Constituency Service in Multi-level Democracies

What are the patterns of legislator responsiveness to constituents in multi-level democracies, and what explains them? Previously, comparative research has been hampered by a lack of theory and a lack of data. The article first theorizes how constituency service may be explained by conventional arguments, such as electoral motivations and role orientations. It then considers how regionalization specifically might affect service responsiveness. Using data from the PARTIREP survey of legislators in eight multi-level democracies and six unitary democracies, the article demonstrates that national legislators devote less time to constituency service in multi-level than in unitary democracies; and that regional legislators devote more time than national legislators in multi-level democracies. While conventional arguments are important, the specific effects of regionalization are also significant in determining service responsiveness, establishing an agenda for future research of constituency service as a significant area in the study of multi-level democracy.     

A benchmark analysis of the performance of state owned enterprises in ireland

This paper examines the performance of state owned enterprises (SOEs) in Ireland over the period 1988-92. However, unlike previous studies the performance of Irish public enterprise is examined in terms of the performance of other firms operating in the same sectors albeit based in the UK. While Irish SOEs exhibit lower rates of return on capital employed, it is found that there were significant improvements in labour productivity, relative to UK counterparts. This is attributable to the substantial increase in capital utilisation by Irish public enterprises. Given that average employment was maintained the net effect is a substantial increase in the capital-labour ratio of the sector.     

Economic Statecraft,Structural Power,and Structural Violence in Sino-Kyrgyz Relations

Abstract

This article employs the concepts of structural power and structural violence to a undertake critical study of China’s use of economic statecraft toward Kyrgyzstan. The article argues that China’s reliance on economic exchange to secure its strategic ends in Kyrgyzstan has resulted in asymmetric economic exchange between the two states. Through this asymmetric exchange, China has gained influence over Kyrgyzstan’s domestic structures. Chinese structural power, in turn, contributes to violence across Kyrgyzstan’s structures of economy, environment, and society and within the country’s state-society relations. Structural violence within Kyrgyzstan also results in periphery instability and domestic insecurity for China. As such, the article argues that China’s use of economic statecraft to achieve its strategic aims in Kyrgyzstan is self-defeating.     

County Government Structural Reform: Influence of State, Region, and Urbanization

This article analyzes the influence of state, region, and urbanizationon adoption of comity government structural reform, exemplifiedby charter adoption, appointment of county administrators, andelection of executives. It examines3, 119 counties on whichdata were available, emphasizing the 786 counties with appointedadministrators, 382 with elected executives, and 117 with charters.These three structural reforms were correlated with urbanizationas measured by three variables for counties nationwide: populationsize, population growth, and per capita income. The reformsalso were examined by U.S. Census regions and subregions. Theneach reform was adjusted to assess the influence of one or afew stales where a given reform was slate-imposed or almostuniversally adopted. For each reform, urbanization was a keyfactor in explaining adoption. Region offered little explanation.The stale also emerged as an important variable     

Left Diaphragm Laceration Due to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

External cardiac massage is the essential life‐saving gesture for the management of any cardiac arrest. Since the 1960s, many recommendations have been published to improve the effectiveness of chest compressions alongside the development of automated systems intended to maximize the chances of survival. The use of these manual and/or instrumental techniques can cause secondary injuries, of which rib fractures are the most commonly observed by forensic pathologists. However, a comprehensive review of the literature seldom highlights reports of injuries to the abdomen, even less so to the diaphragm. In this observation, an iatrogenic left diaphragmatic laceration for the first time is described, as a result of manual and instrumental cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in a victim from an intrathoracic wound caused by a bladed weapon.     

Anger Control and Acceptance of Violence as Mediators in the Relationship between Exposure to Interparental Conflict and Dating Violence Perpetration in Mexican Adolescents

Dating violence is a prevalent problem in high school students. Previous research has found that anger expression styles and acceptance of violence beliefs mediate the relationship between experiencing family violence and dating violence perpetration. Few studies have examined the intergenerational transmission of violence theory in predicting dating violence in Mexican teens. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among exposure to interparental violence, anger expression, acceptance of violence beliefs, and perpetration of teen dating violence in Mexican teens. Surveys were administered to 204 high school students (aged 15 to 17) from Monterrey, Mexico. Regression analyses revealed that anger control and acceptance of violence beliefs, mediated the relationship between interparental conflict and dating violence perpetration. These results support the use of family-based interventions that challenge acceptance of violence beliefs and teach anger control techniques in Mexican teens.     

Too much choice,too little impact: a multilevel analysis of the contextual determinants of preference voting

Abstract

Despite the rich and growing body of research addressing how turnout and party choice depend on the institutional context, far less is known about the impact of the political environment on voters’ propensity to vote for candidates – not parties. Recent single-country studies have focused almost exclusively on individual-level resource- and identity-based differences in preference voting. Combining data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies (PARTIREP) election studies in six countries, this article provides the first comprehensive, cross-national test of the impact of macro-contextual factors on a voter’s decision to indicate a candidate preference, instead of simply casting a party list vote. It demonstrates that both the failure of preference votes to affect the allocation of seats and choice overload dissuade voters from marking a candidate name on the ballot. These contextual factors affect informed and uninformed voters differently, moreover. The findings have important implications for electoral scholars and political practitioners when designing electoral systems.     

The Quality of Representation and Satisfaction with Democracy: The Consequences of Citizen-Elite Policy and Process Congruence

Citizen-elite congruence has long been considered an important yardstick for the quality of democracy. The literature on citizen satisfaction with democracy, however, has reduced congruence almost exclusively to one of its components, policy congruence. Just as citizens are considered to have positions on policy issues, there is growing scholarly interest in the preferences they have about the process of representation. Yet studies inquiring into the impact of the divergent preferences that citizens and elites have regarding the representational process thus far have been few and their results inconclusive. Combining new, unique data from the 2014 Belgian Election and Candidate Studies, we seek to address this lacuna. Our findings indicate that we cannot understand citizen satisfaction without also taking process into account—even as the policy gap has the greater effect. They should be of interest to scholars of democracy, those concerned about citizen disengagement from politics, and political practitioners.     

Regulating Assisted Reproduction in Canada,Switzerland, and the USA: Comparing the Judicialization of Policy-Making

This article analyses the extent to which courts shape policies for assisted reproduction. While the USA is considered to be the most litigious country, Canada has observed a growing involvement of the courts from the 1980s onward, and Switzerland is characterized by a modest degree of judicialization. Based on national patterns, we would expect litigation and court impact to vary across these three countries. As the empirical analysis reveals, policy-process-specific variables such as the novelty of regulation, self-regulation by key stakeholders, and the policies in place better explain the variation in the judicialization of policy-making.