The impact of closeness on turnout: An empirical relation based on a study of a two-round ballot

Several methodological difficulties emerge from the empirical evaluation of the impact of closeness on turnout. The most critical resides in the use of the actual electoral results to assess the impact of closeness. Important doubt therefore remains with respect to the empirical validity of the relationship between turnout and closeness. This article intends to explore this ambiguity by an econometric analysis of the two-round French legislative elections. The first ballot gives excellent information to the voters on the expected closeness of the upcoming second ballot. The results show that closeness, whatever its measure, has an important and meaningful impact on electoral participation.     

Review

Nuclear Power in the Developing World by Daniel Poneman George Allen and Unwin, London, 1982. 254 pp. including tables, figures, notes, bibliography and index. £14,95.

Employment Policy in Developing Countries: A Survey of Issues and Evidence by Lyn Squire Oxford University Press, New York, 1981. xiii plus 229 pp. including tables, figures, references and index. R.16,95 paperback.

Migration Decision‐Making: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Micro‐Level Studies in Developed and Developing Countries edited by Gordon F. de Jong and Robert W. Gardner Pergamon Press, New York, and Oxford, 1981. xii plus 394 pp. including tables, figures, bibliography and index. R.73,85.

Cities, Poverty and Development: Urbanization in the Third World by Alan Gilbert and Josef Gugler Oxford University Press, London, 1984. viii plus 246 pp. including tables, figures, notes, bibliography and index. R.23,95 paperback.

Urban Dynamics in Black Africa: An Interdisciplinary Approach by William J. Hanna and Judith L. Hanna Aldine Publishing Co., New York, 1981. viii plus 260 pp. including map, tables, figures, illustrations, bibliography and index. $19,95.

No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective by Goran Hyden Heinemann, London, 1983. xv plus 223 pp. including tables, figures, notes and index. £4,95 paperback.

African Philosophy: Myth and Reality by Paulin J. Hountondji Hutchinson, London, 1983. 221 pp. including notes, references and index. R.32,75 paperback.

The African City by Anthony O'Connor Hutchinson, London, 1983. 359 pp. including figures, tables, diagrams, bibliography and index. $27,50. $17,50 paperback.

A History of Nigeria by Elizabeth Isichei Longman, London, 1983. xix plus 517 pp. including illustrations, maps, tables, figures, appendix, bibliography and index. £19,95. £7,95 paperback.

Politics and Class Formation in Uganda by Mahmood Mamdani Heinemann, London, 1976. viii plus 339 pp. including notes, tables, bibliography and index. £2,90 paperback.

Maternal and Child Health in Rural Kenya: An Epidemiological Study edited by J.K. van Ginneken and A.S. Muller Croom Helm, London, 1984. 383 pp. including illustrations, tables, references and index. £15,95.

The Road to Zimbabwe: 1890–1980 by Anthony Verrier Jonathan Cape, London, 1986. 364 pp. including map, notes and index. £16,00.

A Peace in Southern Africa: The Lancaster House Conference on Rhodesia, 1979 by Jeffrey Davidow Westview Press, Boulder (Colorado), 1984. 143 pp. including notes, bibliography and index. $22,00.

Botswana's Economy since Independence edited by M.A. Oommen, F.K. Inganji and L.D. Ngcongco Tata McGraw‐Hill Publishing Co., New Delhi, 1983. xx plus 321 pp. including tables, bibliography and index. No price available.

Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires: The Evolution and Dissolution of the Nineteenth‐Century Swazi State by Philip Bonner Cambridge University Press, and Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1983. viii plus 315 pp. including maps, figures, notes, appendix, bibliography and index. R15,95 paperback.

The Diplomacy of Isolation: South Africa's Foreign Policy‐Making by Deon Geldenhuys Macmillan, Johannesburg, 1984. iii plus 295 pp. including notes and index. Ri 30,00.

Studies on Urbanization in South Africa edited by E.A. Kraayenbrink South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, 1984. vi plus g6 pp. including tables and notes. R5,95 paperback.

The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organized Labour on the South African Goldfields, 1902–1939 by David Yudelman Greenwood Press, Westport (Connecticut) and London, and David Philip, Cape Town, 1983. xvi plus 315 pp. including figures, tables, bibliography and index. R46,50.

South Africa at War: White Power and the Crisis in Southern Africa by Richard Leonard Lawrence Hill and Co., Westport (Connecticut), 1983. x plus 280 pp. including notes, appendices and index. R3i,35 paperback.

Rural Development in South Africa: A Case Study of the Amatola Basin in the Ciskei edited by Chris de Wet and Simon Bekker Shuter and Shooter, Pietermaritzburg, 1985. xiv plus 165 pp. including tables, figures, maps, bibliography and index. R25,00 paperback.

Call Me Not A Man by Mtutuzeli Matshoba Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1979. x plus 198 pp. R4,95 paperback.

Anthem of the Decades: A Zulu Epic by Mazisi Kunene Heinemann, London, 1981. xi plus 312 pp. £3,50 paperback.     

