Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Politics in the Developing World

The proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the developing, as well as the developed, world, has triggered an 'associational revolution'. Political scientists, however, have made a relatively minor contribution to the contemporary NGO literature which has evolved since the mid-1980s. This article examines some of the main political themes addressed in the NGO literature, as well as related themes in other political studies. NGOs, the article argues, make significant contributions to political life and to political change in developing countries, revealing a fertile, and hitherto neglected, research agenda.     

Capitalism is richer,democracy is safer

His recently published Acceptable Risk? Making Decisions in a Toxic Environmentinvestigates the organizational determinants of technological risks. He is presently conducting research on the Valdez oil spill disaster.     

Informal Consequences of Budget Institutions in the US Congress

Though considerable research focuses on formal institutions in Congress, scholars have long acknowledged that much of what guides legislative behavior is unwritten. To advance this area, we leverage a tool that allows appropriators to redirect billions of dollars from mandatory programs to discretionary projects. Changes in mandatory program spending—known as “CHIMPs”—show that existing institutions are often maintained by the strategic action of legislators. In the case of CHIMPs, we find their use is largely a response to formal constraints and that they are preserved through avoidance of minimum reform coalitions. This highlights that the legislative process—and budgetary outcomes in particular—cannot be understood without attention to procedures which remain “off the books.”     

Locating Humour in Indian Buddhist Monastic Law Codes: A Comparative Approach

It has been claimed that Indian Buddhism, as opposed to East Asian Chan/Zen traditions, was somehow against humour. In this paper I contend that humour is discernible in canonical Indian Buddhist texts, particularly in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes (Vinaya). I will attempt to establish that what we find in these texts sometimes is not only humourous but that it is intentionally so. I approach this topic by comparing different versions of the same narratives preserved in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the XVth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, June 23-29, 2008. I wish to acknowledge financial assistance from the Arts Research Board, McMaster University.