Elitist theory and political tolerance in Western Europe

This paper addresses the problem of democratic elitism within the context of Western European politics. An entrenched assertion of the so-calledelitist theory of democracy is that elites are more strongly committed to democratic values such as political tolerance than are ordinary citizens. The processes through which elites become more tolerant include political socialization, resocialization, political practice, and experience. Some have even argued that elites are the primary carriers of thedemocratic creed. Our purpose here is to test several hypothese drawn from elitist theory. Relying on opinion surveys conducted in each of the twelve nations of the European Community in 1988, we focus on political tolerance. Our basic hypothesis is that political activism contributes to greater political tolerance. Special attention is given to a sample of opinion leaders as a test of the elitist theory. The analysis is conducted both at the level of the individual citizen and the level of the nation state. This is one of very few efforts to test elitist theory from a broad, cross-national perspective. Consequently, the analysis will be crucial in recasting elitist theory to comport more closely with empirical evidence.     

Age-related differences when measuring political hypocrisy

This article aims to develop a scale for measuring political hypocrisy (conceptualized as the inconsistency between values publicly expressed by politicians and the behavior they actually demonstrate) and to explore the role of age in voters' perceptions of politicians' hypocrisy, analyzing if citizens belonging to different age groups may identify politicians' hypocrisy with a different detail. Results show that the 19-item scale of political hypocrisy—composed of three dimensions, called “ambiguity,” “slyness,” and “deceit”—has good psychometric properties, and that age-related differences when measuring political hypocrisy do exist (young voters show a greater awareness of the hypocritical behavior held by politicians). Furthermore, results suggest that the perception of political hypocrisy may vary according both to voters' political orientation and voting intention.     

Interethnic tolerance,education, and political orientation: Evidence from Denmark

Focusing on the relationship between education and tolerance toward ethnic out-groups in the Danish public, this analysis presents evidence in support of the argument that an important mechanism behind the positive impact of education on tolerance is cognitive constraint: Academic education promotes the ability to connect ideas, and minds equipped with this ability will tend to generalize the norms of the prevailing democratic culture to include ethnic relations. This tendency is particularly apparent when political orientations of the liberal left are added to common democratic norms. The constrained mind that holds left-leaning political beliefs is compelled to express ethnic tolerance. On the other hand, constrained minds permit themselves to be intolerant only when subscribing to right-wing political ideas explicitly at variance with liberal democratic ideals. Interestingly, cognitive constraint is high also in the minority among people lacking in academic education that scores high on tolerance. Compared to their less tolerant peers, the members of this minority are much more likely to be involved in political organizations, for the most part at the ideological left. This indicates that in Denmark such organizations serve a function that in terms of fostering ability to connect ideas is equivalent to the function of academic institutions.     

Individual value priorities,education, and political tolerance

Extensive research on political tolerance identifies numerous social, psychological, and political sources of attitudes toward political dissenters. Much of this research underscores the salutary influence of education on greater acceptance of diversity, although some sophisticated work questions the strength of the linkage between education and tolerance. This study has two principal goals. First, it attempts to point to an alternative source of tolerance that has been given very little attention in the extant literature. Specifically, it argues that increases in political tolerance may be tied to the broad-based value shift allegedly sweeping through advanced industrial society. Second, research reported in this paper provides more evidence for the robustness of the education-tolerance relationship and offers one possible explanation for why this relationship exists. It suggests that one of the reasons higher education tends to be linked with greater tolerance is because it leads to individual value priorities that are conducive to greater openness to political diversity. A multivariate model of political tolerance is estimated that demonstrates modern versus traditional values contribute most to variation in tolerant attitudes, followed by education. The explanation of indirect effects of education on tolerance through its direct impact onvalues receives empirical support as well. The endeavor concludes by outlining some tentative predictions concerning the attainment of a more tolerant polity that would fare well when evaluated by the liberal democratic theory yardstick.     

Correction to: Economic growth and political extremism

Public Choice - We provide the first parcel-level, time-series empirical analysis of municipal annexation behavior. We also exploit a unique natural experiment created by the incorporation and...     

Levinas: From ethics to political theology

Levinas's ethics claims to show the path to a better society. But an examination of his views on politics and the State shows that this ethics is not much more than a justification of theology and of the State of Israel.     

Introduction to Neumann: law and socialist political theory

Abstract

Regulators attempt to understand financial markets and their risks in terms of categories of knowledge and datasets that are defined and produced by the markets. However, regulators cannot adequately interpret or utilize such knowledge, for reasons including their social distance from the sites of knowledge production, the diversity of financial firms’ proprietary risk models, firms’ abilities to game the rules thus rendering the ‘metrics’ meaningless and several backfiring aspects of global regulatory networking and reform. Calls for yet more information about trading, posed in terms of the merits of transparency, result in information swamping of regulators. Meanwhile, while policy-makers tinker with regulatory structures (‘architecture’), political reaction to the crisis de-legitimizes public regulation as a project. Yet there is one positive aspect of the reforms – enhancing powers for ‘resolution’ of financial firms in ways that impact upon investors while minimizing wider destabilization – upon which the regulatory information requirement can and should be refocused. To protect the public interest, legal transparency is required, trading transparency is not. This paper introduces these issues by drawing on critical work on transparency and markets.     

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.     

