The politics and mythology of organized crime: A Philadelphia case-study

Although much criticized, the “Cosa Nostra” theory of organized crime continues to exert considerable influence over lawmakers and law enforcement officials. This theory has been extensively studied on a national level, but few local case studies trace the transition from the multiethnic organized crime of the 1930s and 1940s to the (supposed) Italian hegemony of the years since 1960. Philadelphia provides an excellent opportunity for such a study, as the base of a strong Jewish-dominated structure before 1960 and a “Mafia town” thereafter.A major concern of this article is the manner in which the history of crime in the city was retroactively rewritten during the 1970s, in order to provide a basis for contemporary theories and bureaucratic needs.     

Improvisation and Negotiation: Expecting the Unexpected

Negotiators must improvise. As the negotiations process unfolds, they work with new information, continually making decisions along the way to achieve favorable results. Skilled improvisational jazz musicians and actors perform in similar ways: they repeatedly practice song chord progressions and notes or scene guidelines before a performance; then, during the performance, they work with the information or the music they hear in order to react and respond, making decisions along the way to produce dazzling music or a compelling scene. In this article, two experts in negotiation, a jazz-improvisation scholar, a former member of an improvisational theater troupe, and a psychotherapist versed in therapeutic improvisational techniques explore the improvisational nature of negotiation.
Several aspects of negotiation are similar to improvisation. Both negotiators and improvisational performers need to have a similar mind-set to be successful, both need to recognize and/or change that mind-set at times, and both must craft creative solutions. But there are some significant differences between improvisational performance and negotiation practice, which this article also notes. For example, personal charisma ("star quality") is a common attribute of successful performers, but not something negotiators may always rely on. Similarly, improvisational artists usually work as a team, while a negotiator is often on his or her own. Nonetheless, the incorporation of improvisation techniques into the negotiation skills repertoire holds great promise for practicing negotiators and is a worthy topic of future negotiation research and teaching.     

Indigenous Rights,Resistance, and the Law: Lessons from a Guatemalan Mine

Using a case study of a controversial mine in an indigenous area of Guatemala, this article explores the transnational dynamics of development and regulation of large‐scale extractive industry projects in the developing world. It examines the roles played in the Marlin mine dispute by national law, international law, international financial institutions, and corporate social responsibility. It concludes that these legal regimes have a role in protecting human rights but have not addressed the fundamental questions of democratic governance raised by this case.     

China: Administrative Corruption — Experience in a Comparative Context

As a new world economy emerges what is being learned about the accompanying phenomenon of administrative corruption? To probe this question we combine study of current developments in China with prevailing theories of corruption. The administrative corruption experience, as it has unfolded during the economic development thrust of the Deng reform era, is described and analysed in a comparative context. In specifically interjecting the American experience we suggest that a balanced control response to corruption —rather than an elimination focus—could be a fruitful avenue for policy and research, and that informal, social approaches to corruption control are pregnant with possibilities. China's experience offers a significant opportunity to push the margin of wisdom on these issues as they relate to economic and political development.     

Do Candidates Matter? Constituency-specific Vote Changes for Incumbent MPs, 1983–1987

The assumption that candidates make a difference to electoral outcomes in British general elections is tested through a comparison of the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Incumbent's Constituency-specific Vote Change (ICVC) between the June 1983 and June 1987 British general elections is measured by subtracting the average regional vote change for the incumbent's party from the constituency vote change registered by the incumbent. Regression analysis finds ICVC to be most significantly influenced in both the Labour and Conservative parties by the incumbent's length of tenure, displayed especially in the higher ICVC registered by first-term incumbents than by more senior incumbents. Variables indicating the security or insecurity of the seat in electoral terms are significantly related to ICVC in the Conservative but not in the Labour case. The findings for Labour indicate ICVC to be greater where electoral security is greater. This finding might be explained by successful Conservative party concentration on constituencies in which Labour incumbents appear to be vulnerable.     

Partisanship and the party system

The defining properties of party identification long established for the United States fail with some frequency to be replicated in electoral systems abroad. A number of plausible suggestions have been made to account for this system-level variability: Most of these have some face merit, but none taken alone is adequate to provide a full cross-system explanation. Variation in party system size or fractionalization has recently been discussed as another source of differential dynamics of party loyalties. Unfortunately, the conventional means of assessing party identification properties are subject to rather severe artifacts, typically ignored, when comparisons are made across systems of very different party size. The conceptual stakes underlying key methods options for such comparisons—most notably, between continuous and discrete statistical tools—are examined. The use of continuous statistics for systems of very multiple parties rests on an assumption that voters do in some degree regard these party systems as imbedded in a continuous space. A simple test for this assumption is mounted in four systems and unsurprisingly it shows very clear support. Analysis of residuals beyond this obvious result add several points of less obvious information about the distribution of party affect in such systems.