Business conflict and international law: The political economy of copyright in the United States

The internet industry has emerged as an important economic and political actor, both within the United States and internationally. Internet companies depend on exceptions from copyright law in order to operate. As a result, internet companies have considerable incentive to try and influence international copyright law. However, the current literature has neglected the role of the internet industry, instead focusing on the influence of copyright owning media companies. This has largely homogenized the concerns of business interests, neglecting the interests of business actors which do not favor stricter copyright protection. By examining business conflict over recent copyright initiatives by the United States, this article criticizes the literature. It illustrates that the internet industry has been able to alter the negotiating preferences of the United States against the wishes of copyright owners. This argues against the homogenization of business interests regarding copyright while illustrating the importance of material over discursive factors in determining political outcomes.     

U2 and the performance of (A numb) resistance

As Pop Mart, the current U2 tour extravaganza, makes its way around the world, it seems an appropriate time in which to return to the Zoo TV tour of 1992–93. Much of the commentary of the time focused on the uneasy relationship between U2, their previous incarnation as ‘saviours’ of rock'n'roll and their criticism/complicity with television. Instead, this paper focuses on the performing persona developed by the singer Bono, notably The Fly and MacPhisto. The specific reasons for this are twofold: first, to investigate the possibility of resistance articulated on the intersecting planes of performance and persona; and, second, to assess the impact of performance theory within the frame of cultural studies work, particularly in regard to performance studies avowed concern with plotting the shift from theory to practice. The wider frame of this paper is with a more rigorous application of interdisciplinary methods, which have long been (in principle) a core component of cultural studies work. Diamond argues, that ‘performance in all its hybridity would seem to make the best case for interdisciplinary thinking ... [where] the critique of performance merges with performance of critique’ (1996: 7–8).     

How to Succeed at Increasing Spending Without Really Trying: The Balanced Budget Amendment and the Item Veto

Congressional efforts at budgetary reform generally contain procedural impediments designed to limit profligate spending. In particular, the line-item veto and the balanced budget amendment are intended to limit the ability of legislators to pursue their constituents' interests through pork-barrel politics at the expense of the broader public interest. However, assuming that legislators remain motivated by local constituent interests, we argue that these reforms will promote unexpected results. The supermajorities requires by the line-item veto and the balanced budget amendment include incentives for log-rolling that promote – and may indeed increase – pork-barrel spending.     

An extension of Black's theorem on voting orders to the successive procedure

Duncan Black (1958) stated his voting order theorem — ‘the later any motion enters the voting order, the greater its chance of adoption’ — exclusively for the amendment procedure. Niemi and Gretlein's (1985) extension is similarly limited. Here we show that with a change in the focus from social preferences to individual preferences, both Black's theorem and that proved by Niemi and Gretlein apply as well to the successive procedure.     

Earmarking as a Strategy Against Budgetary Constraints: San Francisco's Children's Amendment

The passage and implementation of the San Francisco Children's Amendment, or Proposition J, in 1991 represents an important expansion of the increasingly common strategy of budgetary earmarking by human service organizations. The core of the initiative was a city charter amendment that earmarked a portion of existing property taxes and established a baseline budget for children's services. Of these provisions, the baseline budget has proven most important in preserving children's services and preventing any substitution effects in a time of increasing fiscal stress for the city/ county of San Francisco. This case also illustrates the role of a strong political appeal in passing technical budgetary initiatives over the objections of elected officials and others. While there was concern about the reduced flexibility created by earmarking a city's budget during a period of retrenchment, this concern was overlooked because of the overwhelming political support for the children's cause. However, conflict between groups was created by the measure as groups fought to be included in the provisions of the amendment and over whether each group had obtained its fair share of funding.     

Internet access as citizen's right? Citizenship in the digital age

Discourses about Internet and rights generate ideological, economic, and policy debates that bring to prominence the question of citizenship in today's digital age. But what does Internet access as a citizen's right imply? What are the pragmatic meanings of the intersection of citizenship, rights, and technology access? Specifically, what does citizens' right to technology mean for African states? This paper examines citizenship, rights, and Internet in South Africa, and attempts to move the discourse beyond philosophical rhetoric to practical policy interpretations. To do this, the study examines interpretations and reactions of policy-makers to the idea of Internet access as a citizen's right, and through a survey explores the views of many youth on this subject. Findings reveal strong opinions about rights and technology access in South Africa. For policy-makers, the reality of the socioeconomic challenges of Africa humbles an egalitarian aspiration of rights and Internet access.     

