INDIVIDUAL CHOICE, MATERIAL CULTURE, AND ORGANIZED CRIME

This article examines some of the American roots of organized crime, and its place within the American culture. The ethnic succession and limited mobility theses are critically examined, and some new perspectives presented regarding the analysis of organized crime. A number of research needs and propositions in need of further testing are presented.     

Silence and Catastrophe: New Reasons Why Politics Matters in the Early Years of the Twenty‐first Century

Megaprojects are systems of highly concentrated power whose footprints, or radius of effects, are without precedent in human history. Once upon a time, even under imperial conditions, most people on our planet lived and loved, worked and played within geographically limited communities. They never had to reckon with all of humanity as a factor in their daily lives. Whenever they acted recklessly within their environment, for instance, they had the option of moving on, safe in the knowledge that there was plenty of Earth and not many others. Whenever bad things happened, they happened within limits. Their effects were local. The politics of megaprojects radically alters this equation; it poses new questions about the governance of risk and the nature and limits of democratic politics. The politics of megaprojects—put simply—raises fundamental questions about the ‘life and death of democracy’.     

Debating the ‘Stalemate’: A Response to Dr Dixon

This article responds to the critique of our work offered by Paul Dixon in this issue of Political Quarterly. We correct the numerous inaccuracies and straightforward errors in his work, which, in our view, distort and misrepresent our arguments.     

The Future of Public Sector Pensions

The dramatic rise in life expectancy and longer retirement has created serious concerns about the long‐term affordability of public sector pensions. Drawing on insights from a recent inquiry into public sector pension reform, commissioned by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition and led by the author, this article outlines the challenge faced by policy makers and sets out how it should be addressed. It argues that, with 12 million people active in this part of the pensions system, and estimates that the gap between contributions and payments will grow from £3bn to £10bn in the next decade, the government has no choice but to enter the ‘lions’ den’ of pensions’ policy. It contends that any long‐term solution is to be crafted cannot be based solely on economics, but must also answer fundamental questions of ethics and equity.     

Strategic adaptation to new electoral systems

How quickly, to what extent and under what conditions do voters and elites adapt to new electoral institutions in order to not waste their votes and effort on hopeless competitors? A latent‐curve model of strategic adaptation is developed and fitted to district‐level election data from Spain. The extent of strategic adaptation is generally found to vary with the strength of the electoral system. However, grave ethnic tensions are demonstrated to seriously retard adaptation even under favourable institutional conditions.     

China’s Economy over the Last Ten

CHINA is approaching its once-in-adecade change in president and gov- ernment. It’s a good time to pause and reflect on the last 10 years of China’s economic performance. The data for 2012 is stil being produced, so our decade has to be 2001- 2011. This doesn’t give us a precise overlap with the country’s politics - 2001 was the final year of the previous administration,     

China Has the World’s Fastest Growth in Living Standards简

正ONE of the strangest claims about China that sometimes appear in the media is that it has a slow growth of consumption and living standards.In reality China has the fastest growth of consumption of any country in the world–whether this is measured only by household consumption or includes government consumption in areas vital for quality of life,such as education and health.Furthermore,indicators show that compared to other countries,China’s quality of life is better than would be expected from its present stage of economic development.First the facts regarding these issues are established and then they will be analyzed.     

U.K. Needs Clear Choice on China Relations

正CHINA and Britain have potentially one of the world’s most fruitful international economic relationships.Not only do they account for 16 percent of world GDP,but their two economies are mutually complementary rather than competitive.China is now the world’s largest industrial producer,     

Some Aspects of Economic Development in Uganda

This lecture was given at a joint meeting on the 29th November,with Lord Hailey in the chair. Sir John Hall is the retiringGovernor.