Quality challenger emergence under the top-two primary: Comparing one-party and two-party general election contests

Prior research finds that the emergence of a quality challenger is one of the most important factors predicting whether incumbents will be vulnerable. Reformers in California and Washington envisioned that the top-two primary reform would increase electoral competition by allowing for general election contests that feature two same-party candidates in safe districts. In this research note, I investigate the degree to which these expectations have been fulfilled by looking at the prevalence of quality challengers in U.S. House contests. I compare one-party and two-party general election contests, finding that incumbents are significantly more likely to face a quality challenger from the same party than from the opposite party, all else equal. In contrast, when both states used traditional primaries prior to reform, incumbents were no more likely to face a quality challenger in the primary election than in the general election. Findings reveal a key way in which the top-two primary may fulfill reformers’ expectations and complement our understanding of how electoral institutions condition challenger entry decisions.     

Back to the Future: The Pulling Apart of our Towns and Cities

Growing divisions between Britain’s towns and cities have created a dilemma for the Labour Party in seeking to represent very different parts of the country. There are some who argue that Labour must choose the global networked youth—who largely reside in cities—in order to maximise its electoral chances. This is an argument that defies electoral gravity and fails to address the root causes of the gulf between towns and cities. As jobs and investment have gone into cities, many towns have seen the local population age and local economies become unsustainable. In both towns and cities there is a clamour for power to move closer to home and for the renewal of democratic institutions, offering Labour the chance to win power and end the divisions that have come to characterise British politics.     

Les dockers dakarois. L’organisation du travail dans un port ouest-africain, 1910–1990s

This paper deals with the long-term evolution of dock labor in Dakar. Through the utilization of archival sources and their analysis, this investigation explores the changes that occurred in this sector and primarily the reform plan developed during the world wars but that was never introduced into the labor regulations, mainly due to the colonial regime. In addition, this paper studies the legal changes since the 1970s when the dockers’ statute was settled. Furthermore, this research uses oral testimony from retired Senegalese dockers to study the way these workers observed these structural changes. It is the first time that this topic has been explored for the port of Dakar from a historical long-term perspective.     

Aid and state-building,Part I: South Korea and Taiwan

Under what conditions does foreign aid in the aftermath of war foster state-building? This article argues that institutional legacy and continuity and the politics of aid may matter. In the aftermath of war, for an aid regime to reinforce state-building, it may need to ensure continuity in the strength of the state and to use recipient mechanisms and finance policies that generate a greater state capacity. The existence and continuity of a Weberian state may increase the likelihood of effective state-building. If the state is relatively strong, with a Weberian bureaucracy, aid can further reinforce it when aid is spent through national systems or is aligned with local priorities, with efforts to ensure that the recipient leaders reinforce state effectiveness by implementing policies that may require greater state capacity. Evidence for this argument is provided through pairwise comparison of state-building patterns between South Korea and Taiwan.     

Past as global trade governance prelude: reconfiguring debate about reform of the multilateral trading system

This paper peers backwards into the history of the multilateral trading system and its development over the past half century as a means of considering what may lie beyond the horizon for the future of global trade governance. Its purpose is to underscore the necessity and urgency for root-and-branch reform of the multilateral trading system. It achieves this by comparing and contrasting the global trading system of 50 years ago with its modern-day equivalent and its likely future counterpart half-a-century hence. In so doing, the paper throws into sharp relief not only the inadequacies of global trade governance today but also the damaging consequences of not fundamentally reforming the system in the near future, with a particular emphasis on the past, present and future development of the world’s poorest and most marginalised countries.     

论招录培养体制改革中的公安院校实践教学

公安院校招录培养体制改革试点工作已经正式启动。公安部试点工作文件中明确提出,应以培养和造就政治业务素质高,实战能力强的应用型、复合型专门人才为目标,更加注重专业特色和职业能力的培养。在公安院校招录培养体制改革背景下．公安教育工作者应该对公安院校的实践教学进行深入的思考。     

2030年可持续发展议程下“人的安全”及其治理

2030年可持续发展议程作为一项新的全球发展计划,其目标是构建免于恐惧和暴力的和平、公正、包容的社会,其核心是消除全球贫困与促进包容性发展,包括消除贫困、饥饿以及应对气候变化等内容。该议程的主体内容体现了联合国所倡导的“人的安全”理念,这一理念强调各种威胁的相互关联性,人的安全和人的发展是同一事物相辅相成的,这种治理观要求广泛借助联合国系统,并且顾及地方、国家、区域和国际范围内各级公私部门行为体的特点和资源,拓展一种由各种利益攸关方组成的综合框架,其内容涉及粮食安全、气候安全、环境安全、社会安全、反恐、移民等重要的传统与非传统安全议题。其中,气候变化、资源消耗、南北差距等问题是可持续发展难以实现的重要动因。上述安全议程同时体现了各种广泛的经济、社会和环境关联性。因此,建构全球“人的安全”治理机制需以联合国为核心,并形成多层治理、建构广泛的国际伙伴关系,以实现联合国所倡议的全球可持续和平愿景。     

Indonesia,the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community,and the contingent profile of regional ‘great-power management’

Why does Indonesia, whose regional leadership would seem to flow so obviously from its material and normative footprint, and whose role as primus inter pares is readily, if sometimes grudgingly, acknowledged by its peers, struggle to translate that position into an unambiguous, consistent, and effective regional presence? While there are many possible answers to this question, this article focuses on societal interpretations, arguing that such a role is exercised not in a vacuum, susceptible to measurement against a set of fixed criteria, but in the context of its respective region's unique and constantly evolving profile. Drawing on the English School's concept of institutions, and focusing on three areas within the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (migration, disaster preparedness, and the environment), the article argues that the paradox of Indonesia's powerful-but-not-powerful position reflects the kind of ‘great-power management’ that is to be expected in the restrictive context of regional international society, and is profoundly influenced by the uneven interplay of institutions embedded at different levels in the regional experience.     

The Reputational Impact of Investor-State Disputes

To what extent do alleged violations of international commitments damage state reputation? This article explore this question with specific reference to investor-state disputes arising under the protection of international investment agreements. Its main contributions are threefold. First, building on the political institutions literature, the study places the theoretical importance of information about the rules of the game, and the actions of the participants at the center of analysis. Second, in contrast to prior empirical research, the study systematically analyzes the costs of state involvement in investment treaty arbitration by examining all known disputes. Third, the study addresses the impact of investment disputes on both foreign investment flows and state reputational rankings. We show that the consequences of investment disputes vary with the transparency of the investor-state dispute settlement process. The central implication of these findings for the broader body of literature on international institutions is that reputational mechanisms for effective treaty enforcement cannot be taken as given but instead need to be explored on the basis of a nuanced approach that addresses the pivotal issues of institutional design and information costs.     

A Concurrent Analysis of Three Institutions that Transform Health Technology‐Based Ventures: Economic Policy,Capital Investment,and Market Approval

Drawing on institutional theory, this article articulates qualitative insights from a program of research on Canadian health technology‐based ventures to examine the rules that characterize economic policy, capital investment, and regulatory approval as well as the way these institutions enable and constrain the development of ventures at an early stage. Our findings clarify how economic policy integrates these ventures into the entrepreneurial domain, how capital investment configures them for economic value extraction, and how regulatory approval fully releases their market value. These findings help to revisit current policy modernization initiatives by calling attention to the convergence among the three institutions. Rather than operating solely as a source of constraints, these institutions provide a highly integrated market‐oriented space for health technology‐based entrepreneurial activities to unfold.