The Taiwan strait crisis of 1996: Implications for US security policy

The Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996 was the greatest challenge to Sino‐American relations in several decades. This study examines the crisis and its implications for US security policy. It outlines US policy toward the defense of Taiwan, discusses the US response to Beijing's military intimidation of Taiwan and analyzes several of the major lessons gleaned from the crisis. The paper suggests that, while China's aggressive behavior should not lead to a dramatic shift in the American position toward Taiwan's defense, some modest adjustments in policy may be warranted.     

When Morality and Economics Collide (or Not) in a Texas Community

In 1993, citizens in conservative Williamson County, Texas, debated whether to grant tax breaks to attract Apple Computer Company, even though Apple maintained an unpopular policy of extending health care benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of employees. We visited Williamson County to speak with local citizens and the main participants about how they resolved their dilemma. The analysis in this paper rests on these interviews, county survey data, and correspondence sent to politicians during the controversy. We analyze why some people are more prepared than others to sacrifice material gain in order to preserve their social and moral values. And we explore whether actions aimed at preserving a community consensus around particular moral beliefs and lifestyles can be construed as rational and, if so, in what sense. We conclude from the Apple case that the development and maintenance of a value system is imbued with interests. Cultural values coordinate political coalitions and social activities, counsel people on how to live, and constitute a simple folk theory that lends conherence to their lives. People do the best they can within the biases and constraints of their value system.     

Political independence in America,III: In search of closet partisans

This study uses the 1980 NES questions on partisanship to investigate the question of the attributes of closet partisans, using a typology of partisans and independents developed from an alternative (PST) set of survey items to the usual ones. The study explores the application of four criteria to those learners most suspected of being undercover partisans. What is found is that those learners who are most like strong partisans on the criteria of political involvement and partisan commitment are nonetheless least like strong partisans on two further criteria: independence attitudes and affective response to the substantive content of elections. Thus, theAmerican Voter analysis, which assumes leaners are Independents, and the Wolfinger et al. critique ofThe American Voter, which concludes that leaners are partisans, both turn out to be oversimplifications of political reality.This is a revision of a paper, Political Independence in America III: On Detecting Closet Partisans, presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Francisco, March 10–13, 1988.     

Fairness and organizational citizenship behavior: What are the connections?

A view of organizations as social contracts recognizes self-interests of individuals but does not explain the occurrence of unselfish contributions such as are denoted by organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We propose that the concept of fairness, as applied to systems of relational contracts, provides a high-leverage construct for understanding the fusion of self-interest and self-denial. A review of the empirical literature suggests that fairness, rather than job satisfaction, accounts for OCB; and that the evidence points toward procedural and interactional fairness as both empirically and conceptually critical in the fairness-OCB relationship. However, we explain why distributive fairness still should not be deemphasized.     

National Investment Planning and equity policy in developing countries: The challenge of decentralized administration

The impact of national economic planning in developing countries over the past three decades has been severely limited. Little evidence supports the contention that it has either directly improved investment decisions for stimulating economic growth or significantly affected development policymaking. Constraints on implementing national planning in Asia include weaknesses of political and administrative support for national plans, deficiencies in their content, difficulties of relating plan priorities to investment decisionmaking, ineffectiveness or inappropriateness of comprehensive planning methods and techniques, and inadequate administrative capacity to implement and evaluate multisectoral investment strategies. Changes in Asian development policy toward growth with equity imply the need for more decentralized methods and arrangements for planning, creation of a stronger relationship between policy planning and program implementation, and diffusion of administrative capacity among a wide variety of public and private institutions to generate, formulate and implement investment policies and projects.