Uninterested Youth? Young People's Attitudes towards Party Politics in Britain

Following the outcome of the 2001 and 2005 general elections, when the numbers of abstainers outweighed the numbers of Labour voters on both occasions, much attention has focused upon the state of British democracy and how to enthuse the electorate, especially young people. Whilst the government is exploring ways to make the whole process of voting easier, it may be failing to tackle the real problem – that youth appear to find the business of politics uninviting and irrelevant. This paper examines data derived from a nationwide survey of more than 700 young people in order to shed light on what lies at the heart of young people's apparent disengagement from formal politics in Britain – political apathy or a sense of political alienation. The findings reveal that they support the democratic process, but are sceptical of the way the British political system is organised and led and are turned off by politicians and the political parties. However, there is no uniform youth orientation to politics, and the data indicate that views differ according to social class, educational history and also gender. However both ethnicity and region of the country in which young people live seem to have little influence in structuring political attitudes and behaviour.     

Multinational corporations and the diffusion of world standards: A theoretical exploration

Studies in Comparative International Development -     

Establishing Legitimacy in Emerging Markets: An Empirical Comparison of the Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague Stock Exchanges

The purpose of this analysis is to investigate the influence of economic and sociological institutional constraints in determining the legitimacy of firms. This study specifically looks at the importance of regulatory and transnational institutional constraints for firms traded on the Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague stock exchanges. The results indicate that a well-regulated securities environment has a direct impact on the ability of firms to establish organizational legitimacy. We also find that, lacking local regulation, firms can increase their legitimacy by adopting international accounting standards. Thus, we find support for the assertion that both economic and sociological solutions to the problem of legitimacy are appropriate for firms operating in an emerging market.