Breaching the levee,waiting for the flood. Testing beliefs about the internationalization of securities markets

Abstract

In the 1970s and 1980s, the three major securities markets in New York, London, and Tokyo underwent significant regulatory shifts that lowered national barriers to entry and liberalized the markets. Popular explanations point toward technologies, economic efficiencies, foreign policy pressures, the removal of controls on international capital flows, or international competition as unleashing forces promoting liberalization and breaching the regulatory levees. Such explanations generate expectations about behavior once the international pressures are unleashed. Significant changes in overseas participants' market behavior should be observable. International competitive pressures should produce convergence in regulatory and transaction costs across markets upon one of two equilibriums—one by competitive deregulations or another by harmonization through agreement. Empirical tests produce results inconsistent with such expectations. Foreign participation does increase following the breach in the regulatory levees, but the unleashed demand cannot be described as a flood. Observable measures of market dynamics and transaction costs remain distinctive. The inconsistencies between results and expectations raise questions about explanations that emphasize increasing interdependence and international pressures as driving domestic political and economic changes.     

The role of symbolic politics in exceptional crime policy debate: a study of the 2014 Swedish general election

Symbolic politics are often considered to be closely linked to an alarmist rhetoric, as well as to punitive crime policy initiatives. This article explores the symbolic dimension of the Swedish crime policy debate. Since Sweden is frequently depicted as an antithesis to punitive Anglophone societies, exploring symbolic politics in this setting might expand our understanding of what symbolic statements may consist of. The article analyses the electoral campaign preceding the Swedish general election of 2014, with the aim of identifying which symbolic statements occupy a central position in the debate through the use of a qualitative content analysis. This analysis reveals an ambiguous political rhetoric, comprising morally and emotionally charged condemnatory statements about getting tough on crime, as well as reformist and restrained references to expert knowledge and long-term solutions. On the one hand, these reformist statements strengthen the image of Swedish crime policy as being based on ideals such as rationality and humanity. On the other, they also serve to legitimize and obscure penal expansion.     

论巴特勒小说《家族》中的历史书写和政治隐喻

美国科幻小说家奥克塔维娅?巴特勒的《家族》融科学幻想小说、新奴隶叙事与历史书写小说于一炉,以穿越的形式向人们展示了奴隶制的罪恶,引发对美国现实种族关系、两性关系的思考。小说通过新奴隶叙事的形式再现了不可再现之过去,通过科幻小说的形式言说了黑人无法言说之创痛。其历史书写隐喻着美国黑人和白人割不断的历史渊源和共生关系这一美国国族寓言。《家族》表明,黑白血脉相连,其历史经历交织,黑白的许多经历是共同体验的结果。为了避免历史重演,黑人和白人必须在历史记忆和重访过去中了解历史真相,并对美国当下语境下自由的概念和美国黑人乃至美国整个国族的整体命运加以关注与思考。     

政治隐喻和文本矛盾：重读《芭巴拉少校》

萧伯纳的代表作《芭巴拉少校》具有高度政治隐喻性质,它暗中回答了19世纪以来马修?阿诺德等文人和学者热衷于探讨的一个重大社会问题：未来的英国由谁来统治？安德谢夫家族企业的继承人问题,本质上是未来英国统治阶级的人选问题。作为工业资产阶级的典型代表,安德谢夫无往而不胜,各个方面取得了成功。然而,令他（萧伯纳）始料未及的是,他所选中的库森斯不可能是一个合格的接班人,因为,历代安德谢夫所秉持的传统足以表明,像库森斯这种中产阶级出身、缺少“狼性”的人文知识分子是无法承担起英国工业资本主义的历史使命的,19世纪末以来的英国工业资本主义发展史已经证明了这一点。就此而言,可以说,萧伯纳在无意中写出了英国资本主义当时暗含的重大危机：工业精神的衰落。     

“Regulation,I presume?” said the robot – Towards an iterative regulatory process for robot governance

