Networked Coproduction of Public Services in Virtual Communities: From a Government‐Centric to a Community Approach to Public Service Support

Research on and practical attention for the coproduction of public services is increasing. Coproduction is seen as a way to strengthen the quality and legitimacy of public service and reduce costs. Scholarship on coproduction of public services repeatedly ignores the role of the new media. This is surprising since many proponents highlight its potential for changing traditional, government‐centric approaches to delivering public services. This article shows that digital communities form an important addition to the government‐centric form of public service provision since they foster both an exchange of experiential information and social‐emotional support.     

Markets and Corporate Conflict: A Substitution-Cost Approach to Business Litigation

This paper examines the phenomenon of conflict escalaton in business relations. A theory of when conflict between firms will proceed from informal relationship-preserving norms to more formal and destructive end games involving litigation is developed and tested. The central theoretical claim is that substitution costs serve as an impediment against the escalation of conflict. Data on market concentration and dollar flows between aggregate markets in the economy are used to develop measures of substitution costs. Measures of substitution costs and trade figures are also used to describe power advantages in markets. The theory is tested through a series of regression models. The main findings are that (1) when substitution costs are high, parties are less likely to escalate conflict and (2) asymmetric market relations result in less conflict escalation than symmetric ones. Empirical analysis indicates that substitution costs are related in predictable and meaningful ways to conflict escalation and business litigation.     

Negotiation or Mediation?: An Exploration of Factors Affecting the Choiceof Conflict Management in International Conflict

The conditions under which negotiation or mediation are chosen in internationalconflict have been little studied. Previous research has tended tofocus on the motivations and rational calculations of the states involved.Scant attention has been given to examining the effect of the context onthis choice. In this article, we present a framework for studying the contextualconditions under which negotiation or mediation are likely to takeplace. Employing an original data set, we find that negotiation tends to beused when conflicts are relatively simple, of a low intensity, and when bothparties are relatively equal in power. Mediation, on the other hand, tends tobe used in disputes characterized by high complexity, high intensity, longduration, unequal and fractionated parties, and where the willingness ofthe parties to settle peacefully is in doubt.     

Brain amino acid abnormalities in kidney disease and diabetes mellitus

The present postmortem study examines whether specific amino acid abnormalities associated with renal diseases or diabetes mellitus in animal experiments and on clinical examination may also be found in human brain samples obtained at clinical autopsies. The material includes 12 deceased with renal insufficiency, 23 deceased with diabetes mellitus and 26 control cases with lethal cardiovascular diseases (without a history of hepatic, renal or metabolic disturbances). The autopsy and clinical records were retrospectively analyzed for age, sex, postmortem delay, cause of death, substantial preexisting diseases and histological findings. The analysis of free amino acid concentrations in human brain specimens was performed applying a Beckman amino acid analyzer. The results were evaluated using the U-test according to Mann, Willcox and Whitney. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered to be significantly different. Differences of amino acid concentrations attributable to sex, age and postmortem delay were not significant. The comparison of postmortem amino acid concentrations in the brains of patients with diabetes mellitus and controls did not reveal relevant changes. However, the patients with renal diseases, as compared to controls, showed a significant cerebral increase of urea, phenylethanolamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid. Thus, the postmortem amino acid analysis may contribute to the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms of uremic encephalopathy and may supplement the conventional postmortem morphological diagnosis in kidney diseases by indication of functional impairment.     

The economic model of voter participation: A further test

The central hypothesis of the economic model of voter participation was put to an empirical test. It was found that the coefficient of population size, which represents the subjective probability of affecting election results, is negative and significant in municipal local elections, but insignificant in national Knesset elections. Therefore, this variable is unable to represent subjective probability in the latter case.It was suggested that the economic model is more relevant to local elections than to Knesset elections. The empirical results revealed that the regression coefficients of municipal elections that took place separately from Knesset elections fit the expected outcome of the economic model whereas when municipal elections were held simultaneously with the Knesset election this did not hold true.     

Saudi Arabia's rapprochement with Israel: the national security imperatives

The purpose of this article is to examine the evolution of Israel's relations with Saudi Arabia since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. The author explains how the major events in the Middle East affected Saudi Arabia's foreign policy orientation. It shows how Saudi Arabia's policy toward Israel was affected by the deterioration in Saudi-Egyptian relations, by its quest for security in the Arabian Gulf region and by its aspiration to hegemony in the Middle East. The author argues that Saudi Arabia's policy toward Israel remained far less hostile than that of the Arab states surrounding Israel. In addition, it argues that it was not until 1973 that Saudi Arabia became seriously involved in the attempt to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in the Six-Day War. The author concludes by showing that neither Saudi Arabia's acquisition of the intelligence-gathering AWACS aircraft, nor Israel's invasion of Lebanon or the massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila had a serious impact on the bilateral relations, and that it was not until the emergence of the Iranian nuclear threat that Saudi Arabia's relations with Israel began to improve.