Surviving local government policy intervention: the case of embedded markets within a historical cultural cluster

China's name derives from “china” (porcelain), and “China” (pronounced as “Changnan”) is the former name of Jingdezhen, the capital city of porcelain—through whose exports of “blue‐and‐white” china the country gained international renown. The 2200‐year‐old porcelain cluster in Jingdezhen has survived through multiple empires with distinct policies towards the development of the city's dominant industry. This in‐depth case study examines interactions between local government and the business community to discover the effectiveness of policies and the perception of those policies by entrepreneurs through qualitative research employing Grounded Theory methodology. The centralized institutional structure in China contributes significantly to the findings of a total split of “government action” from “public perception” and leads to new considerations for policy‐makers to redesign their economic development strategies and plans to engender real effects in the desired direction. This paper also provides an exemplary lesson for historical cultural clusters seeking to escape from unfavorable policy interference. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Media Social Capital,Offline Social Capital,and Citizenship: Exploring Asymmetrical Social Capital Effects

In pursuit of a healthier and participatory democracy, scholars have long established the positive effects of social capital, values derived from resources embedded in social ties with others which characterize the structure of opportunity and action in communities. Today, social media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways. In these contexts, the question that arises is whether new forms of social capital associated with the use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital or if they are in fact a different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and effects. This study introduces social media social capital as a new conceptual and empirical construct to complement face-to-face social capital. Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in the United States, this study tests whether social capital in social media and offline settings are indeed two distinct empirical constructs. Then, the article examines how these two modes of social capital may relate to different types of citizenship online and offline. Results show that social media social capital is empirically distinct from face-to-face social capital. In addition, the two constructs exhibit different patterns of effects over online and offline political participatory behaviors. Results are discussed in light of theoretical developments in the area of social capital and pro-democratic political engagement.     

On the permissibility of shaping children’s values

Abstract

According to Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, parents have a limited and conditional moral right to deliberately shape their children’s values and interests in light of their own particular comprehensive convictions. Their view contrasts with Matthew Clayton’s account of legitimate childrearing, according to which it is always impermissible for parents to seek to pass on their particular convictions to their children or, more generally, to ‘enroll’ them into their conception of the good, since this violates a requirement of respect for children’s independence. This paper offers a novel defense of Brighouse and Swift’s position that at least some forms of comprehensive enrollment are permissible. First, I argue that the claim that there is a duty to respect the independence of very young children is problematic. Then, drawing on Brighouse and Swift’s account of familial relationship goods, I argue that seeking to pass on comprehensive values or beliefs to one’s children is actually compatible with proper respect for their independence, as Clayton understands it.     

Is a corrupt government totally unacceptable?

Corrupt governments are not always punished by voters. Under certain circumstances citizens consider voting for the incumbent party even if the party is perceived as corrupt. Using survey data for Spain, this article analyses what makes citizens reject (or not) the idea of voting for a corrupt party. Previous research has shown that party identification, ideology and political information play a role in voters’ reactions to corruption. The article argues that voters judge corruption in relative terms; what matters is not how corrupt the incumbent party is perceived to be but whether it is deemed to be more corrupt than the other parties.     

Invariance of Measures of Prevention Program Effectiveness: A Replication

Recent literature has suggested that measures of risk and protective factorsfor delinquency and substance use are not equally reliable or valid acrossgender and ethnic groups and has recommended differentiated programming andculturally specific evaluation methods. Three data sets containing up tofive ethnic groups were used to determine the degree to which risk andprotective factors are equally reliable and valid predictors of drug use anddelinquency across gender and ethnic groups. Congeneric measurement modelsand structural equation models were evaluated to determine if the factorstructures for these measures and their covariances with measures of druguse and delinquency were equivalent across gender and ethnic groups. Half ofthe risk and protective factors included in this analysis were found to beequally reliable across gender and ethnic groups. When controlling forreliability differences, all of the risk and protective factors were foundto predict both drug use and delinquncy for all gender and ethnic groups. Interms of the magnitude of these associations, no substantive differenceswere found in the validity of risk and protective factors for drug use anddelinquency. Differences in the validity of risk and protective factors weremore prevalent for delinquency than for drug use. However, all differenceswere substantively trivial. We conclude that measures of prevention programeffectiveness are invariant across gender and ethnic groups.     

