Disputed Ownership: Parties,Issues, and Traits in the Minds of Voters

Is party “ownership” of issues and traits manifest in the minds of voters in ways that could generate the oft-hypothesized implications for mass and elite electoral behavior? We specify two ways in which it may be: party reputations refer to the association of a trait or issue with a party; candidate stereotyping requires that party labels prompt differential assignment of attributes or competencies to candidates. We develop a quantitative measure of both ownership types, and apply it to issues and traits. New national survey data provide the first evidence that party reputation ownership exists for issues and traits. New experimental tests reveal evidence of candidate stereotyping for issues, but not traits. Voters associate some traits more with one party, but may not assign them to candidates based upon party label, demonstrating a key difference in the nature and likely implications of issue and trait ownership.     

Russia as a Gravity Pole of the GCC’s New Foreign Policy Pragmatism

Abstract

Despite the obvious differences over the Syrian crisis and Iran, the GCC countries do not seem to be distancing themselves from Russia politically. To a large extent that is due to Russia’s growing military role (in Syria) and military cooperation (with Iran), as well as the diminishing role of the United States under Obama. Having accepted the situation in Syria (after the fall of Aleppo) as a fait accompli, the GCC’s elites seem to be looking at Russia as a powerful player able to reduce the scope of Iran’s expansion in the region. Their approach involves a carefully established mechanism of economic interaction exploiting Russia’s need for GCC finances and arms acquisitions.     

The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: an anatomy of a concept

A central concern of much contemporary Marxist scholarship in international relations (IR) is to internally relate global capitalism and the state system without reducing one of these systems to an epiphenomenon of the other. A recent attempt at this is Justin Rosenberg's reformulation of Leon Trotsky's idea of uneven and combined development (U&CD). This article examines the internal relations of ‘unevenness’ and ‘combination’ as presented by Trotsky and reworked by Rosenberg. From this anatomization of the concept, we focus on the problematic status of U&CD as a transhistorical general abstraction arising from the exchange between Callinicos and Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22:1 2008, 77–112) and suggest our own possible solution. We argue that while the uneven and combined nature of historical development represents a truly transhistorical phenomenon, its distinct causal determinations, articulated and expressed through inter-societal competition, are only fully activated under the specific socio-historical conditions of generalized commodity production. These theoretical points are illuminated through three specific historical examples (the Meiji Restoration, the ‘Eastern Question’ and the origins of the two World Wars). Finally, we illustrate some of the dangers of analytical overextension found in Rosenberg's own ambiguous use of U&CD.     

Remediation or Problem Translocation: An Ethical Discussion as to the Sustainability of the Remediation Market and Carbon Calculating

Remedial technologies consume energy, produce atmospheric, solid- and liquid-based waste streams and do not always destroy or remove contaminants from the environment. The following discussion reviews those factors associated with the environmental impacts of conducting land quality remediation works with particular focus upon the carbon calculating of different remediation technologies. This work seeks to challenge the conventional paradigm of paying hearsay to the term “sustainability” and challenges the selection of remediation technologies at specific sites in favor of sustainability versus time for non time critical problem holders. By promoting often simple changes to the ways in which we deliver remediation, then added value to society may be delivered while also driving changes in the behavior of market sector thinking.     

Assessing police work experiences: Development of the police daily hassles and uplifts scales

The development of two self-report scales that measure police daily hassles and uplifts is reported These scales reflect the positive and negative work experiences common to police officers. Self-report questionnaire data were provided by 330 police officers drawn from a systematic sample of all ranks and work sections within an Australian police department. Results showed that 19 dimensions of police hassles and 12 dimensions of police uplifts could be grouped into two broad domains of organizational and operational experiences. Correlations with job satisfaction and perceived quality of life (PQOL) indicators supported the construct validity of the scales and suggested that organizational hassles and uplifts were more important than operational experiences in determining a police officer's PQOL. When compared to population norms, police officers reported more favorable levels of PQOL. These results raise questions about the assertion that policing is highly stresful, and they demonstrate the need for a more systemic view of police work that takes into account experiences that are beneficial as well as experiences that are harmful to an officer's well-being.     

Demographic Structure and the Political Economy of Education Subsidies

This paper investigates the politico-economic impact of a society's age structure on the extent of public funding of education. Education subsidies serve to internalize positive spillovers of human capital investment, but redistribute resources from the working old to the non-working young, thus creating a conflict of interest between the two generations. The political process is characterized by a representative democracy. In the steady state, high rates of population growth lead to oversubsidization, while low rates lead to undersubsidization, relative to a lifetime income maximizing situation. Population aging leads to higher educational subsidies in the politico-economic equilibrium. Starting from a situation of undersubsidization, this raises lifetime incomes.     

The Development of Integrated Administration in the EU and its Consequences

Abstract:  The discussion about the transformation of forms of government and governance in Europe cannot avoid touching upon the role of administrations or administrative actors. Within the EU's multi-level system, the activities of agenda-setting, policy formulation, and implementation all involve some form of interaction between public actors from the sub-national, national, supranational, and international levels. Cooperation amongst administrations in Europe has become the backbone of the EU's unique system of government and governance. Forms of cooperation have led to an integrated administration, which has developed in an evolutionary fashion and operates in large parts beyond the formally constituted rules of the treaties. This article explores the implications of this phenomenon and argues for the need of a changed perspective.     

变革之活力在异乡的寺庙——加拿大蒙特利尔越南人的佛教活动

加拿大蒙特利尔地区的夏里寺是当地越南裔社区活动主要聚集地,它在越南新移民实现自身角色转变的过程中,在帮助新移民适应当地新的社会环境、居住环境等方面起到了重要的作用。为适应移居国新环境,夏里寺中的组织架构也发生了变化,妇女成为宗教的创立者和领导者。