The social logic of political choice: Picking a political party in the context of immediate social circles

The Social Logic of Politics places social learning at the center of political choice. People develop their political preferences, knowledge, values, perceptions of ability, and decisions about political behavior in interactions with others, usually members of their social circles. Political attitudes and goals are not derivatives of exogenous economic preferences. They are not the results of careful calculations, in which optimization of personal needs guides the mode of reasoning. This theoretical stance draws sustenance from recent work across the social science, even as it harkens back to established, if neglected principles of political analysis. My thanks to Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck for his encouragement and for the critical comments of several anonymous referees and to Josip Dasović and Jennifer Fitzgerald, my co-authors of Partisan Families: the Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany and Britain (Zuckerman et al. 2007). Material from that book appears in this essay.     

基于生态化的陕西产业结构调整与升级研究

用生态意识重新审视传统的经济发展模式,从根本上转变资源依赖型的产业结构和粗放型的经济增长方式,是实现可持续经济发展的客观要求,生态化的陕西省产业结构调整与升级正是适应这种要求而提出来的。     

Campaign resources and electoral success: Evidence from the 2002 French parliamentary elections

We examine the factors that improve the candidates’ likelihood of winning an election by drawing on information from campaign resources used by candidates running in the 2002 French parliamentary election. The main effects that we wish to analyze are the candidates’ gender, political affiliation and possible incumbency. We find that the contributions the candidates received and their political affiliations determine their acceding to the second round of the elections. But surprisingly once they make it to the second round, the contributions cease to be relevant; only the candidates’ gender, incumbency and the actual spending rather than the contribution levels matter.     

Understanding the development of fundamentalism

We use economic theory to examine the intensity of fundamentalist sects in which leaders work to enhance their followers’ observance level. We model three stylized situations under which fundamentalist groups function, examining the intensity of observance in each. We find that, under reasonable conditions, rivalry among fundamentalists makes them more extreme.     

浅评媒体监督与司法独立的关系

媒体监督和司法独立之间的运行规律与评价标准截然不同,两者之间不可避免地会产生冲突.司法权需要监督,媒体监督有利于促进司法公正;但缺乏规范的媒体也会对司法独立构成威胁,并给司法公正带来消极影响.媒体监督与司法独立之间的冲突必须解决,两者之间应达至平衡与契合的状态.     

Social Democracy or Social Liberalism? Ideological Sources of Liberal Democrat Policy

Liberal Democrat policy has been labelled as social democratic, yet the party has been reluctant to so describe itself. Taking Crosland's The Future of Socialism as a reference point, there appears to be much shared ground between social democracy and Liberal Democrat policy. Meanwhile, the party's tax policy adopted in 2006 takes the Croslandite approach of taxing wealth rather than income. Despite this, the article argues that the party is a social liberal rather than a social democratic one. These two political philosophies have so much in common that it is understandable that some commentators see the influence of social democracy where they might instead perceive social liberalism. Yet the two differ in their attitudes to the state. Both see a positive role for the state in furthering social goods. However, social liberalism shares classical liberal concerns about the dangers of an over-mighty state. This approach underpins Liberal Democrat policy.     

The Revenue Impact of Repeated Tax Amnesties

Proponents argue that tax amnesties raise revenue both in the short and long run, by bringing former nonfilers back into the tax system. Opponents contend that amnesties produce little short‐run revenue and weaken incentives for long‐run tax compliance. However, over the last 21 years, 27 states offered tax amnesties for a second or third time. While previous research has estimated the impact of specific tax amnesties, none have estimated how the impact changes when offered repeatedly. We find that these additional tax amnesties generate less short‐run revenue than predecessors and tend to magnify revenue losses associated with disincentives for long‐run tax compliance.     

农村非政府组织与和谐社会的构建

改革开放以来,农村非政府组织获得了长足的发展,已经成为乡村社会重要的建设力量,也是和谐社会构建的一支生力军。总的来看,农村非政府组织作为一种制度化的形式在一定条件下能够控制冲突、化解矛盾、平衡各方的利益,通过协商对话达成一致,从而推动社会主义和谐社会的发展。不过,由于乡村社会环境的复杂性、农村非政府组织尚不成熟以及农村非政府组织与正式组织之间关系仍未理顺等原因,农村非政府组织对和谐社会的构建还会产生一些负面影响,应该引起我们特别的关注。     

The impact of child support enforcement policy on nonmarital childbearing

The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives that encourage unwed motherhood. This suggests that more stringent child support enforcement creates incentives that reduce the likelihood of nonmarital childbearing, particularly among women with a significant chance of needing public assistance in the event of a nonmarital birth and their male partners. We investigate this hypothesis with a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44 before marriage and during periods of non‐marriage following divorce or widowhood. The estimates indicate that women living in states with more effective child support enforcement are less likely to bear children when unmarried, especially if they are young, never‐married, or black. The findings suggest that improved child support enforcement may be a potent intervention for reducing nonmarital childbearing. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.