Fiscal Federalism for Emerging Economies: Lessons from Switzerland?

Switzerland is one of the most non-centralized countries inthe world. A groining literature is examining the economic effectsof tax competition between the 26 Swiss cantons. Despite therelative success of Swiss federalism, most federal countriesfollow the principles of coordinated rather than competitivefederalism. We identify the institutional preconditions forwell-functioning competitive federalism in Switzerland. Thesecond part deals with the applicability of the Swiss experiencefor emerging economies in Latin America. The analysis recognizesthat most institutions identified to be crucial in the Swisscase are missing in Latin America. This leads to the policyconclusion that competitive federalism can only produce itspositive effects under certain institutional circumstances.These circumstances are often not considered when introducinglax competition in emerging economies.     

Wealth Taxes: Stories, Metaphors and Public Attitudes

Wealth taxes are currently high on the policy agenda in Britain. These taxes will not be political sustainable without public support. However, evidence exists that indicates substantial public opposition to wealth taxes. For example, inheritance tax appears to provoke hostility among the public. Some observers have suggested that the way that wealth taxes are presented - particularly using stories and narratives - could enhance public support. This paper summarises focus group evidence on this suggestion. I report that using narratives and stories can have an impact, although this should not be overstated and much depends on how the narratives are shaped.     

Gendered Narratives: Stories and Silences in Transitional Justice

Stories told about violence, trauma, and loss inform knowledge of post-conflict societies. Stories have a context which is part of the story-teller’s life narrative. Reasons for silences are varied. This article affirms the importance of telling and listening to stories and notes the significance of silences within transitional justice’s narratives. It does this in three ways. First, it outlines a critical narrative theory of transitional justice which confirms the importance of narrative agency in telling or withholding stories. Relatedly, it affirms the importance of story-telling as a way to explain differentiated gender requirements within transitional justice processes. Second, it examines gendered differences in the ways that women are silenced by shame, choose silence to retain self-respect, use silence as a strategy of survival, or an agential act. Third, it argues that compassionate listening requires gender-sensitive responses that recognize the narrator’s sense of self and needs.     

Charismatic Economies: Pentecostalism,Economic Restructuring,and Social Reproduction

Pentecostalism is one of the world's fastest growing religions, expanding most quickly in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia. To make sense of this expansion in so many developing regions, I suggest that Pentecostalism fosters norms and behaviors that harmonize with neoliberal economic restructuring. I frame this theoretically with Polanyi's notion of double movement. In our current era of weakened state governance vis-à-vis neoliberal trade and fiscal policy, non-state sites of reaction have emerged. Pentecostalism is one such site, and, in contrast with Polanyi's example, I suggest that Pentecostalism has embedded the self-regulated aspects of neoliberal capitalism. I make this argument by using the feminist political economy theorization of social reproduction to interpret a number of empirical studies of Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism addresses dilemmas of social reproduction engendered by neoliberalism, and so may be said to embed this form of economic organization in human social life in a way that reinforces neoliberal capitalism.     

Institutions and Market Reform in Emerging Economies: A Rent Seeking Perspective

The role of institutions as determinants ofrent seeking success is well established. In this paper, we focus on institutionsthat have received little attention in theliterature, namely electoral institutions. We examine three measures of electoralinstitutional structure that arehypothesized to be instrumental indetermining the level of rent seekingsuccess. These are the type of electoralsystem, pluralistic or proportional; methodof selection of the chief executive,presidential or parliamentary; and thenumber of electoral districts. An index ofeconomic freedom is used as the metric forrent seeking opportunities created bygovernments. Theoretical implications ofvariation in these electoral institutionsare developed. These implications areempirically tested employing data from 29countries classified as having emergingmarket economies. Countries with emergingeconomies are expected to exhibit moreinstitutional flexibility that moredeveloped countries whose property rightsare well established and defended. Theempirical results are controlled fordifferences in a number of demographic andhistorical factors. Plurality electoralsystems are more resistant to the politicaldemands of rent seeking than proportionalsystems. Fewer election districts seem toreduce rent seeking opportunities. However, conditional on the type ofelectoral system, presidential systems arefound to be no more resistant to rentseeking than parliamentary systems. Finally, we find strong control effects. Literacy increases a country's resistanceto rent seeking while military spending andyears of institutional entrenchment reduceit.     

Moral Courage: A Sociological Perspective

While many social scientists have written about obedience and conformity, few have analyzed the conduct of outliers and nonconformists who defy these forces by engaging in acts of moral courage. Among psychologists and philosophers, moral courage is often portrayed as an individualistic phenomenon that is immune to sociological analysis. This paper challenges this view, positing that social ties with like-minded coconspirators, an identification with ‘imagined others’ who espouse similar moral beliefs, and social interactions that awaken the conscience play a crucial role in facilitating these seemingly solitary acts. Drawing on two original case studies – a border guard who defied a restrictive immigration law on the eve of World War II, and a Serb who crossed the lines of ethnic division during the Balkan wars of the 1990s – the article illuminates the social dimensions of moral courage and contributes to the project of developing a social psychology of conscience.     

Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out

It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them to the difficulty historians experience in listening to the stories of other genocides like the Shoah/Holocaust, they are stories based on silence about what cannot be told. The argument relies on the oral history literature on listening to trauma as personal and subjective accounts of survival. They are not straightforward referential narratives. One narrative, the narrative of Sabaheta who lost her child and husband, is central to the piece. She is one of the women interviewed by the author. The interview expresses sorrow about loss and rage about the international community; these stories are interwoven. The narrative also describes through the eyes of the victim what she felt happened. The author is Dutch, so is part of the one nation – more than any other – that is accused of “doing nothing.” It was the Dutch army that was supposed to protect the civilian population of Srebrenica. The government of The Netherlands has halted any negotiation on financial support for the research as “the project does not help to overcome trauma.” She argues that giving a voice to the victim is a necessary step toward closure.     