Political Representation in Bailed-out Southern Europe: Greece and Portugal Compared

The emergence of the economic and financial crisis has already shown important electoral and political consequences in southern Europe. Drawing on the experience of two bailed-out countries, Greece and Portugal, we use original data collected before and after 2008 to examine how patterns of political representation have changed during this period. We argue that austerity measures have significantly affected the way MPs represent their electorates, namely in terms of policy congruence. In addition, the economic crisis has also deepened the legitimacy crisis in both countries. Finally, we find that the short-term impact of the crisis has had a greater impact on voters' attitudes than on those of their representatives.     

Federal-level Government Participation and State-level Electoral Performance: A Party-based Analysis of Land Elections in Germany, 1949–2017

To what extent does the federal political arena contaminate the regional one in Germany? Does a party’s position as government or opposition on the federal level have a systematic impact on its performance in Land elections? Land elections are often characterised as second order elections, but existing empirical studies that use real election data suffer from important methodological problems. Unlike previous approaches using survey data or comparing vote shares in regional and federal elections, we analyse contamination in two ways. First, we test whether a party’s role at the federal level has a systematic impact on gaining or losing office at the Land level. Second, we examine the vote difference of parties relative to their result in the previous election in the Land. Drawing on a complete dataset of all Land elections from 1949 to 2017, we find confirmation for two phenomena well known in comparative electoral studies. First, the anti-incumbency effect: government parties tend to lose votes. In the German context, as in many other multilevel systems, this is exacerbated by the second effect: contamination. Gaining power or votes on the Land level is very difficult when a party is in government on the federal level.     

New partnerships for social development: business and the third sector

One of the main issues for Latin America now that it is entering a new period of economic growth is the process of speeding up social development to catch up with economic trends. This may be seen by some as a highly profitable investment, but by most as a moral obligation. A long history of exploitation and the most recent decades of misgovernment have provoked a legacy of social injustice and disparities incompatible with the region's economic potential.

Structural adjustment policies impose a significant reduction in the size of governments which have shown an unequivocal tendency to retreat from their responsibilities regarding the social sector. Current trends of the new world order raise many concerns regarding the social perspectives of the less privileged layers of the population.

Besides the new economic opportunities, redemocratization of the region has led to a new socio-political environment in which paternalistic patterns have given way to a more participatory and mature relationship between government, civil society and business.

The so-called third sector has become of increasing importance and is growing rapidly in most countries. Business is also assuming new roles in terms of its responsibility towards social development. There is a change in culture and there are new opportunities to develop innovative forms of participation. The retreat of the State is opening up a new niche for the third sector and business to establish partnerships that can speed up social development without the risks of the heavy paternalistic and patronizing influence of governmental branches. Overall, one can observe a shift in responsibilities. Partnerships will involve the three actors, with government participating heavily in financing the operations of the third sector, while business lends its’ efficiency as well as material resources.

The business sector in Latin America is rapidly learning the social responsibility of participating in community initiatives and the benefits that such an approach can bring. Foreign companies have played an important role in bringing new values, strategies and experience of this participation. Local businessmen are adopting these values and adjusting them to their realities. The new economic and political environments have created a new sense of citizenship and there is an observable advance in the approach that business is taking in relation to the potential of its participation and of its responsibilities regarding social growth and development.

Corporate philanthropy -- or community relations, or corporate citizenship, as the local culture prefers to call it -- assumes several forms. Grantmaking is still the least frequent as companies prefer to maintain tighter control over the use of resources, either by operating their own projects in a joint effort with target communities, or by establishing partnerships with small organizations of the third sector. Stimulating volunteer work of their employees is also a form of participation.

More recently, in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico we have witnessed the emergence of associations of grantmakers and philanthropists, similar to those of the United States. Through these organizations, corporations, corporate foundations and independent foundations can share their experiences and values, coordinate their efforts and exert influence in the social and political environment.     

SUB‐NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CAPITAL SPENDING IN INDONESIA: LEVEL,STRUCTURE, AND FINANCING

Sub‐national government capital spending is important for both public service delivery and economic development. Currently, Indonesian sub‐national public capital spending appears barely sufficient to cover the annual depreciation of its fixed assets. A substantial proportion of local government investment spending goes to create relatively unproductive assets, such as administrative office buildings. Sub‐national governments finance their capital acquisitions out of gross operating budgets and have thus far not used, to any great extent, either borrowed funds or their significant cash reserves for such purposes. Indonesian sub‐nationals need to spend more on capital than they do now and also need to focus that spending on more useful types of infrastructure. The major constraints to increasing capital spending at the sub‐national level are not related to a dearth of finance, but regulatory rigidities in budget preparation and implementation and, most importantly, a lack of capacity to plan, design and implement investment projects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.