France faced with terrorism

Abstract

France is an interesting laboratory for studying terrorism, or antiterrorism, not because extreme violence has been committed on a large scale as in Lebanon, but because, faced with diverse terrorist actions over a short period, France has worked out and considerably modified a policy for dealing with terrorism. The subject herein is not terrorism but the official response to it, namely counterterrorist policy and actions.     

Financial systems,corporate control and capital accumulation

The rise of financial markets, backed by the revolution in information technology,has been one of the pillars of the new economy. Asset price inflation, financed by debt, has now become the driving force in capital accumulation and equity-linked markets for corporate control have significant effects on both corporate strategic management and the growth of the business sector. This paper develops a model to study these relationships. One component of the new circumstances is that an active market for control forces firms to boost their share price in response to the threat of take-over and, to maintain a minimum return on equity, they have to distribute dividends or buy back shares. As a consequence, the share of profits dedicated to financing internal growth is reduced, corporations increase their indebtedness and thereby become constrained by banks. The interplay of these multi-dimensional pressures delivers a straightforward, but nonetheless important lesson: everything else being equal, the more active the market for control, the lower the growth rate.     

Shareholder value and corporate governance: some tricky questions

Shareholder value is not a new idea. But it entails a shift in control over businesses with far-reaching macro-economic consequences. They are mostly apparent in the USA. The required financial return spurs a momentous equity price appreciation which discourages private saving. Meanwhile, the achievement of a financial profitability consistently above the economic rate of return on real capital induces a rising leverage cum share buybacks. The financial dynamic is highly procyclical and generates a financial fragility which questions the hypothetical advantage of private pension funds over pay-as-you-go retirement systems.     

Non-profit and Community-based Green Space Production in Milwaukee: Maintaining a Counter-weight within Neo-liberal Urban Environmental Governance

This paper examines the rise of civic participation, a feature of neo-liberal privatisation, in the context of Milwaukee's urban green space management. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews and archival research, it presents the argument that civic organisations are not just ‘neo-liberal artifacts’ that facilitate trends of privatisation and commodification of and state retrenchment from urban environmental resources. Utilising a range of strategies, they simultaneously resist those trends, often ameliorating the socio-environmentally destructive effects of neo-liberal processes. Highlighting some of these strategies, this paper suggests that different kinds of non-profit organisations intersect with neo-liberalism differently to provide a variety of enabling opportunities for counter-neoliberalism.     

Migrants' remittances and economic voting in the Mexican countryside

This study advances and tests hypotheses about the effects of migrants' remittances on political behavior. Analyzing new survey data from Mexico, I find that despite being very poor, respondents who receive remittances tend to view their income as more stable than neighbors who do not receive this money. As a result, remittance recipients have relatively fewer economic grievances and tend to feel more optimistic about economic matters than neighbors who do not receive remittances. According to the economic voter thesis, citizens who are more satisfied with the economy are also less likely to pressure and oppose politicians, particularly incumbents. Analyses indicate that respondents in this sample who receive remittances are indeed less likely to lobby local officials for economic assistance. They were also less likely to mobilize against and punish the incumbent party in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.     

Fiscal Rules and the Composition of Government Expenditures in OECD Countries

Since the 1990s many OECD countries have adopted fiscal rules. After the adoption of these rules, the ratio of social transfers to government consumption substantially declined, and it recovered following the global economic crisis. Using a sample of 22 OECD countries, we found a negative effect of fiscal rules on the ratio of social transfers to government consumption. This finding implies that fiscal rules are effective, but not necessarily binding. Our examination reveals that the negative effect of fiscal rules on the social transfers to government consumption ratio is particularly evident in countries with relatively weak legal protection to social rights.     

The Inclusion of Nonsafety Criteria within the Regulatory Framework of Agricultural Biotechnology: Exploring Factors that Are Likely to Influence Policy Transfer

Policy makers of various countries are exposed to critiques that call for the consideration of issues that transcend human, animal, and environmental safety concerns when assessing agricultural biotechnology products. While some jurisdictions have decided to broaden the scope of their approval process for genetically modified (GM) foods, this paper analyzes legal, political, and economic factors that can influence the transfer of these initiatives. Drawing on mechanisms presented in the policy transfer literature, this article examines their mixed effects pertaining to the regulation of biotechnology. Although the mechanisms of competition and coercion do not preclude such a possibility, one must admit that they do not create any incentives for policy makers to include nonsafety criteria within biotechnology regulations. By contrast, to varying degrees, the mechanisms of mimicry and learning can foster the transfer of such a broadened scope that allows a better assessment of GM foods' social acceptability.