Political Participation Online: The Replacement and the Mobilisation Hypotheses Revisited

This article discusses the state of political participation online more than ten years after the Internet's great popular breakthrough as an everyday medium. Denmark is used as a case study to critically re‐examine the frequently discussed replacement and mobilisation hypotheses on behalf of the Internet. The pure replacement hypothesis is rejected. Instead, it is found that the Internet still supplements rather than replaces other media, even among heavy Internet users. The Internet is one among several media used by ‘media omnivores’, and political participation online supplements rather than substitutes offline participation. More interesting, the mobilisation hypothesis is partly confirmed. Even though some online participation patterns resemble traditional ones, it seems as if the Internet finally is starting to mobilise younger generations. Further, traditional predictors behind political participation, efficacy and social capital seem to have less impact on online political participation. In the end, these findings are related to more overall discussions on the democratising potential of the Internet.     

Completing the Constitution: The Fourteenth Amendment and Constitutional Rights

Although the Fourteenth Amendment has been the vehicle for anumber of transformations in the protection of rights, therehas been no consensus on what it means. The amendment is sometimesheld to have revolutionized the Constitution, in effect replacingthe traditional federal system with a more national system.It is also argued that the amendment essentially reaffirmedthe prewar Constitution. The truth appears to lie with neitherside: the drafters of the amendment attempted to "complete theConstitution," neither to reform it radically, nor to reaffirmit simply. In doing so, they unwittingly followed in the tracksof the original "father of the Constitution," James Madison,who believed the original Constitution to be defective in importantways. Proper attention to the context and the structure of thetext of the amendment reveals just how the amendment was to"complete the Constitution." So examined, the amendment revealsitself to be a precisely stated, clearly drafted text, containinga number of new constitutional principles. Properly understood,the amendment affords constitutional protection for rights alreadypossessed in some sense, but therefore unprotected in the oldConstitution.     

School Choice: Money,Race, and Congressional Voting on Vouchers

Milton Friedman has suggested that the political power of the AmericanFederation of Teachers and the National Education Association (the twomajor teachers unions) has been instrumental in defeating the adoption ofeducational vouchers. We test this hypothesis.We find that a campaign contribution to a memberof the U.S. House of Representatives by either unionreduces the probability that also a Representative will vote for apro school choice amendment to the ``No Child Left Behind Act of2001.'' Also a Representative whose districthas a large African American population or who is Republicanis more likely to vote for vouchers.     

Think global,talk local: getting the party political message across in the age of the internet

This paper seeks to test the view that the Internet will provide politicians and political parties with a means of directly communicating with electors, so circumnavigating the perceived bias of the mass media, and explores how the political use of the Internet will impact on campaigning, particularly at the local/personal level. The evidence surveyed shows that political use of the Internet is, despite the hype, still in its infancy, but that more extensive use will lead to changes in the style and mode of political communications. The Internet will eventually enable politicians and parties to address a mass audience in qualitative new ways, tailoring their message and information dissemination to individual and local concerns. But this will bring all the consequences of direct communication, such as increased workloads and the danger of atomising the political process. Politicians and parties may hanker for the days when the traditional mass media intervened in the process of political communications. This paper is an edited version of the one presented to 'On Message: A Conference on Political Communication and Marketing sponsored by the Political Studies Association Media and Politics Group, Loughborough University, September 2000. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Labour: Professionalism and Internal Democracy
JAMES E. CRONIN Building New Labour: The Politics of Party Organisation, by Meg Russell Cuba: Miserable Happiness? Cuba: A New History, by Richard Gott
Maurice Walsh Yeh but no but
Robert Colls The Politics of Identity. Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference, by Michael Kenny Does economic growth help the poor?
Norman Flynn The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime, by Jeffrey Sachs, with a Foreword by Bono Jews for dialogue
Ann Jungmann A Tale of Love and Happiness, by Amos Oz. Vintage A modest proposal
James Cornford Magnificent Vision: The Right to Work, by Alan Whitford Churchill's righting history
John Rams den In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, by David Reynolds     

Strategic Considerations and Judicial Review: The Case of Workers' Compensation Laws in the American States

Whether state supreme court justices votesincerely or strategically depends upon:(1) justices' sincere preferences; (2)ideological differences between a justiceand other state actors, which affect the willingness of actors tosanction justices; and (3) institutionalrules and political settings, which affect the ability of otheractors to retaliate against justices forobjectionable decisions. Since institutional rules do notvary for the U.S. Supreme Court but do forthe 50 states, state supreme court cases are thebest site for testing conditions underwhich justices are likely to vote strategically. Moreover,amendment of state constitutions isrelatively easy, which permits systematic examination of theextent to which strategic behavior manifests in judicialreview cases. Using data on docketing anddecisions on workers' compensation laws for1970–1993, this research offers a broaderunderstanding of strategic behavior byjudges.     

