The New German party finance law

In 1992 the Federal Constitutional Court decided for the sixth time since 1949 that the German legislation concerning political finance was unconstitutional. While the first five cases were important milestones in the development of German law on the public funding of parties and campaigns, this decision was notable for its rejection of key provisions of two laws that were passed in the 1980s and for overturning the Court's previous ban on direct aid to the parties. A commission of experts was formed to study and recommend changes, and a new law was passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in November and December 1993. Instead of focusing on reimbursements of parties for their campaign expenditures, the new law provides for direct financing of parties based on one DM for each vote in EU, national, and Land elections and DM .50 for each D‐Mark received in party dues and donations up to DM 6,000 per person (12,000 per couple). For the first five million votes, the parties receive DM 1.30 per vote. To encourage citizen involvement, parties are not to receive more than the sum of all of their own source revenues, and the total support for all parties is not to exceed the DM 230 million (adjusted for inflation) that was given to the parties as reimbursements for campaign expenditures in the period 1989–1992. To those who have followed the controversies over German political financing since the 1950s, it will be no surprise to learn that the new legislation has provoked criticism and sparked plans to bring the new law before the Federal Constitutional Court.     

What's wrong with the Intelligence Cycle

In the modern era, almost all intelligence professionals will study the Intelligence Cycle as a kind of gospel of how intelligence functions. Yet it is not a particularly good model, since the cyclical pattern does not describe what really happens. Policy officials rarely give collection guidance. Collection and analysis, which are supposed to work in tandem, in fact work more properly in parallel. Finally, the idea that decision makers wait for the delivery of intelligence before making policy decisions is equally incorrect. In the modern era, policy officials seem to want intelligence to support policy rather than to inform it. The Intelligence Cycle also fails to consider either counter-intelligence or covert action. Taken as a whole, the cycle concept is a flawed model, but nevertheless continues to be taught in the US and around the world.     

Was the Antitrust Action that Broke Up the Movie Studios Good for the Movies? Evidence from the Stock Market

The Paramount antitrust litigation was a series of eight actionsbrought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) beginning in 1938and ending in 1949 against the major motion picture studios.In the early cases the DOJ succeeded in changing industry contracts,but it took a decade of litigation to accomplish what the DOJwanted, which was to break up the studios and force them tosell their theater chains. We use stock market evidence to evaluatethe impact of events in the Paramount litigation on firm value.By the stock market's assessment, the Supreme Court decisionwas the major event. But the impact of this and other decisionson integrated and nonintegrated defendants, and on a nondefendant,does not support the view that the courts dismantled a successfulmonopoly; indeed, the contrary may be true.     

Social capital and knowledge acquisition in professional-client relationships

This paper examines the role of social capital in professional-client relationships. We consider exploring the effects of social capital on the creation of human capital, a subject which is worthwhile investigating within all professions. In this paper, we concentrate on what are known as the structural and attributive dimensions of social capital and aim to understand their effects on the knowledge acquisition of professional practitioners. We analyse the association between social capital and human capital (i.e., knowledge acquisition) in the context of the lawyer-client relationship. Through the application of social capital theory, this paper seeks to advance our knowledge of the relations between professionals and clients. More importantly, the study contributes to improving our understanding of the role of social capital in influencing a lawyer's ability to retain and win new clients.     

Making the best of hard times: how the nation's economic circumstances shaped the public's embrace of health care reform

The U.S. Congress enacted expansive (and expensive) health care reforms amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Public acquiescence provided crucial political cover; elites on both sides struggled mightily to sway popular opinion. Were reformers' efforts made easier or more difficult by the tough economic times? Using newly available data on Americans' perceptions of economic insecurity and attitudes toward public policy, this article explores the relationship between economic circumstances and political attitudes. The findings suggest that the Great Recession both facilitated and impeded efforts to rally the public in favor of reform: perceptions of past declines in the U.S. economy bolstered government intervention, but household economic insecurity both distracted attention from large medical expenses (which otherwise legitimized collective action) and undermined Americans' support for additional government spending. Equally consequential, reformers' efforts to adapt to economic stringency by portraying reform as exclusively about affordability missed opportunities for broadening popular support for these interventions; in the longer run this may, unless corrected, prove a decisive misstep in shepherding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act through its long time line of implementation.