The Value-Added Tax in Ghana

Ghana's Parliament enacted a value-added tax (VAT) in December 1994, with collection to begin on March 1, 1995. The short preparation period proved fatal for the tax. However, the nation's fiscal problems continue and the government is resolved to reintroduce the tax in 1998. This article reviews the structure of the failed tax, showing how it would have been a more effective general consumption tax than the system it would have replaced, examines the reasons for its untimely demise, and considers prospects for a successful reintroduction of the tax. Ghana's experience with the VAT can hold important lessons for countries contemplating the introduction of such a tax.     

Methodology for the analysis of civil commitment detention times and costs

The authors expand their methodology for quantifying and comparing civil commitment processes by developing new formulas for the determination of the average commitment detention time and cost. They also examine the effects of specific changes in commitment procedures on the average detention time and cost. Using data from Oregon's civil commitment process, the authors present several examples of the practical application of their methodology and conclude with a discussion of its major administrative and research implications.     

Accountability in World Politics1

World politics has never been a democratic realm. Now, with interdependence and globalization prompting demands for global governance, the lack of global democracy has become an important public issue. Yet the domestic analogy is unhelpful since the conditions for electoral democracy, much less participatory democracy, do not exist on a global level. Rather than abandoning democratic principles, we should rethink our ambitions. First, we should emphasize, in our normative as well as our positive work, the role played by information in facilitating international cooperation and democratic discourse. Second, we should define feasible objectives such as limiting potential abuses of power, rather than aspiring to participatory democracy and then despairing of its impossibility. Third, we should focus as much on the powerful entities that are the core of the problem, including multinational firms and states, as on multilateral organizations, which often are the focus of criticism. Finally, we need to think about how to design a pluralistic accountability system for world politics that relies on a variety of types of accountability: supervisory, fiscal, legal, market, peer and reputational. A challenge for contemporary political science is to design such a system, which could promote both democratic values and effective international cooperation.     

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE: A SUB‐NATIONAL TEST OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY*

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory is grounded in the assumption that relatively higher crime rates in the United States are due to (1) the overwhelming influence of economic motives and institutions in society, and (2) the subjugation of all other social institutions to cultural economic interests (e.g., the American Dream). Our analysis is designed to extend the limited body of empirical research on this theory in several ways. First, we seek to test the utility of institutional anomie theory for predicting crime rates across aggregate units within the United States (counties). Second, we draw out the theory's emphasis on instrumental crime and suggest that measures of noneconomic social, political, familial, religious, and educational institutions will be particularly relevant for explaining instrumental as opposed to expressive violence. Third, in contrast to prior research, we develop conceptual reasons to expect that these factors will primarily mediate (as opposed to moderate) the relationship between economically motivating pressures and instrumental violence. Our negative binomial regression analyses of data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports and various censuses indicate that the measures of noneconomic institutions perform well in explaining both instrumental and expressive homicides, but that these measures mediate the impact of economic pressures (as measured by the Gini coefficient of family income inequality) to commit instrumental violence most strongly. Further, we find only very limited support for the more popular moderation hypothesis.     

Heijin — Organized crime,business and politics in Taiwan

Trends in Organized Crime -