Moderated Commitment: Members’ Decisions Not to Give to Professional Associations

Abstract

Workers pay membership dues to professional associations, which mark their identification with a particular field. Professional associations invite additional voluntary contributions for new or expanded programs, but most members do not make these additional gifts. We advance and test a conceptual model of the forces that might interrupt an otherwise committed or engaged member’s decision to make such a voluntary contribution. We conclude that giving decisions can be displaced by member beliefs that their dues and fees are sufficient or that their disposable income is committed to other obligations. We also conclude that giving decisions intersect with weak association strategy, such as a failure to solicit gifts in ways that are informative or useful to prospective donors.     

The evaluation of corporate contributions

This paper reviews the rationales expressed by businessmen for corporate philanthropy as an alternative to both individual charity and government provision of some types of charitable services. Three hypotheses explaining the aggregate level of corporate giving are then tested. The paper concludes with a list of potential hypotheses to be tested about corporate philanthropy when the data become available.     

Elite Philanthropy in Israel

The paper presents the findings of a study on elite philanthropy in Israel. The study aimed to describe and analyze the scope of elite philanthropy, which has been affected by the growth and relative stability of the Israeli economy. The study also aimed to shed light on the demographic characteristics of elite philanthropists, their motives for giving, preferred target populations and areas of interest for donations, the value of donations, and the channels and mechanisms through which donations are made. The findings revealed that the average percentage of donations out of the philanthropists’ total earnings was not lower than the percentage found among philanthropists in other Western countries. In the paper, we clarify the meaning of elite philanthropy in the context of Israeli society and the role of elite philanthropists in promoting social programs. We discuss the philanthropists’ sense of obligation to “give back” to the society which enabled them to become wealthy.     

Philanthropy and the housing crisis: The dilemmas of private charity and public policy

Abstract

American philanthropy has historically sought to address the nation's housing crisis, especially among the poor. This article compares private philanthropy's response to the housing crisis in two important eras of economic transformation: the period between the Civil War and World War I (the Progressive Era), when the United States was undergoing large‐scale urbanization and industrialization, and the period from the 1980s through today, when the United States became integrated in a global economy and confronted the shock of deindustrialization, widening economic disparities, and deepening urban decay.

Following the historical review, the article focuses briefly on the current housing crisis and the dilemmas that private foundations and nonprofit organizations face in trying to develop a coherent strategy to address the problem. It closes with a proposal for a partnership between private foundations and housing organizations that can address the need to change both public opinion and public policy toward housing.     

The Impact of Local Economic Structure on Community Philanthropy

This article explores how local economic structure directly and indirectly affects community philanthropy. Drawing on campaign data for local United Way (UW) affiliates at three points in time (1990, 2000, and 2010), the article tests the degree to which the relationship between economic structure and community philanthropy is mediated through local stocks of human resources and social capital. The results suggest that retail employment and industrial concentration negatively affect local UW campaigns, while nonlocal ownership positively affects UW campaign size. These measures of economic structure also indirectly influence local UW fund‐raising activities by affecting the levels of human resources and social capital. In the midst of global efforts to increase community‐based philanthropy, these findings have important policy implications for efforts to promote community solutions to social issues in changing economies.     

The Role of Philanthropy in Local Government Finance

Nonprofit organizations thrive on the altruism of citizens, and actively court donors for major gifts. Yet individual gifts to government agencies are often unexpected, sporadic, and initiated by the donor. This article introduces the phenomenon of private giving to local governments and tests hypotheses regarding the expected forms of giving to public agencies. Results indicate that philanthropy is and will likely remain a minor and highly variable source of revenue, making it an ill‐suited replacement for broad‐based tax revenue. However, deliberate government efforts to provide a suitable environment for private donations appear to succeed in attracting more gifts per capita.     

A Quarter Century of News Coverage of Candidates in Presidential Nomination Campaigns

Abstract

This paper analyzes network news coverage of presidential nomination candidates during the pre-primary and primaries seasons from 1975 to 2000. Using data from the Vanderbilt Television Archives, we find that the network news programs are giving less coverage to the candidates. The decline corresponds to the front-loaded primary schedule, which produces a presumptive nominee sooner and effectively ends coverage of the nomination campaign. We also analyze news coverage of US senators and representatives campaigning for the presidency. Legislators' news coverage varies with their position in Congress and their position in or at the polls.     

