Explaining variation in the competitiveness of U.S. Senate elections, 1922–2004

We develop and test predictions about the factors determining the competitiveness of elections to the U.S. Senate. To do so, we deliberately abstract away from candidate-specific conditions that have often been used to study political competitiveness in order to focus on basic structural features of the electoral landscape. In our framework, party-specific constraints on the ideological positioning of local candidates, linked to the national party organization and its contributors, interact with the heterogeneity of state electorates to determine the number of highly competitive Senate contests. Three hypotheses emerge from this model: (1) the greater the diversity of a party’s national legislative delegation, the more highly competitive Senate elections we will observe; (2) states in which the ideological heterogeneity of the electorate is relatively high will exhibit a greater number of highly competitive elections; and (3) highly competitive Senate contests will be more common in states with closed primaries than in states with open primaries. We provide strong evidence in support of the first two hypotheses and some evidence in support of the third.     

Australia,New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Forum: a critical review

The relationship between the Pacific islands and the region’s ‘bigger brothers’ – Australia and New Zealand – is often seen in two-dimensional terms with the latter appearing to act in concert and in terms characterised by underlying neo-colonial attitudes and a determination to dominate the regional agenda. Given that both are former colonial powers with considerable political and economic resources and are the major aid donors in the region as well as being members of the powerful geopolitical entity known as ‘the West’, it is not difficult to sustain an image of neo-colonial dominance. But to do so also requires casting Pacific island countries in a certain role, not only lacking agency but also cohering around a common identity and set of interests. This article examines key aspects of regional relations as played out through the region’s premier organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum, and assesses the extent to which a simple political divide between Australia and New Zealand on the one hand, and the island states on the other, can be maintained.     

Academic patenting: the importance of industry support

This paper provides evidence that university-industry collaboration is important for turning commercial opportunities into patents. The results suggest that researchers who receive a large share of research grants from industry have a higher propensity to file a patent. Small dissemination grants generally exert a positive effect, whether they come from industry or not. It also finds that these interactions do not increase the number of industry owned patents alone but benefit universities’ commercialisation efforts in general.