Measuring the Growth of the Nonprofit Sector: A Longitudinal Analysis

Scholars have examined the effects of various environmental factors on the nonprofit sector to elucidate the role of nonprofits in modern society. However, researchers report a paucity of information on nonprofit growth using longitudinal data, especially outside the United States. This article analyzes 40 years of political, economic, and sociodemographic data in South Korea to test theories of nonprofit growth and to determine whether the concepts and theories developed for Western societies can be successfully applied in South Korea. The results show that demand‐ and supply‐side economic theories account for variations in nonprofit growth, but the existing socioeconomic explanations fail to recognize the political influences on nonprofit development. Nonprofit organizations have emerged from social and economic necessity but have also been nurtured within a political framework.     

Affordability After Subsidies: Understanding the Trajectories of Former Assisted Housing in Florida

Each year, thousands of units are lost from the assisted rental housing inventory through deterioration and default, subsidy expiration, and market-rate conversion. While a good deal of research and data collection has focused on identifying at-risk developments, less is known about what happens to former assisted developments after they exit income and rent restrictions. This article uses a survey of former assisted properties in Florida to identify their postsubsidy trajectories—that is, as to whether developments continue as rental housing, are converted to condominiums, or leave the housing stock through vacancy and demolition; and for those that continue as rental housing, whether they continue to offer affordable rents. Using logistic regression models, the article examines the property, housing market, and neighborhood characteristics that determine these trajectories. The results show that smaller properties, those that have been out of subsidy programs longer, and those in stronger neighborhood housing markets are more likely to be converted to condominiums. Among developments that continue as rental housing, those that previously had more stringent rent restrictions, those in strong rental submarkets, and those with better transit access tend to become unaffordable compared with previous rent limits.     

End of an Era? Anti‐Americanism in the Australian Labor Party

Anti‐Americanism, sometimes called the “last acceptable prejudice”, is a common phenomenon in the modern era. This paper explores the ebb and flow of anti‐Americanism in the Australian Labor Party in the post‐Second World War period and argues that while at times it was reasonable or proportionate, at others such criticism became unreasonable, disproportionate and therefore prejudicial. When this occurs the Australia‐US alliance can become strained, the Australian electorate tends to become sceptical of the ALP's credentials on national security and the party's electoral prospects also tend to suffer. Nevertheless, following the brief leadership of the stridently anti‐American Mark Latham, such sentiment in the ALP has been widely discredited and is unlikely to emerge again in its prejudicial form for some time, marking the end of an era.     

Public and elite opinion on international human rights law: Completing the causal chain of the domestic compliance mechanism

Why do states comply with international human rights law? Scholars have looked to domestic politics to suggest a constituency-driven domestic compliance mechanism. However, it is unclear if strong public support for compliance leads to greater willingness to comply among elected officials. This study is the first to empirically demonstrate the complete causal chain of a constituency-driven domestic compliance mechanism. Using a survey experiment, this study first finds that a strong state commitment to UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations (RTNC) increases public support for compliance. Using a parallel lab-in-the-field experiment of sitting legislators, the study then finds that a strong state commitment to RTNC is similarly associated with increased elite support for compliance. Finally, the study finds that public demand for compliance is associated with even greater elite support for compliance. Public demand for compliance seems to elicit elite willingness to comply by raising reputational concerns.     

Democratization and Political Change as Threats to Collective Sentiments: Testing Durkheim in Russia

Durkheim argued that acute political crises result in increased homicide rates because they pose a threat to sentiments about the collective. Though crucial to Durkheim's work on homicide, this idea remains untested. The authors took advantage of the natural experiment of the collapse of the Soviet Union to examine this hypothesis. Using data from Russian regions (N = 78) and controlling for measures of anomie and other covariates, the authors estimated the association between political change and change in homicide rates between 1991 and 2000. Results indicated that regions exhibiting less support for the Communist Party in 2000 (and thus greater change in political ideals because the Party had previously exercised complete control) were regions with greater increases in homicide rates. Thus, while democratization may be a positive development relative to the Communist juggernaut of the past, it appears that the swift political change in Russia is partially responsible for the higher rates of violence there following the collapse of the Soviet Union.     

Filing a Nuisance Claim to Induce Successive Lawsuits

In this article, I provide a rationale for nuisance suits. Ishow that a plaintiff may file a nuisance suit if he expectsthat his suit may induce suits by other plaintiffs. If an initialplaintiff is too pessimistic about this possibility, a nuisancesuit may not be filed even though it would be meritorious withjoinder with another plaintiff. In this case, lawyers may playthe role of reducing such coordination failure due to asymmetricinformation by providing potential plaintiffs with relevantinformation.