Reviews & notes

Pierre Rosanvallon L'âge de l'autogestion (Paris, 1976, Editions du Seuil).

Daniel Zwerdling, Democracy at Work: A Guide to Workplace Ownership, Participation and Self‐Management Experiments in the United States and Europe (Washington, D.C.: Daniel Zwerdling, 1978). Distributed by Association for Self‐Management, c/o 1414 Spring Road, NW, Washington, D.C. 20010 ($5.50 for individuals/$10.50 for institutions).

Benjamin I. Page, Choices and Echoes in Presidential Elections: Rational Man and Electoral Democracy. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. 336 pp. $17.50).

Richard Barnet and Ronald Muller, Global Reach (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974)

Giovanni Arrighi, “International Corporations, Labor Aristocracies and Economic Development in Tropical Africa,” in Arrighi and Saul, Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (New York: Monthly Review, 1973).

Henry Landsberger, “The Labor Elite: Is it Revolutionary?,” in Lipset and Solari (eds.), Elites in Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).

Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979. Pp. xxiv, 239. $5.95 paper).

Marshall Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. Pp. xi, 252. $4.95 paper).

Leszek Kolakowski's long‐awaited survey of Marxism [Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth and Dissolution, 3 volumes, translated from the Polish by P. S. Falla, Oxford University Press, 1978].     

A political economy model of market intervention

We argue that political competition based on income redistribution à la Lindbeck and Weibull (Public Choice 52:273–297, 1987) may cause distortive regulation in a competitive sector. For this purpose, we propose a model in which imposing a production quota allows the extraction of rents that are then used for vote-buying purposes. Our model permits us to analyze the response of regulatory policy to political factors, such as the size of a group of informed voters and the accuracy of their information about the incumbent. We also show that the extent of voter influence on policy outcomes is shaped by the state of market demand. In particular, if demand becomes weaker, market intervention increases in a magnitude that depends positively on the electoral weight of informed voters.     

When Are Women More Effective Lawmakers Than Men?

Previous scholarship has demonstrated that female lawmakers differ from their male counterparts by engaging more fully in consensus‐building activities. We argue that this behavioral difference does not serve women equally well in all institutional settings. Contentious and partisan activities of male lawmakers may help them outperform women when in a polarized majority party. However, in the minority party, while men may choose to obstruct and delay, women continue to strive to build coalitions and bring about new policies. We find strong evidence that minority party women in the U.S. House of Representatives are better able to keep their sponsored bills alive through later stages of the legislative process than are minority party men, across the 93^rd–110^th Congresses (1973–2008). The opposite is true for majority party women, however, who counterbalance this lack of later success by introducing more legislation. Moreover, while the legislative style of minority party women has served them well consistently across the past four decades, majority party women have become less effective as Congress has become more polarized.     

European Defence Agency: A Flashpoint of Institutional Logics

The European Defence Agency (EDA) works in a policy area traditionally characterised by high diversity among actors regarding basic notions of what level of integration and which principles of interaction in the defence sector are appropriate for the EU, which countries should participate in defence cooperation, and what coordination mechanisms and instruments should be used. In all these dimensions, the EDA has been a flashpoint of institutional logics representing different visions of how various aspects of defence integration in the EU should be organised. There are tensions between the logic of supranational regulation and the logic of intergovernmental networking; between the logic of defence sovereignty and the logic of pooled defence resources; between the Europeanist and the Euro-Atlanticist logic; and finally between the logics of liberalisation and Europeanisation of the defence market. Studying the ways in which the collisions of institutional logics are being accommodated by the EDA can contribute to greater understanding of the emerging political order of European defence.     

Lessons From Las Vegas: Housing Markets,Neighborhoods, and Distressed Single-Family Property Investors

The collapse of the housing bubble and the ensuing wave of foreclosures have led to a dramatic increase in investor activity in distressed single-family markets, particularly in high-foreclosure areas such as Las Vegas, Nevada. Using a case study of investors in the Las Vegas market as the starting point, supplemented by research in the Detroit, Michigan, area and elsewhere, this article analyzes the strategies being followed by investors and the relationship between investor behavior and market conditions, presenting a market-based typology of single-family property investors and assessing the effects of investors on markets and neighborhood conditions.     

Spacing commemorative-related violence in Northern Ireland: assessing the implications for a society in transition

This paper explores the geography of commemorative-related violence in Northern Ireland and considers its ramifications for a society in transition. Using original primary research, this article contributes to discussions on violence, space and memory through a spatial analysis of new quantitative archival data and existing archival material explored through a multi-disciplinary lens. It examines the complex relationship between the practices and processes of commemoration, the violence that it sometimes occasions and the places in which such violence exists. In unpacking this specific form of violence we consider the continued importance of both place and past in a post-conflict society.     

Social Capital and Institutional Trust: Evidence from Bolivia's Popular Participation Decentralisation Reforms

This article uses Bolivia's emblematic process of decentralisation (Popular Participation) to explore the elusive relationship between interpersonal and institutional trust, as central components of social capital. The evidence corroborates the notion that basic social interaction and more complex institutional settings are strongly co-related, such as the trust that individuals place in their governments and institutions. The data also shows that social capital has a direct effect on civic activism and political behaviour at the individual level. The notion of social capital is present throughout the analysis as this type of capital allows observing and measuring changes in social structures that affect more complex institutional arrangements.