Economic performance and turnout at national and local elections

This paper analyzes the impact of economic performance on voter turnout. We estimate an economic turnout model in which local economic variables are included in quadratic form, so that non-linear effects can be taken into account. We use panel datasets covering municipalities, from 1979 to 2005, and cross-sections of parishes (freguesias) to analyze the determinants of turnout at Portuguese municipal and legislative elections. The empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important only in legislative elections and that the regional and local unemployment rates tend to have non-linear relationships to turnout. The results obtained for Flemish municipalities also provide evidence in favor of a non-linear effect of unemployment on turnout.     

Electoral Cycles And Local Government Debt Management

The literature provides both theories and empirical assessments that link national electoral cycles and opportunistic incumbents' behaviour. However, at the subnational level the literature is scarce. Using a panel of 238 Spanish municipalities over the period 1992–2005, this paper investigates for the first time in Spain whether electoral events contribute to shape municipal debt policies. We show that the electoral cycle influences the municipal debt per capita. Furthermore, both weak (no-majority) and wealthier municipal governments have higher levels of debt per capita. Finally, our data show that the 2001 Spanish Budgetary Stability Law (stemming from the European Stability and Growth Pact) appears to have reduced the electoral effect on municipal debt per capita.     

The causes of legal rents extraction: evidence from Spanish municipalities

This paper analyzes the causes of legal political rent extraction by using a direct measure of it, namely, local top politicians’ wages. In particular, we investigate whether local politicians’ incentives to extract rents by setting their own wages are influenced by the degree of political competition and voter information. We use a sample of the largest Spanish municipalities over the years 2008–2010. The results indicate that weaker political competition and lesser voter information are related to more rent extraction. In an additional analysis, we show that higher wages do not ensure better financial management. These findings confirm that when politicians can set their own salaries, higher wages do not mean better management, but they are just political rents.     

Advancing measures of innovation in the United States

This paper introduces major themes addressed in this special issue, which is based on NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) workshop Advancing Measures of Innovation—Knowledge Flows, Business Metrics, and Measurement Strategies, held on June 6-7, 2006 near Washington, D.C. The first two sections describe the workshop and provide a brief background on R & D and innovation metrics. The last section introduces the papers. They are based on selected workshop presentations along with additional invited papers.

The Dynamics of Legal Positivism. Some Remarks on Shiner's Norm and Nature

In a recently published book, Roger Shiner shows that understanding the fundamental discrepancies between different legal theories is important for a better understanding of law itself. He argues that one of the most important tasks of legal philosophers is to take into account the dynamics or conceptual movements generated by positivism and antipositivism. Our paper intends to show that Shiner's analysis can be developed and modified when other relevant elements are introduced into the universe of discourse. We emphasize the importance of a positivistic conception of legal science. According to Shiner, an adequate theory of law must reproduce the way in which legal norms work in the lives of the participants who accept the law. After analyzing the distinction between norms and norm propositions and the relationship between legal science and the external point of view, we show that legal positivism is not committed to reproducing the internal point of view to law.     

Direct and Indirect Xenophobic Attacks: Unpacking Portfolios of Identity

Political Behavior - Political threats are typically conceptualized by scholars as targeting particular groups of people. We call for also conceptualizing threats as political attacks directed...     

La crisis de la deuda soberana y la reforma del artículo 135 de la constitución española

The following piece of paper is a critical approach to the amendment of the Article 135 of the Spanish Constitution, by means of which the principle of balanced budget and the restricting of the public expenditure are constitutionalized. This work consists of four different paragraphs: the first one, in which a chronological approach to the debt crisis in the Eurozone and the reform of the Article 135 of the Constitution are carried out; the second one, where the new features that the current Article 135 contain are presented; the third one, in which the critical analysis of the 2011 constitutional reform is now developed (around tour fundamental axes: content, procedure, time and purpose and significance); and the fourth one resulting with a number of final considerations.     

Mounting the Summit

<正>Women’s empowerment and peacekeeping missions get African Union leaders’attentionA head of state escaping arrest,Hollywood glamor,and rambling presidential soliloquies.Not the setting of a movie,but the points for which the 25th African Union(AU)Summit,held in South Africa’s Johannesburg from June 7 to 15,is likely to be remembered.While leaders gathered to discuss pressing issues of peace and security,gender equality,