Institutional interplay and effectiveness: assessing efforts to conserve western hemisphere shorebirds

Bird conservation agencies and organizations can take credit for a long list of transnational policy accomplishments. This article examines one set, a constellation of arrangements developed over the past three decades by those seeking to conserve western hemisphere shorebirds. At the center of this constellation are the US and Canadian national shorebird conservation plans and a cross-border initiative, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Conservation Reserve Network. We treat these and associated plans, programs, and initiatives as a nested set of institutions, noting that these are operated by a wide assortment of state and societal actors. Exploring the potential of a framework based on Oran Young’s concept of interplay, we analyze the construction of these institutions and efforts to establish effectiveness. Examining activity in three zones of issue proximity, we conclude that shorebird conservationists have responded well to formative interplay challenges. They have made least progress in engaging remote institutions responsible for threats to shorebird habitat. We note, though, that it is important to distinguish between scientific and political levels of interplay work. On a substantive level we conclude that the shorebird community is well-positioned to move beyond generative and programmatic tasks to focus on establishing policy capability. On a theoretical level, we conclude that a framework based on interplay provides a strong foundation for analysis of the forces shaping the effectiveness of informal conservation institutions such as the ones examined.

Assessing the developing knowledge-base of product counterfeiting: a content analysis of four decades of research

Considering the steady and rapid growth of product counterfeiting and the damage it causes to society, it is important for criminology and criminal justice scholars to assist criminal justice officials, industry practitioners, and law makers in understanding the product counterfeiting problem and developing strategies to combat it. However, for researchers to be effective in their advisory role they must first establish what is known about product counterfeiting. As a first step in this process, we investigated relevant published research through a content analysis of 47 articles discussing product counterfeiting published in criminal justice and criminology journals through 2014. We analyzed various characteristics about the articles themselves, their authors, the journals they appeared in, and the nature and extent of their focus on product counterfeiting. We conclude this study with an evaluation of the state of product counterfeiting research and recommendations for future research.     

Rewarding Dysfunction: Interest Groups and Intended Legislative Failure

Why do majority parties choose to add extreme dead on arrival bills to their legislative agendas rather than enactable legislation? Majorities in Congress choose this strategy in order to accrue political support from their allied interest groups who reliably reward this legislative behavior. By examining all bills that receive floor consideration from 2003 through 2012, as well as interest group scorecards and campaign commercials, I find support for my theory. Dead‐on‐arrival bills generate electoral benefits for majority‐party lawmakers, are more politically valuable than other bills, and are more often used to credit rather than punish legislators.