Homeownership and Nontraditional and Subprime Mortgages

This article documents the growth and geographic distribution of nontraditional mortgages (NTMs) and subprime mortgages during 2000-2006, and examines the association between these products and homeownership at the county level between 2000 and 2012. It finds a significant relationship between the origination of NTM and subprime mortgages during the boom and changes in the number of homeowners (positive during the 2000-2006 period and negative during the 2006-2012 period) but no significant relationship with the change in the homeownership rate. Looking at specific categories of the population, the results indicate a positive relationship between the presence of NTMs and subprime mortgages and increased numbers of homeowners for young households as well as for low income and minority households, but the relationship is smaller than for the general population. Overall, the relationship between NTMs and homeownership is stronger than the relationship between subprime mortgages and homeownership during the boom and it is less negative during the bust.     

Civic engagement and participation among Ghanaian and Kenyan students and their correlates

This article examines levels of civic engagement among university students in Ghana and Kenya and identifies factors that may account for their civic engagement. Overall, the students reported low civic engagement, with the Kenyans reporting higher engagement. Demographic factors (gender and age) and personal values hardly contributed to the students’ civic engagement. Political interest and attentiveness, barriers and motivation towards participation made a consistent and significant contribution to political participation and future participation. Furthermore, trust, social endorsement and social efficacy showed a consistent and significant contribution to civic engagement. The findings underscore the need to work towards getting the youth more engaged.     

Salem with and without witches,and also Geneva and Berlin

Public Choice - Peter Bernholz’s cases of supreme values exhibit authoritarianism, totalitarianism and terror. Supreme values are, however, a necessary, but not sufficient condition for...     

Islam and Plurality,Old and New

All of the historical religions emerged in a context of religious plurality and, at times, bitter inter-religious rivalry. In our late modern age, the challenge of plurality has become all the more pervasive. This paper examines the varied traditions of knowledge and practice developed by Muslim jurists, political leaders, and religious thinkers to engage people of non-Muslim faith, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to today. It highlights three themes. First, there was never any single message with regard to how the Muslim community should engage plurality. Second, the historical practice of Muslim rulers has often shown greater variation (and occasional "liberality") with regard to questions of plurality than has jurisprudence. Third, and last, however, as with the practitioners of other faiths, Muslims in modern times have had to revisit and rethink their traditions with regards to plurality, and both inclusive and exclusive currents have emerged. The challenge of plurality is likely to remain a core issue in Muslim politics and public ethics for some years to come.     

Reparations and Peacebuilding: Issues and Controversies

This introduction to our special section of Human Rights Review on Reparations and Peacebuilding gives an overview of the challenges currently confronting both peacebuilding and reparations. The special section aims to explore the relationship between these two mechanisms and examines the role that reparations schemes can play in salving or exacerbating conflict.     

Concept and Politics in Derrida and Deleuze

Abstract

This paper points to significant similarities between the political orientations of Deleuze and Derrida. Derrida's appeal to a pure form of existing concepts (absolute hospitality, pure forgiveness, and so on) parallels Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between relative and absolute ‘deterritorialisation’. In each case, the absolute form of the concept is a condition of the possibility of change.     

Structure and Process in Consociationalism and Federalism

It is relatively easy to characterize the institutional structureof a country as consociational or federal. The task is muchmore difficult if we turn from structure to the decision process.Within a given structure, there may be a great deal of variationwith regard to the decision process. Data for such variationare given for the decision process in Switzerland for whichthe following four types are distinguished: (1) consociationaland federal, (2) consociational and unitary, (3) competitiveand federal, and (4) competitive and unitary. Difficulties arediscussed in aggregating from such a variation to a measurefor the prevailing decision process in a country as a whole.It is suggested that the problem be disaggregated and that decisionprocesses be compared for particular issues. This can be doneboth across and within countries.     