The Moral Efficacy of Aesthetic Experience: Figures of Meaning in the Moral Field

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyse the process that makes paths of action meaningful. It argues that this process is one of "figuration". The term "figuration" intends to outline how the experience of moral meaning is one that already positively marks out a field and to identify and analyse the mechanisms used for such marking and selection. It is my contention that these mechanisms predate the persuasion to a moral path; they are the process through which this path is constructed as meaningful. This thesis is elucidated through an analysis of the tactics of meaning in Kant's moral theory. Kant turns to aesthetics as a means of corroboration for his moral theory, but he also attempts to limit the scope of the interactions between his aesthetic and moral theory. For instance, when he writes on the topic of form in aesthetic taste or outlines the technical specifications of aesthetic judgment, it is arguably the arcane peculiarities of his system that are met. For this reason, Kant insists on the merely analogical relations between beauty and morality. However, it is also possible to see how certain aspects of Kant's aesthetic theory execute wider, and potentially more important, functions for his practical philosophy, such as providing meaningful orientation for the ascetic moral attitude of his duty-ethics. In this respect, certain figures of Kant's aesthetic theory may well be viewed as complementing the dependence in his moral philosophy, in the important sections on moral pedagogy and methodology, on appeals to heroic models and stories as ways of shaping and inculcating the moral disposition. This paper considers these aspects of interaction between Kant's aesthetic and moral philosophies as both (1) a problem for the consistency of his philosophy given his avowed exclusion of aesthetic and religious elements of meaning in his duty-ethics; and (2) as a case study for the new, schematic analysis of "moral figuration" outlined in the paper.     

Funding the Welfare State: Globalization and the Taxation of Business in Advanced Market Economies

Theorists assert that international capital mobility creates substantial pressure for all democratically elected governments to decrease tax burdens on business. I explicate and critique the general version of this theory and offer an alternative view. Empirically, I explore whether or not the globalization of capital markets has resulted in decreases in business social security, payroll, and profit taxes. I also investigate whether or not capital mobility has intensified government responsiveness to domestic investment and profitability. Evidence suggests that business tax burdens have not been reduced in the face of rises in capital mobility nor is tax responsiveness to profitability and domestic investment intensified by more open capital markets. To the contrary, analyses indicate that business taxation has become subject to new 'market conforming' policy rules that developed in tandem with liberalization of markets. These new policy orientations reduce the economic management roles of business taxation while leaving the revenue-generating roles intact. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of the findings for questions concerning the structural power of internationally mobile capital, redistributive policies, and the autonomy of democratically elected governments in a global economy.     

Multi-Year Budgeting: A Review of International Practices and Lessons for Developing and Transitional Economies

In recent years, many developed countries have moved to develop their annual budget process in a strategic multi-year framework. While a common feature of multi-year budgeting approaches is the inclusion of revenue forecasts and expenditures estimates for two or three years beyond the current year, multi-year budget practices vary substantially between countries. This article reviews multi-year budgeting practices in six developed countries (Australia, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States) and attempts to draw lessons from these experiences for the potential application of multi-year budget techniques by developing and transitional countries. We draw five lessons from the multi-year budget practices of developed countries that are relevant for developing and transitional economies: (1) a multi-year dimension could be a valuable fiscal policy and management tool for developing and transitional countries; (2) the approach chosen in each developing or transitional economy should reflect the country's policy objectives, unique budget institutions and traditions, and administrative capabilities; (3) the introduction of a multi-year budget dimension is a gradual process; (4) the multi-year budget should be used to encourage the constructive involvement of line ministries in the budget process; and (5) the usefulness of the multi-year budget approach will crucially depend on the reliability and accuracy of the medium-term budget estimates.     

Social Context,Institutional Capacity,and Police Services: A Local Public Economies Perspective

This article examines levels of policing services, focusing on an assessment of resources and their measurement for municipalities. Two measures of policing levels assess the reliability of the findings across alternative measurements. Social and institutional characteristics are explored to evaluate alternative explanations in policing efforts. The article presents four decades of census data for municipalities in metropolitan areas. The central finding is that unequal levels of policing are prevalent across American municipalities. An additional finding is that social and institutional contexts affect policing, based on a pooled time‐series analysis of municipal governments. Although its main contribution is to local public economies research, the research also integrates the social and institutional literatures to identify factors in the allocation of resources to policing.     

Ideology Justifies Morality: Political Beliefs Predict Moral Foundations

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is employed as a causal explanation of ideology that posits political attitudes are products of moral intuitions. Prior theoretical models, however, suggest the opposite causal path, that is, that moral judgments are driven by political beliefs. In both instances, however, extant research has assumed rather than explicitly tested for causality. So do moral intuitions drive political beliefs or do political beliefs drive moral intuitions? We empirically address this question using data from two panel studies and one nationally representative study, and find consistent evidence supporting the hypothesis that ideology predicts moral intuitions. The findings have significant implications for MFT as a theory of ideology, and also about the consequences of political beliefs for shaping how individuals rationalize what is right and what is wrong.     

社会主义荣辱观:历史传承与新发展

胡锦涛总书记提出的“八荣八耻”社会主义荣辱观,是当代社会主义道德信念在新时期传承中国传统文化精髓、面向时代的一次新总结和新发展。它所包含的内容,源自中华民族的优良传统,源自人民群众艰苦奋斗的伟大实践,既体现我们民族的传统美德,又反映了社会主义新时代的价值追求;它将道德信念的历史性、现实性与时代性融为一体,具有坚实的社会基础和强大的生命力。