Authoritarian Regimes and Their Permitted Oppositions: Election Day Outcomes in Cuba

Electoral opposition to long‐established authoritarian regimes may be loyal or rejectionist. Loyal oppositionists vote to send a selective signal to rulers; rejectionist oppositionists vote blank or void the ballot in full disapproval. In Cuba, the number of candidates equals the number of seats, yet voters may vote blank, void, or selectively (choosing some but not all candidates on the ballot), although the Communist Party has campaigned for all candidates. This article uses a unique dataset for Cuba's 2013 National Assembly elections to study aggregate opposition outcomes. It shows the emergence of a loyal opposition, which sometimes votes for and sometimes against Communist Party candidates. The rejectionist opposition, stable over time, never votes for Communist Party candidates; it is found where the Communist Party behaves monopolistically. This combined opposition has better national‐level political information; it comes from more educated or larger urban areas or areas closer to Havana.     

New frontiers: an enriched perspective on extraction frontiers in Indonesia

Changes in the nature, scale, and speed of natural resource extraction, especially in the last two decades, have resulted in many new resource extraction areas emerging across the world. By zooming in on Indonesia, this article shows that the underlying causes and consequences of current trends are more complex than portrayed by the rancher-squatter model of frontiers that is still frequently used to explain these developments. We argue that a broadened frontier notion is necessary to address the multifaceted nature of the processes underway in contemporary Indonesian extraction areas, as well as beyond. We propose a perspective that pays explicit attention to four new developments that can be described by using the hybridization of space, time, actors, and rules, and are characterized by the fact that these processes create new perimeters in all four mentioned areas. In so doing, we challenge, broaden, and renew the meaning of frontiers.     

The Costs and Benefits of Party Switching in Mexico

Are party switchers successful at furthering their careers? Most research on party switching focuses on the decision to switch and with which party to affiliate. Less attention is paid to the costs and benefits of switching parties. Moreover, previous research examining the electoral success of party switchers has often ignored how costs vary between the candidate selection process and the general election. This study addresses this gap in the literature by using original data on the careers of Mexican federal deputies to examine the costs and benefits of switching parties at the candidate selection stage and during general elections. The results suggest that party switchers are more successful at winning ballot access than nonswitchers but are less likely to win office. These results help explain why ambitious politicians would switch parties, given the known risks of changing party affiliation.     

The multiple faces of the entrepreneurial university: a review of the prevailing theoretical approaches

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The importance and the definition of an entrepreneurial university (EU), together with the factors that lead to its existence, have been widely discussed in the...     

The Impact of Child‐Parent Psychotherapy on Child Dependency Court Outcomes

Although parental compliance with court orders in child welfare cases is key to achieving physical parent‐child reunification and successful case closure, little research has examined how parent‐child relationship‐focused rehabilitative services uniquely influence case outcomes. This project fills this gap by investigating links between court ordering of and parental participation in Child‐Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with court outcomes. Data were obtained from court records of 448 court‐involved parents. Hierarchical regressions revealed that greater participation in CPP led to reunification and successful case closure but not faster case closure. Courtroom professionals should consider parent‐child relationship‐based therapies as tools for achieving child welfare goals.     

Detracking America's schools: Equity at zero cost?

Schools across the country are ending the practice of grouping students based on ability, in part, because of research indicating that tracking hurts low-ability students without helping students of other ability levels. Using a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, (NCES) we reexamine the impact of tracking on high school student achievement through the estimation of a standard education production function. This approach allows us to control for the possibility that track is correlated with factors such as class size and teacher education. In addition, we address the possibility that there are unobserved student or school characteristics that affect both achievement and track placement. Our results indicate that abolishing tracking in America's schools would have a large positive impact on achievement for students currently in the lower tracks, but that this increase in achievement would come at the expense of students in upper-track classes.     

The relationship between psychological buffers, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation: identification of protective factors

In this study we examined the role of psychological buffers (life satisfaction, self-esteem, perception of family cohesion, and perception of social support) in the development of hopelessness and suicidal ideation. The participants were 314 university students, 71 males and 243 females, who were asked to complete a battery of instruments measuring the psychological buffers mentioned above. The results of a set of hierarchical multiple regression analyses suggested that life satisfaction and self-esteem are independent predictors of lower levels of hopelessness, while perception of social support seems to be the major predictor of lower levels of suicidal ideation independent of depression and hopelessness severity. Thus, hopelessness seems to be minimized by the level of life satisfaction and level of self-esteem exhibited by the individuals, while the key factor to the mitigation of suicidal ideas seems to be perception of social support.     

Growth and productivity measures of China’s due to international trade: PRC’S experience 1970–1993

Solow’s Growth Model Solow (Q J Econ 70:65–94, 1956) and aggregate data are applied to estimates the increase in productivity due international trade and the resulting technical change and capital augmentation for the years 1970 to 1978 and 1978 (the beginning of the reforms and “open door” policy in China) to 1993. According this paper’s estimations the GDP per man hour in 1978 increased by 1.76 times for the year 1970, from $0.1233 in 1970 to $0.2169 in 1978, and in 1993 by 5.23 time that of 1978 to $1.1348 in 1993. For the period under study due to “open door” policy the GDP per man-hour more than quadrupled, and 76.18% of this increase was due to technical changes and the remaining 23.82 was due to capital augmentation. The paper consists of five sections. “Introduction” Section reviews some of the growth literature as well as looking at the macroeconomic measures of China’s economic performance since 1978 the beginning of the reforms. “Data” Section explains the data modifications. “Empirical results” Section portrays the empirical results and the next indicates conclusions. This paper is dedicated to the memories of Late Dr. Anthony D’Amato, who was a Professor at W. Paul Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey.

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