Policy voting in U.S. House primaries

ABSTRACT

This paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.     

Active Learning in Large Graduate Classes: Reflections on an “Attaining Citizenship” Simulation

Abstract

This article details a role-playing “citizenship simulation” used in a large graduate seminar offered by the Masters of International Relations (IR) faculty at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While recognizing the need for a more systematic analysis of the relationship between class size and active learning strategies, this article offers an anecdotal reflection on the challenges faced when employing active learning in an IR course with growing enrollment numbers. We describe and analyze a simulation used in the graduate course to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of structuring large IR classrooms to include participatory group activities such as simulations. We also hope the simulation provides instructors with an effective sample design for simulations in their own larger courses.     

The transformed identity of a banking corporation's employees, 1960s–1980s

The current paper discusses one aspect of corporate social responsibility—employee community volunteering—as implemented at an Israeli banking corporation. The literature on corporate social responsibility as a feature of global capitalism has largely ignored the history of corporate philanthropy and its relation to the current model of social responsibility. Moreover, to date, no studies have addressed the relationship between models of corporate social responsibility, on the one hand, and management approaches, on the other. In this historical–ethnographic study, we examine a case in which, we argue, normative management models and advanced marketing approaches combined to shape new conceptions and practices of employee volunteering. We examine how the process evolved over the course of three marketing campaigns initiated by the bank's management between the early 1960s and the early 1980s. In the early 1960s, the models in question helped refashion the employees' identity as service providers ‘empathic’ toward clients. By the late 1970s, their identity was transformed once again, this time to incorporate a ‘humane’ orientation toward the ‘community’. In the process—the results of which are still felt today—the employees became the carriers and disseminators of an organizational culture that emphasized values of philanthropy and social commitment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Affordability and mortgage design: Permanent buydowns and buyups

Abstract

A simulation model that mirrors the actual practices of lenders in setting qualification requirements for mortgage loans is used to assess the impact of permanent buydowns and buyups on the maximum sale price that buyers can afford. Buydowns are reductions in the coupon rate traded off against higher discount points; buyups are the reverse. Although buydowns have little effect on afford ability, buyups can have significant effects. Their potential is largely unrealized, however, because of the call risk to lenders of loans carrying premiums. The authors propose a “discount recovery” provision, which would be similar to a prepayment penalty except that the payment upon prepayment would be tied to the amount of the discount foregone by the lender. This would protect lenders against call risk, giving them every reason to offer buyups as a way of expanding demand.     

Information and trust as social aspects of credit

Abstract

According to mainstream economic theory the contractual relationship between borrower and lender is characterized by asymmetry of information regarding the project to be financed. It is assumed that trust among credit participants is constructed individually as they collect and assess requisite information. In contrast, this paper argues that trust and information among credit participants have compelling social constituents that depend on economic function and social context. More specifically, the paper shows that financial institutions transform trust into a social and objective relationship. The capitalist credit system comprises a set of institutions that construct trust socially by using increasingly general information. Nonetheless, the foundation of credit-related trust is the ability to repay money. Hence the moral content of credit is thin, giving rise to fraud and deception.     

Bet Out the Vote: Prediction Markets as a Tool to Promote Undergraduate Political Engagement

ABSTRACT

Over the course of three semesters spanning the 2016 primary and general elections, we conducted a series of quasi-experiments to evaluate the effects of prediction markets on undergraduate interest in the political process. We gave several classes in our institution’s core American politics course the opportunity to collectively invest in election-related markets on PredictIt.org, and over two-thirds of our students reported that the exercise stimulated their interest in the elections and political process. Roughly half also reported reading more news articles because of their participation in the market. While our treatment group did not demonstrate statistically-significant improvement in tangential political awareness, knowledge, or engagement, our findings do challenge previous conclusions that prediction markets have limited capacity to motivate students in an introductory learning context.     