Political and institutional environment and privatization prices

We study the link between the political and institutional context and privatization sales prices. The latter serves as a measure for assessing the extent to which privatization goals have been met. Whereas this link has been studied theoretically, there are very few, if any, empirical papers on this relationship. We use data from 308 privatizations around the world and apply a cross-country approach, including instrumental variables. We find that while the overall political regime does not matter much for prices, the political processes beyond the basic regime do matter. Institutional context also produces a significant impact on prices. Both results are robust to changes in specification.     

Tax and expenditure limitations and the fiscal relationships between state and local governments

This paper uses comprehensive data on state and local tax and spending limitations for forty-nine states between 1976 and 1990 to estimate the effects of these limits on the fiscal relationships between state and local government. Results indicate that tax and spending limits on local governments are only partially effective in reducing revenues because political agents bypass limitations by transferring revenue reliance to unconstrained revenue sources, or because unconstrained levels of government take on additional revenue responsibilities. In particular, the empirical analysis demonstrates that binding local government fiscal constraints are associated with reductions in local revenues and increases in state aid to local governments. In contrast, state government limitations are related to reductions in both state and local own source revenues.     

Systems analysis and emergency command and control systems for municipalities and law enforcement

This article is designed to provide insight into methodologies that can be used to assess alternative emergency command and control systems for municipalities and law enforcement. Some potential pitfalls and errors are highlighted.     

Europeanization and Institutional Change in Vocational Education and Training in Austria and Germany

This article analyzes how the EU's vocational education and training (VET) policy is reflected in domestic reforms in Germany and Austria. It perceives Europeanization as a heuristic concept to disentangle a twofold process of institutional change: The first process, the "Europeanized" arena of change, concerns change initiated by the reactions of domestic actors to EU initiatives; the second process of change—the "domestic" arena of change—concerns the ongoing incremental endogenous change in domestic institutions beneath and independent from the Europeanized arena of institutional change. This procedure allows us to differentiate between two modes of Europeanization: In Germany, Europeanization occurs as reform policies and politics; in Austria, Europeanization occurs more as institutional change by default, hence without strategically enacted reform initiatives shaped by the EU and as domestic institutional change that occurs anyway. The article combines the case-oriented method of difference with process tracing.     

Between ballots and bullets: elections and citizenship in and beyond the nation-state

This article approaches electoral acts and performances as central sites for the negotiation of citizenship relations. I argue that, in order to understand how these relationships are shaped, we must attend to governmental actors beyond the nation-state, from trade unions to criminal organizations. Focusing on the case of Jamaica, I show how non-state actors have come to play a central role in hybrid forms of governance, shaping citizens' allegiances to multiple, overlapping political communities. How are campaigning and voting affected by such multiple allegiances? What new understandings of citizenship can we develop if we take the role of non-state actors in the electoral process seriously? I suggest that we should study elections as a site where citizenship – understood here in its broad sense of membership of a political community – can develop both within and beyond the nation-state.     

Ontological Anti-naturalism and the Emergence of Life and Mind: Castoriadis and Deacon

This essay compares the ideas of Cornelius Castoriadis and Terrence W. Deacon. Castoriadis’s anti-Naturalistic ontology, with its conception of radical ontological creation and fundamental indeterminacy, along with his analysis of the category of the “for-itself”, comprising all subjective beings from the living organism to the social-historical, is compared to Deacon’s exploration of the emergence of life and mind, which sees the emergence of teleological beings as resulting from the creation of form-generating constraints that involve new types of dynamic process. Significant parallels and convergences between Castoriadis and Deacon are uncovered and explored.     