Excellence at What Cost? Austerity and the Reform of the School System in England (2010–2016)

The reform of the school system, which has been conducted by the Coalition and Conservative governments since 2010, has largely been austerity‐driven. In spite of the governments’ pledge to protect their budgets, schools have been severely hit by spending cuts. The reform programme has itself been integral to the fiscal consolidation plans by promoting a more cost‐effective system of state schooling. This article discusses the relationship between austerity and reform, and looks at the consequences for the concept of public service. Some specific aspects of the new institutional framework are examined, especially the creation of an independent state sector made up of academies and free schools, which has entrenched the involvement of private sector firms in education. The overhaul of the school system, which started nearly thirty years ago, has now reached a new decisive stage. However, considering the complex relationship between multiple actors and the opposing forces at work, one cannot say with any certainty that it will cause the demise of public service state education.     

Self-determination and the Use of Referendums: the Case of Quebec

On two occasions (1980 and 1995), Quebeckers rejected the Quebec government's sovereignty proposal. Many lessons can be drawn from the Quebec referendum experience. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the origins and motivations of the independence movement. It focuses more specifically on the 1980 and 1995 referendums, examining in both cases the political context, the judicial–institutional framework within which these public consultations were held and the arguments raised during the referendum campaigns. Furthermore, it analyses the results as well as the political, constitutional and juridical consequences of the federalist victories. The article concludes that attempts by Quebec sovereignists to question the Canadian political system have invariably resulted in a stronger and more consolidated central state while significantly weakening the Quebec state's ability to determine its own political future.     

Egalitarianism and the democratic deconsolidation: Is democracy compatible with socialism?

Public Choice - The unprecedented reduction in popular support for democracy represents a risk of democratic deconsolidation. The new situation echoes old debates on the compatibility of democracy...     

Deterritorialised territories,borderless borders: the new geography of international medical assistance

This article examines the phenomenon of international medical assistance to populations in distress from the perspective of the new spatial strategies deployed by medical humanitarian organisations. Taking seriously the ‘borderlessness’ of movements such as Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders, or MSF), the article argues that transnational medical organisations participate in the practice of deterritorialisation. Deterritorialisation means that certain transnational actors now have the ability to intervene below, across and beyond state boundaries. In the case of MSF, going beyond state boundaries is creative of new territorial structures. One such structure is what may be called the ‘space of victimhood’. Under the guise of reaching ‘victims’ the world over, MSF constructs new spaces—humanitarian zones—inside which individuals in distress are identified as ‘victims’, are sorted out, and become recognisable as generalised examples of human drama. This construction of a space of victimhood opens up the possibility for re-appropriations and manipulations by other non-humanitarian actors. Among such actors, one finds global media networks which avidly search for images of victims. By pointing out the potentially non-humanitarian effects of the new spatial arrangements deployed by transnational medical organisations (a phenomenon referred to as ‘transversality’), this article urges international scholars and practitioners to keep a close eye on questions of space and, specifically, on the sociopolitical processes of inclusion and exclusion that such territorial delineations often produce.     

Who Suffers the Penalty?: A Panel Data Analysis of Earnings Gaps in Vietnam

In spite of its predominant economic weight in developing countries, little is known about the informal sector earnings structure compared to that of the formal sector. Taking advantage of the rich VHLSS dataset in Vietnam, in particular its three wave panel data (2002, 2004, 2006), we assess the magnitude of various formal–informal earnings gaps while addressing heterogeneity at three different levels: the worker, the job (wage employment vs. self-employment) and the earnings distribution. We estimate fixed effects and quantile regressions to control for unobserved individual characteristics. Our results suggest that the informal sector earnings gap highly depends on the workers’ job status and on their relative position in the earnings distribution. Penalties may in some cases turn into premiums. By comparing our results with studies in other developing countries, we draw conclusions highlighting Vietnam’s labour market specificity.     

Criminalizing the State

In this article, I ask whether the state, as opposed to its individual members, can intelligibly and legitimately be criminalized, with a focus on the possibility of its domestic criminalization. I proceed by identifying what I take to be the core objections to such criminalization, and then investigate ways in which they can be challenged. First, I address the claim that the state is not a kind of entity that can intelligibly perpetrate domestic criminal wrongs. I argue against it by building upon an account of the modern state as a moral agent proper, capable of both culpable moral and legal wrongdoing. I then consider objections to the intelligibility and legitimacy of subjecting states to domestic criminal processes, which primarily find their source in the assumption that such subjection would necessarily involve the state prosecuting, judging, and punishing itself. I argue that whether this (questionable) assumption is sound or not, it does not create the kinds of unsolvable quandaries its exponents think it does. I then move on to reject the distinct, yet related, objection that, at least in aspiring liberal jurisdictions, treating the state as a criminal objectionably involves extending to it various substantive and procedural guarantees that, given its nature and raison d’être, it should not have. Finally, I discuss three central objections to punishing the state. First, that organizations like states do not have the phenomenal consciousness required to suffer punishment. Second, that the constant possibility of dispersion of state punishment amongst individual members stands in the way of its justification. Lastly, that whatever justification there may be for making things harder for the state in response to its culpable wrongdoing, such treatment need not be understood as punishment. While partially conceding the strength of these objections, I strive to loosen their grip in ways that show that justified punishment of the state, meaningfully understood as such, remains a distinct possibility. I conclude by contrasting supposed alternatives to the criminalization of states, and by contending that my analysis leaves us with enough to keep the possibility of state criminalization on the table as a justifiable response to state wrongdoing.