The trouble with (supply-side) counts: the potential and limitations of counting sites,vendors or products as a metric for threat trends on the Dark Web

Many national security threats now originate on the Dark Web. As a result of the anonymity of these networks, researchers and policymakers often use supply-side data (i.e. the number of sites) as a threat metric. However, the utility of these data depends upon the underlying distribution of users. Users could be distributed uniformly, normally or in a power law across Dark Web content. The utility of supply-side counts varies predictably based upon the underlying distribution of users. Yet, the likelihood of each distribution type varies inversely with its utility: uniform distributions are most useful for intelligence purposes but least likely and power law distributions are least useful but occur most commonly. Complementing supply-side counts with demand-side measures can improve Dark Web threat analysis, thereby helping to combat terrorism, criminality and cyberattacks.     

Voter preferences,simple electoral games,and equilibria in two-candidate contests

The fundamental assumption of spatial models of party competition is that voters possess cardinal utility functions defined on all combinations of issue positions which candidates may adopt. Furthermore, spatial theorists usually assume that utility functions have a shape common to all voters and that voters' most preferred positions are distributed in some regular manner. Employing these and attendant assumptions, the spatial theorist seeks to ascertain what deductions can be made about candidate strategies, i.e., the positions which vote or plurality-maximizing candidates should adopt in an election. It has been found that, in many situations, convergence to an opponent's positions and/or adoption of the median/mean of the most preferred positions of all voters is an important candidate strategy. In this context, two main problems have arisen: (1) difficulties of empirical or statistical analysis; (2) the abovementioned candidate strategy is generally not applicable to elections in so-called ‘plural’ societies. One path out of this latter problem has been formulated by Rabushka and Shepsle (1972). This article explores another potential solution by addressing the following question: If voters arenot characterized by cardinal utility functions, but some other type, what are the consequences for candidate strategies? The alternate assumption employed is that voters are characterized bylexicographic utility functions. The consequences for candidate strategies of this assumption are then determined for two plurality-maximizing candidates in some one- and two-dimensional, three-, five-, and seven-voter electoral games.     

Remembering the bad old days: Human rights,economic conditions,and democratic performance in transitional regimes

Abstract Using the natural laboratory of 18 post–communist Central and Eastern European countries, this article presents a basic model for democratic transition, specifically testing two alternative explanations for the degree of citizen satisfaction with the performance of their fledgling democracies: (1) virtues of omission, which include bad actions from which the state refrains, namely violations of individual human rights, and (2) virtues of commission, which include positive state actions, in particular actions enhancing economic well–being. The findings clearly indicate that, during the transition period citizens' sense of the condition of human rights is consistently more important than are perceived economic prospects as predictors of democratic performance.     

Remembering the bad old days: Human rights, economic conditions, and democratic performance in transitional regimes

Using the natural laboratory of 18 post–communist Central and Eastern European countries, this article presents a basic model for democratic transition, specifically testing two alternative explanations for the degree of citizen satisfaction with the performance of their fledgling democracies: (1) virtues of omission, which include bad actions from which the state refrains, namely violations of individual human rights, and (2) virtues of commission, which include positive state actions, in particular actions enhancing economic well–being. The findings clearly indicate that, during the transition period citizens' sense of the condition of human rights is consistently more important than are perceived economic prospects as predictors of democratic performance.     

Technical progress in bureaucracies

In this paper we raise the question whether in bureaucracies incentives are existing to implement technical progress into public goods production as it may be observed in the private sector. Therefore the well-known models of the theory of bureaucracy will be enhanced by technical progress modelled as process innovations. Depending on bureaucrats' preferences two results can be obtained: (a) If bureaucrats maximize their budget or if output or the classical production factors enter their utility function, R&D will be used efficiently due to cost reductions increasing the bureaucrats' budget or utility; (b) if bureaucrats prefer R&D as an end itself, they will use this factor like other factors by more than the efficient amount. In both cases an allocative inefficient output of the public good is produced. As a consequence society cannot benefit from gains by technical progress since net social welfare is appropriated totally by bureaucrats, even if it is increased by R&D-efforts.     

Tacit co-operation in three-alternative non-cooperative voting games: A new model of sophisticated behaviour under the plurality procedure

Two models, one due to Farquharson and the other to Niemi-Frank, attempt to account for sophisticated voting behaviour when the voters' preference orderings are common knowledge and communication among Voters is impossible. Having subjected these two models to experimental testing, we have found them lacking. Hence, we propose a new model of sophisticated voting for 3-alternative n-person non-cooperative games under the plurality procedure, which can be extended to other voting procedures and more than three alternatives.The model assumes that voters whose first preference is (one of) the Condorcet winner(s) will (tacitly) co-ordinate their strategies and vote for their first preference, and specifies the conditions under which voters whose second preference is (one of) the Condorcet winner(s) will vote for their second (rather than their first) preference. Consequently, our model predicts that: (i) if there is a single Condorcet winner he or she will be elected; (ii) if there is more than one Condorcet winner the final outcome will be a tie between them; and (iii) when there are cyclical majorities with a single maximin alternative, this alternative will be elected.     

