Conflict Management and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Importance of Capturing the "right Moment"

Professor Jacob Bercovitch of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and S. Ayse Kadayifci from the American University in Washington D.C., argue that the current conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians can be best understood as an example of a complex intractable conflict. Such conflicts are usually managed through the intervention of mediators at the "right moment," otherwise they risk failure and further conflict escalation. In contrast to the literature on "ripe moments," the authors argue that it is possible to have more then one right moment in the life cycle of a conflict, which can even be created by mediators. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there was such a moment in 1993, which was subsequently lost. In the following article, the authors analyze the Oslo Process from this "ripe moment" perspective, and suggest an integrated third party approach to create a perception amongst the parties involved that a moment of opportunity is at hand.     

(Non)Regulable avoidance and the perils of punishment

Efforts to avoid punishment are generally deemed undesirable and therefore punished or otherwise regulated. In reality, however, not all avoidance efforts are punishable or regulable, at least not to the same degree. For practical or sometimes constitutional reasons, certain efforts to avoid punishment, such as non-creation of incrementing evidence or zealous criminal litigation, are non-punishable. This paper examines whether and under what conditions it is wise to deter avoidance efforts in a setting with multiple avoidance activities, some of which are non-regulable/punishable. The main results of this paper are that deterring certain avoidance activities does not necessarily: (i) decrease the extent to which offenders engage in avoidance activities; and (ii) more importantly, improve deterrence of the principal crimes. Normatively, then, it might be better to let certain punishable avoidance activities go unpunished or, more surprisingly, even to subsidize them. This calls into question recent responses by lawmakers after evidentiary fouls, such as those at Enron, WorldCom and HealthSouth, to stiffen penalties for obstruction of justice.

Correction to: Gender,Race, and Intersectionality in Campaign Finance

Political Behavior - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09693-y     

Get in line: Do part-time legislatures use sunset laws to keep executive agencies in check

Sunset provisions are clauses embedded in legislation that cause a piece of legislation or a regulatory board to expire on a certain date unless the legislature takes affirmative action to renew the legislation or board. Supporters and legislators offer several reasons why sunset laws are valuable and useful. An article by Baugus and Bose (2015), reported on the king-and-council model of Congleton (2001), suggests that sunset laws are a key tool legislatures use in asserting themselves against an executive branch that often dominates state government. We investigate this possibility using empirical analysis, which suggests that part-time legislatures, specifically, a form of part-time legislature referred to as hybrid legislatures, are more prone to use sunset legislation as a tool to keep the executive preferences in check.     

Do Social Rights Affect Social Outcomes?

While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for global judicialization of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCRs), little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence of the effects of introducing three types of ESCRs into the constitution: the rights to education, health, and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960–2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of ESCRs. We do, however, document adverse medium‐term effects on education, inflation, and civil rights.