What are renters really like? Results from a national survey

Abstract

If efforts to expand homeownership are to succeed, policy makers will require improved information on the characteristics of renters, especially their attitudes toward homeownership. This article examines the feasibility of identifying distinctive renter subgroups based on subjective as well as objective characteristics. To do this, a combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis was applied to a 1991 national survey of almost 2,000 renters; discriminant analysis was used to compare the renter subgroups.

Six clusters emerged from the analysis: (1) families moving up the housing ladder (17 percent of the total), (2) lifestyle renters (21 percent), (3) college graduates starting out (26 percent), (4) black renters (15 percent), (5) elderly life cycle renters (10 percent), and (6) struggling blue‐collar workers (11 percent). Clusters 1, 4, and 6 may be suitable targets for homeownership assistance. Programs that may be appropriate for each are discussed.     

Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature

What is the impact of bureaucratic behaviors on tax rates? What is preferable: a bureaucrat or a partisan politician? Does a flypaper effect occur when lobby groups influence public policies? This article tries to answer these questions by analyzing and comparing six different models of public choice: (1) the median voter model, (2) the Leviathan model, (3) the slack-maximizing model, (4) a general model of bureaucracy, (5) the partisan politicians model and (6) a general model of lobbying. Among several results, it is shown that the median voter’s income and tax share almost always play a significant role in the design of the public good/tax package, even if the government does not explicitly try to maximize the median voter’s utility. The article also provides a synthesis of the positive analysis of the flypaper effect.     

Public choice and the economic analysis of anarchy: a survey

Public choice economists began studying anarchy in the 1970s. Since then, the amount of research on anarchy has burgeoned. This article surveys the important public choice contributions to the economics of anarchy. Following early public choice economists, many economists are researching how individuals interact without government. From non-public-interested explanations of the creation of government to historical studies of internalizing externalities under anarchy, public choice scholars are arriving at a more realistic perspective of human interaction with and without government. Although the economics of politics receives more attention, the economics of anarchy is an important area of research in public choice.     

Capitalism,nature, socialism a theoretical introduction∗

This article expounds the traditional Marxist theory of the contradiction between forces and relations of production, over‐production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis‐induced restructuring of productive forces and production relations into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. This exposition provides a point of departure for an “ecological Marxist”; theory of the contradiction between capitalist production relations and forces and the conditions of production, under‐production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis‐induced restructuring of production conditions and the social relations thereof also into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. In short, there may be not one but two paths to socialism in late capitalist society.

While the two processes of capital over‐production and underproduction are by no means mutually exclusive, they may offset or compensate for one another in ways which create the appearance of relatively stable processes of capitalist development. Study of the combination of the two processes in the contemporary world may throw light on the decline of traditional labor and socialist movements and the rise of “new social movements”; as agencies of social transformation. In similar ways that traditional Marxism illuminates the practises of traditional labor movements, it may be that “ecological Marxism”; throws light on the practices of new social movements. Although ecology and nature; the politics of the body, feminism, and the family; and urban movements and related topics are usually discussed in post‐Marxist terms, the rhetoric deployed in this article is self‐consciously Marxist and designed to appeal to Marxist theorists and fellow travelers whose work remains within a “scientific”; discourse hence those who are least likely to be convinced by post‐Marxist discussions of the problem of capital's use and abuse of nature (including human nature) in the modern world. However, the emphasis in this article on a political economic “scientific”; discourse is tactical, not strategic. In reality, more or less autonomous social relationships, often non‐capitalist or anti‐capitalist, constitute “civil society,”; which needs to be addressed on its own practical and theoretical terms. In other words, social and collective action is not meant to be construed merely as derivative of systemic forces, as the last section of the article hopefully will make clear.     

The role of East Timor's security institutions in national integration – and disintegration

Abstract

This article examines the interplay between security sector developments and national unity in East Timor since the Indonesian occupation ended in 1999. Particular attention is paid to the regional distinction between Loromonu and Lorosae – people from the west and east of East Timor, respectively. In 2006, East Timor experienced a crisis that saw the disintegration of the military and police forces, and widespread violence that led to massive internal displacement. It was during this crisis that the Loromonu–Lorosae distinction first emerged as a major societal cleavage. The article argues that the independence cause and the guerrilla force Falintil had been an important focus of East Timorese national unity in 1999. In the years that followed, however, the implementation of flawed security policies led to new military and police forces that were politicized, factionalized and lacking in cohesion. Prior to the 2006 crisis, the Loromonu–Lorosae distinction was primarily an issue within the army. As the crisis escalated, however, the violence was to a large extent framed by the east–west dimension, and popular perceptions of the military as ‘eastern’ and the police as ‘western’ hardened. A year after the crisis, little if any progress had been made towards reducing the increased salience of the Loromonu–Lorosae distinction in society. The main internal security challenges – gang activity, the unresolved issue of the so-called ‘petitioners’, and the destabilizing role played by fugitive former head of military police Alfredo Reinado – all had an east–west dimension. The article also finds that new initiatives aimed at reforming East Timor's military and police forces appeared to be lacking in both depth and relevance for addressing the country's new level of internal division, and its immediate, internal security challenges.     

Positive constitutional economics II��a survey of recent developments

Analysis of the economic effects of constitutional rules has made substantial progress over the last decade. This survey provides an overview of this rapidly growing research area and also discusses a number of methodological issues and identifies underresearched areas. It argues that the next logical step of positive constitutional economics is to endogenize constitutional rules.     