Advertising Spending by Incumbents and Challengers

Abstract

As candidates spend increasing amounts of money on television advertising, it becomes critically important to assess the degree to which this advertising produces results. In an examination of a particularly hard fought primary for a major state-wide office, this study compares the impact made by each candidate's television advertising on voter intentions during the campaign and the votes ultimately received at the end. Results suggest that over the course of the campaign, television advertising benefited the challenger more than the incumbent.     

Introduction

ABSTRACT

This article argues for the analysis of the flow of ideological discourse through society within and across three distinct but interrelated levels: (1) the canonically defined, or macro level, (2) the intermediate or meso level of competitive political appeals, political relevant public discourse and cultural criticism, and (3) the everyday or micro level of conceptual use by non-experts. This differentiation among levels of ideological action and influence helps us to clarify the objects and appropriate methods of ideological analysis. Methods applied in specific cases must facilitate an effective focus on phenomena on one of these levels while still allowing recognition of the complex forms of direct and indirect conceptual influence and connection between the levels. The article also serves as an introduction to the volume, giving a brief account of the analysis and argument of each contribution.     

Satellites and the Security Dilemma

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the linkage between satellites and the security dilemma. There are currently over 2000 satellites in Earth orbit with various applications ranging from observations, remote sensing, telecommunications, to navigation, among other uses. This multitude of possible usages cause uncertainty concerning intentions and fear in the international system, which leads to security build-ups. This paper first looks at the dual-use nature of satellites and by giving examples, explains what exactly is meant by this. Second, it delves into the theories behind the security dilemma, especially analyzing the differences in theory between offensive and defensive weapons. And third, it builds on the theory concerning the security dilemma to examine how exactly satellites and their dual-use applications affect the dilemma.     

The Intellectual Crisis in Philanthropy

Defenders of modern philanthropic freedom often defend donor intent and celebrate voluntary action. Nevertheless, donor intent and voluntarism have often undermined the conditions of constitutional freedom. This paper proposes that philanthropy currently suffers an intellectual crisis very much like the intellectual crisis in public administration diagnosed by Vincent Ostrom. The Common Core State Standards initiative is a case study of the problems of epistemic drift in philanthropy and raises questions about whether merely defending donor intent and voluntary action for their own sake is sufficient. To escape philanthropy’s current intellectual crisis requires a clearer consideration of the epistemic choices that shape donor intent and voluntary action.     

From confrontation to collaboration? Banks,community groups,and the implementation of community reinvestment agreements

Abstract

Banks and other depository institutions have signed more than 300 community reinvestment agreements valued at $350 billion in the two decades since the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This article examines the effectiveness of negotiating CRA agreements in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey. After describing the agreements and the procedures by which they are enforced, the article looks at their impact and discusses several factors that could limit implementation of CRA agreements in the future.

The findings suggest that CRA agreements are more effective in some areas than others. They seem most consistently successful in meeting their goals for mortgages, investments in low‐income housing tax credits, grant giving to community‐based organizations, and in opening (and keeping open) inner‐city bank branches. The future of CRA agreements is clouded by several factors, most notably the restructuring and consolidation of the financial service sector.     

China's defence industries

Abstract

The implementation of foreign direct investment (FDI) policies in China shows that domestic considerations were not the only factors shaping the course of China's opening up to the world economy. Foreign response was often taken into account as the Chinese government felt its way through the process of reform. Focusing on Japanese FDI in China, this article explores the liberalization of China's FDI regime and traces the impact of China's negotiations with and accommodation to pressure from foreign business and governments.     

Working together: Building capacity for community development

Abstract

Community development partnerships (CDPs)—local intermediaries that gather support from foundations, corporations, and the public sector—are giving increased attention to building the capacity of community development corporations (CDCs). This article evaluates CDPs’ efforts to help nonprofit CDCs increase their capacity to revitalize low‐income communities. We identified five types of capacity and conducted interviews and focus groups with CDPs and CDCs across the nation. The nature of capacity and capacity building among CDCs, the ways partnerships help increase CDC capacity, what the partnerships and CDCs learn from each other, and how they could better gauge the effectiveness of capacity‐building support were discussed.

We learned that CDCs and CDPs have forged an effective alliance and continue to work together: Community organizations require help in building capacity, and local partnerships provide the requisite funding, technical assistance, and other elements to help them grow and serve their neighborhoods.