Easy Money: Tax Exporting and State Support for Higher Education

There is a substantial literature that assesses the effects of tax‐exporting capacities on the tax structures and aggregate spending levels that state governments choose to implement, but no work exists that isolates the effects of state tax exporting on higher education spending. Using state‐level data for 1989, 1995, 2002, and 2007, we estimate for the median voter in each state the change in the marginal cost of higher education subsidization generated by tax exportation, and calculate the increased higher education spending that results. We consider three types of spending: state appropriations to public universities as well as need‐ and non‐need‐based aid awarded to in‐state students. We find that neither type of aid is responsive to the marginal cost, or tax price, faced by the median voter. However, the median voter's price elasticity of demand for state appropriations is statistically significant and negative. We find that the median voter's tax price is substantially reduced by the presence of prominent mining and tourism industries and by the federal deductibility offset available to firms. Thus, these tax‐exporting capacities exert upward pressure on voter demand for state appropriations to public universities.     

Exploring the role and place of the Permanent Representative Committee within the African Union

It can be confidently stated that, since its constitutive act came into effect in July, 2001, the African Union (AU) has enjoyed increasing attention at the administrative level from a number of scholars. Most of these scholars focus, however, on the evolution of the AU in general or on the Peace and Security Council and its components and how it links with regional organisations and the United Nations. This article adds to the existing literature by looking closely at the role and place of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) in the decision-making framework of the AU. It also critically analyses the potential of the PRC and the challenges facing it as one of the most important decision-making committees of the AU. Lastly, it examines the evolution of the PRC and its functions. Finally, among other things, the article questions the lack of transparency practised by the PRC and proposes new approaches.     

A legal perspective on university technology transfer

In the thirty-five years after passage of the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, a robust literature has documented the emergence of university technology transfer as a critical mechanism for the dissemination and commercialization of new technology stemming from federally-funded research. Missing from these investigations, however, is what this paper terms the legal perspective, an understanding of how the law and its attendant mechanisms impact university technology transfer. Specifically, the paper reviews the extant legal scholarship and provides examples of how case law, legal structures, and the unique nature of intellectual property law affects technology transfer, as well as higher education policy and management. Throughout, we propose critical questions for future investigation, which serve to form a cross-disciplinary research agenda that can contribute fresh insights to scholarly and policy discussions related to the role of universities in economic and social development.     

Path-Dependent Danish Welfare Reforms: The Contribution of the New Institutionalisms to Understanding Evolutionary Change

Political attempts to reform existing policies often fail to bring about substantial change. When they succeed, the new policy is heavily influenced by the pre-existing policy path. This is confirmed by the story of Danish welfare reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, which can be explained in terms of their path dependency. In order to understand better the mechanisms of path dependency I draw on the fundamental insights of the new institutionalisms: rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and social constructivist institutionalism. The article begins with a brief presentation and comparison of the three new institutionalisms. It then discusses the dialectics of path shaping and path dependency before seeking to explicate the mechanisms of path dependency. Finally, the various accounts of path dependency are applied in an empirical study of the failure of welfare retrenchment in the 1980s and the relatively successful restructuring of the welfare state in the 1990s.     

Democracy and mediation in territorial civil wars in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific

The awarding of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize to former President Martti Ahtisaari, Finland, cites his involvement in the settlement of the Aceh conflict. This at the same time highlights the lack of such efforts in the regions of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. While internal conflicts throughout the world often tend to be resilient to conflict management initiatives, conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region have proven to be particularly difficult to resolve. Internal conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific often concern territorial issue, for instance, East Timor and ethnically based conflicts in Myanmar. This is also true for conflicts in the South Pacific, notably in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and New Caledonia (France). Territorial conflicts last longer, are more difficult to manage, and generally produce more adverse consequences than those over other issues such as ideology, government, and national power. Further, conflicts in this region appear to be of low priority for third parties, with comparatively few interventions from third parties. The strong central governments seem to be a factor in preventing mediation-based solution to such conflicts. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Third party mediation, democratization, and the recent success in Aceh provide promise for the future, and the recent Nobel Prize confirms this.     

A Tale of Two Leaders: Leadership and Cultural Change at the New Zealand Treasury

Differences in the transformational leadership exercised at the New Zealand Treasury (NZT) by two Secretaries – Henry Lang (1969-1973) and Graham Scott (1986-1996) – are related to differences in their paradigmatic situation rather than a shift away from a serial loyalist public service bargain that caused both to direct their leadership initiatives toward developing and maintaining the trust successive finance ministers placed in NZT advisors. Thus while Lang's leadership was directed toward expanding the reporting role of the NZT to the limits of what could be expected under a relatively stable market failure policy paradigm, the subsequent erosion of the authority of this paradigm meant that, under Scott's leadership, the NZT reinvented itself to avoid implication in a failure to contribute to the policy leadership required to advance a coherent reform strategy.     

Regulating ethics in financial services: Engaging industry to achieve regulatory objectives

This article addresses the issue of renewing a sense of vocation in finance. Drawing on experiences in the UK, Australia, and Ireland, three common law jurisdictions at various phases of developing “an ethical esprit de corps” to professionalize the banking industry, it argues that adopting some aspects of a profession, a “trajectory towards professionalization” of the banking industry, could serve, at least to some extent, to improve the industry-wide norms that influence firms' cultures and individual behaviors. It contends that professionalization could help to develop bankers with a professional, pro-social identity, in which there is a recognition of broader obligations to society, that exists independently of the profit-driven nature of banking and the hierarchy of their own firms. This analysis is informed by an integration of regulatory theory, which casts doubt on the utility of sanctions except as a last resort, behavioral science, which offers insights into how ethics and culture, not just law and markets, can constrain irresponsible behavior in the financial services sector, and criminological theory, which emphasizes that particular types of controls, including individual attachments to groups, build “stakes in conformity” which encourage law abiding and responsible behaviors.     

Mapping current issues in administrative justice: austerity and the ‘more bureaucratic rationality’ approach

This article critically reviews recent developments in the administrative justice system; in particular, it considers three key themes: improving initial decisions; administrative review; and the future of tribunals. In each of these areas, some aspects of administrative justice work well, but austerity has presented acute challenges in ensuring the fair and just treatment of people through restrictions upon legal aid; the withdrawal of some appeal rights; and the expansion of administrative review. Consequently, the system is moving away from a ‘legal’ model of administrative justice to the ‘bureaucratic rationality’ model, which focuses upon accurate and efficient implementation. However, the reality does not correspond with the goals of the model. Rather than accurate and efficient implementation of policy, what we find is poor decision-making made by junior officials with insufficient quality controls. Digitising tribunals may have potential benefits in terms of increased accessibility. Nonetheless, the prospects for administrative justice are weak.     

Turnout as a Habit

It is conventional to speak of voting as “habitual.” But what does this mean? In psychology, habits are cognitive associations between repeated responses and stable features of the performance context. Thus, “turnout habit” is best measured by an index of repeated behavior and a consistent performance setting. Once habit associations form, the response can be cued even in the absence of supporting beliefs and motivations. Therefore, variables that form part of the standard cognitive-based accounts of turnout should be more weakly related to turnout among those with a strong habit. We draw evidence from a large array of ANES surveys to test these hypotheses and find strong support.