Der Geist des „Roten Wien“ ins 21. Jahrhundert gerettet: Karl Popper Reconsidered by Malachi Haim Hacohen

Ohne Zusammenfassung Der nachstehende Text ist eine überarbeitere Fassung der Laudatio für Malachi Haim Hacohen anl?sslich der überreichung des Victor-Adler-Staatspreises in Wien am 25. April 2003. Hacohen erhielt diesen Preis für sein Werk „Karl Popper — the Formative Years, 1902–1945. Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna“, Cambridge: University Press 2000.     

Risky Drinking and Driving/Riding Decisions: The Role of Previous Experience

Factors related to risky drinking and driving/riding decisions were explored by presenting vignettes to 135 older adolescents, 17–24 years of age, with vignettes related to drinking and other social behaviors engaged in at a party. Analyses revealed that alcohol-related behaviors, attitudes toward the acceptability of drinking and driving, and previous drinking and driving/riding experiences were all significant predictors of decisions about driving or riding while intoxicated. Indeed, the overall model accounted for 46% of risky drinking and driving/riding decisions. As predicted, older respondents had more previous experiences with driving while intoxicated and riding with intoxicated drivers than did younger respondents, and they reported that drinking and driving was more acceptable among their peers. However, contrary to expectations, there were no differences in the number of risky decisions made by the two age groups or between males and females. The importance of previous experiences is discussed.     

Bureaucratic choice and nonoptimal provision of public goods: Theory and evidence

Local governments' allocation decisions are modeled in the context of a slack maximizing bureaucrat who produces public goods according to a production function that includes both provision and the constituents' socio-economic characteristics. To gain a better understanding of the determinants of slack, comparative statics and an empirical study of Illinois municipalities are conducted. The indirect output distance function provides efficiency scores upon which we regress several variables, representing socio-economic characteristics, costs and competition measures. We find that slack or inefficient behavior is associated with richer communities, lower education levels and a lack of competition for residents among municipalities.     

On the Nature of Tolerance: Dichotomous or Continuous?*

The purpose of this article is to reconsider the claim made recently by Mondak and Sanders that political tolerance ought to be thought to be a dichotomous rather than continuous variable. Using data from both Russia and the United States, I demonstrate that those Mondak and Sanders regard as uniquely tolerant are most likely no more than people who were given insufficient opportunity to express their intolerance. Even if such a phenomenon of “absolute tolerance” exists (all ideas expressed in all ways are to be tolerated), it is sufficiently rare that few practical implications are indicated for those doing empirical work on political tolerance and intolerance. * I appreciate the valuable comments of Jeffcry Mondak on an earlier version of this paper.     

Economic Threats or Societal Turmoil? Understanding Preferences for Authoritarian Political Systems

Why do some individuals prefer to be governed in an authoritarian political system? One intuitive answer is that citizens prefer authoritarian rule when the economy and society are in turmoil. These are common explanations for democratic backsliding, and the emergence and success of authoritarian leaders in the twentieth century. Which of these explanations better explains preferences for authoritarian rule? Both types of threat coincide in small samples and high-profile cases, creating inferential problems. I address this by using three waves of World Values Survey data to look at individual-level preferences for different forms of authoritarian government. Using multiple macroeconomic and societal indicators, I find that economic threats, especially increasing income inequality, better explain preferences for authoritarian government. I conclude with implications for understanding the emergence of support for authoritarianism in fledgling democracies.