Kidnap insurance and its impact on kidnapping outcomes

In the developing world, kidnapping is relatively common, and a market for kidnap insurance has arisen in response. We provide a model that allows us to analyze how kidnap insurance affects the interaction between the kidnapper and the victim’s family when both are self-interested and have complete knowledge. We find that a market for kidnap insurance can be supported because it benefits a risk-averse family, as long as the introduction of insurance does not increase the risk of kidnapping too much. Families should fully insure if purchasing insurance does not increase the probability of kidnapping, and partially insure otherwise. Kidnapping insurance allows families to redeem hostages from kidnappers with a greater willingness to kill, which may reduce the number of kidnapping fatalities as long as the insurance does not increase the risk of kidnapping too much.     

Political entrepreneurship and the formation of special districts

Where general purpose governments provide a bundle of services within their boundaries, special district governments provide specific services inside the boundaries of general purpose governments. The alternative to forming a special purpose government is providing the service within a general purpose government. Formation of a special district represents the establishment of a new political enterprise, in contrast to the addition of a new product line to an existing government. We explore the formation of special districts as a particular form of the universal entrepreneurial search for gain or profit from exchange. Political entrepreneurship, like market entrepreneurship, operates inside some framework of rules, and the formation of special districts reflects the search for political gain within that framework of rules. We use an entrepreneurial framework to formulate several hypotheses concerning the formation and organization of special districts.     

Protection orders protect against assault and injury: a longitudinal study of police-involved women victims of intimate partner violence

The objective of this study was to measure the efficacy of protection orders (POs) in reducing assault and injury-related outcomes using a matched comparison group and tracking outcomes over time. This study was a retrospective review of police, emergency department, family court, and prosecutor administrative records for a cohort of police-involved female IPV victims; all events over a 4-year study period were abstracted. Victims who obtained POs were compared with a propensity-score-based match group without POs over three time periods: Before, During, and After the issuance of a PO. Having a PO in place was associated with significantly more calls to police for nonassaultive incidents and more police charging requests that were of multiple-count and felony-level. Comparing outcomes, PO victims had police incident rates that were more than double the matched group prior to the PO but dropped to the level of the matched group during and after the order. ED visits dropped over time for both groups. This study confirmed the protective effect of POs, which are associated with reduced police incidents and emergency department visits both during and after the order and reduced police incidents compared with a matched comparison group.     

Entrepreneurial human capital, complementary assets, and takeover probability

Although acquisitions of high-tech entrepreneurial firms are of great popularity within the technology transfer process, the limited empirical evidence on this type of technology transfer shows that these acquisitions often lead to dismal results in that a large number of acquired key inventors leave their companies after an acquisition and those that remain exhibit poor performance. This study aims at explaining this phenomenon and adds additional empirical results and explanations to the matching theory of ownership changes. Using a hand collected dataset of all German IPOs from 1997 until 2006, this study shows that the probability of ownership in a young and high-tech firm??s assets being reallocated by means of a takeover significantly decreases with the amount of intangible and complementary assets that are owned by the owner-manager.     

China’s rise as a strategic challenge and opportunity: India’s China discourse and strategy

The simultaneous rise of China and India is one of the most important developments in contemporary world politics. Given their steadily growing power and aspirations and China’s more assertive posture in Asia, the management of China’s rise is one of the major challenges for India’s foreign policy. However, India is often said to have no guiding strategic framework for its China policy, which is seen as incoherent and reactive. This article, by contrast, shows that India has an evolving China strategy and that the alleged inconsistencies in India’s China policy are rather the result of an ambivalent image of China. Drawing on constructivism and discourse analysis, the article identifies the dominant perception of China in India’s foreign policy discourse and the resulting foreign policy strategy. In a next step, the article analyzes the China policy of the Congress-led UPA Government and investigates whether it conforms to the strategic policy frame of the dominant China discourse.     

Arbeit und Organisation in der funktional differenzierten Gesellschaft

This article identifies central dimensions of the concept of labor and integrates this concept into a systems-theoretical framework. It proposes to describe labor as the inclusion of persons in the performance of organizations. We demonstrate that by using this reconceptualization it becomes possible to situate the concept of labor within organizational theory and theories of society. Furthermore, empirical sketches of labor in firms and schools show how this reconceptualization of labor fosters our understanding of work in contemporary societies.     

Hat die Moderne einen normativen Gehalt?

Das Projekt einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie steht und fällt seit ihren Anfängen mit der Begründung ihres normativen Standpunktes, der den Hintergrund für eine kritische Gesellschaftsdiagnose bereitstellt. Vor der Soziologie war dieser Standpunkt insofern unproblematisch, als die moderne Gesellschaft mehrere normative Diskurse pflegte, mit denen sie ihren normativen Gehalt zu rekonstruieren versuchte. Die soziologische Entdeckung der Kontingenz hat demgegenüber den Zweifel genährt, dass ein solches Projekt einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie unter Kontingenzbedingungen überhaupt möglich ist. Kontingenz und normative Begründung scheinen sich spätestens seit Weber auszuschließen. Adornos kritische Theorie hat versucht, dieses Problem durch zwei widerstreitende Argumente zu lösen: durch ein geschichtsphilosophisches und ein erkenntniskritisches. Das geschichtsphilosophische ist von Habermas in eine Diskurstheorie transformiert worden, während das erkenntniskritische zwar Eingang in die postmoderne Gesellschaftstheorie Baumans gefunden hat, aber durch eine anthropologische Lesart entschärft wurde. Der am Schluss des Aufsatzes vorgeschlagene Weg der Neufassung einer Begründung kritischer Gesellschaftstheorie versucht dagegen zu zeigen, dass sich aus einer erkenntniskritischen Argumentation eine normative Konsequenz ziehen lässt: Die erkenntniskritisch aufgezeigte Unbegründbarkeit von Normen ist dann nicht länger ein Argument gegen eine kritische Gesellschaftstheorie. Sondern sie zeigt, inwiefern sich die Unbegründbarkeit als normativer Gehalt der modernen Gesellschaft verstehen lässt.     

Playground or Democratisation? New Participatory Procedures at the European Commission

In the previous decade, the European Commission has promoted direct citizen involvement in European Union (EU) affairs via institutions such as deliberative polls, citizen conferences, online consultations or citizens' initiatives. Do these instruments foster EU democratisation? In this article, the Commission's participatory turn is re‐constructed. Against the yardstick of a democracy theoretical framework, two participatory instruments (European Citizens' Consultations and the Commission's online consultations) are assessed. Both instruments are seriously flawed: the ECC cannot resolve the trade‐off between demanding and egalitarian participation, and remains almost unrecognised outside the forum (bridging problem). Online consultations suffer both from a lack of active participation and of the symbolic accountability of the Commission to the contributions of ordinary citizens.