Is Bigger Better? Activity and Success in Negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly

Theorists often claim that being bigger than one's counterparts offers advantages in multilateral negotiations. In this article, I examine that argument using data from negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The article analyzes and compares the activity levels of smaller and larger states in international negotiations, and sheds light on the conditions under which the latter “punch below their weight.” My analysis indicates that size directly affects participation, but not success rates. Bigger states can better formulate national positions on a broad range of issues, enabling their diplomats to more actively participate in negotiations, while smaller states are absent more often. Activity is conducive to success, which helps bigger states. But not every negotiation strategy is equally effective. In the UNGA's one‐state, one‐vote context, bigger states are not able to systematically exert disproportionate influence despite their often superior financial resources and bargaining strategies.     

The UNGA—a talking shop? Exploring rationales for the repetition of resolutions in subsequent negotiations

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is frequently criticized as being an inefficient talking shop. Such criticism is partially due to the fact that UNGA resolutions are not legally binding, and partially due to the considerable share of resolutions that are debated repeatedly in multiple UNGA sessions. This article shows that more than half of the resolutions on the negotiation agenda of the UNGA in a given year are not novel, but have been discussed in the same arena in the past. As this increases the negotiation workload and also the capacity requirements of the member states, the widespread phenomenon of repetitions is puzzling. Therefore, the article examines the reasons behind reoccurring resolutions. It distinguishes between incrementalist and symbolic rationales and sheds light on the different motivations for repetitions in a series of case studies. This reveals that both rationales matter for repeating resolutions and that neither symbolic politics nor incrementalism are confined to specific types of issues or actors.     

‘A jack of all trades’: the role of PIs in the establishment and management of collaborative networks in scientific knowledge commercialisation

The commercialisation of scientific knowledge has become a primary objective for universities worldwide. Collaborative research projects are viewed as the key to achieving this objective, however, the role of Principal Investigators (PIs) within these complex multi-stakeholder research projects remains under researched. This paper explores how networks in the scientific knowledge collaboration process are initiated and maintained from a multi-stakeholder perspective. It is based on case study evidence from 82 stakeholders in 17 research collaboration projects in Irish and German universities, which provides for a holistic view of the process, as opposed to prior research which has tended to report findings based on the analysis of one or two stakeholders. It finds that PIs play a lead role in establishing and managing stakeholder networks. This finding is unanimous for all stakeholders, irrespective of research centre size, type and geographical location. Not unlike the entrepreneur, the PI has to be ‘a jack of all trades’, taking on the roles of project manager, negotiator, resource acquirer as well as, the traditional academic role of Ph.D. supervision and mentoring. The findings suggest that PIs are better placed than Technology Transfer Office managers to act as boundary spanners in bridging the gap between science and industry.     

Developing indicators to assess women's empowerment in Vietnam

From mid‐1999 to mid‐2001, the authors carried out a qualitative study in rural Vietnam to explore relationships between gender equity and reproductive health. One of the study's objectives was to develop culturally appropriate indicators of women's empowerment, specific to the Vietnamese context. This paper describes the process of developing, testing, and refining the empowerment indicators, presents some of the findings, and discusses the methodological challenges that need to be addressed. The paper concludes by recommending a set of Vietnamspecific domains for assessing women's empowerment in the socio‐economic sphere as well as in reproductive health.     

Effects of Family Violence on Child Behavior and Health During Early Childhood

Looking at families where children have been abused/neglected in early childhood, this study examined measures of child behavior and health to see if they tended to be worse when domestic violence is or has been present in a family. Further, caregiver and family characteristics as well as other case factors were examined, as possible moderators or mediators of the effects of domestic violence. Results indicate that domestic violence, of the type and severity occurring in our sample, does not have a direct effect on child outcomes by Age 6, when other associated variables are taken into account, but has considerable indirect effects. There is a pronounced impact of domestic violence on family functioning, the caregiver's general health and well being, and the quality of the caregiver's interaction with the child, which in turn are significantly associated with decrements of child functioning related to behavior problems and health. Some implications of this study for research in the area of domestic violence and child maltreatment are discussed.     

What a Difference a Grade Makes: Evidence from New York City's Restaurant Grading Policy

Can governments use grades to induce businesses to improve their compliance with regulations? Does public disclosure of compliance with food safety regulations matter for restaurants? Ultimately, this depends on whether grades matter for the bottom line. Based on 28 months of data on more than 15,000 restaurants in New York City, this article explores the impact of public restaurant grades on economic activity and public resources using rigorous panel data methods, including fixed‐effects models with controls for underlying food safety compliance. Results show that A grades reduce the probability of restaurant closure and increase revenues while increasing sales taxes remitted and decreasing fines relative to B grades. Conversely, C grades increase the probability of restaurant closure and decrease revenues while decreasing sales taxes remitted relative to B grades. These findings suggest that policy makers can incorporate public information into regulations to more strongly incentivize compliance.     

Regressive effects of regulation on wages

Public Choice - A growing body of literature analyzing the distributive consequences of regulation suggests that regulation may have particularly detrimental effects on lower-income households....     

‘“Keeping Tabs” on Coalition Partners’: a Theoretically Salient Case Study of Lithuanian Coalitional Governments

Portfolio allocation raises the potential for de facto abdication on a broad range of policy issues among coalition partners. Recent scholarship has addressed how parties in governing coalitions ‘keep tabs’ on each other in order to avoid such abdication. Two mechanisms have been identified: junior ministerial appointments and chairs of parliamentary oversight committees. We argue that the former is the most common method for intra-coalitional oversight in the Lithuanian parliament and that a combination of the two appears to be employed for monitoring the activities of the most important ministries. We conjecture that dependence on junior ministerial oversight is more likely among coalition partners in less institutionalised parliaments.