Good governance and multidimensional poverty: A comparative analysis of 71 countries

In 2015, the international community committed to “reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions.” According to international development agencies, good governance is crucial to achieving this. We examine the relationship between good governance and multidimensional poverty using hierarchical models and survey data for 71 countries. Our results suggest there is a direct effect of good governance on multidimensional poverty and that good governance is associated with reduced horizontal inequalities. However, we find evidence of a beneficial effect of good governance for middle‐income countries but not for low‐income countries. Thus, while our results suggest that good governance can play a role in reducing multidimensional poverty, they also suggest that governance reforms alone might not yield the desired effect for all countries.     

Metabolism and toxicological detection of the designer drug N-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)-3-methoxypropanamine (PCMPA) in rat urine using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Studies on the metabolism and the toxicological detection of the phencyclidine-derived designer drug N-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)-3-methoxypropanamine (PCMPA) in rat urine are described using gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) techniques. Based on the identified metabolites, the following metabolic pathways could be postulated: N-dealkylation, O-demethylation partially followed by oxidation of the resulting alcohol to the corresponding carboxylic acid, hydroxylation of the cyclohexyl ring at different positions, and aromatic hydroxylation. The formed metabolites were identical to those of the homologue N-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)-3-ethoxypropanamine (PCEPA) with exception of the mono hydroxyl metabolites of PCEPA. All PCMPA metabolites were partially excreted in conjugated form. An intake of a common drug users' dose of PCMPA could be detected in rat urine by the authors' systematic toxicological analysis (STA) procedure using full-scan GC-MS after acid hydrolysis, liquid-liquid extraction and microwave-assisted acetylation. The STA should be suitable for proof of an intake of PCMPA also in human urine assuming similar metabolism.     

Zu den Pflichten des Immobilienverwalters bei rechtsgeschäftlicher Beendigung des Verwaltungsverhältnisses

Im Zusammenhang mit der Beendigung des Verwaltungsverh?ltnisses und der damit einhergehenden Notwendigkeit einer Verwaltungsübergabe stellt sich eine Reihe rechtlicher Fragen, deren Beantwortung sich nicht ohne weiteres aus den Bestimmungen des ABGB über den Bevollm?chtigungsvertrag bzw aus den speziellen Verwaltungsbestimmungen des WEG erschlie?t. Angesichts der in der Praxis im Zuge der Verwaltungsübergabe doch sehr h?ufigen – weder dem Interesse der Auftraggeber noch dem Ansehen des Berufsstandes des Immobilienverwalters f?rderlichen – Auseinandersetzungen zwischen den beteiligten Personen (Liegenschaftseigentümer bzw Eigentümergemeinschaft, übergebender Verwalter, übernehmender Verwalter), die bisweilen vor dem Hintergrund diffuser Rechtsmeinungen geführt werden, ist eine n?here Untersuchung1) des für die "Verwaltungsübergabe" relevanten rechtlichen Rahmens durchaus angebracht.     

Legislative bargaining with costly communication

We investigate the effects of voting rules on delay in a multilateral bargaining experiment with costly communication. Our design is based on a variant of the Baron–Ferejohn framework. Communication takes place after a proposer is selected and before a proposal is made. In contrast to prior experiments, communication is directly associated with costs in our setup. Specifically, every second of communication increases the probability that the game is terminated before a proposal can be made. In case of ‘breakdown’, each player receives an exogenously fixed disagreement value. Those values sum up to less than the amount of the available surplus, implying that delay owing to communication is costly. We vary the decision rule (majority versus unanimity) as well as the distribution of disagreement values (symmetric or asymmetric). We find that unanimity rule leads to longer communication delays and more frequent breakdowns in asymmetric, but not in symmetric situations.

