Barack Obama Meets Celebrity Metaphor

Common knowledge suggests that elections are won or lost based on demographics, finances, and other structural elements. Whether candidates win or lose, however, is a matter of action. Symbolic identification, metaphor, and an unfolding narrative—and how they are managed and interpreted in the flow of events—determine who will emerge victorious from the democratic struggle for power. The McCain campaign’s effort to cast Obama as a celebrity, with the hollow trivialities and self-aggrandizement of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, proves to be one of the most dangerous episodes for the Obama campaign. In response, the Democrats must adjust the staging of Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver as a performance of purpose and gravitas, rather than glitz and adoration.     

When Pivotal Politics Meets Partisan Politics

Recent years have witnessed many efforts to understand legislative productivity and gridlock. However, despite theoretical and empirical contributions to how preferences and institutions shape political gridlock's level (e.g., Krehbiel 1996, 1998 ) and empirical evidence about how parties may affect political gridlock (e.g., Binder 1999 ; Coleman 1999 ), we lack a comprehensive perspective theoretically and empirically examining preferences, institutions, and parties. We overcome this deficiency by modeling conditions for gridlock as a function of preferences and institutions—incorporating bicameralism and presidential influence—and of parties. By generating equilibrium gridlock intervals for empirical testing using Poole's (1998) common space scores, and showing that gridlock intervals associated with models in which parties have no effect or an agenda-setting role do not explain policy gridlock but that those linked to models with party-unity effects and strong presidential leadership do, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for party and leadership roles in explaining legislative choices.     

当政治遇上历史:比较历史分析方法(CHA)介绍

当代西方比较政治研究由于过分迷信大样本计量统计和形式模型而忽视了许多人类社会生活中的实质性重要问题。作为一种有着深厚学术传统的研究范式,比较历史分析是部分西方学者对这一方法论危机的重要回应。相对而言,比较历史分析的研究特别致力于为大规模社会结果提供有历史深度的社会科学因果解释。它们不仅关注宏大的历史问题,而且试图为这些问题提供因果性解释;不仅运用案例间的比较确定历史问题的因果效应,同时重视案例内的分析探寻背后的因果机制;不仅热衷于追寻经济社会结果的长历史原因,同时强调历史时序的重要性。尽管国内政治学界一向擅长历史的研究,但由于缺乏规范的方法意识而鲜有比较历史分析的佳作。借助比较历史分析方法,中国学者不仅可以对本土政治问题开展跨国性的比较,同时可以整合不同研究方法的长处,繁荣中国的比较政治研究。     

Brussels between Bern and Berlin: Comparative Federalism Meets the European Union

In the current debate on the future European order, the European Union (EU) is often described as an "emerging federation." This article claims that federalism is not exclusively useful in deliberating about the future of the EU. Non-statecentric conceptions of federalism provide a better understanding of the current structure and functioning of the European system of multilevel governance than most theories of European integration and international relations do. We combine political and economic perspectives of federalism to analyze the "balancing act" between effective political representation and efficient policy-making in the EU. Drawing on the examples of Germany and Switzerland in particular, we argue that the increasing delegation of powers to the central EU level needs to be paralleled by strengthened patterns of fiscal federalism and an empowered representation of functional interests at the European level. Without such "rebalancing," the current legitimacy problems of the EU are likely to intensify.     

When Basic Income Meets Professor Pangloss: Ignoring Public Administration and Its Perils

Basic income advocates propose a model that they believe will dramatically improve on current welfare programmes by alleviating poverty, reducing involuntary unemployment and social exclusion, redistributing care work, achieving a better work–life balance, and so on. Whether these expected social effects materialise in practice critically depends on how the model is implemented, but on this topic the basic income debate remains largely silent. Few advocates explicitly consider questions of implementation, and those that do are typically dismissive of the administrative challenges of implementing a basic income and critical (even overtly hostile) towards bureaucracy. In this contribution we briefly examine (and rebut) several reasons that have led basic income advocates to ignore administration. The main peril of such neglect, we argue, is that it misleads basic income advocates into a form of Panglossian optimism that risks causing basic income advocacy to become self‐defeating.     

Transgovernmentalism Meets Security: Police Liaison Officers,Terrorism, and Statist Transnationalism

Studies of transgovernmental activities have enhanced our understanding of changing global politics, but their claims have not been fully investigated with respect to the security realm. Therefore, this article first acknowledges a gap between the practices and capacities of nonstate entities creating transnational threats and those of state‐based agents of response. States' ability to respond to these threats has been questioned. Is this skepticism warranted or have states begun adapting and developing new responses to address nonstate security challenges? This article looks at transgovernmental responses to transnational terrorism and identifies an unconventional group of substate pioneers, police liaison officers (PLO), making moves into the transnational realm. Data collected through interviews with international PLOs reveal these activities to be characterized by increasing informality, depoliticization, and demonopolization of global security cooperation. This cooperation nevertheless maintains its strong ties with state legitimacy and capacity, and is therefore conceptualized here as statist transnationalism.     

Ivory Tower Meets Smoke-Filled Back Rooms of Politics: An Academic Perspective on Illinois' School Funding Debate

In anticipation of an upcoming legislative debate, in the early summer of 1996 public advocacy groups in Illinois contracted with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs of the University of Illinois to provide analysis of school funding reform proposals. The intent was to make the analysis and models widely available for use by government officials as well as concerned citizens. We prepared a report on options for Illinois to help focus the school funding discussion on the fundamental policy choices facing lawmakers. In this article, we summarize the process of and the university's contribution to the policy debate. Five illustrative alternatives to the current system are analyzed. While we think these options are of interest for their own sake, our primary goal in writing this article is to provide an example of how academic analysts can make a constructive contribution to heated political debate without advocating any particular plan.     

The Chinese Paradox of High Growth and Low Quality of Government: The Cadre Organization Meets Max Weber

Much research has argued for the importance of state's administrative capacity for development. Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China—the cadre organization. Instead of rule following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development.     

The Big End of Town Meets the Local Council: The Investment Habitus of Four Sets of Australian Councils during the GFC

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 led to a substantial write‐down in the value of investments such as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) with one class of investors being NSW Local councils.  This article analyses interviews with four different investor types (or sets) of local councils, each of which took a substantially different approach to CDO investment. This categorisation into sets was based on interviews of 28 individuals working within 14 local councils as well as commentaries on legal cases involving a class action of local councils suing Lehman Brothers Australia as well as Grange Securities over losses in their investments. This article adopts Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to describe and explain behaviour regarding decisions to invest (or not) in CDOs. Interesting themes arise regarding differing views on the appropriate role of local councils, and on the degree and form of ‘capital’ (which includes knowledge, competencies, skills, and economic resources) that a council should have before investing in sophisticated financial products. This article explores the role that field, habitus, and capital played in moderating and influencing council investment making decisions. The analysis shows that these Bourdieuian concepts can be utilised to help explain individual behaviour. This case study shows that excessive capital left in the hands of individuals may result in suboptimal decision making. Local councils may need to consider ways of implementing policies and procedures that can be used to moderate individual action.