Representation,neighboring districts,and party loyalty in the U.S. Congress

Legislative scholars often assume that legislators are motivated by concerns over re-election. This assumption implies that legislators are forward-looking and are motivated by a concern over what their re-election constituency will look like during their next electoral cycle. In this research, we show how the forward-looking nature of legislators motivates members of the U.S. House of Representatives to represent both their home district and their neighboring districts in their choices regarding when to support their own party. Using survey responses to the 2006, 2008, and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Elections Study to construct measures of Congressional District ideology, empirical analysis is strongly supportive of our claims. Legislators’ choices are strongly influenced both by the ideology of their home district and that of the districts that neighbor their home district. Thus, the electoral connection between citizens and representatives extends beyond a legislator’s own constituents to include the constituents in neighboring districts.     

Too much of a good thing: the ‘problem’ of political communications in a mass media democracy

• Francis Fukuyama asks: ‘… is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system?’ This paper argues that one of these ‘internal contradictions’ is the political communications process and it can be sufficiently serious to undermine the democratic system—but such an undermining is not inevitable. The problem can be described as follows: Democratic systems require that citizens are kept fully informed by governments (and others) in the interests of transparency and ultimately accountability. Hence, all political communications have, as their final objective, the accountability of politicians at the ballot box. Thus all political communications have what can be described as ‘above’ and ‘below’ the line content. The above‐the‐line is the actual content of the message, the below‐the‐line is the implicit one of ‘think better of me and my colleagues think worse of my opponents’. Consequently, no matter how personally honest and open an individual politician might be, the democratic system requires her or him to be always thinking about securing a successful result at the ballot box. Thus we have the ‘political communications paradox’. Voters want politicians to be honest and accountable but this very demand means that politicians, implicitly, always have to have another agenda in operation when they are communicating with the public, i.e. securing their approval and then their support. As a result the trust which is a fundamental to the workings of a democratic system is constantly being undermined. This has two effects. First, that governments are obliged to make communications, rather than delivery, their real priority and second trust, not just in politicians but in the political system as a whole, tends to wane over time, which in turn endangers the very system it was designed to underpin. But this decline is not inevitable because the system has some in‐built self‐correcting mechanisms These include: the rise of new parties and/or leaders who portray themselves as ‘new’ and ‘untainted’—New Labour, New Conservatives, etc., an almost regular ‘re‐balancing’ of the power relationship that exists between politicians and the civil service, particularly in the communications field, the rise of new forms of communication that seek to by‐pass the institutional roadblocks that are perceived as being the cause of the problems and finally increased attention by journalists and academics to the process of political communications makes it more difficult for politicians to continue with ‘business as usual’ as far as their communication activities are concerned.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Configuration in the flesh: challenges in publicly promoted clusters

In this article, we study how the configuration of a publicly promoted clusters policy??the Global Clusters policy initiated by the Walloon Government in Belgium??influenced the behaviors of R&D practitioners. At first, we explored the background of the Global Cluster policy in an effort to make the program configuration visible. This first step was conducted through the gathering and analysis of data from official documents as well as publications, conference speeches and workshops produced by policy makers, evaluators and their academic collaborators. Then, we observed the transmission of the six resulting features from the policy level to the project level: we studied their appropriation by R&D practitioners in ??Mirage??, an R&D project associated to the mechanical engineering Global Cluster. As a result, we show that the particularities of Walloon Global Clusters make them a powerful instrument to enhance collateral assets while facing potential lock-in. We finally consider the way these Global Clusters should evolve to favor the exploitation of the emerged outcomes while exploring future opportunities. A good balance between exploitation and exploration as well as adequate networking and clustering instruments to support both objectives appear necessary to ensure sustainability and growth of the involved actors.     

Politiques du care et gouvernement de la vie: Une typologie des pratiques locales en Suisse

Le concept de « care » rend compte des activités et des relations relatives à la prise en charge des situations de dépendance (petite enfance, personnes âgées, handicap). Sur la base du cas Suisse, cet article soutient que les politiques locales du care participent à une forme de gouvernement de la vie. Dans la première partie, théorique, je propose de rattacher le care aux théories contemporaines sur le biopouvoir, en tant que mode de régulation de la vie dans sa dimension sociale; puis, je présente un cadre d'analyse du care permettant la comparaison des politiques publiques concrètes du care comme biopolitiques. Dans une seconde partie, empirique, je compare six politiques locales menées en Suisse. Cette analyse permet de mettre en évidence trois types idéaux de gouvernement de la vie et d'en discuter les implications normatives.     

An unusual case of railway suicide

A rare case of suicide in which the victim had been lying along the railway track in a supine position and with extended extremities is described. The wheels of a train caused longitudinal hemisection with complete evisceration. Epidemiological data on train suicides are given and the relationship between this method of suicide and mental illnesses and consumption of alcohol are discussed.     

21世纪的大学

在本演讲中 ,作者论述了“2 1世纪的大学”这一主题。首先 ,作者探讨了全球化背景下大学与社会关系的变化及大学应对自身的全球化的方式。作者评述了关于大学与政府、社会关系的不同观点 ,指出了大学开展科研、服务社会的重要性 ,同时当前大学承受着来自政府、社会的过高期望。作者反思了在大学卷入社会活动、推动经济发展中的利弊 ,指出了长远规划、科研合作、国际流动、教学与科研相结合的重要意义。作者认为在技术创新和技术转化中 ,大学需要处理好科学与技术、开发的关系 ,以及大学与工商界的关系。作者特别探讨了大学 -工业合作间的复杂关系 ,指出了二者间的合作可能及不同性质 ,并介绍了牛津大学的有关策略。在结论部分 ,作者提出了他关于大学的使命的观点 :探索自然和人类世界 ;培养独立思考的、负责任的下一代。作者认为 ,把大学在社会中的作用仅仅局限在推动经济发展方面 ,是对大学目标的一种误解