Does Direct Democracy Reduce Public Debt Evidence from Swiss Municipalities

Although some countries have managed toobtain balanced budgets or even budgetsurpluses in recent times, public debts ofmany OECD countries remain at high levels.Since structural reforms of public spendinghave only infrequently taken place in mostcountries, fiscal pressure will increaseagain in the future due to society's ageingand the accompanying increases in socialtransfer spending. Constitutionalrestrictions on debt levels and legal rulesof the budgetary process, such as a strongrole of the minister of finance, aresupposed to be helping against the debtbias inherent in political decision-makingprocedures. In addition to such top downbudgetary procedures, this paperinvestigates the impact of referendumapproval of budget deficits by the voterson the level of public debt in a crosssection of the 134 largest Swissmunicipalities in 1990.     

Legal Empowerment and Horizontal Inequalities after Conflict

Abstract

This article explores whether legal empowerment can address horizontal inequalities in post-conflict settings, and, if so, how. It argues that legal empowerment has modest potential to reduce these inequalities. Nevertheless, there are risks that legal empowerment might contribute to a strengthening of group identities, reduction of social cohesion, and, in the worst case, triggering of conflict. It looks at how two legal empowerment programmes in Liberia navigated the tensions between equity and peace.     

Gebhard Kirchgässner, 60 years on

This introductory essay summarizes the contents of the papers presented at a conference in honor of Gebhard Kirchgässner entitled “(Macro-)Economic Policy and Public Choice” which are published in this special issue. In addition to this brief overview on the contributions, this essay relates them to the scientific works of Gebhard Kirchgässner after locating the latter within the realm of Public Choice analysis.     

SWEDISH DISARMAMENT POLICY AND WEAPONS EXPORTS,INVESTIGATED FROM A LARGE TECHNICAL SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Disarmament policy is an established field in international relations. From the perspective of Swedish foreign policy, earlier an intense attention was given to this field, but it has now lost priority. This paper seeks to systematize some determinants in this development. One important factor is the increasing role of weapons exports--in terms of jobs, export income and technical development. The technical element is of decisive importance in combination with international law and international organizations. The analysis is based on concepts and theories from the research tradition Large Technical Systems.     

IT-related Crime – Old Crimes in a New Guise,But New Directions Too!

This article constitutes an attempt to describe the nature of IT-related crime and how it is likely to evolve in the future. By means of a number of empirical studies, the authors have attempted to estimate the prevalence of a number of different IT-related incidents and offences in Sweden during the period 1997-1998. The article shows that IT-related crime consists to a large extent of less serious offences. One might say that everyday crime has expanded into a new technological environment. Parts of the study nonetheless indicate that there are more serious IT-related offences being committed. In this regard the authors' focus is on offences related to the most valuable commodity in modern society, information. On the basis of the empirical studies, two different developmental patterns are identified; the first of these involves everything carrying on much the same as before, with no real evidence of any radical shift taking place; the second involves society going through a period of relatively comprehensive structural and technological change, which in turn is creating new and dangerous opportunity structures for crime.     

The leap of faith from disease treatment to lifestyle prevention: the genealogy of a policy idea

Since the 1970s public health policy has attempted to counter the rise of chronic diseases by getting individuals to make healthy choices about smoking, alcohol, diet, and physical exercise. Inspired by the so-called new perspective of the 1974 Lalonde report, this shift from disease treatment to prevention has been a key focus of public health policy to this day. Every generation of public health reports presents prevention as the answer to past failures, but the continuous experience of failure is strangely coexistent with a fundamental belief in the ability of lifestyle prevention to produce large health improvements. The article tracks the genealogy of lifestyle prevention as policy idea across three generations of U.S. and Danish public health reports and finds a systematic interpretation of lifestyle prevention as being more successful and promising than acute medical treatment.