Endorsing the Exodus: how local leaders backed peasant migrations in 1980s Sichuan

Discussions of migration in contemporary China often center on the distinctive institutions, especially household registration (hukou) regulations, which continue to limit the options of rural people in cities. This paper draws attention to how another part of the Chinese state has engaged migration: governments in communities of origin. Evidence from Sichuan in the 1980s reveals that local leaders authorized, facilitated, and even organized out-migration of villagers, at a time when Beijing gave scant indication of official approval of peasant migration. Local innovations to sanction migration built directly on the broader trend of rural cadres becoming increasingly responsive to local economic needs. The story of local government involvement in out-migration indicates that the relationship between migrants and the Chinese state has transformed fundamentally, even though formal institutions governing urban residence have changed minimally. As in other fields of social and economic life in China, authority over migration has fragmented.     

Using a Continuous Measure of Genderedness to Assess Sex Differences in the Attitudes of the Political Elite

Political Behavior - We investigated the attitudes of the 11,410 candidates in the Finnish 2017 municipal elections who had responded to a Voting Advice Application. Women candidates were, both in...     

Middle Range Powers in Global Governance

Abstract

This article compares and evaluates the contributions of middle range powers to global governance initiatives. Examining participation in terms of personnel, financial and ideational contributions, we test several hypotheses derived from neorealism, critical theory, liberalism, constructivism, and post-internationalism against six cases: Canada, Japan, China, Russia, India and Brazil. We find that material power has a negative impact on contributions, while a country’s leadership’s attitude towards the international order, the length of its membership in major international organisations and the strength of its civil society all seem to have positive effects on its participation in global governance. Trade dependence, however, does not seem to exhibit the expected impact. The article indicates that multiple theoretical approaches may prove useful for evaluating the behaviour of middle range powers, and that further research should be conducted on the relative importance of each of the factors mentioned above in explaining middle range power contributions to global governance.     

Performance of technology transfer offices in Germany

The aim of this study is to empirically analyze the performance of technology transfer offices (TTO) in Germany. Although being one of the largest and innovative economies in the world, there is only scarce evidence about the role and performance of TTO in university–industry technology transfer. While policy makers and university managers are often quite optimistic about the impact of TTO in fostering technology transfer into the region, consulting firms and research institutes report such institutions in Germany as superfluous and counterproductive. Using the number of invention disclosures as a performance measure, we analyze how variance in performance can be explained by different organizational structures and variables of TTO. Controlling for regional endowment and university specific effects, our results reveal that TTO performance is mainly a function of the kind of labor division within the TTO and the research intensity of the university. Knowing the drivers of TTO performance may help policy makers and university managers to reflect their strategies, mitigate weak points and thus foster performance.     

Engaging environmental turbulence: drivers of organizational flexibility in the armed forces

Since the transformation was set in motion to change Western armed forces from large-scale mechanized defensive organizations into smaller agile expeditionary crisis response forces, the call for organizational flexibility has rocketed. Yet, actual research into the key organizational drivers of flexibility has hardly been done. To bridge this gap, the present study has analyzed to what extent modular organizing and organizational sensing have contributed to flexible military crisis response performance. The study uses the Netherlands’ armed forces as a representative example of a contemporary Western crisis response organization and empirically draws upon its recent operational experiences. It has uncovered that within most mission contexts, modular organizing acts as a facilitator for the organizational sensing process. Yet, within highly turbulent crisis response missions, organizational sensing becomes the predominant driver, stimulating ad hoc solutions that challenge existing structures, available technology, and standard procedures.     

Estimation of Opportunity Inequality in Brazil using Nonparametric Local Logistic Regression

Abstract

This article measured opportunity inequality in Brazil by combining a series of theoretical and empirical tools. The database was built using a two-sample instrumental variable (TSIV), developed by Angrist and Krueger. After that, the axiomatic approach put forward by O'Neill et al. was used, in which the estimation of children's income distribution function is conditional on their fathers' wages. The inference process was based on nonparametric local logistic regression. The results indicate that Brazil has a high level of opportunity inequality. In other words, in the context of intergenerational mobility, those whose fathers belong to lower income strata have to expend greater effort in order to attain a certain income level.     

Beliefs about child witnesses: A survey of professionals

This research addressed how professionals involved with the legal system evaluate children, primarily between 4 and 8 years old, as witnesses. In particular, we focused on professionals’ beliefs and opinions regarding children's memory, suggestibility, and behaviors as they relate to witness credibility. In addition, we surveyed professionals’ evaluations of investigative methods related to reliability. Four hundred and seventy-eight professionals working with children in the Norwegian legal system (i.e. judges, police detectives, psychologists, child psychiatrists, prosecutors, and defense attorneys) completed a questionnaire about child witness issues. Results indicated that psychiatrists as well as police officers expressed greater belief in children's capacities than did other groups, whereas defense attorneys and psychologists were more skeptical regarding children's general credibility. Psychiatrists and psychologists both, however, tended to favor, more than did legal professionals, the use of clinical techniques with children in abuse investigations. Implications are discussed in relation to professionals’ attitudes toward children as witnesses.