Political Ideology,Political Party,and Support for Greater Federal Spending on Environmental Protection in the United States: Evidence from the General Social Surveys, 1993–2018

This paper focuses on the effects of political ideology and party affiliation on support for more government spending on environmental protection. Pooled‐sample results show that Liberals (Democrats) are more likely to support higher government spending on environmental protection than Moderates (Independents), who, in turn, are more likely to support higher spending levels than Conservatives (Republicans). The results persist even when we control for respondents' opinions concerning whether the federal government, in general, does too little or too much. When stratifying by party, ideological divisions generally narrow, while stratifying by ideology leads to slightly wider divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Together, these results suggest that when Liberals and Conservatives form opinions about government spending on the environment, party affiliation, to some degree, dampens the effects of ideology. Between 2014 and 2018 the probability of supporting more environmental spending increased, albeit slightly, for all ideologies and parties, but more so for Liberals and Democrats.     

What determines preferences for an electoral system? Evidence from a binding referendum

Public Choice - Much has been written about politicians’ preferences for electoral systems, yet little is known about the preferences of voters. In 1993, New Zealand had a binding electoral...     

“Moral Panics” Deflected: The Failed Legislative Response to Canada’s Safety Crimes and Markets Fraud Legislation

This paper critically examines the enforcement, or lack thereof, of criminal laws relating to corporate crime. Using Canada's recently enacted corporate criminal liability (safety crimes) and markets fraud legislation as its empirical focus, it seeks to explain why these laws were introduced, only to fall into a state of virtual disuse. The authors explain how, in the wake of yet another crisis in capitalism, the state felt compelled to enact criminal laws to offset the abuses of corporate power in these two arenas. However, despite promises to 'get tough' on corporate crime, the enforcement of both laws has been sporadic and, in many respects, non-existent. The authors argue that both the passage and the ineffectiveness of Canada's safety crimes and markets fraud legislation can be traced to their shared Keynesian origins as responses to a crisis in neoclassical economics. In essence, both laws are caught-up in a tug-of-war between two opposing yet not incompatible visions of how best to regulate the capitalist marketplace. As a result, even if some corporations and corporate actors are held to legal account, the underlying causes of corporate crime, including the class-based exploitation that is fundamental to capitalism, remain untouched. The authors conclude by arguing for enforcement of corporate crime laws that recognizes the limits of this struggle and the necessity to stave-off capitalism's endemic harms.     

Net loss: A cost‐benefit analysis of the Canadian Pacific salmon fishery

This article applies cost‐benefit analysis to the Canadian Pacific commercial salmon fishery. It demonstrates that government policies to preserve the fishery have resulted in higher net social costs than would have resulted from a "do nothing" policy, notwithstanding the rent dissipation associated with unconstrained resource exploitation. The value of landings and the private costs of the harvest over a cycle (1988‐1994) are calculated. On average, fishers extracted rents of C$34.7 million (in constant 1995 Canadian dollars) annually. The public costs of enhancing the resource and organizing and policing the harvest are estimated. When these costs are included in the calculation, net benefits drop to an average of negative C$55.6 million annually. This translates into a net present value (NPV) of the salmon fishery of negative C$784. The effects on NPV of both modest policy changes implemented in 1996‐1997 and of a more dramatic but credible fleet rationalization program are provided. The results indicate that further policy change is called for. More generally, the study shows that policy reform that would significantly benefit both the private sector (through reduced rent dissipation) and the public sector (through reduced government expenditures) can be surprisingly difficult. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Socially responsible legal aid in Belgian society: time for a thorough rethink?

The legal aid movement started from the notion of social action. Today, legal aid constitutes a highly commodified field that continues to be dominated by jurists and lawyers. For this reason, the kind of critical reflection that already exists in social work is also required in relation to the notion of legal aid as envisaged by the legal aid movement. Justiciable problems necessarily manifest themselves in a social context. An evolving community, faced with increasingly complex issues, demands a multidisciplinary approach, as it becomes clear that the traditionally deterministic view of professions ought to be abandoned. A ‘socially responsible legal aid system’ therefore presupposes that various disciplines should mutually influence one another. Hence, the jurist and the social worker should not only work side by side, but they should also collaborate and mutually enhance one another's activities and approaches. There is a need for an overarching holistic approach that can reassert the legitimacy of legal aid. Looking at legal aid services in Belgium, one may conclude that a critical reflexive attitude on the part of current legal aid providers is crucial for attaining an effective socially responsible legal aid practice that stretches across the boundaries of different professional groups.     

The English protoindustrial family: old and new perspectives

English research on protoindustrial communities in general and the protoindustrial family in particular has fallen somewhat behind that in many continental countries. Constrained by inadequate sources and a historiographical literature that has constantly placed the small and simple nuclear unit at the heart of English residential arrangements, English historians have often seen the protoindustrial family as little different in form and function from those to be observed in rural areas or market towns. This article uses sources generated by the English poor law to offer different perspectives. Focusing on Lancashire, as the protoindustrial phase of its development began to truly break down in the early 19th century, the article suggests that the English protoindustrial family was volatile in form and size and that the nature of underlying protoindustrial demography and the communal welfare system provided a powerful impetus to a process that saw the constant redistribution of kin between related households. It concludes that in Lancashire the expectation among protoindustrial families must have been volatility and that complex families rather than simple nuclear families have long held the English imagination.     

The discourse of 19th-century French liberal socialism

ABSTRACT

This article analyses late 19th-century French liberal socialist syntheses of liberty and equality, building on the existing body of literature on liberal socialism to illustrate the influence of the non-Marxist left on its development through a focus on the work of the Radical, Célestin Bouglé, and the Socialists, Benoît Malon and Charles Andler. The analysis of these thinkers demonstrates the ideological similarities of liberal socialisms of thinkers hailing from both the non-Marxist left and the new liberalism. A concluding section suggests that liberal socialism offers social democrats and progressive liberals an ideological heritage from which to pose a radical alternative to contemporary forms of neoliberalism.     

‘Reading the ads in al-Daʿwa magazine: commercialism and Islamist activism in al-Sadat’s Egypt’

ABSTRACT

This article probes the return of the Muslim Brotherhood to prominence in 1970s Egypt through a systematic analysis of advertisements in the organization’s flagship periodical, al-Da?wa (The Call). In every issue of the magazine, which was published between June 1976 and October 1981, entreaties to proper conduct and appeals to Islamic solidarity appeared alongside advertisements for everything from Pepsi to breakfast biscuits to automobiles. We utilize the methodological insights of social and cultural historians to the value of advertisements to cast new light on the reconstruction of the Brotherhood, its relationship with the diverse institutions comprising the Egyptian state, and on how the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision of piety both reflected and challenged a changing economic reality. Moving beyond a story of the Brotherhood’s return as a product of independent Islamist enterprise that had emerged due to both the Gulf oil boom and Egypt’s economic liberalization programme, significant public sector advertising in al-Da?wa, especially prominent across the most valuable advertising real estate, underscores both internal divisions within the Egyptian state as well as the tangible ways that various state institutions were patrons of religious change.