The political economy of IMF forecasts

We investigate the political economy of IMF forecasts with data for 157 countries (1999–2005). Generally, we find evidence of forecast bias in growth and inflation. Specifically, we find that countries voting with the United States in the UN General Assembly receive lower inflation forecasts as domestic elections approach. Countries with large loans outstanding from the IMF also receive lower inflation forecasts, suggesting that the IMF engages in “defensive forecasting.” Finally, countries with fixed exchange rate regimes receive lower inflation forecasts, suggesting the IMF desires to preserve stability as inflation can have detrimental effects under such an exchange rate regime.     

Living and Teaching Across Cultures

As long as one lives within the confines of a single culture it is difficult to achieve cross-cultural awareness. Multiculturalism is often simply the tolerance of a dominant culture for minority cultures. Cross-cultural awareness is a state of mind in which one is alert to alternity , the existence of others possessing different and equally valid world views and ways of life. This can be acquired living within or alongside other cultures, when one's own and others' strangeness become readily apparent. Culture shock involves just such a realization. The challenge for the teacher of international relations is to convey the possibility of alternity to students in the classroom. After all, international relations is above all about the interaction between communities possessing separate identities and autonomous wills. The article discusses ways of cultivating cross-cultural awareness, comparing the difficulties of doing so in a society under siege—Israel—with the greater scope available in the cosmopolitan setting of an elite American university.     

The contribution of the right to information laws in Europe to local government transparency on sustainability

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of the right to information laws on sustainability transparency in European local governments. This goal is novel, in that previous studies have examined the effects of various factors on the dissemination of government information (demographic, socioeconomic, political and financial) but not the contribution of legal factors to online transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our research question is this: Do information laws contribute to transparency on sustainability? Using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and a statistical regression analysis, we studied the websites of 106 local governments in ten European countries. The results obtained show that when transparency laws clearly stipulate the rules applicable and the procedures established for appeals, exceptions, refusals and requests, this can favour transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our findings advance understanding of this field and reinforce the basis for legal reforms to enhance sustainability transparency.

     

Understanding the Relationship Between Onset Age and Subsequent Offending During Adolescence

This article examines the well-documented relationship between early initiation or onset of criminal behavior and a heightened risk of involvement in offending. Previous research examining this question conducted by Nagin and Farrington (Criminology 30:235–260, 1992a; Criminology 30:501–523, 1992b) used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development and found that: (1) onset age was correlated with offending involvement; and (2) the correlation could be explained by stable individual differences in the propensity to offend rather than a causal effect of early onset age. In this study, similar analytic methods are applied to data from the Second Philadelphia Birth Cohort. This data set consists of all 13,160 males born in Philadelphia in 1958 who resided in the city continuously from ages 10 to 18, slightly more than half of whom were non-white. Information from each of the youths was collected from schools, juvenile justice agencies, other official sources and surveys. In a model that mimics previous analyses, we initially found that an early age of onset is associated with greater subsequent involvement in delinquent behavior. When unobserved criminal propensity was controlled, however, we found that a late rather than an early onset of delinquency was related to future offending. In finding a state dependent effect for age of onset, our findings are contrary to propensity theory in criminology. In finding that it is late rather early onset which puts youth at risk for future offending, our findings are contrary to developmental/life course theory. Our results are more compatible with traditional criminological theory that is friendly to state dependence processes, though they too have not to date articulated why a late onsetting of offending might be particularly criminogenic.

Negotiating the review process: a CIA guide to intelligence analysis, 1970

The literature on intelligence analysis contains many references to the ‘review process’, the mechanism by which analysts’ drafts are converted into corporate products. Analysts whose drafts consistently navigate the process quickly and smoothly are regarded as star performers. Divining the practical meaning of organizational definitions of ‘good’ analysis and the personal preferences of specific senior reviewers is not easy, however. Analysts occasionally commit their understanding of reviewers’ stylistic preferences to paper, effectively providing style guides to help others. This essay presents and explains the development and implications of one such guide, which was designed to help analysts in CIA’s Office of Strategic Research in the early 1970s.     

Making votes count in parliament or government?

Several scholars have sought to elucidate voting strategies in proportional representation (PR) systems. The argument is that the existence of coalition governments forces voters to consider potential alliances and to vote in order to maximize their chances of influencing the outcome. In this paper, we argue that this vision is incomplete as PR, just as single-member district plurality, also creates incentives for voters to desert parties that have little chances of obtaining a seat in their district. We validate this theoretical claim using two different surveys conducted during the 2014 Belgian federal and regional elections. Our results show that both government and district viability have a substantial and distinct effect on vote choice.     

Negotiating justice: legal pluralism and gender-based violence in Liberia

The plural legal system in post-conflict Liberia expresses tensions between modern and customary institutions. This article seeks to understand how Liberians navigate choices in the plural legal system to address gender-based violence cases. By asking how and why people make the choices they do, we highlight how Liberians solve tensions between institutions, by creating flexible categories that allow them to pursue a course of action that does not compromise their ability to access social networks and resources.     

Narrowing the Gap: Explaining the Increasing Competitiveness of the Venezuelan Opposition

This article seeks to explain why electoral support for the Venezuelan opposition has increased substantially, using Venezuelan public opinion survey data from LAPOP and an opt‐in sample collected through the online vote advice application Brújula Presidencial Venezuela. It analyzes why Venezuelans who had either voted for Chávez or abstained in 2006 defected and started to support the opposition in subsequent elections. It proposes several reasons: negative voter evaluations of the economy, concern for public safety, and dissatisfaction with Venezuelan democracy. While the finding that negative policy evaluations boost support for the opposition aligns with theoretical expectations, this study finds a strong relationship between having different evaluations of the quality of democracy and supporting Chávez, which shows that the advocacy of two competing visions of democracy by the incumbent and the opposition also affects voting patterns in Venezuela.