Voter information and power dilution: Evidence from Sicilian provincial elections

Public Choice - It is generally accepted that an increase in the amount of voter information is desirable. As Reisman (1990) points out, a well-informed and committed electorate is better able to...     

Controlling Administrative Discretion Promotes Social Equity? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Although social equity has been a formal pillar of public administration for decades, identifying mechanisms through which public officials inadvertently reproduce unfair conditions remains a relevant topic. In particular, it is important to understand how the habits and practices of street‐level bureaucrats may result in an unjust allocation of public resources. This article provides evidence on how the administrative discretion conferred on school principals may result in an efficient but unfair condition regarding the allocation of students across schools, thus undermining social equity. By exploiting a natural experiment, we are able to provide reliable evidence on how controlling administrative discretion decreases the segregation of students based on their socioeconomic status.     

Mr. Smith and the economy: the influence of economic conditions on individual legislator voting

This paper estimates the influence of macroeconomic conditions on individual legislator voting over time. Previous work shows legislator voting to be stable over careers. In this paper, voting on an ideological issue space (ADA scores) and a fiscal issue space (NTU scores), from 1976 to 2002, exhibits significant short-term cyclicality with economic conditions. Individual legislators polarize by party in response to rising unemployment, and converge in response to rising inflation. As legislators accumulate tenure, they become more ideologically conservative but more fiscally liberal. Results are also reported on presidential party, divided government, and region. All results are weaker in the Senate than in the House.     

Too Much, Too Late: The Advocacy Act in Ontario

This paper examines the concept of government‐based social advocacy on behalf of vulnerable people in the community. It uses as a case example the Ontario Advocacy Act, a statute that was surrounded by controversy through its short life. The more general question raised is whether the ideas of government‐based advocacy are fundamentally conceptually untenable, or whether the fault lay with the specifics of the act and its implementation. As governments globally cut back on social supports for vulnerable people, the need for advocacy and support are self‐evident. This paper explores the broader viability of this one, specific type of response.     

Earnings and Caste: An Evaluation of Caste Wage Differentials in the Nepalese Labour Market

This paper examines the sources of wage differentials among castes in Nepal, a country which had, until 1963, an age-old caste-based social division of labour. We use an extended Oaxaca decomposition model with occupation and firm size augmenting the conventionally used measures of human capital endowments. Our results indicate that caste wage differentials in Nepal are large and that human capital endowments and lack of access to better paying occupations and larger firms have a significant impact. Furthermore, we find mixed evidence that the government policy of affirmative action has narrowed down the caste wage differential.     

Nicki-aesthetics: the camp performance of Nicki Minaj

In this essay, the author contends that Nicki Minaj practices what he terms nicki-aesthetics, a form of black performance art that employs an extravagant theatricality and a vivid, intensely hued style. Nicki-aesthetics shares qualities with the sensibility of camp, as outlined in Susan Sontag's 1964 article “Notes on ‘Camp,’” yet challenges camp's assumed association with white gay men as well as its reduction of women to objects (rather than subjects) within the camp universe. Nicki-aesthetics realigns blackness and camp as mutually constitutive (rather than oppositional) forms, while reconfiguring camp as a black female-centered practice. In addition, Nicki Minaj demonstrates her dexterity at performing nicki-aesthetics in an offbeat interview on Elle magazine's website while deploying avatars to play multiple roles. In doing so, nicki-aesthetics' quirky blend of artifice and alterity ultimately rebukes hip-hop's obsession with authenticity.     

Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

Ethnocompetitiveness,relations, and networks: towards rural sustainability

Small producers face various obstacles in placing their products on the global market. The most important obstacle is associated with the generation of innovative products in a dynamic context. This article presents a case study which provides support for a methodology designed to quantify the competitiveness of small and medium-sized local producers in relation to other producers in the same region and nation. It explores how the evolution of knowledge relates to the ability of agricultural producers to sell their products in regional and international markets. To do so, it utilises the concept of ethnocompetitiveness, which can be understood as the hybridisation of local knowledges with external or codified knowledge.