The Internet and Asia-Pacific security: Old conflicts and new behaviour

The positive uses of the Internet by civil society groups, research ­institutes, governments and other entities interested in promoting Asia-Pacific community building and cooperative security regimes have been studied and ­appreciated. The paper begins with a discussion of regional Internet diffusion patterns and the associated increase in Internet incidents. In the wake of 11 September 2001 and recent analysis of the 'dark side' of the Internet and networks, it then examines some of the destructive ways Internet technologies are being used by actors in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides examples from the patterns of Internet conflict involving a quadral relationship among four nodes, uncivil society, civil society, government and business as well as the pattern of conflict within each of the nodes. Finally, it looks at three topic areas - national security agendas, the making of security policy and the regional security dialogue process - that deserve further attention.     

Demystifying Internet Neutrality in South Korea with Stakeholder Analysis

This study examines the Internet neutrality issue in Korea by analyzing the debates among the stakeholders. It addresses the dynamic discussions of the issues by identifying how diverse groups of stakeholders are affected by various actions taken by the emergence of Internet neutrality. It presents a statistical analysis that reveals the factors implicated in the Internet neutrality debate and significant differences among individuals on opposing sides in the debate. The findings reveal insights into the connection between specific factors and positions in the Internet neutrality debate. The findings show that the issue of Internet neutrality is complex and as multifaceted as the parties' diverse interests. It concludes by proposing an effective model to govern Internet neutrality in Korea, based on the typology proposed by Strover.     

Consuming Spaces: Clive Barker,William Gibson and the Cultural Poetics of Postmodern Fantasy

A significant trend emerges in contemporary fantasy-what might be called 'heterocosmic fantasy', as opposed to an older but still vital tradition of 'epic' high fantasy. The narrative forms of heterocosmic fantasy accord with the defining characteristics of contemporary media (particularly the Internet and contemporary television programming, and the practice of 'surfing' both of these), but this form of fantasy also rehearses certain ideological modes of behaviour. In particular, it rehearses in textual form the illusory alterity, the management of potential social unrest, and the frenetic consumption of 'late capitalist' society.     

Internet Search Data and Issue Salience: The Properties of Google Trends as a Measure of Issue Salience

This article examines the conditions required for using Internet search data as measures of aggregate issue salience. Internet data have clear advantages over survey data in terms of cost, availability and frequency. These advantages have led the media and some researchers to use Internet search data as proxies for public opinion. However, these analyses do not present systematic evidence that search data tell us about the general public's views rather than those of an unrepresentative subset. This article outlines a general method for assessing the validity of search data against existing measures, including content validity and criterion validity. To this end, weekly Google search data are tested against Gallup's “most important problem” question. The article finds the salience of four issues, fuel prices, the economy, immigration and terrorism, can be measured in the United States using search data. Weekly measures of issue salience are generated for these issues, from 2004 to 2010, for empirical analysis. The search indices performed less well outside of these domains.     

Check bouncing and fiscal irresponsibility: Evidence of nonideological shirking by legislators

Kalt and Zupan have measured ideological shirking by legislators. Here we present evidence concerning nonideological shirking. We demonstrate that representatives with more overdrawn checks tend to be more fiscally irresponsible, with fiscal irresponsibility measured by National Taxpayer Union ratings and by representatives' voting behavior on the recent House balanced budget amendment vote.     

Addressing the next wave of Internet regulation: Toward a workable principle for nondiscrimination

The ultimate formulation of the Federal Communications Commission's “nondiscrimination on the Internet” principle could have a significant impact on economic welfare and on innovation. In this article, we explain the economics of discrimination as it applies to the Internet, and we offer a new approach for identifying anticompetitive discrimination. Our proposal would require a complaining content provider to prove (i) the broadband service provider has discriminated in favor of some affiliated content provider that is “similarly situated” to the independent content provider; (ii) such disparate treatment is based on affiliation and not on some other consideration; (iii) the independent content provider has been unreasonably restrained in its ability to compete; and (iv) the harm it suffers as a result of the discrimination would likely redound to the harm of broadband users.     

Radio days: Media-politics in Indonesia

In the recent excitement about the democratizing potential of the 'new' electronic media, theorists have largely ignored the role of the oldest of the electronic 'mass' media, that is, radio. This paper suggests several parallels between the oldest and the newest electronic media in the transmission of anti-authoritarian politics in Indonesia. While the Internet aided sections of the civil society in subverting the state's control over public discourse, in the post-authoritarian politics, radio may remain by far the more significant technology of democratization. Radio's importance is only in part explained by the economic limits on the distribution of the Internet in Indonesia. We need to look at the particular tessellation of culture, politics and technology in Indonesia to understand the role of radio in the articulation of local politics, in a democratization process whose success depends on the politics of ethno-cultural decentralization and devolution of power from urban elites.