Origins of party formation and new party success in advanced democracies

Which new parties entered national parliaments in advanced democracies over the last four decades and how did they perform after their national breakthrough? This article argues that distinguishing two types of party formation (that facilitate or complicate party institutionalisation) helps to explain why some entries flourish, while others vanish quickly from the national stage. New parties formed by individual entrepreneurs that cannot rely on ties to already organised groups are less likely to get reelected to parliament after breakthrough than rooted newcomers. This hypothesis is tested on a newly compiled dataset of new parties that entered parliaments in 17 advanced democracies from 1968 onwards. Applying multilevel analyses, the factors that shape newcomers' capacity to reenter parliament after breakthrough are assessed. Five factors have significant effects, yet affect party performance only in particular phases: both a party's electoral support at breakthrough and its operation in a system with a strong regional tier increase the likelihood of initial reelection. In contrast, a distinct programmatic profile, the permissiveness of the electoral system and easy access to free broadcasting increase a party's chance of repeated reelection. Only formation type significantly affects both phases and does so most strongly, substantiating the theoretical approach used in this article.     

Creating value through external intellectual property commercialization: a desorptive capacity view

In open innovation systems, capturing value through external intellectual property (IP) commercialization is an increasingly important strategy for firms to keep pace with competitive changes. However, many firms have major difficulties in creating value through external patent exploitation. To understand these challenges, this paper explores how firms manage their external patent exploitation based on a multiple case study research design with fourteen firms from the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Adopting a desorptive capacity perspective we find four main factors influencing the firms’ management of external patent exploitation: the type of value creation, the organizational structure, the locus of initiative, and the extent of know-how transfer along with the patent. Based on these factors, three archetypes of external patent exploitation with different levels of desorptive capacity are identified. The article extends the concept of desorptive capacity and existing literature on intellectual property management in the context of open innovation. Managerial implications helping firms to implement external IP commercialization structures are discussed.     

Recent Supreme Court of Canada rulings on criminal defendants' right to counsel

The Supreme Court of Canada recently issued a trilogy of decisions pertaining to suspects' right to legal representation. These rulings further a major difference between the US and Canadian law: Canadian criminal suspects have far less access to legal counsel than suspects in the USA. This paper summarizes these decisions and draws comparisons between Canadian and the US criminal procedure with respect to a suspect's rights to legal representation. We present preliminary data on Canadian citizens' misunderstanding of criminal suspects' right to counsel and also Canadian legal professionals' opinions about the right to counsel. We recommend empirical investigation of the hypothesis that Canadian suspects are more likely than the US suspects to make false confessions.     

Business as a Collaborative Partner: Understanding Firms’ Sociopolitical Support for Policy Formation

While many scholars have discussed the merits of collaborative governance, especially for addressing complicated modern policy challenges, the literature has paid less attention to how business can serve as an effective collaborative partner during the formation of mandatory policies and regulations. Drawing on scholarship in the management sciences and combining it with literature in public administration and public policy, the authors elaborate on four distinct types of business responses to proposed regulations based on degrees of political activity and social responsiveness: defensive, reactive, proactive, and anticipatory. They then characterize the reasons why proactive firms are more likely to be valuable collaborative partners with policy makers and public managers: their engagement may avoid costly stalemates that frequently hinder policy making and help develop cost‐effective, flexible policy approaches to complex social problems.     

Restoring Responsibility: Promoting Justice, Therapy and Reform Through Direct Brain Interventions

Direct brain intervention based mental capacity restoration techniques—for instance, psycho-active drugs—are sometimes used in criminal cases to promote the aims of justice. For instance, they might be used to restore a person’s competence to stand trial in order to assess the degree of their responsibility for what they did, or to restore their competence for punishment so that we can hold them responsible for it. Some also suggest that such interventions might be used for therapy or reform in criminal legal contexts—i.e. to make non-responsible and irresponsible people more responsible. However, I argue that such interventions may at least sometimes fail to promote these responsibility-related legal aims. This is because responsibility hinges on other factors than just what mental capacities a person has—in particular, it also hinges on such things as authenticity, personal identity, and mental capacity ownership—and some ways of restoring mental capacity may adversely affect these other factors. Put one way, my claim is that what might suffice for the restoration of competence need not necessarily suffice for the restoration of responsibility, or, put another way, that although responsibility indeed tracks mental capacity it may not always track restored mental capacities.     

