Combining the Strengths of Qualitative Comparative Analysis with Cluster Analysis for Comparative Public Policy Research: With Reference to the Policy of Economic Convergence in the Euro Currency Area

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a well-established method for comparing national public policy similarities and differences. It is argued that Cluster Analysis can add additional benefits to such research when used concurrently with QCA. Cluster Analysis provides a better method for the initial exploration of multivariate data and examining how countries compare because it can work with the full range of available interval data while patterns are created and viewed. This provides the best first method for exploring patterns and likely groupings of countries. QCA then provides a more robust method for theorizing about the construction of such groupings and their relationship around similar variable scores. QCA makes such theorizing transparent. The research example used to illustrate the benefits of combining Cluster Analysis and QCA is an analysis of the evolving of macroeconomic policy for the countries sharing the Euro, comparing 2005 (precrisis) with 2010 (postcrisis).     

Green energy and black economy: mafia investments in the wind power sector in Italy

In recent years, the EU has supported actions to develop the green economy. Among these, incentives to sustain the growth of the wind power (WP) sector were welcomed as strategic for promoting environmental sustainability. This paper argues that the enthusiasm in supporting the green economy, without a preliminary assessment for crime opportunities, could end up fueling the black one. In particular, looking at the Italian case, the intention to facilitate wind farm construction provided remarkable (economic and procedural) incentives but neglected the issue of crime infiltration in the legitimate economy. Consequently, investments in wind farms also became a very lucrative business for organized crime (OC) groups. Through an analysis of the WP sector in Italy, this paper aims to show that, in territories characterized by a significant presence and control of OC groups, regulation could have an adverse effect providing opportunities for OC infiltrations in the legitimate economy. In particular this paper discusses whether investments in the WP sector in Italy are more likely in those regions with higher levels of OC presence and analyzes the role played by OC groups in cases of criminal infiltrations in the WP sector.     

Hearing Campaign Appeals: The Accountability Implications of Presidential Campaign Tone

Citizen understanding of candidate priorities is highly consequential for both elections and postelection accountability and is especially key to the office of the presidency. I examine the impact of campaign advertising tone on citizen understanding of candidate agendas in the context of the 2000 presidential election. Merging data on political ads from the Wisconsin Advertising Project with individual survey data, I test whether citizens are more likely to accurately hear a positive campaign theme. The analysis provides empirical support for this benefit of positivity.     

Religion,Secularization and Democracy in the Mediterranean Region: Problems and Prospects

Political debates in many Mediterranean countries today are increasingly framed in dichotomous terms, highlighting divisions between religious and secular worldviews. In some countries, for example Israel, the issue is so contentious that it is described as a ‘culture war’. While Israel struggles to balance its commitment to a Jewish state and a democracy, it does not seem to matter if the countries in question are democracies or non-democracies, or what their majority religious faith is. Instead, the role of religion in public life or, put another way, the ‘public return of religion’, is a pertinent and controversial political question everywhere in the Mediterranean region. How do we explain this phenomenon? On the one hand, we can point to both economic and demographic changes, while, on the other, we can trace the impact of continuing secularisation. Together these two sets of developments produce new challenges to existing political arrangements.     

Translating membership into power at the ballot box? Trade union candidates and worker voting patterns in Indonesia's national elections

This article analyses the effectiveness of trade unions' electoral engagement in the union-dense electoral localities of Bekasi and Tangerang in Indonesia's 2009 legislative elections. Our analysis reveals that legacies of authoritarianism, electoral rules, and union fragmentation pushed unions to pursue an ineffective electoral strategy of running union cadres on various party tickets. In Bekasi, local leaders within the Federation of Indonesian Metalworkers Unions (FSPMI) chose not to mobilize resources to support union candidates because the union's national leadership had failed to convince them of the soundness of its strategy. In Tangerang, local leaders embraced the National Workers Union's (SPN) national electoral strategy, but had inadequate membership data to conduct electoral mapping and did not provide candidates with financial and leadership support. Neither union, meanwhile, gave much consideration to the problem of translating membership to votes: survey data reveal that most members could not name union candidates, and many of those who could did not vote for them. The article argues that, despite its flaws, trade unions' strategy of engagement in the electoral arena constitutes an important step forward in the consolidation of Indonesia's democracy.     

Subject matter of copyright protection in the UK: a road map to effectuating statutory reform

The statutory framework governing the protection afforded various copyright subject matter in the UK, despite the predictability afforded by its closed list, has come under intense criticism over the last decade or so, with many scholars citing the need for urgent reform. Indeed, given the adverse range of responses in this regard, the question arises as to whether the UK should move towards a system that more closely resembles that of other Commonwealth Countries, such as Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, where a non-exhaustive or open list of protected works is provided for.     

Postmortem Skeletal Survey Practice in Pediatric Forensic Autopsies: A National Survey*

Abstract: Recommendations for the evaluation of an unexplained death in infancy include a postmortem skeletal survey (PMSS) to exclude skeletal trauma. Objectives of this study were to assess adherence to these recommendations in forensic autopsies in children equal to or less than 36 months of age, and what factors influence the use or nonuse of the PMSS. We surveyed pathologists who were members of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. The survey included practice characteristics about where, when, and how PMSS were done. Nearly all respondents (99.6%) indicated they performed PMSS at least some of the time; however, almost a third did not use PMSS for all suspected Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), abuse, unsafe sleep, or undetermined causes of death. Despite evidence that “babygrams” are inappropriate in a SIDS workup, 30% of pathologists use them preferentially. Despite SIDS being a diagnosis of exclusion that requires a PMSS, almost 10% of pathologists do not order a PMSS. Future research is necessary to reduce barriers to this important component of the pediatric forensic autopsy.     

Geographic and technological R&;D spillovers within the triad: micro evidence from US patents

This paper aims at assessing the magnitude of R&D spillover effects on large international R&D companies’ productivity growth. In particular, we investigate the extent to which R&D spillover effects are intensified by both geographic and technological proximities between spillover generating and receiving firms. We also control for the firm’s ability to identify, assimilate and absorb the external knowledge stock. The results estimated by means of panel data econometric methods (system GMM) indicate a positive and significant impact of both types of R&D spillovers and of absorptive capacity on productivity performance.