     

The ontological politics of (in-)equality: a new research approach for post-development

This article aims to add a new line of research to the post-development school of thought. Drawing on the many evident yet rarely noticed parallels between post-development and (post-)anarchism, I develop an understanding of ‘anarchistic post-development’ as a politics based on what French philosopher Jacques Rancière calls ‘the presupposition of equality’. I further connect this with Arturo Escobar and Marisol De la Cadena’s concept of political ontology, suggesting that we can make sense of and analyse both contemporary ‘Development’ projects as well as anarchistic post-developmental ‘alternatives to Development’ through the lens of what I call ‘the ontological politics of (in-)equality’. To substantiate my points, I will draw on the recent case of a Mâori tribe who won a historical legal battle to declare the Whanganui River a living entity.     

Four worlds of morality politics: the impact of institutional venues and party cleavages

The most prominent theory accounting for variation of morality politics across Western Europe is the so-called Two Worlds framework. According to this approach, the presence or absence of a secular?religious cleavage in national party systems strongly affects the degree of conflict intensity and the framing of morality policy issues. This article shows that the explanatory power of the Two Worlds model could be enhanced significantly by introducing a second analytical dimension that captures the institutional venue (party politics vs. parliamentary politics), in which moral conflicts take place. This is useful because there are instances in which a religious cleavage is lacking, but moral conflicts are nonetheless highly intense and party-based (the traditionalist world), and there are cases in which the religious cleavage formally exists, but moral conflicts are nonetheless resolved in the parliamentary arena (the unsecular world).     

A matter of timing: The religious factor and morality policies

The question of whether or not religion accounts for variance in the governance of moral issues, between and within countries over time, has long been debated but never conclusively answered. A novel data set encompassing innovative measurements of state regulation of “life‐and‐death” issues and of the religious stratification of society enables us to answer why previous studies reached contradictory results. The time‐series cross‐sectional analysis of 26 countries over 50 years reveals that dominant religious denominations in society indeed influence state governance approaches regarding the issues of abortion and euthanasia. This denominational effect is shown to be contingent on the religiosity of a country's population, but independent from the formal state–church relationship. Lastly, it is shown that the religious effect has an inverse U‐shaped relationship with time, exposing the timeframe of analysis as decisive for inferences drawn in the study of morality policy.     

State formation as it happens: insights from a repeated cross-sectional study in Afghanistan, 2007–2015

This paper contributes to an empirical understanding of state formation. Based on an original household-level data set, we provide a detailed picture of the process of state formation in Afghanistan over the last decade. State formation happens when state and society engage in reciprocal relations. Central to this relationship is an exchange of services for the acceptance of authority and increased legitimacy. Our data allows us to assess state-society relations across different dimensions. We focus on the provision of services, on the responsiveness of the state, on conflict regulation and on taxation. As a result we find more evidence of state formation than expected, but also see this as a contested process that unfolds unevenly and with different speed across different sectors.     

A theory of democratisation through peace-building

Abstract

This contribution presents a theory of democratisation through peace-building. Peace-building is seen as an interactive process between external peace-builders and domestic elites; whether a post-war state develops into a democracy or not depends to a large extent on the outcome of the bargaining process between domestic elites and peace-builders. It is argued that domestic elites typically face many constraints which make adopting democratic reforms a risky and costly proposition. Also, peace-builders usually have much less leverage over domestic elites than one would expect given their resources and man-power. High adoption costs and low leverage explain the outcome of the interaction between peace-builders and domestic elites often results in a peace which is not democratic. The paper uses an analysis of 19 major peace-building missions for exemplifying the theory.     

Hochschulpolitik in mittel- und osteuropa: Konvergenz zu einem gemeinsamen Modell?

In contrast to many other areas, international and European influences on national higher education policies remained limited for a long time. This picture changed fundamentally in the late 1990s with the establishment of the so-called Bologna Process which has the objective of setting up a common European higher education area. So far, however, we have limited knowledge about the extent to which this development actually led to the convergence of national higher education policies. Are national policies moving towards a common model, or are domestic reforms rather characterized by the specific conditions given at the domestic level? In this article these questions are adressed with regard to Central and Eastern European countries which are characterized by different pre-communist and communist patterns of higher education policy.