Terrorism,Civil Liberties,and Political Rights: A Cross-National Analysis

This article examines the effect terrorism has on civil liberties and political rights across a wide range of democracies and regions. This study includes an analysis of the influence domestic and international terrorist attacks have on civil liberties and political rights in 48 democratic states from 1971–2007. The results from a time series cross-national analysis reveal that terrorism weakens civil liberties and political rights. However, certain types of democracies are more affected by terrorism than others. These findings have important implications for democracy and counterterrorism strategies in democratic states.     

The impact of source of income laws on voucher utilization

Vouchers are lauded both for being the most efficient way of delivering housing assistance to needy households and for the potential to allow poor households to access better neighborhoods. The success of vouchers is of course predicated on recipients being able to successfully use a voucher. For a number of reasons, including discrimination by landlords on the basis of source of income (i.e. a voucher), voucher recipients frequently cannot find apartments to lease. Using a difference-in-differences approach the research reported here examines how Source of Income anti-discrimination laws affect the utilization of housing vouchers.

The findings indicate that utilization rates are higher among Local Housing Authorities in jurisdictions with Source of Income anti-discrimination laws. These findings suggest such laws can be an effective tool for increasing the rate at which vouchers are successfully utilized. In a time of scarce resources for affordable housing this is an important policy tool that should not be over looked.     

Terms of trade and class conflict in a computable general equilibrium model for Mexico

A computable general equilibrium model for Mexico is constructed in which class conflict over the distribution of the surplus is the principal determinant of the terms of trade. The model consists of seven social classes and eight productive sectors. Classes are distinguished as ‘fundamental’ or ‘subsumed’ according to whether their incomes are primarily determined by conscious class struggle or by the resulting system of relative prices. Flexible prices are assumed to clear markets for which non‐produced means of production, such as agricultural land, limit supply while output in the remaining sectors is determined by the level of effective demand. For the latter sectors, two theories of price formation are compared and are seen to differ radically in their implicit conception of the nature of class conflict. A ‘Keynes‐Kalecki’ closure is considered in which prices are determined by a fixed mark‐up on costs. This enables capitalists to protect themselves from incursions on the rate of profit due to labour militancy or state‐imposed terms‐of‐trade policy designed to favour peasants andlor the agrarian bourgeoisie. A second, ‘Marx‐Sraffian’ price closure constrains the economy to a wage‐profit‐terms‐of‐trade surface; where the economy conjuncturally resides on this surface depends upon the level of effective demand, wages and terms‐of‐trade policy. Various policy scenarios are investigated under both closures.     

"Connecting" and "Disconnecting" With Civic Life: Patterns of Internet Use and the Production of Social Capital

This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individual-level production of social capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motivational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examining the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life contentment. The predictive power of new media use is then analyzed relative to key demographic, contextual, and traditional media use variables using the 1999 DDB Life Style Study. Although the size of associations is generally small, the data suggest that informational uses of the Internet are positively related to individual differences in the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Analyses within subsamples defined by generational age breaks further suggest that social capital production is related to Internet use among Generation X, while it is tied to television use among Baby Boomers and newspaper use among members of the Civic Generation. The possibility of life cycle and cohort effects is discussed.     

Communication and Political Mobilization: Digital Media and the Organization of Anti-Iraq War Demonstrations in the U.S.

The speed and scale of mobilization in many contemporary protest events may reflect a transformation of movement organizations toward looser ties with members, enabling broader mobilization through the mechanism of dense individual-level political networks. This analysis explores the dynamics of this communication process in the case of U.S. protests against the Iraq war in 2003. We hypothesize that individual activists closest to the various sponsoring protest organizations were (a) disproportionately likely to affiliate with diverse political networks and (b) disproportionately likely to rely on digital communication media (lists, Web sites) for various types of information and action purposes. We test this model using a sample of demonstrators drawn from the United States protest sites of New York, San Francisco, and Seattle and find support for our hypotheses.     

Comment on Kirk Mcclure's “The low‐income housing tax credit program goes mainstream and moves to the suburbs”

Abstract

As McClure's article notes, the Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program has indeed gone mainstream. Given the tarnished reputation of many other federal low‐income housing programs, this is good news. It is also surprising in some ways considering the many programmatic flaws inherent in the LIHTC program.

As a point of departure, I look at why McClure and others are able to describe the program in a positive light despite its many flaws. I attribute this to the unique political culture of the United States, for which the LIHTC program is well suited. In addition, it sidesteps one of the thorniest problems that have bedeviled low‐income housing programs—the spatial isolation of poor minorities. Until the LIHTC program explicitly addresses this issue, however, any praise must be tempered by a great deal of caution.     

Home Swish Home

LIN Chi-Jung likes to tell a comely story he once got from a veteran devel- oper. “He said that he felt so touched when seeing houses with their light lit up at night, it touched his heart to know that there are so many families living happily in those houses that he built.” Now the chairman of Sunrise Real Estate, Lin says see- ing “laughter and happiness” in family hearth is the reason he’s in business. It helps that Sunrise makes plenty of money doing so. Headquartered at hold- ing…     

An Examination of the Influence of Strength of Evidence Variables in the Prosecution’s Decision to Dismiss Driving While Intoxicated Cases

The majority of research examining prosecutorial discretion has focused on legal factors such as the seriousness of the offense or the extra-legal characteristics of the accused including race/ethnicity and gender. The amount of variance explained by court researchers, however, remains quite low. The present study extends previous research examining the primary determinants of prosecutor??s decision to dismiss or fully prosecute focusing on driving while intoxicated cases. We focus on the predictive contribution of the strength of evidence relative to legal and extra-legal variables. The data consist of 2,358 driving while intoxicated cases filed in Harris County, Texas during the first 8?months of 1999. The findings strongly support the inclusion of strength of evidence variables in court research and further suggest their past omission may have attributed significance to spurious relationships.