What Happens When House Members “Run with Congress”? The Electoral Consequences of Institutional Loyalty

This article characterizes the electoral consequences of messages of institutional loyalty and disloyalty sent by incumbent House members to their constituents. We show that, for the contemporary House, there is variation in these messages—not all incumbents in the contemporary House “run for Congress by running against Congress.” Moreover, we show that these messages can, under the right conditions, have significant electoral consequences, even after controlling for party affiliation and district political factors. In addition to demonstrating the electoral relevance of legislators' presentations, our results show an incumbent‐level link between constituents' trust in government and their voting behavior—a link created by interaction between constituents' perceptions, legislators' party affiliations, and the messages that legislators send to their constituents.     

A Comparison of Punishment Systems in Denmark and the United States

The Danish prison system is recognized worldwide as a model incorporating the most progressive principles of punishment. This article is the result of the author's research in Denmark undertaken to clarify the foundations of Danish penal philosophies. Findings suggest that penal practices are the outcome of a complex interaction of social and criminological theories. Formulated in an atmosphere that minimizes the emotionalism and politicization of crime, Danish crime control policies represent a pragmatic and reasoned approach to dealing with criminal offenders. Prison conditions reflect the social and political attitudes regarding the causes of crime and the treatment of marginal citizens.     

The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information,Motivation, and Elaboration

Recent studies have demonstrated a strong empirical relationship between political discussion and political knowledge. However, as of yet there has been no clear discussion or demonstration of how political discussion translates into increased political knowledge. The present study proposes three explanations--exposure (similar to the two step flow), anticipatory elaboration (linking work on uses and gratifications and news information processing), and discussion-generated elaboration (focusing on how discussion itself can influence information processing)--for this observed empirical relationship. In order to test these three explanations, data from the 2000 ANES and a local community survey during the 1996 presidential election were employed. Findings suggest that the direct relationship between discussion and knowledge may be mediated through motivations and information processing behaviors. These findings support the anticipatory elaboration and discussion-generated elaboration explanations while questioning the exposure explanation, and link well with recent findings on the cognitive mediation model.     

Budget Deficits in the States: New York

New York faces large projected budget shortfalls. Although the recession has contributed, a large part of the shortfalls are due to long standing structural imbalances. The structural imbalances result from high spending levels, particularly on Medicaid and education, a volatile revenue structure, and political forces that make it difficult to achieve recurring spending reductions. In the most recent budget session, federal stimulus money allowed legislators to avoid the tough decisions needed to move the state toward long-run fiscal balance, and the adoption of increased income tax rates for high earners is likely to increase revenue volatility moving forward.     

State Saving Behavior: Effects of Two Fiscal and Budgetary Institutions

This paper explores how state saving behavior is affected by two fiscal/budgetary institutions—budget stabilization funds (BSF) and balanced budget requirements (BBR). While adopted for different reasons, BSF and BBR could have significant effects on state savings behavior depending on their design features. We empirically examine the effects of BSF and BBR using a panel data set that covers three business cycles, controlling for budgetary institutions, state economy, social services, politics, and business cycles. The paper finds that adopting BSF and BBR can raise savings by 2 and 3 percentage points, respectively; however, the effects depend crucially on the devices' design.     

From Family Feud to Organised Crime: The Cultural Economy of Cannabis in Northeast Brazil

Abstract — Traditional family feuding and banditry as well as envy-inspired violence associated with capitalised irrigation have been intensified by the introduction of cannabis farming and organised crime in the Sertão of Northeast Brazil to the point that today the cannabis producing zone is one of the most violent places in the world. These three interrelated forms of contemporary violence arose, respectively, in the pre-1940 frontier setting, in the 1940 to 1980 period of rapid Brazilian industrialisation which depressed peasant sectors and stimulated the rise of capitalised irrigation and in the post-1980 period of economic stagnation and social-political crisis in Brazil which depressed consumer markets and induced the State to liberalise foreign trade policy to the detriment of periphery regions like the Northeast.     

MAINSTREAM CRIMINOLOGY:

This study explores the tendency of academic criminology and other crime-related areas 10 accept or reject the new criminology as a viable alternative to the traditional perspective. Criminology has been characterized as being in a period of paradigm revolution as indicated by the radical writings of the 1970s. The results of this study lead to the conclusion that mainstream criminology has slipped its traditional boundaries and the new criminology is gaining acceptance.