What Have We Done Wrong? The Responsibilities of the Rich

This paper surveys hostile reactions to claims that the 11 September attacks were understandable in terms of the actions of the west towards poor parts of the world and the rich countries' own public commitments to democracy and affluence at home. The paper argues that domestic resentment is likely to continue to foment because concerted institution-building commensurate with the rich countries' material capacities has been neglected. Much responsibility for the global discontent can be attributed to policies advocated by the west and imposed on both rich and poor countries alike by policy-elites within the rich countries. Intellectuals have a role in re-activating the sorts of high-minded state-building and policymaking capacities that preoccupied them in the immediate post-1945 period.     

Uneven and combined confusion: on the geopolitical origins of capitalism and the rise of the west

This article offers a critique of Alexander Anievas and Kerem Ni?ancio?lu’s How the West came to rule: the geopolitical origins of capitalism. We argue that while all historiography features a number of silences, shortcomings or omissions, the omissions in How the West came to rule lead to a mistaken view of the emergence of capitalism. There are two main issues to be confronted. First, we argue that Anievas and Ni?ancio?lu have an inadequate and misleading understanding of “capital” and “capitalism” that tilts them towards a theoretical stance that comes very close to arguing that everything caused capitalism while at the same time having no clear and convincing definition of “capital” or “capitalism”. Second, there are at least three omissions—particular to England/Britain within a geopolitical context—that should be discussed in any attempt to explain the development of capitalism: the financial revolution and the Bank of England; the transition to coal energy; and the capitalization of state power as it relates to war, colonialism and slavery. We conclude by calling for a connected-histories approach within the framework of capital as power.     

Differential effectiveness in patient protection laws: what are the causes? An example from the drive-through delivery laws

In the mid-1990s, many states as well as the federal government began to regulate early postpartum hospital discharge. Length-of-stay patterns changed markedly in response, but effects were much greater in some states than others. In particular, laws directly empowering patients appeared more effective than laws requiring providers to follow practice guidelines. In addition, the effectiveness of regulation could potentially be influenced by state environment, such as managed care penetration as well as exposure to media attention and public pressure on the issue, though these factors alone were insufficient to cause general behavior change. Furthermore, the 1996 federal law had little effect beyond state laws, suggesting that it did not provide substantial benefits to women in self-insured plans exempted from state law regulation by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Findings from this study could provide lessons for similar patient protection initiatives.     

The political consequences of alienation-based and indifference-based voter abstention: Applications to Presidential Elections

We present a unified model of turnout and vote choice that incorporates two distinct motivations for citizens to abstain from voting: alienation from the candidates, and indifference between the candidates. Empirically, we find that alienation and indifference each motivated significant amounts of voter abstention in the 1980–1988 U.S. presidential elections. Using model-based computer simulations—which permit us to manipulate factors affecting turnout—we show that distinguishing between alienation and indifference illuminates three controversies in elections research. First, we find that abstention because of either alienation or indifference benefited Republican candidates, but only very modestly. Second, presidential elections involving attractive candidates motivate higher turnout, but only to the extent that abstention stems from alienation rather than from indifference. Third, paradoxically, citizens’ individual-level tendencies to abstain because of alienation are strongly affected by their evaluations of the candidates’ policies, whereas aggregate turnout rates do not depend significantly on the candidates’ policy platforms.     

The industrial structure of the California Assembly: Committee assignments,economic interests,and campaign contributions

This paper examines the provision of campaign contributions made by economic interests to incumbents seeking reelection in the 1984, 1986, and 1988 California Assembly elections. The study tests whether the distribution of campaign contributions by specific industrial sectors corresponds to legislator possession of the policy property rights associated with membership on relevant Assembly standing committees. A non-parametric statistical model compares the distribution of campaign contributions from groups within a given industrial sector to members of relevant policy committees with the distribution of contributions from all other contributor classes. The empirical analysis confirms that committee assignments significantly affect the allocation of special interest resources in Assembly elections, substantiating the importance of institutional considerations in influencing special interest activity.     

Decades of Disillusion: Reappraising the ALP-ACTU Accord 1983–1996

In this article we review the Accord between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), in order to address current uncertainty over the role of unions in politics, particularly in the face of both the Coalition Government's 2006 industrial relations legislation and the ALP's apparent repudiation of the country's longstanding institutional leverage over wages and non-wage policies. The Accord exemplified an explicitly corporatist union strategy and it initially attracted extensive and hostile commentary. However, discussion of the experiment, together with other tripartite approaches to policy formation, has waned in recent years, perhaps suggesting that it was a tactic whose time has passed. Reviewing some major criticisms, we argue that critics have dismissed the Accord too hastily. Although serious problems with the Accord process are acknowledged, the articulation of a broad program of social democratic initiatives is always likely to retain support on the political left. Despite changes in union density and workforce composition, the union movement still possesses capacity to mobilise community support and develop a principled program.