Canada

European Journal of Political Research -     

Gerhard oder Helmut? ‚Unpolitische’ Kandidateneigenschaften und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung bei der Bundestagswahl 1998

This article examines to what degree the voting decision in 1998 was affected by personal, ‘nonpolitical’ qualities of the two chancellor candidates, i.e. Gerhard Schroeder and Helmut Kohl: personal integrity, physical attractiveness, and family life. Drawing on the German national post election study 1998, it is demonstrated that the two candidates’ personal qualities had in fact a significant impact on the voting decision. Differentiating between several personal attributes, personal integrity proves to be somewhat more important than truly nonpolitical attributes such as the physical attractiveness or the candidates’ family life. All in all, hypotheses on personalization receive support from the analyses presented in this article.     

Unemployment, Economic Theory, and Property Crime: A Note on Measurement

Drawing on rational choice theory, this study considers how best to measureunemployment within the context of the unemployment–property crimerelationship. Specifically, we use ARIMA techniques to examine the relativeefficacy of using the conventional Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)unemployment rate and two alternative measures of the demand for labor aspredictors of monthly counts of U.S. property offenses for the years 1982through 1996. The bivariate time series analyses indicate that while theBLS unemployment rate exhibits null effects, the number of individualsunemployed for 15 weeks or more and the capacity utilization ratesignificantly affect the level of property crime. The implications ofthese results are discussed.     

Michigan's Minority Graduates in Practice: The River Runs Through Law School

This paper reports the results of a 1997-98 survey designed to explore the careers of the University of Michigan Law School's minority graduates from the classes of 1970 through 1996, and of a random sample of Michigan Law School's white alumni who graduated during the same years. It is to date the most detailed quantitative exploration of how minority students fare after they graduate from law school and enter law practice or related careers. The results reveal that almost all of Michigan Law School's minority graduates pass a bar exam and go on to have careers that appear successful by conventional measures. In particular, the survey indicates that minority graduates (defined so as to include graduates with African American, Latino, and Native American backgrounds) are no less successful than white graduates, whether success is measured by the log of current income, self-reported satisfaction, or an index of service contributions. Also, although an admissions index that combines LSAT scores and undergraduate grade-point average is a significant predictor of law school grades, it does not predict career success on any of our three outcome measures. Michigan is a highly selective law school; our results may not generalize to people who have graduated from other law schools.     

Financial incentives and welfare reform in the United States

This paper uses a microsimulation model to ask whether welfare recipients in the United States would work full‐time if offered an earnings supplement that was conditioned on full‐time employment. The simulations suggest that the earnings supplement would increase full‐time employment, with little additional cash transfer cost to the government. In contrast, financial incentives currently being used by many of the states are increasing employment and income, but are encouraging primarily part‐time employment. Encouraging full‐time employment is particularly important in light of new time limits on welfare receipt. Faced with a loss of welfare benefits, many recipients may find that part‐time earnings do not allow them to be economically self‐sufficient. © 2001 by the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Rights,review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

Abstract. This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time–series cross–section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions.     

Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self‐Reinforcing Link Between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences

This article assesses the influence of income inequality on the public's policy mood. Recent work has produced divergent perspectives on the relationship between inequality, public opinion, and government redistribution. One group of scholars suggests that unequal representation of different income groups reproduces inequality as politicians respond to the preferences of the rich. Another group of scholars pays relatively little attention to distributional outcomes but shows that government is generally just as responsive to the poor as to the rich. Utilizing theoretical insights from comparative political economy and time‐series data from 1952 to 2006, supplemented with cross‐sectional analysis where appropriate, we show that economic inequality is, in fact, self‐reinforcing, but that this is fully consistent with the idea that government tends to respond equally to rich and poor in its policy enactments.     

Budget Deficits in the States: Virginia

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Blogging and Environmental Advocacy: A New Way to Engage the Public?

While there is a growing literature on weblogs (or “blogs”), most studies focus on a few high profile blogs, or on blogs written by individuals. This study assesses the little‐researched area of organizational blogging through a content analysis of blogs by 40 national‐level environmental organizations. I examine the general purposes that these blogs serve and the extent to which organizational blogs differ from traditional websites. Additionally, I explore two blog features—interactivity and personalized content—that offer the potential to strengthen the connections between group leaders and their supporters. I find that groups use their blogs primarily to inform readers about policy developments and news headlines, but that the level of interactivity between blog authors and readers is low. Thus, while the potential exists for blogs to enhance grassroots support for environmental groups, that potential is far from being realized.     

Towards state activism： Long live public administration

The last two decades of human civilization has witnessed fast changing in polity, society, economy and almost every sphere of state activities. The era of new economic order and revolution in the information technology sector has compelled the public administration to adopt the new paradigms. However, the new concepts such as NPM, public choice approach and state minimalism are being questioned in the framework of welfare state and emerging needs of the regulatory administration. It has been realized by almost all the modern and democratic nations that the state and its instrumental part （public administration） are not the evils; rather they are inevitable institutions for mankind. Terrorism, cyber crimes, disaster management, economic meltdown, sustainable development, capacity building, international relations, development of heavy and basic infrastructure and protection of human rights etc. are the prime and exclusive functions of the public administration. The 9/11 attack on US and 11/26 attack on India, plus the recent recession with the global warming worries have proved that we have to move towards state activism.