Party strategies and electoral competition in post-Communist countries: Evidence from Poland

Poland's major post-Communist party, the SLD, was an electorally successful legacy party during the 1990's. An analysis of Polish National Election Studies data and data from a separate study of new firm creation in Poland indicates their success was built on two important and related factors. One is the growth of new firms, which stimulated the growth of a centrist constituency who voted for parties supporting economic reforms. Second, the SLD adapted to this constituency by themselves becoming more economically liberal, as documented by Grzyma?a-Busse (2002). A conditional logit model of voter choice in the 1997 and 2001 elections relates votes to the distance between voters' preferences on economic policies and the positions of the competing parties. From this analysis we estimate that if the SLD had remained an ideological non-reformist party as did the KS?M in the Czech Republic and the CPRF in Russia it would have been a far weaker party as measured by vote and seat shares. Without the new firm creation, an ideological SLD cum KS?M could have been electorally successful as was the CPRF. The paper concludes by contrasting the the Polish, Czech and Russian post-Communist parties and extending the implications of the results to other developing and industrial economies faced with the need for structural change.     

Political and public acceptability of congestion pricing: Ideology and self‐interest

Studies of the “stated preferences” of households generally report public and political opposition by urban commuters to congestion pricing. It is thought that this opposition inhibits or precludes tolls and pricing systems that would enhance efficiency in the use of scarce roadways. This paper analyzes the only case in which road pricing was decided by a citizen referendum on the basis of experience with a specific pricing system. The city of Stockholm introduced a toll system for seven months in 2006, after which citizens voted on its permanent adoption. We match precinct voting records to resident commute times and costs by traffic zone, and we analyze patterns of voting in response to economic and political incentives. We document political and ideological incentives for citizen choice, but we also find that the pattern of time savings and incremental costs exerts a powerful influence on voting behavior. In this instance, at least, citizen voters behave as if they value commute time highly. When they have experienced first‐hand the out‐of‐pocket costs and time savings of a specific pricing scheme, they are prepared to adopt freely policies that reduce congestion on urban motorways. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Federal Implications of Northern Territory Statehood

Just over a decade since the failed referendum of 1998, statehood for the Northern Territory (NT) is back on the political agenda. The achievement of statehood would be a first for Australian federalism, where no new state has been created or admitted since Federation. Following a discussion of the concept of statehood and how it might be achieved, it traces the political development of the NT. The article then examines the implications of NT statehood for the Australian federation and finds that statehood would facilitate constitutional change in the federation by lowering the threshold required for success in a national referendum. Statehood may also raise questions about the equal representation in the Senate of less populous states. However, statehood would have no effect upon financial arrangements with the Commonwealth, the standing of the Northern Territory at COAG meetings, or the legal standing of the other states.     

Chi Wang,George W. Bush and China: Policies,Problems and Partnership

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Downsizing the civil service in developing countries: the golden handshake option revisited

In recent years, more and more calls are being heard in a growing number of developing countries to downsize their civil services. It is argued that downsizing is needed because of the increasing shortfalls in government recurrent and development budgets. This situation results in underutilized, underfunded staff and often in the siphoning-off of donor funds in the development budget for recurrent expenditure. The main problems addressed in this article are why should and how can the civil service in developing countries be downsized. The questions of how much to trim the bureaucracy and how to redeploy redundant public servants in the private sector are also addressed. The article examines alternative strategies for significantly downsizing the civil service. It is contended that problems in this area are indeed common to many developing countries. Various golden handshake options for civil service leavers receive particular attention. It is suggested that economic jumpstart is a better term than golden handshake to characterize the incentives package offered to induce staff to accept voluntary redundancy. Civil service reform is not presented here as a panacea for all developing countries' ills. The article makes a number of mostly untried but nevertheless attractive suggestions that bring some fresh thinking to bear on a difficult issue. Paths and avenues worth exploring when starting to design civil service trimming operations are presented, including some of their limitations. The point is finally made that this type of downsizing is overdue in many places. The article should be considered as a contribution to demystifying the process of downsizing the civil service in developing countries. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local supply,temporal dynamics,and unrealized potential in teacher hiring

We explore the dynamics of competitive search in the K–12 public education sector. Using detailed panel data on teacher hiring from Boston Public Schools, we document how teacher labor supply varies substantially across vacancies even within a single district depending on position type, school characteristics, and the timing of job postings. We find that early-posted positions are more likely to be filled and end up securing new hires that are better qualified, more effective, and more likely to remain at a school. In contrast, the number of applicants to a position is largely unassociated with hire quality, suggesting that schools may struggle to identify and select the best candidates even when there is a large pool of qualified applicants. These patterns persist even when we restrict comparisons to only positions within an individual school using school fixed effects. Our findings point to substantial unrealized potential for improving teacher hiring.     

The Politics of Dominant Party Formation: United Russia and Russia's Governors

This article analyses the emergence of United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) as a dominant party by examining the behaviour of Russia's governors. Using original data on when governors joined United Russia, the article demonstrates that those governors with access to autonomous political resources were more reluctant to join the dominant party. By showing that Russian elite members made their affiliation decisions on the basis of calculations about their own political resources rather than simply being coerced by the Kremlin, this article provides evidence for a theory of dominant party formation that casts the problem as a two-sided commitment problem between leaders and elites.     

Contribution of parkland trees to farmers’ livelihoods: a case study from Mali

Native species of trees and shrubs contribute significantly to farmers' livelihoods by supplying food, medicinal products, fodder, and wood. In the case study reported in this article, this contribution to farmers' annual revenue varied from 26 per cent to 73 per cent, and was as high as US$ 650 a year for households for which agroforestry products were the primary source of revenue. Household consumption was not quantified in the study, but farmers' comments confirmed that native trees also played an important role in assuring food security, especially in the ‘hunger period’ when grain stores are low and farmers are waiting for the next harvest.     

Systemic Dissemination of Injected Foreign Material

A 32‐year‐old woman collapsed following an intravenous injection of material that included crushed pharmaceutical tablets. Resuscitation was attempted but was unsuccessful. She had an extensive past medical history of complications resulting from intravenous drug use. Death was due to mixed drug toxicity. The major findings at autopsy included a 10 mm deep skin sinus over the right femoral vein that was used as an injection site. Polarizable foreign material was present at the injection site and also within the lungs with a granulomatous reaction. Of note, a probe‐patent foramen ovale had permitted paradoxical embolization of this material into the systemic circulation with lodgement within the liver, portal lymph nodes, myocardium, spleen, kidneys, and pancreas. This case highlights the importance of checking for any intracardiac shunts, which may be quite small, and systemic dissemination of foreign material to multiple organs in intravenous drug users who present for medicolegal assessment.