The effect of membership rules and voting schemes on the success of international climate agreements

We empirically test the role of membership rules and voting schemes for climate change coalitions with the STAbility of COalitions model (STACO). The model comprises twelve world regions and captures long-run effects of greenhouse gas accumulation. We apply three stability concepts that capture the notion of open membership and exclusive membership with majority and unanimity voting. We show that exclusive membership leads to superior outcomes than open membership and that unanimity voting is preferable to majority voting in welfare and environmental terms. Our results suggest restricting membership in future international environmental agreements and they provide a rationale for unanimity voting as applied in many international organizations.     

A Political Economy Forecast for the 2005 British General Election

Recently, we proposed an original statistical model for forecasting general elections in the United Kingdom, based on the observation of a few key indicators of the political and economic system. That vote function model was tested against the results of the 2001 general election. Here we evaluate the results of that test, and offer an appropriately revised model for the forecasting of the upcoming 2005 general election. According to our forecast, a Labour victory appears the most likely outcome.     

Political Reform in Hong Kong: the Principal Officials Accountability System. The first year (2002–2003)

The new Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS), a proto-ministerial system, was established at the start of the Second Term of Office of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). This paper examines the setting-up of the POAS and reviews how it has functioned during its first year of life. Both the design and implementation of the POAS were characterized by undue haste. The establishing of the POAS intensified the debate on a range of matters as new ministers, senior civil servants and residents have come to terms with the detail of this novel arrangement. Discussions about political reform are set to intensify in the years to come. This article reviews the origins and deeper need for the POAS in Hong Kong before looking at the fundamentals of the new system. The nature of ‘accountability’ is then discussed prior to examining Hong Kong's experience with the POAS in action during its first year. The article also discusses the potential of the POAS to contribute to Hong Kong's overall political development.     

Measuring Street Cleanliness: A Comparison of New York City's Scorecard and Results from a Citizen Survey

Public administrators at the local level often rely on citizen surveys to measure the outcomes or accomplishments of their service delivery efforts. However, many remain skeptical about the value of survey-based measures of local government performance, in large part because of the low empirical correlation between objective and subjective performance measures reported in the literature. Using data from New York City's street cleanliness scorecard, a well-established outcome measure, combined with responses from more than 4,000 respondents to a citizen survey, the authors find a clear and consistent correlation between the scorecard and citizen ratings of street cleanliness in their neighborhoods. Moreover, the street cleanliness scorecard is a much stronger predictor of citizen ratings than demographic factors, trust in government, or contextual effects. These results demonstrate that citizen judgments about government performance can correspond closely with more objectively measured outcomes—and that citizen surveys can provide valid and useful performance measures, at least for some local government services.     

The Interstate Sprawl System

The Interstate Sprawl System is an article about the role of automobile transportation in the culture and civilization of the USA. After demonstrating that all previous civilizations in history have gathered around trading ports, where land values rise as the proximity to the port increases, it analyses the changes wrought by the grid system of transportation brought on by the automobile in the USA, where land values remain fairly constant and no core trading centers can be found. These changes include the decimation of the old port cities as well as the urbanization of rural lands. The article concludes with an appeal to encourage inter-city rapid rail as the obvious antidote to the problem.

Rereading the Public: Isolationism and Internationalism Revisited

This is the first installment in what we hope will be a recurring series of Forums in ISP. In each segment we intend to provide an outlet for peer-reviewed dialogue and debate on important topics in the field and to allow our readers to discuss material previously printed in the pages of ISP. Below are two comments on "Challenging U.S. Policymakers' Image of an Isolationist Public" by Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay published in ISP 1:1. Both comments raise a number of important issues pertaining to the relationship of public opinion and foreign policy, and also address more general questions of domestic impact on foreign policy outputs and several significant methodological questions about approaches to polling. The Forum begins first with comments by Richard Clark and Kenneth Dautrich, is followed by comments from Shoon Murray, and concludes with a response from Kull and Ramsay.     

EU-China relations: balancing political challenges with economic opportunities

During 2005, the European Union and China marked 30 years of diplomatic relations with much fanfare. Celebrations surrounding the anniversary however belied the fact that throughout most of this period the European Union and China remained largely aloof from one another. The strengthening of EU foreign policy over time, as well as the economic reforms and new outward orientation exhibited by China have changed the dynamics of the relationship. Both sides are increasingly recognizing the potential mutual benefits that can be accrued from a closer relationship. This paper assesses EU-China relations from both economic and political perspectives. In terms of economics, it is clear that the EU must build stronger relations with China if it is to accrue the benefits of access to an expanding market with over one billion people. To do so successfully however, the EU will have to reconcile the economic and political components of its foreign policy. The EU continues to challenge the Chinese government to reform its practices on a number of issues including human rights, democratic reform, and Tibet, all of which remain bones of contention. How the EU achieves the balance between political constraints and economic opportunities is the primary focus of this paper.

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