District Magnitude and Home Styles of Representation in European Democracies

How political representatives interact with constituents is contingent on the conditions under which they compete for re-election. It has been the assumption that intra-party competition shapes legislators’ incentive to cultivate a personal reputation and thereby the incentive to engage in any constituency-oriented action that reputation may be built on. Using data from the PARTIREP cross-national survey among regional and national legislators in 12 European democracies, the assumption is proven to be inaccurate: focusing on more than one action at a time, it becomes clear that district magnitude increases the time representatives spend on some constituency-oriented actions and decreases the time they spend on others (even when the electoral incentive to nurture a personal reputation is strong). The article demonstrates that representatives’ choice to engage in four constituency-oriented actions is related to the nature of these home styles and their electoral utility in a given context.     

Bribery and Public Debt Repudiation

In cases where policy makers accept ``bribes'' offered by organised lobbies or interestedparties, government decisions can be modelled as a first price menu auction. In this paper we adaptthis structure to model debt repudiation. We considera one-period model in which two generations, parents and children, are present, and debt titles are unevenlydistributed among parents. The government can repaythe debt by a combination of taxes on the children'sincome and on the outstanding debt. We excludeintergenerational conflicts, assuming that the parents'and children's objective is to maximise the utility ofthe family. In this perspective, families make offersthat relate monetary contributions to the taxstructures chosen by the government. On the hypothesisthat all interests are represented, we obtain theresult that the government is indifferent to the taxstructure.     

The Elusive Search for Presidential Power

Unilateral presidential actions, such as executive orders, are widely cited as a key strategic tool for presidential power. However, is unilateral action evidence of unilateralism or might it represent executive acquiescence? We answer this by (1) specifying three competing models, each with a different presidential discretion assumption and generating alternative hypotheses; (2) extending the canonical item‐response model to best measure executive‐order significance; and (3) comparing competing theoretical models to data for 1947–2002. Theoretically, we show that legislative preferences may impact unilateral actions differently than previously thought and indicate how parties may be influential. Empirically, a model where the president is responsive to the chamber's majority‐party median fits the data better than models assuming responsiveness to the chamber median or no presidential acquiescence. Unilateral action appears not tantamount to presidential power, as evidence implies that legislative parties, or the judicial actors enforcing their will, are key conditioning factors.     

Ideology and candidate evaluation

How does the expressed political ideology of voters influence their evaluation of presidential candidates? The classic answer to this question is provided by the spatial theory of electoral choice in which utility for a candidate is a function of the proximity between the voter and candidate positions on the liberal-conservative continuum. We have argued elsewhere that spatial theory, while intellectually appealing, is inadequate as an empirical model of mass behavior. We have developed a directional theory of issue voting that we believe provides a more realistic accounting of how specific policy issues influence utility for a candidate. Directional theory is based on the view that for most voters issues are understood as a dichotomous choice between two alternative positions. While ideology is widely understood as a continuum of positions, the directional model can be applied to the relationship between ideology and candidate evaluation. In this paper we compare the two theories using National Election Study data from 1972 to 1988. The results tend to favor the directional model over the traditional proximity model. We conclude by briefly tracing out the implications of this finding.     

Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change

Most policy-relevant work on climate change in the social sciences either analyzes costs and benefits of particular policy options against important but often narrow sets of objectives or attempts to explain past successes or failures. We argue that an ??applied forward reasoning?? approach is better suited for social scientists seeking to address climate change, which we characterize as a ??super wicked?? problem comprising four key features: time is running out; those who cause the problem also seek to provide a solution; the central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent; and, partly as a result, policy responses discount the future irrationally. These four features combine to create a policy-making ??tragedy?? where traditional analytical techniques are ill equipped to identify solutions, even when it is well recognized that actions must take place soon to avoid catastrophic future impacts. To overcome this tragedy, greater attention must be given to the generation of path-dependent policy interventions that can ??constrain our future collective selves.?? Three diagnostic questions result that orient policy analysis toward understanding how to trigger sticky interventions that, through progressive incremental trajectories, entrench support over time while expanding the populations they cover. Drawing especially from the literature on path dependency, but inverting it to develop policy responses going forward, we illustrate the plausibility of our framework for identifying new areas of research and new ways to think about policy interventions to address super wicked problems.     

