Regulatory Disclosure of Offending Companies in the Dutch Financial Market: Consumer Protection or Enforcement Publicity?

Regulatory disclosure of names of offending companies is increasingly popular as an alternative to traditional command and control regulation. The goals and intended effects of disclosure are not always clear, however. Do regulators wish to increase their transparency, or do they intend to name and shame? This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying working mechanism of regulatory disclosure of offenders' names through a case study of the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets' disclosure policy. It distinguishes two types of disclosure strategies: consumer oriented and firm oriented. The case study shows that although informing consumers was the primary purpose of disclosure as intended by the Dutch legislature, the purpose in practice has shifted to informing companies about the regulators' enforcement policy. The nature of the disclosed information makes it unlikely that disclosure adequately prevents financial risk taking by consumers. Instead of empowering consumers, disclosure has been incorporated in a traditional deterrence logic, turning out not to be an example of new governance but instead a modern version of command and control enforcement publicity.     

Fragile Convergence: Understanding Variation in the Enforcement of China's Industrial Pollution Law

Official statistics and independent survey data show that in the last decade China has witnessed a remarkable change in its enforcement of environmental pollution violations, moving toward more formalistic and coercive law enforcement with more enforcement cases as well as higher fines. The data also show that there is considerable regional variation with coastal areas having more and higher punishments than those inland. This article explores these findings, seeking to understand the explanation and meaning of these temporal and regional variation patterns. The study shows how enforcement varies when there is a convergence of governmental, social, and economic institutional forces. The article argues that the basis for such convergence has been fragile, as national pressures have lacked consistency and local community and government support evaporates when dominant sources of income are at stake.     

Forced Exits: Accounting for the Removal of Contemporary Party Leaders

This article seeks to account for the remarkably high number of British party leaders who have been forced to leave office in recent years. In particular it seeks to explain why numerous leaders have felt compelled to resign following pressure from party colleagues. It is suggested that four general factors may be of importance: i) the increased importance of perceptions of leadership; ii) the rise of ‘celebrity’ politics; iii) erosion of traditional public–private divides, and; iv) increased professionalism amongst parliamentarians. The article refers to both the forced exit of leaders of all the major British political parties as well as the removal of leaders of parties within the devolved regions of the UK.     

Schools of democracy? Disentangling the relationship between civic participation and political action in 17 European countries

Since Tocqueville's seminal writings, voluntary associations have been proclaimed to be schools of democracy. According to this claim, which regained popularity during the 1990s, involvement in voluntary associations stimulates political action. By participating in these associations, members are socialised to become politically active. Supposedly, having face‐to‐face contact with other members induces civic mindedness – the propensity to think and care more about the wider world. Participating in shared activities, organising meetings and events, and cooperating with other members are claimed to induce civic skills and political efficacy. Over the years, many authors have elaborated on these ideas. This article offers a systematic examination of the neo‐Tocquevillian approach, putting the theoretical ideas to an empirical test. It offers a critical overview of the literature on the beneficial role of voluntary associations and dissects it into five testable claims. Subsequently, these claims are tested by cross‐sectional, hierarchical analyses of 17 European countries. The authors conclude that the neo‐Tocquevillian theory faces serious lack of empirical support. In line with the expectations, they find a strong, positive correlation between associational involvement and political action. Moreover, this correlation is positive in all countries under study. However, more informative hypotheses on this correlation are falsified. First, the correlation is stronger for interest and activist organisations than for leisure organisations. Second, passive (or ‘checkbook’) members show much higher levels of political action than non‐involved, whereas the additional effects of active participation are marginal. Third, the correlation between associational involvement and political action is not explained by civic skills and civic mindedness. In sum, the authors find no evidence for a direct, causal relation between associational involvement and political action. The socialisation mechanism plays a marginal role at best. Rather, this article's findings imply that selection effects account for a large part of the correlation between associational involvement and political action. The conclusion reached therefore is that voluntary associations are not the schools of democracy they are proclaimed to be, but rather pools of democracy.