Commitment to work and the self-perception of disability

Population surveys of the disabled frequently show large numbers of persons who report work activity despite a simultaneous response indicating that they are severely disabled. Using multinomial logit analysis, this article examines the characteristics of persons who express such a commitment to work. The characteristics examined are sex, race, age, family size, education, marital status, health status, and length of work experience prior to onset of disability. The logit analysis allows us to see which of these variables predict work behavior. Data from the 1972 Survey of Disabled and Nondisabled Adults and the 1974 Followup Survey are used. Data are shown in cross section (1972 and 1974) and longitudinally (patterns of change from 1972 to 1974). In 1972, the less severe the level of health problems, the higher the level of education, being male, and needing to help relatives financially were traits associated with the probability of working despite self-report of severe disability. Those who received funds from public income maintenance were not likely to have worked. Essentially, the same findings were obtained for 1974 cross sectionally and 1972-74 longitudinally. Comparison was also made between those severely disabled persons who worked full time and those who worked part time, for both 1972 and 1974. Basically, age and severity of health condition were associated with the probability of working full time as opposed to part time, suggesting that it is a work/no work decision that is more likely to discriminate among the work commitments of the severely disabled than is the type of work schedule.     

Situational Contracting: Building Reciprocity between Rights and Obligations

Individualism, cultural pluralism, and pressures from globalization are putting a strain on matching demand and supply of public services. Citizens want tailor‐made solutions, professionals in delivery systems need degrees of freedom to customize supply, and complexity brings along information asymmetries and strategic behavior. All this calls for a new look at interactive governance. This article develops a mode of situational contracting that reveals preference at the level of the individual actor, generates trust in mutual adjustment, and creates scope for customization and innovation in public management. It sets out a strategy, presents results of an early application in the Netherlands, and suggests further applications.     

Does duration of political control matter? Interstate differences in branch-banking laws

This study began by trying to explain differences in state branch-banking regulations. Introducing a variable that captures the effect of political dominance over time improves upon the commonly used measures of political dominance at a specific point in time. Even the direct comparison with the previously used percentage point-in-time variables shows that duration of political influence matters significantly. No matter which party is in control, the length of time it has been in control in a state influences political outcomes. We show that, in terms of which kind of legislation will be enacted, Democratic and Republican control exert equal but opposite effects on legislative results. In other words, length of control matters independently of party affiliation, but party affiliation affects the nature of the outcome of the political process.This new approach might be useful in different areas of the public choice literature. For example, it could be applied to analyzing how abortion laws vary across states. Other areas of economics might benefit as well from considering the duration of control. For example, the political business cycle literature, as in Alesina and Sachs (1988), Golden and Poterba (1980), Hibbs (1977) and Hawthorne and Jackson (1987), that examines patterns in macroeconomic policies and outcomes associated with the kind of government in power, might well be improved by including duration as well as direction of control. In general, any area of public economics in which the effects of political power are considered would benefit from considering the duration as well as the incidence of that power.     

Employee Commitment and Firefighters: It's My Job

The events of September 11, 2001, have led us to rethink the importance of public service and public–sector employees' commitment. In previous research, we argued that employee commitment is a construct comprising three dimensions: commitment to the boss, to the work group, and to the organization. However, this characterization cannot explain the behavior of public employees on September 11. For this article, we argue that employee commitment is a construct that comprises four dimensions: With the help of identity theory, there is reason to include commitment to a job as part of the commitment construct. Based on an analysis of an existing data set, we find that firefighters identified themselves as committed to their job, which they viewed as an honorable profession that performs a valuable service to the community.     

从宗教宽容到文化宽容

西方社会有两种典型的宽容构想即宗教宽容和文化宽容。从它们的各自代表即洛克和沃尔泽入手,分别阐述这两种宽容的基本内容和主要特点,并力图从方法论上揭示出它们的各自构建过程,以求达到对西方社会进行宽容建设的努力作出一种哲学上的把握和评价。从宗教宽容到文化宽容的发展具有必然性,它对于我们把握当今文化全球化的发展态势,发展和传播我国的和谐文化都具有重要意义。     

Partisan responses to Europe: Comparing Finnish and Swedish political parties

Abstract. This article analyzes party responses to European integration in Finland andSweden.We argue that such responses are shaped by seven explanatory factors: basic ideology, public opinion, factionalism, leadership influence, party competition, transnational links, and the development of integration. Each factor can lead to a positive or a negative evaluation of the European Union. In the empirical analysis, the sample includes all parties represented in the respective national parliaments, and the research material consists of party documents, parliamentary votes, statements by leading party figures, public opinion surveys, direct observation and interviews. Party competition and leadership influence are the strongest factors in the Finnish case, while public opinion and factionalism are the strongest factors in Sweden. Issue avoidance combined with the secondary importance of the EU in party politics explain why parties have been relatively successful in containing internal factionalism and discord, especially in Finland.     

Lobbying and uncertainty: Lobbying's varying response to different political events

Does political uncertainty affect whether lobbyists contact government officials? We suggest that the answer depends on the type of uncertainty introduced. Distinguishing between policy objective uncertainty—where organized interests and lobbyists are uncertain about the policy intentions of decision makers—and issue information uncertainty—where policymakers are uncertain about the technical details of issues—we hypothesize that whereas an increase in policy objective uncertainty leads to a decrease in lobbying, a rise in issue information uncertainty leads to more lobbying. We test the hypotheses with longitudinal data from the Canadian Lobbyists Registry measuring change in the number of times lobbyists have contacted government ministries each month from 2008 to 2018. The results suggest that lobbying intensity does respond differently to these types of uncertainty. Whereas events introducing issue information uncertainty have a statistically significant positive relationship with lobbying, events introducing policy objective uncertainty do not.