“一带一路”推动的时空变革及面临的挑战和应对

伴随着"一带一路"倡议的推进,国内外一直有不同的声音。"一带一路"倡议的推进已取得丰硕成果,推动了全球化发展的时空大变革和利益共享的新型全球化合作机制。现在中国的经济环境与改革开放之初相比已发生重大变化,我们的思想观念也要随之进行调整和转型。国际环境已发生变化,逆全球化趋势突显,给"一带一路"倡议推进造成阻碍和挑战。通过将各种不同的声音加以辨析和回应,系统地解读新时期"一带一路"有关问题,并对"一带一路"成功之处及推动的重大变革加以提炼和总结,针对"一带一路"倡议风险规避和可持续推进提出应对策略。     

Beyond silence and voice: gender,sexuality and antimilitarism in Turkey and Israel

Turkey and Israel project two distinct military regimes which construct gender and sexuality in specific ways as part of their respective security agendas. Despite the differences, however, both entitle women and LGBTQs to certain exemptions from the military service, and in doing so silence their antimilitarist activism. Women and LGBTQs counter this process through their acts of conscientious objection, through which they claim a voice in matters of militarism, security and war. While doing so, however, they reproduce a dichotomous conceptualisation of silence and voice, which falls short of explaining their agency as well as its outcomes. Drawing on a comparative analysis, I argue that a more nuanced understanding of agency necessitates deconstructing the dichotomy between silence and voice, each of which may have multiple meanings, connotations and consequences. Whereas silent acts of grey objection do not always point to a lack of agency and resistance, or domination, and may indeed create change; voice and visibility that follow their declared acts of objection may entail costs and loss of agency, in that not only does it come at the expense of the masculinisation/militarisation of their acts but may also result in the immediate deterioration of their rights to refuse.     

Tax and Expenditure Limitations and State and Local Fiscal Structure: An Empirical Assessment

The tax and expenditure limitation (TEL) "movement" of the 1970s and 1980s can be characterized in part as a struggle between local autonomy and state control. Undeniable shifts have occurred over the same period in state and local revenue systems and functional responsibilities. This article places these shifts within the context of this movement, using pooled, cross-sectional, time-series techniques for the period between 1970 and 1990, in an effort to assess its impacts. Findings suggest that TELs have resulted in increased centralization, lessened local responsiveness, increased use of local non-tax sources of revenue, and a sector less accommodating to the needs of dependent populations. TELs may have also had dubious effects on both the allocative efficiency and equity of the state and local public sector.     

Antisemitic and anti-Israel actions and attitudes in Canada and internationally: a research agenda

ABSTRACT

Brym’s article critically reviews data and the small body of published research on the relationship between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes in Canada and internationally with the aim of identifying key questions that Canadian and non-Canadian researchers who are interested in this contentious issue might profitably address. It derives a series of hypotheses from the literature review and discusses methodological approaches to testing them.     

Structure and Process in Federal and Consociational Arrangements

Daniel J. Elazar uses the concepts of structure and processto distinguish between federal and consociational arrangements.While the distinction is appropriate and useful, it does havelimitations, and in some respects may be slightly misleading.It is argued here that under certain circumstances, politicalstructures can play an important role in defining or promotingcon-sociational arrangements, even if such structures were originallythe result of social forces. An additional point made is thatin both federations and consociations, the relationship betweenstructure and process is essentially reciprocal. It is suggestedthat more attention be paid to the differences in the kindsof structures found in the two forms of governance and, in turn,how they might be linked to differences in process. At thisstage, it appears that consociations are much more confederalin form, which has certain consequences for the manner in whichconflict is both structured and resolved.     

Crises and continuities in development theory and administration: First and Third World perspectives

‘Development Administration’ as an academic discipline originated in the West and has been dominated by Western thought. This article traces the development of the discipline and outlines its Western theoretical foundations and assumptions. The failure of Development Administration to solve the problems of the Third World is outlined, and the ‘indigenization of underdevelopment’ is discussed. New challenges to the discipline, that have been previously seen as ‘heretical’, are presented as alternatives to Western models that have proven their ineffectiveness. China, Guinea-Bissau, India, Tanzania and Libya are used as examples of countries attempting alternative routes to development and development administration. The article stresses the need for open examination of non-traditional models that may provide valuable clues in the struggle for a viable developmental strategy. It concludes by suggesting four major issues around which a new conceptualization can be built: accountable development administration, the role of values, the emergence of fundamentalist ideologies, and the challenges posed by the Third Development Decade.