The effects of decentralization on special interest groups

Public Choice - It is well established in the literature that the number of interest group organizations varies across countries and states, with economic freedom and other institutional factors...     

Prediction,Proxies, and Power

Many enduring questions in international relations theory focus on power relations, so it is important that scholars have a good measure of relative power. The standard measure of relative military power, the capability ratio, is barely better than random guessing at predicting militarized dispute outcomes. We use machine learning to build a superior proxy, the Dispute Outcome Expectations (DOE) score, from the same underlying data. Our measure is an order of magnitude better than the capability ratio at predicting dispute outcomes. We replicate Reed et al. (2008) and find, contrary to the original conclusions, that the probability of conflict is always highest when the state with the least benefits has a preponderance of power. In replications of 18 other dyadic analyses that use power as a control, we find that replacing the standard measure with DOE scores usually improves both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample goodness of fit.     

Corruption experiences and attitudes to political,interpersonal, and domestic violence

It is understood that corruption can change the incentives to engage in political violence. However, the scope for corruption to change attitudes toward the permissibility of violence has received less attention. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, we argue that experiences of corruption in the social environment are likely to shape individual attitudes toward violent behavior. Using Afrobarometer data, we document a statistically significant and sizable relationship between an individual's experience of paying bribes and their attitudes to political, interpersonal, and domestic violence. These relationships are evident, and not significantly different, for men and women and are robust to the inclusion of variables capturing the local incidence of corruption, local norms regarding violence, and a proxy for the local incidence of violence with the community. Corruption is associated with permissive attitudes to violence even after controlling for the perceived legitimacy of the police and courts.     

Regional councils of governments at the crossroads: implications for intergovernmental management and networks

Councils of governments (COGS) have been subjected to powerful forces of change in the 1980s, due principally to drastic reductions in federal financial support. To survive, the councils have had to become more entrepreneural, to extend themselves in new directions They have scanned their local and regional task environments intensively for opportunities to form and/or join new networks and to provide more services in traditional and in new areas. The new style of council is described in this paper, using a market model. The model emphasizes opportunistic scanning of the regional task environment, and the assessment of issue networks as an iterative process in COG direction setting and implementation efforts.     

Maquiladora Mortality: Manufacturing Plant Closure in Mexico

Manufacturing plant closure has been the subject of much national concern, and an extensive literature principally focused on the developed world. This study extends the findings on plant closure with an analysis of export-oriented manufacturers (maquiladoras) in Mexico, 1996–2006. The foci of this research are hypothesised variables of maquiladora closure: product manufactured (value-added), size of plant, plant location, and size of urban place. The results of a logistical regression model indicate that plant size and value-added are highly probable determinants of plant closure; large, high value-added product maquiladoras have low rates of plant closure. Maquiladoras manufacturing low value-added products have high rates of closure; however, these manufacturers also have significant numbers of surviving plants. This suggests that multiple manufacturing platforms are viable among Mexico’s export-oriented industry. The findings also suggest that much plant closure is a result of exogenous factors,exiting plants in a global search for cheap labour. Mexico, however, has a geographic comparative advantage that, for many maquiladoras, trumps wages in more distant locations.     

Organization character -construct of barnardian scholars

Early scholars, inspired by Chester I. Barnard's insights, saw clearly the tribal nature of human organizations. The idea of organization character emerged as the understructure for the uniqueness of the behavior of the organization. The theoretical basis for deriving the character of an enterprise was drawn, together with the powerful implications of such subtle sensibilities. Indeed, the entire idea of organization character - of necessity -preceded later thinking on culture since the character of an organization dictates its culture. These concepts are the substance and spirit of the article that follows.