Governance reforms and public acceptance of regulatory decisions: Cross-national evidence from linked survey experiments on pesticides authorization in the European Union

Do governance reforms affect public acceptance of regulatory decisions, and if so, how? We tackled this critical but under-studied question through a pair of linked survey experiments on public attitudes toward the reform of European Union (EU) pesticides regulation among a representative sample of the adult population in six EU member states. We tested the expectation that citizens are more likely to accept a regulatory decision that runs counter to their prior policy preferences if it is taken under a procedure they support. We first conducted a conjoint experiment to study whether the specific design of decision-making procedures impacts public support for EU pesticide regulation. In a second linked experiment, we asked respondents whether farmers should be allowed to use glyphosate, the best known and most controversial pesticide. We then asked respondents if they would accept an authorization decision on glyphosate contrary to their prior expressed preference if it were taken under a decision-making procedure they supported. The results demonstrate that a regulatory decision-making procedure respondents support increases their willingness to accept a hypothetical authorization decision contrary to their prior expressed preference. Contrary to the findings of previous research, our study thus provides strong evidence that governance reforms supported by citizens can enhance acceptance of controversial regulatory decisions, even on politicized issues such as pesticides authorization.     

Recasting Intractable Policy Issues: The Wider Implications of The Netherlands Civil Aviation Controversy

The explosive growth of civil aviation is among the most difficult issues in transportation policy, and nowhere are the fundamental economic and environmental challenges it poses more apparent than in airport expansion. Conventional policy analyses have ineffectively handled these problems, characterized by uncertainty, complexity, and polarization. Increasingly, policy analysts and public managers depend on stakeholder involvement to recast intractable issues into a more tractable format. This article describes a method that supports this recasting process through analysis of stakeholders' policy arguments; and in so doing contributes to the increasing literature on recasting intractable policy issues and to the recent discussion of Q‐methodology in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. The method is applied in a policy analysis of the controversy over the expansion of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The analysis, which was under‐taken on behalf of the Dutch government and which has wider implications, leads to a new agenda for transportation policy by uncovering and addressing a fuller range of alternatives that move beyond the current polarization and allow the problem to be redefined more tractably. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Capital and the state system: a class act

This paper is set up as a critique of Alex Callinicos's Callinicos, Alex. 2007. Does capitalism need the state system?. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 20(4): 533–549. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] contribution, ‘Does capitalism need the state system?’ It challenges his understanding of the relationship between capitalism and the state system and the theory of imperialism, before presenting an alternative view that conceives the connection between capitalism and the state system as embodied in the formation of a transnational capitalist class holding power in an English-speaking, liberal Atlantic core or ‘heartland’, facing a series of ‘contender states’, which developed under state auspices. This constellation has to be analysed in its own right by applying the method of historical materialism to it, rather than confining that method to the analysis of capital and then bringing in state-centric International Relations. Today, the rise of China as the new contender illustrates how the combined process has evolved. The response to China comes from the larger constellation of the West and not just from the United States: the capitalist class acts to ensure the sovereignty of capital in the process.     

The Co-development of Friends’ Delinquency with Adolescents’ Delinquency and Short-term Mindsets: The Moderating Role of Co-Offending

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - The companions in crime hypothesis suggests that co-offending moderates the link between peer delinquency and adolescent delinquency. However, this hypothesis has...     

Trace DNA success rates relating to volume crime offences

In this study, 252 trace DNA samples (from handled surfaces) from 201 burglary, robbery and drugs cases were compiled to assess success rates and to interpret the value of trace DNA evidence in volume crime investigations. The average amount of DNA recovered from the trace DNA samples collected was 1.7 ng. Full or major (12 or more alleles) profiles were recovered from 14% of samples. Samples from firearms and burglary points of entry were the least successful. Mixtures were recovered from 21% of samples, presenting a case for the collection of more elimination profiles to enable more samples to be used for database purposes. The research highlighted the difficulties in collecting data relating to the success rates of samples. Computerised automation of this process would be extremely beneficial in the assistance of policy development, method application, training, and investigative usefulness.     

Preliminary trials of low volume AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus amplification using AmpliGrid (AG480F) slides

Low volume PCR using the AmpliGrid (480F) slide system can potentially enhance the generation of more complete profiles from trace samples, in addition to providing a more cost-effective alternative for typing standard samples. Based on our preliminary results, implementation will require a reasonable investment in optimisation and validation for the intended purpose.     

Agencies without borders: Explaining partner selection in the formation of transnational agreements between regulators

Transnational collaboration between regulatory agencies has proliferated rapidly within the last three decades. However, given that information regarding the motives, trustworthiness, and capabilities of potential partners is typically imperfect, decisions about with whom to collaborate are inevitably characterized by a degree of uncertainty. To better capture these dynamics, this article uses a network analytical perspective and hypothesizes that agencies are more likely to form agreements with agencies to whom they are already indirectly connected (transitivity), that are highly connected (preferential attachment), or with whom they share tie-characteristics (assortativity). To test these hypotheses, a stochastic actor-oriented model is used to analyze an original, self-coded data set in which bilateral information exchange agreements between national securities agencies (n = 143) are mapped out over a 18-year period. The results show that the formation of agreements between regulatory agencies is driven by (i) the number of shared partners (i.e. triadic closure); and (ii) similarity regarding agency characteristics (i.e. homophily).     

Demoted leaders and exiled candidates: Disentangling party and person in the voter’s mind

The debate on personalization in electoral politics is inconclusive. There is confusion about the concept of personalization. Moreover, the fact that party evaluation and person evaluation are interrelated complicates the debate. This paper focuses on the latter problem by employing counterfactual thought experiments in which voters are asked to simulate their vote with their candidate lower on the party list or nominated by another party. The results show that most voters put party above person and less than ten percent put person above party. A sizeable third category has a preference for an individual candidate as long as that candidate does not leave the party. Also, personalization is slightly more important with regard to (the leaders of) populist parties, and individual candidates are more important for voters with less education, less political knowledge and a less deeply rooted party preference.     

The Party Paradox: a Comment Nicolas van de Walle (Cornell) February 20, 2018

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes several stylized facts and implications concerning intra-party violence developed in the other articles of this special issue on intra-party violence in African electoral systems. It then turns more specifically to the implications of intra-party violence for democratic consolidation in the region, and argues that paradoxically, though parties are centrally important to democratic politics, the degree to which they are internally inclusive and participatory may not have much importance, or may indeed undermine democracy. Though they are perhaps the key actor on the path to a consolidated democracy, they tend to work best when they themselves are not internally democratic.