Predicting Revolt: Fragility Indexes and the Level of Violence and Instability in the Arab Spring

This article is one of the first to systematically assess the ability of state fragility measures to predict violent protests and adverse regime changes in countries. We focus on the Arab Spring as an example of a situation that such measures ought to predict. Through a variety of analyses, we find that none of the measures are predictive. We then create a simple model using the literature of protest and revolts to predict both the level of violence and the extent of regime change in the Arab Spring countries. This simpler model does a better job of predicting the level of involvement in the Arab Spring than any of the complex State Fragility Indexes. Thus, the goal of this article is not to explain the causes of the Arab Spring, but to add to the discussion of the predictive value of measures of instability.     

Access and allocation in global biodiversity governance: a review

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Access and allocation is one of the five analytical themes of the science plan of the Earth System Governance (ESG) project....     

Ranking state fiscal structures using theory and evidence

This paper offers unique rankings of the extent to which fiscal structures of U.S. states contribute to economic growth. The rankings are novel in two key respects: They are well grounded in established growth theory, in which the effect of taxes depends both on the level of taxes and on the composition of expenditures; and they are derived from actual estimates of the link between fiscal structures and economic growth. Estimates for the latter yield a growth hill, in which the incremental effect of taxes spent on productive services and infrastructure initially rises, reaches a peak, and then declines. Rankings derived from these estimates differ sharply from typical rankings based on levels of taxation alone. Two hypothetical policy experiments highlight both the growth‐hill effects of tax investments in productive services and infrastructure and the short‐ and long‐term tradeoffs in attempting to fund strong social services. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

In the matter of the appellation of origin for 'JAFFA'

The validity of a registration of an appellation of origin isnot impaired by the licensed use of the designation as a trademark in non-Lisbon Agreement countries, where the fruits grownare similar in quality to those produced in the appellationof origin country.     

Use and Evolution of the Claims-Made Policy Form in Environmental Insurance: Selected Issues

Environmental risks have two basic components: the policyholder's obligation to clean up contaminated property and the policyholder's potential liability to third parties, including the government, resulting from environmental damage. The environmental risks for which policyholders seek coverage include environmental cleanup costs, third-party bodily injury claims, third-party property damage or devaluation claims, fines/penalties for noncompliance, or loss of market share due to lack of environmental stewardship. To be certain that all aspects of potential environmental liability are covered, an expert insurance consultant or broker should be retained to plan the program, analyze policy language and execute the purchase in the most cost effective way.     

Individual differences and the pursuit of legal rights

In this article we explore the role of individual differences in the proclivity to pursue legal rights. A series of field surveys and a laboratory experiment indicated that a measure of claim propensity was consistently related to the reporting of “rights” problems, the tendency to make claims in response to these problems, and preferences for styles of conflict resolution. Although the findings leave many unanswered questions that will have to be addressed in future research, the most important contribution of the article, we believe, is that it draws attention to rights, or claims, consciousness as an important phenomenon and demonstrates that it is amenable to empirical investigation.     

Restoring the Federation

The 1999 Sir Robert Garran Oration, delivered at the IPAA National Conference, Darwin 8–10 September 1999.