Voluntary contributions with imperfect information: An experimental study

This paper uses a two-person linear voluntary contribution mechanism with stochastic marginal benefits from a public good to examine the effect of imperfect information on contributions. Estimates of individual risk preferences are obtained using data from second-price auctions over lotteries. The results show that limited information about the value of the public good significantly lowers average contributions in all periods but the last. Moreover, the results support the interpretation that subjects bid “as if” they were risk averse, and suggest that “as if” risk-averse behavior is negatively correlated with willingness to contribute.     

Government approval in Italy: Political cycle,economic expectations and TV coverage

This paper analyses government approval in Italy – which has become a key aspect for electoral support in the new party system of the Second Republic – exploring the influence that TV coverage exerts on approval net of traditional accounts of government support. Relying on both aggregate time series and pooled individual-level surveys analyses, it is shown that communication has a sizable impact on government approval. The popularity of Centre-Left and Centre-Right governments is affected evenly by the economy but differently by the news coverage of their activity. People with lower political interest are the most reactive to news coverage of government performance.     

‘C’mon,No One Wants a Dick Pic’: exploring the cultural framings of the ‘Dick Pic’ in contemporary online publics

The ‘dick pic’ (DP) has become a growing cultural phenomenon in the digital realm, attracting increasing commentary regarding why men send them, with women’s responses constituting online social movements. Emerging research concerning the practice of DPs has been incredibly limited, with discussion focused on youth sexting practices and online harassment more broadly. However, research focusing specifically on the gendered dynamics of heterosexual boys’ and men’s engagement with DPs is significantly absent, and there has been no attempt to explore how the DP is framed in public commentary. We draw from a qualitative content analysis of social media and digital news articles, comics and blogs discussing the ‘dick pic’, highlighting four major ways in which the ‘dick pic’ is framed. These include: assumptions regarding men’s motivations, women’s production of ‘counterpublics’ and feminist resistance to the DP, satirical and humourous responses to DPs, and positive and transformative responses involving the active solicitation of men’s DPs. We argue that such responses work to interpret and address men’s behaviours, but lack critical consideration regarding their underlying motives and the roles DPs might have in relation to their sexual subjectivities. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of such responses and calls for future research.     

Bureaucracy,Post-Bureaucracy,or Anarchy? Evidence from the Italian Public Administration

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the features characterizing the modern public administrations, their organizational models, and the activities carried out, are still rooted in the old bureaucratic approach. The research gathered data from a questionnaire administered to 156 Italian public officers, employees, and managers. The analysis consists of a correlation test and a regression test to verify the hypotheses related to the aim of the study. The research shows that, despite the changes driven by NPM reforms, the Italian Public Administration is still linked to a bureaucratic model. Findings also show that Italian public servants are highly motivated despite the activities they carry out are strongly standardized. Additionally, it clearly emerges that in some cases Italian public administrations are perceived by their employees as pervaded by anarchy. The article has both interesting academic and practical implications for the management of public administrations.     

The Intra-National Struggle to Define "US": External Involvement as a Two-Way Street

Three perspectives on the causes of communal conflict are visible in extant work: a focus on ancient hatreds, on leaders, or on the context that leaders "find" themselves in. Leaders therefore have all the power to mobilize people to fight (or not to) or leaders are driven by circumstantial opportunities or the primordial desires of the masses to resist peace or coexistence with historical enemies. Analysts who focus on leaders or context recognize that external actors affect internal conflicts, but little systematic research has explored the processes relating the domestic politics of nationalist mobilization to factors in the international arena. How does the international arena affect the competition among leaders? How do skillful leaders draw in external actors to lend credibility to their own views? This article asserts that leaders compete to frame identity and mission, and explores the degree to which international factors affect whose "definitions of the situation" are successful in precipitating mobilization shifts among potential followers. A unique finding of this longitudinal study of Northern Ireland is that the role played by international institutions and actors is affected by how domestic actors perceive, cultivate, and bring attention to the linkages between the two spheres.     

Militarisation of governance after conflict: beyond the rebel-to-ruler frame – the case of Rwanda

In this article, we develop and expand the rebel-to-ruler literature to go beyond ‘rebel transformations’, in order to examine the transformation and militarisation of the entire post-genocide society in Rwanda. Through a historical and socio-political analysis of the military’s influence in post-genocide Rwanda, we argue that the adoption of military norms and ethos, drawn from an idealised and reconstructed pre-colonial history rather than simply an insurgent past, motivates the military’s centrality and penetration of all society’s sectors, economically, politically and socially, with the ultimate aim of retaining power in the hands of the rebels turned rulers. As such, the case demonstrates the need for an expansion of the rebel-to-ruler literature (1) beyond its concern with parties and regime type to a broader palette of governance effects and (2) beyond its singular focus on insurgent past and towards a longue-durée understanding of complementary causes.