A Landlord's Notice to Quit: The May 2012 Municipal Elections in Italy

This article explores the significance of the local elections of May 2012 for the general direction of change in Italian politics. The forces of the centre-right were deserted en masse but without those of the centre-left effectively capitalising on the discontent, which was, instead, expressed by the spectacular advance of the ‘non-party’, the almost completely novel Five-Star Movement. As the last major contest on the political agenda before the next general election due in no more than a year, the May outcome revealed just how difficult it was likely to be for either of the two coalitions to obtain a clear victory on that occasion. The article discusses the extent and the nature of these difficulties – deriving from voters' clear rejection of ‘politics as usual’ – by analysing the run-up, the campaign, the outcome and the aftermath of the May elections.     

Lost in Translation? Domesticating Global Policy on Genetically Modified Organisms: Comparing India and China

This article compares the way in which China and India, two leading developing countries in the global debate on biotechnology, have sought to translate policy commitments contained in international agreements on trade and biosafety into workable national policy. It is a complex story of selective interpretation, conflict over priorities and politicking at the highest levels of government. It connects the micro-politics of inter-bureaucratic turf wars with the diplomacy of inter-state negotiations and coalition building. Empirically, the article provides the first systematic comparison of patterns of implementation in the two countries based on extensive fieldwork, contributing to debates about biotechnology regulation and the extent to which developing countries can exercise policy autonomy in a global environment of high commercial interest and aggressive political lobbying. Conceptually, the article develops thinking about the interaction and non-linear relationship between “domestic” and “international” policy-making arenas and does so in a way which is sensitive to the key role of non-state actors in this field.     

Turning over a new leaf? Cohesion and discipline in the Italian parliament

The literature on parties suggests various hypotheses about the conditions under which the cohesion and discipline of parliamentary parties will be greater or lesser. Since one such hypothesis concerns party‐system characteristics, Italy offers an opportunity to investigate what happens to cohesion and discipline when a system characterised by the permanence in office of a large, centrally located party and based on the permanent exclusion of left and right extremes, is replaced by one characterised by strong bi‐polar tendencies and the alternation in office of two competing coalitions. Italy's transformation appears to have produced more cohesive and disciplined behaviour in parliament.     

The futures of government human resource development

During the next decade, the effectiveness of government agencies will depend on how well they address major demographic, social, political, economic, technological, and managerial trends which affect their workforce. Human resource development can play a major role in helping agencies respond, but to do so it will have to adopt a more proactive, strategic orientation, expand and dramatically alter products and services, and develop the capacity to use new skills, technologies, and work methods. Choosing among various possible futures will demand visionary leadership in government human resource development.     

New avenues in the study of political corruption

This article argues that the 1990s have witnessed a sea change in the study of political corruption, especially in political science. It explores the reasons for the relative neglect of corruption by political science in the past, and suggests that a process is underway whereby the study of corruption is becoming more integrated into the mainstream of the discipline. It explores the paradox of the co-existence of unresolved disputes about the definition of corruption with a consensus on the severity of the problem, suggesting that corruption remains a worthwhile object of investigation. Finally, it summarises how the contributions to this special issue light possible new avenues in the study of the phenomenon. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Local climate governance and policy innovation in China: a case study of a piloting emission trading scheme in Guangdong province

This paper investigates how piloting programmes in China can promote local policy innovations. By using one of the piloting emission trading schemes (ETS) in Guangdong province as a case study, it is argued that the main features of the piloting experiments, particularly in the climate change domain, are largely different from previous local marketization experiments that dominate the reform period of China. Whereas previous experiments are often characterized as bottom-up or indigenous initiatives with strong patronage relations to the pro-reform politicians at central level, the current piloting programmes are often crafted in a top-down fashion that is often misaligned with local market or corporate interests. Hence, local policy innovations are designed, developed and brokered by the local state officers, in order to bridge this central–local interest gap. As a result, successful implementation of these policy innovations largely depends on local political traditions, bureaucratic culture and perceptions of distinctive development needs.     

csr,Tax and Development

This article explores and critically examines the connections between tax and development on the one hand and tax and corporate social responsibility (csr) on the other. It does so because, while there is increasing recognition of the importance of taxation to efforts to resource the state and to finance ways of tackling poverty, there is a surprising lack of attention to tax avoidance and evasion as a csr issue for transnational corporations operating in the South, even among those companies that pride themselves on being csr leaders. We review evidence of these trends, provide an empirical analysis of how leading firms deal with tax in their corporate reporting and make the case for including taxation as a new frontier in progressive csr.     

The Strategy of Exclusion in American Counterterrorism

ABSTRACT

While garnering heightened attention following the Trump administration's travel restrictions, exclusionary tactics in counterterrorism have a much lengthier history. Given that some terrorism studies scholars identify social and political exclusion as an explanation for the resort to terrorist violence, the selection of a strategy of exclusion is significant. In this article, I identify the elements of a strategy of exclusion and the logic behind this strategy. In particular, I examine the origins and persistence of this strategy in the U.S. context. Rather than a contemporary anomaly, exclusion was among the first strategies the United States added to its counterterrorist tool-kit, and has remained among the most consistent strategies relied on. I trace the history of this strategy from its origins in immigration restrictions passed following the assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist through the contemporary War on Terror. Controversy surrounding this strategy, its negative effects on nonviolent immigrant populations, and its failure to prevent further acts of terrorism suggest it was historically ineffective and may also be so today.