The changing dynamics of policy experiment in Singapore: does the 2011 general election make a difference?

The city-state of Singapore is proactive in harnessing policy experimentation to incubate innovations, transfer knowledge and facilitate collaborations across different public sectors. Given the country’s strong knack for pragmatism, international practices and lessons are usually first tested and adapted in policy experiments before scaling up to nationwide policies. Singapore’s practice of policy experimentation, however, has also demonstrated evolution over time. This article reviews the evolving role of experimentation in Singapore’s policy decision-making and implementation, and analyses pilot programmes in public housing to elicit the key attributes and commonalities of its policy experiments. It finds that policy experiments have been increasingly used after the 2011 general election, which witnessed a radical political rebalancing in Singapore’s governance history. Pilot projects have thus transformed from a utilitarian to citizen-centric, design-thinking approach after 2011. Pilot programmes are used for multiple purposes in policy innovations, among which civil service mentoring, knowledge transfer and cross-boundary collaboration are the values primarily pursued. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to the literature and policy implications for practitioners.     

Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders,or: ISIS,Sovereignty, and the “Owl of Minerva”

This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extremism in the Middle East. The article argues that ISIS builds citizenship in two ways: first, by developing asabiyya—group feeling—among Sunni and second, by securitizing the Shi'a threat. Identifying and engaging with the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship helps to develop much stronger policy responses.     

Seal the Deal: Bargaining Positions,Institutional Design,and the Duration of Preferential Trade Negotiations

Multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization have stalled. This has contributed to a steep rise in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). At the same time, negotiations for PTAs have not always proven quick and painless: While some treaties are sealed within a few months or days only, other agreements are preceded by protracted bargaining processes in trade and trade-related issue areas. In this article, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical variation. More specifically, we argue that PTA negotiations take longer the greater the distance between the prospective partners’ initial bargaining positions. Moreover, we contend that negotiation processes become more protracted the higher the relative ambition of the prospective PTA. Due to the limited links to the domestic political arena in autocracies, we expect this latter effect to play out for groups of democratic bargaining partners only. We test these two hypotheses for 198 preferential trade negotiations using novel measures for bargaining templates and the ambition of PTA clauses. In our two-stage survival models, we find support for our argument. In line with qualitative evidence from recent preferential trade initiatives, our models indicate that services, investment and intellectual property rights are particularly sticky agenda items for democratic leaders at the international bargaining table.     

Is there a selection bias in roll call votes? Evidence from the European Parliament

We examine the magnitude and significance of selection bias in roll call votes. Prior to 2009, all recorded (roll call) votes in the European Parliament had to be requested explicitly by European Political Groups. Since 2009, a roll call vote has been mandatory on all final legislative votes. We exploit that change in the rules and compare differences between final legislative votes, amendment votes and non-legislative votes before and after 2009, using a difference-in-differences approach with extensive controls. Using data from the Sixth (2004–2009) to Seventh (2009–2014) European Parliaments, we fail to find any large differences in voting cohesion for the main political groups. We find even less significance when we control for changes in parliamentary membership between those two periods. The results suggest that selection biases in the European Parliament associated with strategic choices are negligible.     

Associations of Participation in Service Activities with Academic, Behavioral, and Civic Outcomes of Adolescents at Varying Risk Levels

Youth who participate in service activities differ from those who do not on a number of key demographic characteristics like socio-economic status and other indicators of risk; and most studies demonstrating positive outcomes among service participants employ small non-representative samples. Thus, there is little evidence as to whether the outcomes associated with service participation are similar among students with varying levels of risk. The National Household Education Survey of 1999, a large nationally representative cross-sectional data set that focused on community service, was analyzed to investigate associations between the risk status of 4,306 adolescent students (50.2% female; 63.3% European American, M age?=?15.9), their participation in community service, and their academic adjustment, behavioral problems, and civic knowledge. Because adolescents who participate in service differ from those who do not with respect to demographic characteristics, propensity score analyses were used to correct for potential selection bias in the examination of these relationships. Analyses tested competing theoretical models of service??protective versus compensatory??among students at varying levels of risk, and suggested that service acts as a compensatory factor with respect to academic, behavioral, and civic outcomes. Propensity score analyses revealed patterns suggesting that, in some cases, students with certain demographic profiles that are themselves related to the likelihood of service participation may benefit from service participation more than others. Findings are discussed in terms of their significance for adolescent development, for planning service programs, and for educational policy.     

Survival Strategies of Widows in Dijon during the French Revolution

When people talk about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a little, exaggerate, become confused, and get things wrong. Yet they are revealing truths … the guiding principle for [life histories] could be that all autobiographical memory is true: it is up to the interpreter to discover in which sense, where, and for what purpose. (Passerini Passerini and Luisa. 1989. “Women's Personal Narratives: Myths, Experiences, and Emotions”. In Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives. Eds. Personal Narrative Group and Joy Webster Barbre 197Bloomington: Indiana, UP Print [Google Scholar] 197)