Assessing (and fixing?) Election Day lines: Evidence from a survey of local election officials

Despite recent studies that find few people face significant wait times when attempting to vote in U.S. elections, the 2012 election produced numerous anecdotal and journalistic accounts claiming otherwise. This study relies on a national survey of local election officials to systematically ascertain their views about the challenges and successes they had in administering the 2012 general election. Consistent with surveys of voters, most officials report that wait times and lines were minimal. Furthermore, the relative amount of money available to a jurisdiction for election administration was unrelated to the occurrence of these problems, while the presence of more poll workers—especially first-timers—may actually exacerbate them.     

Reproducing the ‘national home’: gendering domopolitics

Walters developed the concept of domopolitics to refer to the ways in which the securitisation of migration contributes to the construction of the UK as a ‘national home’. Domopolitical policies and discourses produce the UK as the ‘national home’ of ‘neoliberal citizens’; they thus serve as tools of neoliberal governmentality, disciplining both citizens and migrants into displaying qualities associated with neoliberal citizenship, especially economic productivity. However, the concept of ‘home’ has a particular genealogy within liberal discourses of citizenship. As Pateman contends, the political ‘public’ sphere of liberal citizenship is constructed in opposition to an apolitical ‘private’ sphere. The public sphere has been coded as the domain of men, while women have been relegated to the private ‘home’. Consequently, women have been deemed responsible for the reproduction of both the private, and the ‘national’ home, a construction which has persisted under neoliberalism. While often superficially gender-neutral, domopolitics actually relies upon, and reinforces, these gendered understandings of neoliberal citizenship. Domopolitical policies and discourses construct migrant women’s reproductive practices as a legitimate and necessary site of state intervention, disciplining migrant women to ensure they ‘correctly’ reproduce the neoliberal ‘national home.’     

Weber and ‘legitimate domination’: a theoretical critique of Weber's conceptualisation of ‘relations of domination’ ∗

In this paper it is argued that Weber cannot provide a consistent account of the maintenance of systems of ‘legitimate domination’. This argument is based upon an examination of Weber's fundamental concepts of ‘actio’ and ‘behaviour’ and their theoretical relation to Weber's ‘ideal-typical’ approach to the phenomenon of ‘domination’. Through this examination it may be seen that Weber fails to determine the specific ‘natural’ and ‘social’ conditions of forms of domination. Furthermore, Weber's theoretical position can be seen to result in an implicit attempt to combine irreconcilable ‘natural’ and ‘ideal’ forms of determination.     

“… And a suitable living environment”: The failure of housing programs to deliver on neighborhood quality

Abstract

This article evaluates the relative performance of housing programs in terms of neighborhood quality. We profile neighborhood characteristics surrounding assisted housing units and assess the direction of assisted housing policy in light of this information. The analysis relies on a housing census database we developed that identifies the type and census tract location of assisted housing units—that is, public housing, developments assisted under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Direct Loan Program, the low‐income housing tax credit, certificates and vouchers, and state rental assistance programs.

We conclude that project‐based assistance programs do little to improve the quality of recipients’ neighborhoods relative to those of welfare households and, in the case of public housing, appear to make things significantly worse. The certificate and voucher programs, however, appear to reduce the probability that families will live in the most economically and socially distressed areas.     

Boundary riding: Cross‐cultural analysis,national cinema and genre

This paper addresses the relation between rhetoric and politics through a reading of the term ‘queer’ as it circulated in three different communities in the 1990s: the activist group Queer Nation; the (American) field of study now known as Queer Theory; and an underground queer‐punk press (fanzines'). Reflection on the specific uses of the term ‘queer’ indicates widely divergent and conflicting meaning‐making processes. For some people, the term ‘queer’ signifies all people outside of normative heterosexuality, while for others, the term only refers to lesbians and gay men. Within both Queer Nation and Queer Theory, a metaphorical association is established among ‘queers’ and ‘lesbian/gays’. By contrast, queer‐punks employ the term catachrestically, as a metaphor for which no literal referent exists. Rhetorical theory can clarify these different employments of the same term. Theories of metaphor and catachresis help us to understand how relations of association are established among queers and lesbian/gays, and how particular rhetorical strategies relate to specific political agendas.     

Property rights vs. redistribution: Which path to national wealth?

Recent empirical and theoretical research suggests that egalitarian income distribution may spur economic growth. Another different strand of research suggests that property rights are important. These two results are not at odds. A model of switching between a career of rent-seeking and wealth producing shows that for redistribution to boost national income, property rights need to be secure. A more equal distribution of earned income can induce rent-seekers to switch to wealth making, but only if they can be assured that their earned income will be protected from other rent-seekers. The model suggests new directions for empirical testing.     

The second edition of the EPAC expert survey on ethnonationalism in party competition – testing for validity and reliability

This research note presents EPAC 2017, a dataset resulting from the second round of an expert survey on ethnonationalism in party competition. EPAC provides cross-sectional data on the positions of (ethno-) national and mainstream parties on an ethnonational (also often referred to as ‘territorial’ or ‘centre-periphery’) dimension, as well as other important dimensions of political competition. The 2017 edition covers 222 political parties in 22 multinational European countries. The research note presents the main survey items and performs a series of validity and reliability tests on the data. Results show that EPAC 2017 provides valid and reliable measures of party positions on an ethnonational dimension. A short analysis of party system changes in Spain and Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates the opportunities of combining the 2011 and 2017 editions. The combined dataset allows studying the mobilization of the centre-periphery cleavage in party competition across Eastern and Western Europe and over time.