Living in the World of Online Shopping

正In a span of less than three months, I’ve amassed a fairly impressive portfolio of things I’ve purchased online. Going from a complete newb on the Chinese Internet to an online shopping maven, I’ve bought things ranging from clothes, cellphone cases, wine, ribbons, a humidifier, stickers, coffee filters, pans,butter, sugar, facial wash, film, an air purifier…the list goes on.     

Barriers to the operation of mental health legislation in Australian emergency departments: a qualitative analysis

This study aimed to describe the perceived barriers faced by emergency clinicians in utilising mental health legislation in Australian hospital emergency departments. A semi-structured interview methodology was used to assess what barriers emergency department doctors and nurses perceive in the operation of mental health legislation. Key findings from the interview data were drawn in accordance with the most commonly represented themes. A total of 36 interviews were conducted with 20 members of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and 16 members of the College for Emergency Nursing Australasia representing the various Australian jurisdictions. Most concerning to clinicians were the effects of access block and overcrowding on the appropriate use of mental health legislation, and the substandard medical care that mental health patients received as a result of long periods in the emergency department. Many respondents were concerned about the lack of applicability of mental health legislation to the emergency department environment, variation in legislation between States and Territories causing problems for clinicians working interstate, and a lack of knowledge and training in mental health legislation. Many felt that clarification of legislative issues around duty of care and intoxicated or violent patients was required. The authors conclude that access block has detrimental effects on emergency mental health care as it does in other areas of emergency medicine. Consideration should be given to uniform national mental health legislation to better serve the needs of people with mental health emergencies.     

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE COURT‐AFFILIATED DIVORCING PARENTS EDUCATION PROGRAMS? A META‐ANALYTIC STUDY

In this meta‐analytic study, we looked at all empirical studies that examined the effectiveness of court‐affiliated divorcing parents education programs (DPEs). Overall, we found that DPEs were generally effective. Nineteen studies with a DPE treatment group and no‐treatment control group had an overall significant moderate positive effect (d= .39); those who participated in DPEs were about 50% better off in terms of program outcomes compared to those who did not participate. The studies examined five specific outcomes: co‐parenting conflict, parent‐child relationships, child well‐being, parent well‐being, and relitigation; with most of these specific outcomes we found significant moderate effects ranging from d= .19–.61. However, there were important methodological limitations in this body of research, which are discussed. While more research is needed to confirm the positive potential of DPEs, we probably know enough to justify continuing and even increasing support for this recent social policy innovation.     

“I Got Your Back”: Friends’ Understandings Regarding College Student Spring Break Behavior

Behaviors that pose threats to safety and health, including binge drinking and unprotected sex, increase during a week-long break from university. Understandings with peers regarding these behaviors may be important for predicting behavior and related harms. College students (N = 651; 48% men) reported having understandings with their friends regarding alcohol use (59%) and sexual behavior (45%) during Spring Break. These understandings were to engage in behaviors characterized by risk (e.g., get drunk [23.5%], have sex with someone new [5.2%]) and protection (e.g., drink without getting drunk [17.8%], use condoms [15.8%]). After controlling for previous semester behavior and going on a Spring Break trip, Get Drunk Understandings predicted a greater likelihood of binge drinking and alcohol-related consequences; No/Safe Sex Understandings predicted condom use; and Sex Understandings predicted not using condoms. Understandings with friends regarding Spring Break behavior may be important proximal predictors of risk behaviors and represent potential targets for event-specific prevention.     

Iran and the SCO: The Quest For Legitimacy and Regime Preservation

At the 2021 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, the Russian- and Chinese-led bloc announced the approval of Iran's longstanding bid for membership. Iran has viewed its involvement in the organization as a means of bolstering external legitimacy, fostering security-oriented regionalism, and promoting the transition toward the so-called multipolar world order. The SCO has served as a regime-preservation network by providing Iran with a source of solidarity against external pressure. Tehran's commitment to the normative order, sustained by the SCO's discourse of noninterference, sovereignty, and countering the “three evils”—terrorism, extremism, and separatism—has galvanized the organization's role as a common front against the imposition of liberal norms and challenges to regime security.