insurgent groups agree to cease-fires while others do not. Analyzing 33 armed groups it finds that longer-lived groups were less likely to agree to cease-fires with the military government between 1989 and 2011. The article uses this within-case variation to understand what characteristics would make an insurgent group more or less likely to agree to a cease-fire. The article identifies four armed groups for more in-depth qualitative analysis to understand the roles of the administration of territory, ideology, and legacies of distrust with the state as drivers of the decision to agree to or reject a cease-fire.     

‘I Know My Rights,but Am I Better Off?’: Institutions and Disability in Uganda

Uganda is internationally recognised for both its legal and constitutional provisions for people with disabilities, and the presence of disabled persons’ organisations that provide informal advocacy and support. Using a unique dataset of 579 Ugandans with physical disabilities, we develop a conceptual framework on social capital to investigate the factors correlated with knowledge of formal institutions that target disability. In examining whether this knowledge results in higher incomes we find that gender matters. A woman’s education and membership of external networks are correlates of knowledge; higher levels of this knowledge are associated with substantially higher levels of income.     

Crucial Decisions By Small Towns and Villages: Why Did Some Municipalities Choose to Merge But Others Did Not During the Nationwide Wave of Municipal Mergers in Japan?

This article focuses on the nationwide wave of municipal consolidations in Japan that took place from 2003 to 2006 and examines why some municipalities merged but others did not. The central government did not legally force consolidations but instead provided municipalities with fiscal incentives. I argue that small municipalities were reluctant to merge because they would lose generous transfers from the central government as well as decision-making powers once they unified with their larger neighbors. Fiscal incentives by the central government significantly raised the cost of remaining intact and induced a large number of fiscally weak municipalities to merge.     

Human Rights and Antiterrorism: A Positive Legal Duty to Infringe Freedom From Torture?

In law freedom from torture and ill-treatment is “absolute,” meaning that a state cannot infringe the right for purposes that would seem legitimate such as the protection of national security. However, with the growth in international terrorism, particularly suicide violence, should the freedom remain without limitation? This article considers legitimizing torture by reference to the “positive” legal obligation the right imposes on states to prevent harm to individuals by third parties such as terrorists. Assuming such a legal argument could be made out, it is questioned whether adopting such measures of interrogation would in fact outweigh the negative consequences that would inevitably follow from reversing accepted international standards for the protection of, say, detainees from ill-treatment in state custody.     

Federal contracts to perform analysis and management services: Can not-for-profits successfully compete?

This study uses a random sample of HUD contracts to determine if not-for-profit organisations have advantages or disadvantages in the competition for fedral procurement awards. Interest focuses on 228 competitors for awards selected in the sample. Differences between for-profit and not-for-profit groups are examined with respect to awareness of opportunity, willingness to compete, abiity to compete technically, and ability to be cost-competitive.

Generally, not-for-profit organizations compete well with for-profit ones in efforts to obtain awards to provide analysis and management services. Managers of not-for-profit organizations need not believe that their organizations are incapable of competting successfully against for-profit organizations.     

Healthcare,Policy Implementation,and Culture: What Cultural Values Influence Unpaid Primary Caregivers to Provide Care to Older Adults?

This research examines home healthcare programs implemented in Puerto Rico and Indiana. Puerto Rico is primarily a Hispanic territory of the United States, while Indiana is a culturally Anglo Midwestern state. This study explores the cultural values that influence unpaid care of older adults in these two settings. I hypothesize that dissimilar cultural values will influence care of unpaid primary caregivers (UPCs) in both jurisdictions. Results supported the hypothesis: UPCs emphasized different cultural values in caregiving. The study recommends that the federal government support families with essential services to enable them render badly-needed care to their elderly family members.     

Conflict Over Peace? The United States’ and Russia’s Diverging Conceptual Approaches to Peace and Conflict Settlement

Abstract

Peace remains a highly contested analytical and political concept. Yet scholarly engagement with the empirical diversity of how states understand peace is strikingly rare. Following the constructivist view of peace as a subjective ontology, we investigate the peace conceptualisations of Russia and the United States as reflected in the contentious discourses at the United Nations Security Council. We seek to reveal whether the political debates reflect the plurality of analytical approaches to peace and study the conflict potentials that arise from clashes between conceptual subject positions. We find substantive divergence in the states’ basic understandings of peace and argue that the investigation of their respective conceptions opens an additional and much-needed perspective on the political discord between the two veto powers.     

Can alternative service delivery save cities after the Great Recession? Barriers to privatisation and cooperation

ABSTRACT

Cities continue to face fiscal challenges after the Great Recession and alternative service delivery is being emphasised as a solution. How promising is alternative service delivery as a solution and what are its barriers? Regression analyses using 2012 survey data of US local governments show that local governments manage procedural barriers, but structural barriers of economy and demography hinder privatisation and cooperation. Places with a housing bust (measured as decline in home values) can use privatisation, but not places with more or increased poverty. Cooperation is more promising for places with increased poverty, but lack of a willing partner hinders this spatially constrained tool. Neither cooperation nor privatisation is promising for places with low home values. State governments must level the playing field for localities with weak economies if market approaches to service delivery are the main tools for local governments to survive fiscal stress.     

Risky Business: What Happens to Gender Equality and Women's Rights in Post-Conflict Societies? Insights from NGO's in El Salvador

Using the case of El Salvador, this paper explores how women's organizational skills developed in civil war translate into work in NGOs in the post-conflict struggle for rights. The paper briefly describes the gender stratification methodology used in the analysis and then presents the situation in El Salvador before, during, and after the war. After discussing how Salvadoran women, despite quite limited economic power, became a well-organized force that was strategically indispensable to the rebels during the war, the paper examines factors that contributed to the success of Las Madres Demandantes (LMD), an NGO focused on the single issue of getting child support payments to women. The experience of other NGOs in El Salvador is reviewed with respect to the factors that contributed to the success of LMD. In conclusion, a few lessons from the issues faced by the post-conflict women's NGOs in El Salvador are presented.