A cross-national analysis of policies affecting innovation diffusion

Innovation diffusion is important for both firms’ profitability and countries’ economic growth. For these reasons, policies that aim to reduce the main barriers to innovation diffusion are a relevant issue on the agenda of most policy makers. Although the importance of this topic is widely recognized, few studies explore public policies that aim to enhance innovation diffusion. This article attempts to fill this literature gap. Specifically, the study aims to clarify the role of policy makers in promoting new technology diffusion, to identify the barriers that affect the process of innovation diffusion and that are relevant for public policy makers and to analyze potential policies to overcome the main barriers to the diffusion of new relevant technologies. This study shows that public policies must simultaneously address the most relevant barriers to the diffusion of a new technology to be effective. Focusing on only specific barriers by developing policies with a too narrow scope may lead to poor results. The study explores a topic that is almost neglected in the innovation management literature. On the one hand, the article provides a conceptual framework for analyzing public policies. On the other hand, it proposes an overview of the repertoire of policies that policy makers can use to overcome the most relevant barriers to the diffusion of a new technology. In doing so, it also contributes to the debate about the role of the policy maker in the process of innovation development and diffusion.     

Targeting the Treatment: The Strategy behind Lyndon Johnson's Lobbying

Lyndon Johnson woke up studying whip counts, went to bed reading the Congressional Record, and invested countless hours in between translating that political intelligence into a lobbying offensive. The result, famously christened “The Johnson Treatment,” remains the archetype practitioners and political scientists cite when appraising presidential leadership on Capitol Hill. Yet Beltway folklore aside, we know little about how LBJ helped forge winning legislative coalitions. Stepping back from the (countless) colorful anecdotes, this study offers a new and systematic look at Lyndon Johnson's lobbying. Specifically, after exploring theoretical models of presidential coalition building, we then investigate their operational tenets using original data on all President Johnson's contacts, with each member of Congress, in both chambers, for every day he was president.     

Introduction: two spaces of subsidiarity?

ABSTRACT

Scholarship on subsidiarity conducted since the nineteenth century has developed two strands of interpretation suggesting competing models of social organisation as far as the potential location of decision-making power is concerned. While this intellectual effort has mainly concentrated on political experiences in continental Europe, and gained further traction with the principle’s recognition in European Union law, the institutional architecture of Commonwealth countries has experienced relative neglect. This collection, however, examines the debates around competing ordering principles with evidence coming from operational problems of Westminster style democracies in four world regions, and considers how a multi-disciplinary perspective can guide comparative analysis.     

The political economy of subsidiarity in labour market reforms: the United Kingdom and Italy in times of crises

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to contribute to the literature centred on the principle of subsidiarity by highlighting the way in which political actors apply different dimensions of subsidiarity, horizontal versus vertical, in the field of labour market policy. It compares labour market reforms in Britain and Italy in the wake of international economic crises, shedding light on the role of subsidiarity dimensions. It shows that Britain applied the principle of horizontal subsidiarity in quasi-market mechanisms while Italy chiefly resorted to the vertical dimension that helped shifting labour market policies from income replacement to welfare-to-work. Additionally, the article explores how the principle of subsidiarity may affect the relationships between the European Union on one side and Britain and Italy on the other in the field of labour market policies.     

The Differential Relations of Parent and Peer Attachment to Adolescent Adjustment

Whether or not close emotional relationships with parents and peers serve similar functions for adolescent adjustment is an issue of increasing interest. The present study was designed to examine the relations between parent and peer attachment and adolescent adjustment. Eighty-nine adolescents (M age = 16.1 years, SD = 1.8 years) completed self-report measures of parent and peer attachment, sympathy, academic efficacy, aggression, anxiety, and depression. Adolescents were divided into four groups on the basis of their parent and peer attachment scores: those high on both, those low on both, those high on peer but low on parent attachment, and those high on parent but low on peer attachment. Discriminant function analyses revealed that the groups differed only along one dimension, suggesting that parent and peer attachment served similar functions in terms of the adjustment indices measured. Adolescents high on both peer and parent attachment were the best adjusted (i.e., least aggressive and depressed, most sympathetic) and those low on both were the least well adjusted. Furthermore, those high on peer but low on parent attachment were better adjusted than those high on parent but low on peer attachment, suggesting that peer attachment may be relatively more influential on adolescent adjustment than parent attachment.     