This article envisions an iterative regulatory process for robot governance. In the article, we argue that what lacks in robot governance is actually a backstep mechanism that can coordinate and align robot and regulatory developers. In order to solve that problem, we present a theoretical model that represents a step forward in the coordination and alignment of robot and regulatory development. Our work builds on previous literature, and explores modes of alignment and iteration towards greater closeness in the nexus between research and development (R&D) and regulatory appraisal and channeling of robotics’ development. To illustrate practical challenges and solutions, we explore different examples of (related) types of communication processes between robot developers and regulatory bodies. These examples help illuminate the lack of formalization of the policymaking process, and the loss of time and resources that the waste of knowledge generated for future robot governance instruments implies. We argue that initiatives that fail to formalize the communication process between different actors and that propose the mere creation of coordinating agencies risk being seriously ineffective. We propose an iterative regulatory process for robot governance, which combines the use of an ex ante robot impact assessment for legal/ethical appraisal, and evaluation settings as data generators, and an ex post legislative evaluation instrument that eases the revision, modification and update of the normative instrument. In all, the model breathes the concept of creating dynamic evidence-based policies that can serve as temporary benchmark for future and/or new uses or robot developments. Our contribution seeks to provide a thoughtful proposal that avoids the current mismatch between existing governmental approaches and what is needed for effective ethical/legal oversight, in the hope that this will inform the policy debate and set the scene for further research.     

Doubling Down: Inequality in Responsiveness and the Policy Preferences of Elected Officials

Is bias in responsiveness to constituents conditional on the policy preferences of elected officials? The scholarly conventional wisdom is that constituency groups who do not receive policy representation still obtain some level of responsiveness by legislators outside of the policy realm. In contrast, we present a theory of preference‐induced responsiveness bias where constituency responsiveness by legislators is associated with legislator policy preferences. Elected officials who favor laws that could disproportionately impact minority groups are also less likely to engage in nonpolicy responsiveness to minority groups. We conducted a field experiment in 28 US legislative chambers. Legislators were randomly assigned to receive messages from Latino and white constituents. If legislators supported voter identification laws, Latino constituents were less likely to receive constituency communications from their legislators. There are significant implications regarding fairness in the democratic process when elected officials fail to represent disadvantaged constituency groups in both policy and nonpolicy realms.     

Nothing personal: explaining the rise and decline of political machines in Ukraine

This article is the first to explore and compare the dynamics of party-building between the three main political forces that competed for power during the last decade in Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine), Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Viktor Yanukovych's Partiya Rehioniv (Party of Regions). We show that their political trajectories can be explained by differences in their organizational structure and distribution of resources within the party's leadership. When a party depends on resources linked primarily to one individual, it will develop a personalized decision-making structure advantaging its leader, and the party's fortunes will be tied to the popularity (or lack of same) of the leader. By contrast, when a party relies equally on resources from several groups, a more consociational style of decision-making is likely to emerge. Using Ukraine as a case study, the article shows that personality-led parties will be more vulnerable to defections and less capable of absorbing potential competitors. On the other hand, coalition-led parties are better capable of surviving defeats, maintaining internal cohesion, and merging with like-minded parties.     

From the ruble zone to the euro zone: the political economy of Estonian macroeconomic policy

This article analyzes Estonian macroeconomic policy since the country regained independence in 1991. Estonia was the first post-communist country to introduce a currency board in 1992, and consecutive governments have systematically prioritized macroeconomic stability and fiscal prudence. Estonia implemented an internal devaluation in 2008–2009, which enabled it to become the first post-Soviet republic to adopt the euro in 2011. This article explores the origins of the currency board and shows how institutions, interests, and ideas have contributed to Estonian exceptionalism in macroeconomic policy and to euro adoption. It demonstrates that the Estonian experience can shed light on the political prerequisites of internal devaluations, which may be of great relevance both to current and future Central and Eastern European euro area members.     

Laissez-faire versus Strict Control of Political Finance: Hegemonic Parties and Developmental States in Malaysia and Singapore

ABSTRACT

This article compares the financing of political parties and candidates in two Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia, some political finance regulations exist only on paper, and political financing is for the most part not restrained at all. In contrast, the financing of candidates and parties has always been tightly circumscribed in Singapore. These different strategies, “laissez-faire” versus “strict control,” are the consequence of various factors. In Malaysia, the New Economic Policy has effected a close, often economically unproductive linkage between the state, the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, and business. The rise of businesspeople has resulted in the commercialization of competition within (the United Malays National Organisation. Additionally, increasing competition between the ruling coalition and the opposition has resulted in growing expenditures for electioneering in the form of advertisements and electoral patronage. The laissez-faire style of regulation has been compounded by the difficult-to-control practices in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), where vote buying, electoral patronage based on the largesse of oligarchs, and obvious nonobservance of the rules have been typical. In contrast to Malaysia as a whole, the costs for parties and candidates are still relatively low in Singapore. As a cadre party, the PAP (People's Action Party) is relatively autonomous from private business interests, and intraparty competition is not commercialized; the developmentalist state is highly productive, and the ties between the state, the PAP, and business are not characterized by cronyism. Moreover, electioneering is not very commercialized because the opposition is still relatively weak.