Proportional representation under three voting procedures: An Israeli study

This paper attempts to evaluate, by means of a public opinion survey, the likely effects on the Israeli political system of replacing the extant electoral procedure of proportional SV (where every voter can vote just for one party) with either proportional AV (where voters can vote in favor of as many parties as they like), or proportional CAD (where voters can vote in favor, as well as against, as many parties as they wish). It also shows how the results of proportional AV and CAD enables one to measure the extent of affinity or rivalry existing between individual parties or party bloes. The main results are: (1) These three alternative proportional representation schemes would have considerably different effects in terms of the number and type of parties gaining representation, as well as in terms of governmental coalitions. (2) The extent of affinity (or rivalry) existing between blocs of parties is usually not symmetrical—one bloc can approve (or disapprove) of another bloc significantly more than vice versa. (3) Voters tend to vote sincerely (rather than strategically) under the proportional SV procedure. Theoretical issues and practical implications of these procedures are discussed.     

Victimization,rent-seeking and just compensation

When should government compensate citizens for harm inflicted by public policy? In practice, all public policy is harmful to somebody, even when it is beneficial to society as a whole. The common view in the legal profession is that a fuzzy but serviceable line can be drawn between “taking” which should be compensated and the proper exercise of the “policy power” where no compensation is warranted. Recently this view has been challenged by some authors who argue that harm to victims of socially-advantageous public policy should never be compensated, and by others who argue that compensation is almost always warranted. The latter would go so far as to proscribe all redistribution of income as a “taking” from the well-to-do. This paper is a defense of the common view against both challenges. The key to the problem is the distinction between unalterable risk and the risk of victimization of citizens by the government, giving rise to rent-seeking and a general disorganization of society.     

Efficacy in small electorates under plurality and approval voting

Assuming independent voting and random tie-breaking, we describe a procedure for computing the efficacy of a voting strategy under approval voting (AV) and plurality voting (PV) in single winner elections. When the number of candidates exceeds three, the voter's efficacy — his or her ability to affect the outcome of an election — is greater under AV than PV. The relative advantage of AV over PV increases as the number of voters or number of candidates increases.This study has been supported by grant 84-00329 of the U.S.A.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel, in collaboration with Steven Brams and Zeev Maoz.     

Coping With the Loss of General Revenue Sharing in Ohio

The authors examine the impact of the loss of general revenue sharing on Ohio local governments. A study of seven large cities and surrounding counties found that the loss of the federal funds did not trigger any fiscal crises: it came as no surprise. Localities engaged in a number of coping strategies including cuts in spending and replacement of lost federal funds from local surpluses, increased debt, and some tax increases.     

Proportional representation: An empirical evaluation of single-stage,non-ranked voting procedures

Rapoport, Felsenthal and Maoz (1988) have proposed three alternative methods to discern the fair proportion of seats that a party in a representative assembly ought to receive as a function of voters' preference orderings. All three methods assume that the ratio between the number of voters preferring party i over j to the number of voters preferring party j over i can be tested for consistency, and, if sufficiently consistent, can be appropriately scaled to discover the proportion of seats each party ought to receive. Using these methods as standards, we use exit-poll data gathered during the 1985 elections to the general convention of the Israeli General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) to examine the extent to which plurality- and approval-voting procedures provide a fair allocation of seats. The findings indicate that: (a) all three methods yield sufficiently consistent matrices of preference ratios; (b) the plurality- and the approval-voting procedures yielded significantly different proportional representations; (c) the proposed proportion of seats according to the three aggregation methods fall midway between the proportion of seats that the plurality and the approval procedures allocate. We discuss practical implications of these findings. Requests for reprints should be sent to: Professor Amnon Rapoport, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Davie Hall 013A, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.     

Rural Senegalese Perceptions of Environmental Quality

Differences in environmental perspectives between advanced industrial and developing country nationals has both practical and policy implications for the transfer of environmentally sound technologies. This paper characterizes rural Senegalese environmental perspectives in the context of competing environmental paradigms and of their historical development. Methodological issues concerning the adaptation of items from the Health of the Planet Survey (HOPS) questionnaire (Dunlap, Gallup, and Gallup, 1993) to rural Senegal are discussed and qualitative survey results presented. Based on a stratified national sample of rural Senegalese men and women, a quantitative analysis addresses the priority concerns of rural Senegalese men and women and how they perceive the trade off between environmental protection and economic development. The paper concludes that attempts to draw valid conclusions concerning comparisons between the environmental perspectives of the publics of advanced industrial and low income developing countries must take local conditions, their historical dynamics and cultural expressions into account.     

B. Reviews: general

i. An Historical Atlas of Islam. Edited by William C. Brice under the patronage of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden, E.J.Brill, 1981. pp.viii, 71 (including 70 col.maps). Gld.120.

ii. Development Planning in an Oil Economy and the Role of the Woman: The Case of Kuwait. By S.M.Al‐Sabah. London, Eastlords, 1983. pp.380.

iii. The Role of the Military in Politics; A Case Study of Iraq to 1941. By Mohammad A.Tarbush. London, Kegan Paul International, 1982. pp.xvii, 285, 2 maps. £14.50.

iv. Syria: Modern State in an Ancient Land. By John F. Devlin. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press/London, Croom Helm, 1983. pp.xi, 140. £12.95.

v. Estudios Árabes: Revista trimestral sobre asuntos palestinos y el conflicto árabe‐israeli. Vol.1, No.1 (March 1982). Buenos Aires. Fundacion Argentino‐Arabe.

vi. Candid Penstrokes: The Lyrics of Me'ali, an Ottoman Poet of the 16th Century. (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Band 66.) By Edith Ambros. Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1982. pp.xxii, 520.

vii. Schejch Nureddin Mehmed Cerrahî und sein Orden (1721–1925). (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Band 71). Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1982.     

Setting the record straight: A note on sophisticated voting under Borda's method

The purpose of this note is to correct some inaccuracies in the literature regarding sophisticated voting under Borda's method. It is shown that if a single candidate must be elected and voters vote sophisticatedly under Borda's method, then: (1) Contrary to both Black's (1976) and Ludwin's (1978) claims, a voter's undominated voting strategy may require him not to give top ranking to his most preferred candidate; (2) Contrary to Black's (1976) claim, an undominated strategy may be such that all candidates except the most preferred one are ranked last; (3) Whereas a candidate who constitutes the true bottom preference of an absolute majority of the voters will never be elected if voters vote sincerely, this candidate may be elected if voters vote strategically; (4) The election of a candidate who constitutes the true top preference of an absolute majority of the voters is not systematic: ceteris paribus this candidate may be definitely elected when voters vote sincerely but not when they vote strategically, as well as vice versa.     

议公安民警之培训

公安民警培训在教学理论、教学模式、教学内容、教学方法手段等方面存在脱离公安实际、培训效果差等问题,究其根本原因是把公安民警培训系统与公安学历教育系统简单等同。应走出误区,对传统教学理论、教学内容方法等影响教学各因素进行再认识和改革,把握教学对象的需要,从实际出发,重新构建和改革公安民警培训体系。     

技能短缺问题的经济学分析

技能短缺的含义就是劳动力市场技能工人和职业技能供不应求。导致技能短缺的原因包括经济周期、技术进步、产品市场变化和培训制度的不完善。中国的技能短缺主要表现为生产制造业持续性的技术工人短缺,其主要原因在于培训投入不足,需要一系列的制度设计,以刺激企业增加培训投入的积极性。