Chilean women and the UN decade for women

This article analyses two aspects of the reality of Chilean women during the United Nations Decade of Women: political participation and labour force participation. This analysis takes into account some of the proposals of the Regional Plan of Action for the Integration of Women into Latin American Economic and Social Development as well as the consequences of the political, cultural and economic model established by the Chilean military government. The effects of the Decade of Women on Chilean women is not analysed primarily because the specific proposals contained in the Plan of Action are based on the prerequisites of development and participation—which are not applicable to the Chilean case during this period.Notwithstanding the fact that all forms of popular participation have been effectively eliminated, there have emerged women's organizations whose concerns include calling into question the oppression of women on the basis of sex. With respect to labour, women's participation in the labour force has increased. However, this increase is not a response to improved opportunities or a more equalitarian treatment of women workers, but rather as the consequence of elevated unemployment rates especially in lower class families where women have greater access to certain kinds of marginal employment.On a final note, the article also includes a discussion of recent trends in research on women, trends which provide a challenge to the more traditional forms of research.     

“Taking care”: Maintaining the self and the home in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of basic daily tasks: personal maintenance (e.g., grooming and eating) and household maintenance (e.g., chores and errands). Quantity of time, companionship, and subjective states in these activities were examined during one week in the lives of 401 5th–9th graders with the Experience Sampling Method (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). Our findings show that these tasks are particularly subject to sex typing. Girls engaged in grooming more often than boys, and this time increased in the higher grades, while boys showed no age effects. Boys did more outside chores while girls did more indoor chores. Girls were also more likely to carry out household tasks with family while boys did more chores alone. An examination of subjective states during household maintenance revealed that older girls reported a greater sense of motivation and choice than younger girls, but boys' experience did not differ. Experience of maintenance as socialization for adult activities is discussed.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents, and the study of day care.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are pubertal development, precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment on young adolescents.     

“We were just talking ...”: Conversations in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of talk, examining changes in boys' and girls' patterns of communication with family and friends. The data consist of immediate self-reports provided by 401 5th–9th grade students during the course of one week of their normal lives. Results indicate that while time spent talking to friends increased dramatically across this age period, especially for girls, talk with family members remained stable. Analysis of topics of conversation suggests that older children turned to friends for discussions of age-related concerns while continuing to discuss daily issues with family members. Talk with friends did not appear to replace talk with family members but rather represented a new facet of the social world, supplementing existing family relationships.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson, and was carried out while the first author was a predoctoral fellow in the Clinical Research Training Program in Adolescence, jointly sponsored by The Center for the Study of Adolescence at Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, and the Committee on Human Development at The University of Chicago, funded by NIMH institutional training grant number 2 T32 MH14668-12.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict, and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents and the study of day care.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. Daniela Campello, The Politics of Market Discipline in Latin America: Globalization and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 239 pp.; hardcover $78.42, paperback $29.99, Kindle $98.40. Eduardo Dargent, Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America: The Experts Running Government. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Tables, figures, bibliography, index. 216 pp.; hardcover $90, ebook $72. Ana Lorena De La O, Crafting Policies to End Poverty in Latin America: The Quiet Transformation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 194 pp.; hardcover $84.99, ebook $68. Jorge Heine and Brigitte Weiffen, 21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing Up for the Polity. New York: Routledge, 2015. Abbreviations, tables, bibliography, index, 196 pp.; hardcover $130, paperback $47. Juan Pablo Luna, Segmented Representation: Political Party Strategies in Unequal Democracies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Tables, maps, figures, bibliography, indexes, 374 pp.; hardcover $115, ebook. Stephen Offutt, New Centers of Global Evangelicalism in Latin America and Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Map, tables, abbreviations, appendixes, bibliography, index, 192 pp.; hardcover $90, ebook $72. Mariela Szwarcberg, Mobilizing Poor Voters: Machine Politics, Clientelism, and Social Networks in Argentina. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2015. Figures, tables, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 185 pp.; hardcover $89.99, paperback $32.99, ebook $26. Brian Wampler, Activating Democracy in Brazil: Popular Participation, Social Justice, and Interlocking Institutions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. Tables, figures, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index, 312 pp.; paperback $39, pdf $39. Graham Denyer Willis, The Killing Consensus: Police, Organized Crime, and the Regulation of Life and Death in Urban Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. Tables, figures, notes, bibliography, index, 216 pp.; hardcover $70, paperback $29.95, ebook $29.95. Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, Reagan and Pinochet: The Struggle over U.S. Policy Toward Chile. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Abbreviations, acronyms, bibliography, index, 354 pp.; hardcover $95, paperback $34.99, ebook $28.