Reviews Editor's Introduction

Many thanks are due to John Berg for his service to the journal as Reviews Editor for the past seven years. After preparing this, my first issue, for publication I am more fully aware of the time and energy that he devoted to the task. I also thank John for his assistance and guidance as I have assumed the role of Reviews Editor. I plan no major departures from the path established by John, who commissioned reviews on a wide array of topics and cultural forms. My commissioning of reviews will be guided by the following considerations, not necessarily in this order: (1) of likely interest to NPS members; (2) critical, progressive perspectives; (3) written or produced by NPS members; (4) somebody recommended it for review or volunteered to review it; and (5) my own idiosyncratic preferences. I claim no ability to comprehensively represent the diverse interests of NPS Caucus members. While my own research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political economy, public policy, and the politics of art and popular culture, I will attempt to commission reviews covering a broad range of topics. Since New Political Science is “A Journal of Politics &; Culture,” I will seek to include reviews of cultural forms other than books. This issue includes a fine review by Bruce Caswell of two films of potential interest to readers. In addition to books, I am interested in commissioning reviews of cultural forms as diverse as public art, comic books, contemporary fiction, music, and movies, always with the understanding that they say something interesting and valuable about contemporary politics. Our publication schedule, which includes a substantial lag of at least five to six months between finishing a review and publishing it, makes it impossible to publish timely reviews of movies and some other cultural forms. However, movies and other cultural forms often have a deep and lingering impact on culture and politics, making them fit subjects for retrospective review.     

The probability of casting a decisive vote: The effects of a caucus

We study the effects of caucus formation upon a voting process with the aid of a Pólya-Eggenberger probability model. The model contains a parameter interpretable as cohesiveness between voters in a voting body. We examine relationships among members' voting power, satisfaction, and group cohesiveness. We also explore the likelihood of a distortion of opinion resulting from the caucus.     

Public Deficiencies: Comments on the Theory of Nonmarket Failure*

A theory of public policy cannot be based solely on the theory of market failure. It also requires a theory of nonmarket (or government) failure, argues the American economist Charles Wolf, Jr. In an important article from 1979 Wolf presents the outlines of such a theory of nonmarket failure. The present article critically discusses Wolfs theory and tries to demonstrate that even his theory is not sufficiently adequate. One point made is that nonmarkets cannot be directly compared to markets since they do not represent one elemental decision process, as markets do. A nonmarket is a composite decision system. Another point that is advanced is that there are more decision systems than markets and nonmarkets, and that a complete theory of public policy must reflect this fact. Here two such additional systems are suggested: cultures and networks.     

The Health Services System: The Interaction of Medical, Socio-Cultural, Economic, and Political Logics*

Health sector research has increased in quantity over recent years: qualitatively, however, it has scarcely escaped from traditional disciplinary boundaries. Since the health sector has become a meeting ground for several disciplinary research traditions, it would seem necessary now to attempt to view the sector as an entirety. This paper suggests how the health services system may be viewed as a whole, and sketches a possible theoretical foundation for, and possible topics within, an integrated health sector framework.     

Politics, Economics and the Measurement of Power

To what extent is political power fundamentally different from or, alternatively, comparable to economic power? While it is true that the basic institutions of democratic political life - the electoral arena and the sovereign representative assembly - differ from such capitalist economic institutions as the market and the joint-stock company, the logic of the power game which takes place in both settings is quite similar. In both institutions power will be a function of the capacity to enter decisive coalitions with other players: individuals, political parties, stockholders or groups of stockholders. Power indices may therefore be employed in order to reveal aspects of the strategic gaming that takes place both in representative assemblies and at yearly stockholders' meetings. This article discusses and compares various quantitative measures of voting power in the two kinds of voting bodies.     

Regulating security on the Internet: control versus trust

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the role of government in relation to cybersecurity. Traditionally, cybersecurity was primarily seen as a technical issue. In recent years, governments have realised that they, too, have a stake in securing the Internet. In their attempts to grapple with cybersecurity, governments often turn to technical solutions to ‘code away’ illegal or undesired behaviours. ‘Techno-regulation’ has become popular because it may seem to be an effective and cheap way of increasing control over end users’ behaviours and increasing cybersecurity. In this article, we will explain why using techno-regulation has significant downsides and, therefore, why it may be unwise to use it as a dominant regulatory strategy for securing the Internet. We argue that other regulatory strategies ought to be considered as well, most importantly: trust. The second part of this article explains that trust can be used as an implicit strategy to increase cybersecurity or as an explicit mechanism for the same goal.