Massive Change: Now Everyone Can Design Solutions

Civilizations are mortal. Some rise to meet their challenges, others collapse and disappear into history. Why do some posses the capacity to change, and others not? Jared Diamond warns that the Anthropocentric Age, in which the human species for the first time is the dominant influence on the planet, could end up like the extinct Maya, terminating our civilization's accomplishments if we don't squarely face our ecological challenges. Bruce Mau, like Alvin Toffler, sees hope in the “distributed power” enabled by new technologies. Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt examine the paradoxes of the digital age which has transformed how we live our lives in every respect.     

MANAGING RETALIATION: DRUG ROBBERY AND INFORMAL SANCTION THREATS*

The notion that informal sanction threats influence criminal decision‐making is perhaps the most important contribution to neoclassical theory in the past 15 years. Notably absent from this contribution is an examination of the ways in which the risk of victim retaliation—arguably, the ultimate informal sanction—mediates the process. The present article addresses this gap, examining how active drug robbers (individuals who take money and drugs from dealers by force or threat of force) perceive and respond to the risk of victim retaliation in real‐life settings and circumstances. The data's theoretical implications for deterrence and violence contagions are explored. Data were drawn from in‐depth interviews with 25 currently active drug robbers recruited from the streets of St. Louis, Missouri.     

CRACK DEALERS AND RESTRICTIVE DETERRENCE: IDENTIFYING NARCS*

Data drawn from semistructured interviews with 40 active street-level crack dealers are used to illustrate, apply, and expand the concept of restrictive deterrence. The article focuses on the perceptual shorthand dealers use to determine whether buyers in question are “narcs.” In presenting this shorthand, the article seeks to demonstrate how interactions among marketplace democratization (i.e., the idea of selling to as many different customers as possible to maximize profits), marketplace volatility, transactional brevity, and threats from law enforcement affect its complexity and refinement. Respondents operated out of a medium-sized, midwestern metropolitan area (population: 2.2 million) within a central city of 390,000.     

Road to Ruin? A Spatial Analysis of State Highway Spending

Do states engage in infrastructure expenditure competition to attract new economic activity? Economic theory is inconclusive on the matter. States might respond to increased infrastructure spending in competitor states by increasing their own infrastructure spending. Conversely, states may decrease spending in the presence of positive spillovers from competitor states' infrastructure investment. Using spatial econometric techniques and focusing specifically on highway spending, we demonstrate that states expend less on highways when spending in neighboring states increases. We explore this possibility further by modeling state personal income growth as a function of own‐state and neighbor‐state highway spending. Our findings suggest positive spillovers influence interstate relationships for highway spending rather than race‐to‐the‐top competition for economic activity.     

POLICY MAKING AND THE DEMONSTRATION EFFECT: PRIVATIZATION IN A DEPRIVED REGION

The aims of public policies are not always clearly articulated by ministers. Further the aims that are stated may not reflect all – or indeed the most important – aims. In some cases declared policy aims bear little relationship to the real intentions of ministers in undertaking an initiative. In other cases policy decisions are intended as symbolic statements, demonstrating government attitudes on a range of issues beyond the specific matter under consideration. These ideas are explored in the context of the privatizations of Harland and Wolff and Shorts, two major industrial government-owned companies in Northern Ireland. The article concludes that government sought to use the privatizations as a symbolic statement, namely to demonstrate that the heavy dependence on the public sector within Northern Ireland had to be reduced.     

Stoned Rosy in Beijing

JAWS dropped when the bill wasannounced mid-August.Howdid the organizers of the newly-sprung Beijing Pop Festival landone of Britain's biggest rocknames for its first edition?Still more sur-prising,Ian Brown would be coming toChina barely a week after he'd releasedhis latest album,Greatest,a time usuallytaken up with press conferences.Brown actually chose Beijing overthe promotional rounds of European ra-dio and television stations.The day-longevent he headlined at Chaoyang Parkon Septe…     

A Political-Institutional Framework for the Analysis of Competition Policy Institutions

The article presents an eight-point analytical framework for the examination of key political-institutional aspects of the functioning of national competition policy institutions. These are assessed against the competition policy regimes of the EC, UK, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, the US. Each element represents an aspect or institutional arena in which there is potential andlor actual room for the exercise of political influence and power in an increasingly important realm of micro-economic governance. Such political arenas and channels are woven in and around a set of competition authorities in each county or jurisdiction otherwise primarily attempting to apply economic analysis to numerous specific case decisions. The eight elements of the framework are: 1) the use of explicit non-competition criteria that can be taken into account by competition authorities; 2) ranges of, and opportunities for, ministerial discretion; 3) intra-cabinet and intra-govern-mental pressures from other ministers and departments and their political clientele interests; 4) direct hearings or avenues for direct representation and pressure by interests; 5) opportunities for private legal action; 6) processes for giving comfort or guidance letters to private parties; 7) vehicles for pressure and political learning through studies, media exposure, and public persuasion; and 8) the extent to which “one-stop” versus multi-sector competition institutions exist and can be played off one another.