A contribution to the conceptualization of political resources utilized in corporate political action

• This paper is an attempt at improving existing conceptualizations of corporate political resources. I contend that existing typologies are too vague, simplistic and incomplete on several points. This is why I firstly suggest a new typology and then offer some thoughts on the main characteristics of these resources. Lastly, I apply the idea of resource combination (or bundle) to political resources, showing that they can play three different roles in implementing two generic political strategies.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time efficiency as a measure of court performance: evidence from the Court of Justice of the European Union

European Journal of Law and Economics - This work proposes an alternative measure of court performance, namely, time efficiency, which is equal to the length of a verdict divided by the time needed...     

The encomienda and the optimizing imperialist: an interpretation of Spanish imperialism in the Americas

During the conquest and early administration of Spain’s American colonies the most controversial policy was the granting of temporary encomiendas, or temporary rights to collect tribute from Indians, as a reward for conquest. The contribution of the encomienda to the destruction of Indian populations was recognized by Spanish authorities at the time, yet the Crown persisted in introducing the most destructive form of the institution during the early stage of each colonial venture for over 200 years. Because the Crown financed the defense of its colonial possessions against other European imperialists, an addition to colonial capital, by increasing the return to an aggressor, imposed a defense-cost externality on the Crown. Since the cost of defending additional assets was higher in the Americas than in Spain, an efficient policy would have been to encourage the rapid transformation of human services into durable assets that could be transported to Spain. According to our defense-externality argument, the temporary encomienda and its parallel modification in each colonial episode becomes a rational Crown policy. The administration of Spain’s distant colonial possessions, especially the adjustments in the restrictions on encomiendas, required information about the local conditions, and we argue that the Church, as designated “protector of the Indians,” may have played an unwitting role in the communication of information.     

On an entrepreneurial criminology of mass political violence

This article examines an entrepreneurial criminology of mass political violencewithin the broader set of criminological communications on this theme, and identifies some troubling dimensions of the criminological closures on which the enterprise rests. The criminological enterprise over mass political violence testifies to ambitions of external expansion at the expense of other social scientific analyses, that are represented as ill-qualified for the study of this particular object, while evacuating from its conception of criminology intellectual traditions averse to the promotion of criminalization as a means to constitute and respond to troubling events. The normative values advanced in enterprising calls seem to have led to a failure to submit certain assumptions to rigorous intellectual (and political) critique. The result is an analytic conservatism that, perhaps unwittingly, reinforces dominant assumptions about crime, as well as an uncritical adoption of liberal internationalism and western cultural dominance.     

Rumeur sur Brazzaville: de la rue à l’écriture

The documentary material here examined comes from the independent press of Brazzaville in the 1990s. The author contends that a major part of press coverage claimed to be based on urban rumors. The names of some newspapers even proclaimed the closeness of their information to urban hearsay, presented as truer, or at least more relevant, than the written word in general, itself understood as wholly subservient to the political power in place. The author then systematically analyzes texts from the most important such newspapers to show how the discourse in them has been constructed on the basis of the discourse of Brazzaville political rumor.     

The Fungibility of Health Aid Reconsidered

This article draws further attention to the importance of taking into account off-budget aid when estimating the degree of foreign aid fungibility. It does so by re-evaluating the results of a recent, influential paper which concluded that health aid is fully fungible in the long run. Allowing for the presence of off-budget aid indicates that the degree of fungibility of health aid is much more uncertain than at first blush appears. Under plausible assumptions about the role of off-budget aid, the conclusion of full fungibility is overturned and at most only a limited degree of fungibility is found.     

Forecasting the Effectiveness of Policy Implementation Strategies

Primarily, policies are intended to address economic, social and environmental problems. When implementing a policy, any government will be faced with the decision as to what strategy to adopt in order to meet the objectives set out by the policy in the most cost effective way. Several such Policy Implementation Strategies (PIS) may be available, making such a decision not so straightforward. With limited funds available, such a decision has particular importance for budgeting. This paper proposes forecasting PIS effectiveness as a decision support tool. The nature of Structured Analogies (SA) is considered suitable for generating such forecasts. A simpler version of SA, semi-structured analogies (S-SA), where experts do not need to recollect the exact outcome of analogies, is tested. Empirical findings suggest that in the hands of non-experts, the S-SA approach improves forecast accuracy when compared to unaided judgment. Accuracy improves further when forecasts are produced in groups.     

Space and Security: The Emerging Role of Europe

Space systems have grown increasingly integral to the United States' national security in the post-Cold War era. The diplomatic and military leverage that space capabilities can provide is not going unnoticed by other countries. Since the collapse of the USSR, the United States has enjoyed a near-absolute dominance in space activities. Only the civilian European space program has mounted any sort of technical challenge to the United States, with little interest devoted to space military activities, but the period of US hegemony in the space military domain might come to an end. In recent years the European Union (EU) and its member states have taken numerous steps towards designing and assembling a Common Foreign and Security Policy and a coherent European Security and Defence Policy. Furthermore, several important steps toward linking security needs and space capabilities have been taken by the tandem European Union–European Space Agency and other relevant institutions. Space is now seen as an essential asset for European integration and for non-dependence in the current geo-strategic context, since space-based systems and derived information can bring necessary capabilities for autonomous decision making. The development of an integrated European space capability for security is at an early stage, but it is an ongoing process presenting some opportunities to enhance European independence and security.     

PRICE DISCRIMINATION UNDER EC COMPETITION LAW: ANOTHER ANTITRUST DOCTRINE IN SEARCH OF LIMITING PRINCIPLES?

The main objective of this article is to shed light on the compatibilityof price discrimination with EC competition law. We offer ananalytical framework which distinguishes between different categoriesof price discrimination depending on their effects on competition.Our framework suggests that different tests are needed to assessthe lawfulness of price discrimination practices under EC competitionlaw. A related objective of the article is to show that Article82(c), the main Treaty provision dealing with price discrimination,should only be applied to the limited circumstances where anon-vertically integrated dominant firm price discriminatesbetween customers with the effect of placing one or severalof them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis other customers(secondary line injury price discrimination). In contrast, Article82(c) should not be applied to pricing measures designed toharm the dominant firm's competitors (first line-injury pricediscrimination) or to partition the single market across nationallines.     

The Precautionary Principle as a Device for Greater Environmental Protection: Lessons from EC Courts

Given that the precautionary principle has never been defined in the EC Treaty, the EC jurisdictions have been playing a key role in determining the status as well as the scope of that principle. Although scholars have hitherto been paying heed to the case law on food safety, the literature has become a little thinner when one considers environmental case law. This article attempts to set the scene to explain how the precautionary principle can be invoked in different judiciary procedures at the EU level.