Uncertainty and political participation

The minimax regret model of decision making under uncertainty, which was proposed by Ferejohn and Fiorina (1974) as a model of the voting decision, is here generalized to encompass forms of political participation (such as contributing money or time to a campaign) in which the range of alternatives is continuous. A principal implication of the model is that aggregate campaign contributions may be substantially increased by limiting the amount that any one individual can contribute. The conditions under which the behavior of a minimax regret decision maker can be unambiguously distinguished from that of an expected utility maximizer are also specified.     

EC trade protection law: Produmping or antidumping?

This paper argues that the anticipation of protection can have astimulating effect on exports instead of the commonly claimed effect of harassment. If protection serves market cartelization by fixing export quantities or prices, exporters may have an incentive to increase their sales abroad in order to secure a large share of the expected rent, which is brought about by the anticipated import restriction. This may even result in sales below marginal costs or dumping.The effect of the protectionist threat may then be the reverse of what is intended: it can raise the speed of import penetration and it can provoke dumping. A formal model and a supportive institutional analysis of EC trade protection is supplemented by preliminary empirical evidence.     

Moderate Secularism, Religion as Identity and Respect for Religion

Political secularism takes many forms but a fundamental distinction is between radical and moderate kinds. The latter is a genuine secularism and not just a failure to take secularism to its logical conclusion. The failure to appreciate this obscures the secularism that exists in western Europe. Namely, an accommodation of organised religion which sees it as a potential public good or national resource (not just a private benefit), which the state can in some circumstances assist to realise—even through an 'established' church. I adumbrate five types of reasons the state might be interested in religion: truth, danger, utility, identity and respect. The challenge facing such secularism today is whether it can be pluralised or multiculturalised, in particular whether it can accommodate Muslims. A ground for optimism is the respect that some people, especially some Muslims, have for religions other than their own.     

Program Accountability as an Emergent Property: The Role of Stakeholders in a Program's Field

This article applies the concepts of organization field and accountability environment to a government-funded program. It argues that the formula for accountability inspired by agency theory—define performance standards, measure performance, and sanction based on measured performance—is frequently impossible to apply because program accountability can be an emergent property arising from the actions of the major actors in a program's field. Studying a program reform of social service transportation in Kentucky, it illustrates the utility of conceptualizing accountability as an emergent property of the program's field. After the principle actors in this program field—the transportation broker, the state, the transportation provider (such as a taxi company), and the riders—established their roles, there was a decline in program cost per rider and a reduction in waste and fraud. The article concludes with implications for designing more accountable programs.     

One-dimensionality and stability in legislative voting

The widespread use in legislative studies of the one-dimensional model and its median-stability consequence raises a question: Do stability and one-dimensionality rest on evidence drawn from observed votes? They do not and cannot. I prove that every possible legislative history is compatible with a transitive majority preference (hence stability), and except in very special circumstances with a cyclic majority preference (hence instability) as well: observed votes can never refute and almost never confirm stability. One-dimensionality fares worse: any legislative history is compatible with the one-dimensional model if it includes no two votes with overlapping pairs of alternatives, but otherwise, I show, it is almost certainly incompatible with the model, even in those rare cases that ensure transitivity. Voting evidence aside, the one-dimensional model is unduly restrictive, and arguments in its defense do not survive scrutiny.     

The distribution of income in a despotic society

A distribution of income between rulers and subjects can be derived as an equilibrium of violence, rather than from considerations of marginal products of owned factors of production. Society is organized in ranks, and the occupants of each rank are provided with incomes just sufficient that obedience is preferable to rebellion. To incorporate such considerations into a model, it is necessary to recognize phenomena that are normally excluded from economic analysis: combat, the mortality rate (from natural causes and from violence) as a component of the utility function, and a rudimentary technology of control.     

Semiotics and Society

This essay introduces some of the basic concepts that can be used in applied semiotic analysis and discusses the work of some prominent semioticians, such as Ferdinande de Saussure, Charles Sander Peirce, Umberto Eco, and Roland Barthes. Barthes’ book Mythologies is identified as a seminal text in applied semiotic analysis. Marshall McLuhan’s book The Mechanical Bride is discussed as being semiotic in nature, though he doesn’t use the term. The utility of semiotics utility in studying teeth, facial expression and other aspects of people watching and communication is also dealt with.     

The Domestic Use of Drones: An Ethical Analysis of Surveillance Issues

Drone surveillance can be regarded either as a justifiable, impartial practice serving the interests of all or as an oppressive technique catering to the interests of some at the expense of others. This analysis is an effort to weigh the ethical prospects and problems in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by asking whether surveillance of civilians is ethical. To address this question, classical philosophical and modern behavioral approaches to ethics are used. The inquiry begins with the importance of the issue, followed by its evolution and current status. After describing the method of analysis, the article examines arguments for and against domestic monitoring. The unique utility of drones can accomplish much in the public interest while simultaneously creating moral hazards. The conclusion discusses accountability standards, model legislation provisions, and regulatory criteria for aerial vehicle surveillance.