Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela

Considering its strong, highly institutionalized two-party system, Venezuela was surely one of the least likely countries in Latin America to experience a party system breakdown and populist resurgence. That traditional party system nevertheless was founded on a mixture of corporatist and clientelist linkages to social actors that were unable to withstand the secular decline of the oil economy and several aborted attempts at market liberalization. Successive administrations led by the dominant parties failed to reverse the economic slide, with devastating consequences for the party system as a whole. The party system ultimately rested on insecure structural foundations; and when its social moorings crumbled in the 1990s, the populist movement of Hugo Chávez emerged to fill the political void. This populist resurgence both capitalized on and accelerated the institutional decomposition of the old order.     

THE PERCEIVED SIZE OF SMALL BUSINESS BANKING MARKETS

Definition of markets is fundamental to any analysis of competitionand is the first step in enforcement of antitrust statutes.In the banking industry, geographic market definitions havebeen the subject of considerable discussion in recent years.This paper utilizes a survey conducted by the National Federationof Independent Business Research Foundation in 2001. The surveyasked a variety of questions relating to American small businesses'experience with financial institutions, including a questionasking how many banks were in the market area where the smallfirm did most of its business. Using the zip code of the surveyrespondent, this answer was compared with the number of banksin the same county, in the same metropolitan area, or in thelocal banking market as defined by the Federal Reserve. Theresults show that both urban and rural markets as perceivedby small businesses are considerably smaller than markets asdefined by either the US Department of Justice or the FederalReserve.     

Insight Mediation: A Learning-Centered Mediation Model

Insight mediation is the name we have given to the model of mediation that is taught and practiced at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The name has evolved from our efforts to situate the model in relation to the transformative and narrative styles of mediation. Drawing upon the work of Canadian philosopher Bernard Lonergan and his theory of insight, mediators practicing this model seek direct and inverse insights into what the conflict means to each party by discovering what each party cares about and how that threatens the other party. Insights shift attitudes and create space for collective action. The authors argue that coming to recognize the theoretical underpinnings of our practice helps us become better practitioners.     

The Dynamics of Public Opinion on Cultural Policy Issues in the U.S., 1972–2010

This study investigates the dynamics of public opinion on cultural policy issues over the past four decades. We find collective opinions on many such issues follow the same path over time, driven by an underlying cultural policy mood (CPM). We use more than 2,000 survey marginals, nested in more than 200 time series, that reflect aggregate opinions in 16 cultural policy domains, across 38 years. Using a dynamic principal components method, the results show that since the early 1970s, CPM has moved steadily and consistently in a liberal direction. Over this period, changes in CPM have been tightly linked to changes in aggregate religiosity. Opinion on two notable cultural issues—the death penalty and abortion—do not follow CPM. While public opinion has grown increasingly anti-death-penalty for more than a decade, over roughly the same period it has become as pro-life on abortion as at any time since Roe v. Wade. The measurement of CPM provides evidence of a macro construct of cultural issues that includes opinion toward many, but not all, morality policies.