Public–private partnership (PPP) and water-supply provision in urban Africa: The experience of Congo-Brazzaville

This paper addresses the introduction of a public–private partnership (PPP) for water provision in urban Congo. It describes the organisational context before and after PPP and discusses the various outcomes of the partnership, both positive and negative. Despite some promising early results, the PPP arrangements did not develop as planned and the private enterprises ran into financial problems. The role of the political environment in compromising the potential benefits of PPP was important, and the article closes with some policy recommendations in light of Congo's ongoing negotiations with the international financial institutions to secure their assistance for new economic reforms.     

Patterns of Local Policy Disruption: Regulatory Responses to Uber in Ten North American Cities

Since its inception in 2009, Uber has grown into a technology behemoth, with operations in over 70 countries and 500 cities around the world. Along the way, it has successfully forced regulatory upheaval in hundreds of local taxi markets controlled by municipal authorities. In this sense, Uber is not only a market disruptor, but also a policy disruptor. This paper examines the nature of such policy disruption at the local level by reviewing regulatory responses to Uber in ten North American cities. We find that regulatory outcomes are a function of two factors: Uber’s government relations strategy, either cooperative or confrontational, and the degree to which local governments perceive Uber as complementary or harmful to the existing marketplace. We conclude by proposing a typology of regulatory responses to Uber as a basis to identify patterns in the behavior of municipal regulatory authorities and political leaders.     

The Impact of Social Media Political Activists on Voting Patterns

This paper investigates how social media affects general voting patterns. Unlike previous studies investigating whether citizens’ use of social media affects political participation, this paper considers the connections that social media users have with political activists on social media, and how this connectedness influences general voting patterns, using data from Ghana. With contemporary theoretical perspectives and exploratory techniques, trends from past literature are presented, from a social media-based propagated survey with 420 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model, which demonstrates that the connectedness with political and social media activists is significant and positively influences modifications in voting patterns. Online political participation and political affect also present an effect on voting patterns. The relationship between connections with social media political activists and online political participation is significant, as indicated by a strong covariance observed in the model. The results of the multigroup analysis also indicate some cultural and social issues to shape the phenomena for further investigation.

     

Market segmentation and lender specialization in the primary and secondary mortgage markets

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of market segmentation and lender/purchaser specialization in the primary and secondary mortgage markets. It describes and assesses the 1990 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, which for the first time provide detailed information on the borrower and neighborhood racial and income characteristics of mortgage loan originations and securitizations in the primary and secondary mortgage markets. Evidence presented in the paper indicates that home purchase loan origination rates for black applicants—and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic applicants—appear to be significantly lower than those of other racial or ethnic groups. Similarly, the HMDA data reveal that home purchase mortgage origination rates in predominantly minority census tracts are significantly lower than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. The HMDA data also indicate a striking reliance of black borrowers on government‐backed forms of mortgage credit.

The paper further reveals that secondary market loan purchase distributions arrayed by borrower and neighborhood characteristics generally reflect those of home mortgage originations. The borrower and locational characteristics of home purchase loans acquired by the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) directly reflect that agency's legislated specialization in government‐backed loans, whereas the characteristics of loans acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the most part derive from the borrower and geographic composition of conventional home purchase loan originations. Findings of analyses of HMDA data raise concern regarding the access of minority and low‐income households and neighborhoods to mortgage finance. Those results also raise some question as to whether the federally chartered agencies in the secondary market are adequately promoting the availability of mortgage credit to low‐ and moderate‐income and minority households.     

Who's Afraid of WikiLeaks? Missed Opportunities in Political Science Research

Leaked information, such as WikiLeaks’ Cablegate, constitutes a unique and valuable data source for researchers interested in a wide variety of policy‐oriented topics. Yet political scientists have avoided using leaked information in their research. This article argues that we can and should use leaked information as a data source in scholarly research. First, the methodological, ethical, and legal challenges related to the use of leaked information in research have been considered, concluding that none of these present serious obstacles. Second, how political scientists can use leaked information to generate novel and unique insights concerning political phenomena using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods have been shown. Specifically, how leaked documents reveal important details concerning the Trans‐Pacific Partnership negotiations, and how leaked diplomatic cables highlight a significant disparity between the U.S. government's public attitude toward traditional knowledge and its private behavior have been demonstrated.     

Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence

Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effectof capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life inprison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behaviorthan the death penalty. Using state-level panel data coveringthe period 1950–90, we demonstrate that the death rateamong prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions)is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence.This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, thereis little systematic evidence that the execution rate influencescrime rates in this time period.     

The new market socialism: A critical review

This article focuses on the new market socialist literature published in 1991–1995. Comparisons are made between the new and older models of market socialism. Contributions to the new literature are critically examined. It is argued that the new market socialism does not present a viable alternative to modern democratic capitalism. The article also discusses what some had believed to be the dilemma post-communist societies would face: market socialism or the restoration of capitalism. In this connection, some of the transformation options are examined.     

Lay-Perspectives on Criminal Deviance,Goals of Punishment,and Punitivity

Empirical studies corroborate a relatively close relation between goals of sentencing and punitiveness. However, it is not clear what aspects of sentencing goals motivate harsh punishment. This study analyzes the structure of sentencing goals and scrutinizes in particular whether the idea of retribution is associated with punitiveness, or whether punishment considerations from a societal perspective (macrolevel) are the source of more punitive responses. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample drawn in Bern, Switzerland. A total of 357 persons responded to items measuring constructs including goals of sentencing, punitiveness, target of justice considerations, and perceived threat to society, after reading one of three short stories about specific crimes (fraud, physical injury, assault). Results of this study reveal a two-dimensional structure of sentencing goals. One dimension represents readiness to punish and exclude the offender socially. The other dimension refers to concerns of the victim versus the needs of the society as a whole. The analysis provides a new interpretation of sentencing goals.