Power Sharing: Institutions,Behavior, and Peace

Grievances that derive from the unequal treatment of ethnic groups are a key motivation for civil war. Ethnic power sharing should therefore reduce the risk of internal conflict. Yet conflict researchers disagree on whether formal power‐sharing institutions effectively prevent large‐scale violence. We can improve our understanding of the effect of power‐sharing institutions by analyzing the mechanisms under which they operate. To this effect, we compare the direct effect of formal power‐sharing institutions on peace with their indirect effect through power‐sharing behavior. Combining data on inclusive and territorially dispersive institutions with information on power‐sharing behavior, we empirically assess this relationship on a global scale. Our causal mediation analysis reveals that formal power‐sharing institutions affect the probability of ethnic conflict onset mostly through power‐sharing behavior that these institutions induce.     

Constitutionalism and imperialism Sub Specie Spinozae

This paper examines the public, private and political in the work of Adriana Cavarero by drawing upon the situations of two women whose lives feature in her work: Elizabeth I and Penelope. It includes an analysis of the way in which Cavarero is rethinking Hannah Arendt’s view of ‘the political.’ Cavarero’s exposition of the metaphor of the King’s two bodies in the common law is explored, along with her critique of hylomorphism. Finally, it extends her work in Stately Bodies by considering different images of the power of the body in later political discourses regarding the worker’s body and the effect of the advance of techno-science. This paper was presented at ‘The State He’s In – Political Philosophy and the Figural: A Conference with Adriana Cavarero on her book Stately Bodies: Literature, Philosophy and the Question of Gender’ at Warwick University, Department of Philosophy in May 2004. I would like to thank Adriana and all the conference participants for their comments. Thanks also to the referees of this paper. I have kept the informal style of presentation from the conference, along with the emphasis upon theoretical, rather than historical, analysis.     

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation: The British Columbia Experience

In 2001, the province of British Columbia (BC) became the first Canadian jurisdiction to enact anti-SLAPP legislation. While this legislation proved to be short lived, the BC experience around the issue of SLAPPs is instructive for law reformers both in Canada and beyond. In this article, the authors describe the legal and political processes that set the stage for the passage of the 2001 law, and its subsequent repeal. They also provide a detailed analysis and critique of key aspects of the debate surrounding the design of the law, and consider its efficacy in identifying, dismissing and deterring SLAPP lawsuits. They conclude with some observations with respect to the current status of the SLAPP issue in BC.     

Cost-benefit analysis for global public–private partnerships: an evaluation of the desirability of intergovernmental organizations entering into public–private partnerships

This paper explains the use of cost-benefit analysis for the evaluation of global public–private partnerships that combine international intergovernmental organizations with national governments, businesses, and the non-profit organizations of civil society. The partnerships allocate resources to projects that are socially desirable from an international perspective, yet without the global partnerships will not be performed. Cost-benefit analysis can identify and compare the social and the private costs and benefits of the projects, thereby identifying cases where global public–private partnerships will provide socially desirable results when markets alone will not. Cost-benefit analysis can assess the necessity and the sufficiency of strategies proposed by the partnerships. The paper discusses modifications to cost-benefit analysis required for its use in evaluations of the global public–private partnerships, explaining the need for market-centered valuations, but also explaining the role of alternative social valuations.