The enduring influence of electoral systems: investigating Green parties’ attention to local issues in parliament

Scholars argue that members of parliament (MPs) in first-past-the-post (FPTP) systems have stronger incentives to cater to their electoral district than those in proportional representation (PR) types. Yet, few studies have explored whether MPs in PR systems or MPs from small parties engage local issues in general. I build new theory and explore its support through a case study that compares Green party behaviour in an FPTP system (the UK) to a PR system (New Zealand). Results show that MPs focus on local issues in both systems, but the distribution of attention varies in ways consistent with differing electoral incentives.     

House or home? Constituent preferences over legislator effort allocation

In many political systems legislators face a fundamental trade‐off between allocating effort to constituency service and to national policy‐making activities, respectively. How do voters want their elected representatives to solve this trade‐off? This article provides new insights into this question by developing a conjoint analysis approach to estimating voters’ preferences over their legislator's effort allocation. This approach is applied in Britain, where it is found that effort allocation has a significant effect on voter evaluations of legislators, even in a political system where other legislator attributes – in particular, party affiliation – might be expected to predominate. This effect is nonlinear, with voters generally preferring a moderate balance of constituency and national policy work. Preferences over legislator effort allocation are not well‐explained by self‐interest or more broadly by instrumental considerations. They are, however, associated with voters’ local‐cosmopolitan orientation, suggesting that heuristic reasoning based on underlying social dispositions may be more important in determining preferences over representative activities.     

日本家庭牧场农牧业纵横一体化规模经营启示

目前家庭养殖业面临成本高、风险大、产品质量要求高,以及污染物处理难等问题。所以,需要创新养殖业规模化经营模式。文章通过对日本北海道家庭牧场经营模式的调查分析,得出结论为:农牧业纵横一体化是家庭牧场经营的一种有效而理想的模式,该模式横向一体化是指以饲料饲草和肥料为纽带的种养业结合经营,纵向一体化是家庭牧场与加工企业、服务组织等联结的模式。并提出对策建议:引导农牧业经营主体采用横向一体化经营模式;鼓励农牧业经营主体采用纵向一体化经营模式;完善农牧业纵横一体化经营机制。     

Police Enforcement of Domestic Violence Laws: Supervisory Control or Officer Prerogatives?

Police officers are afforded a high degree of discretion in the exercise of their authority, and the control of this discretion is an important issue. While it is assumed that individual officer attitudes and preferences shape their discretionary activity, these officers are also members of a paramilitary organization with leaders over them. The present study explored the influence of both officer attitudes and management influences to explain variation in officer domestic violence arrest rates. Hierarchical linear modeling was used with a sample of 311 patrol officers and 61 supervisors from 23 municipal police agencies across multiple states. Unlike much of the previous literature, the results revealed that officer occupational attitudes had no effect on this particular officer work behavior. Management influences (such as rewards and written policies) significantly influenced officers’ domestic violence arrest behavior. The findings emphasize the complexity involved in the control of officer discretion.     

电视新闻隐性采访的权利冲突

电视新闻隐性采访在发挥其强大的舆论监督功能的同时也带来了法律上的权利冲突,对这些权利冲突我们不仅应作一般性的价值理性意义的衡量,还应从社会经济效率出发作经济学意义上的量化利益均衡。     

刑法经济分析方法思辨

本文从经济学的角度 ,研究刑法中刑罚、犯罪的成本与效益的关系、探求怎样用有限的刑罚资源 ,发挥最优的刑罚威慑效果 ,从而达到以最少的刑罚资源达到最优的社会效益。     

Putting a price on drugs: An economic sociological study of price formation in illegal drug markets

Prices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers’ perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral economics and cultural analysis to demonstrate how participants in illicit drug distribution base their pricing decisions on institutional context, social networks, and drug market cultures. We find that dealers take institutional constraints into consideration and search for niches with high earnings and low risks. The use of transactions embedded in social networks promotes a trusting form of governance, which enables strategic network management and expedient distribution but also uncompetitive pricing. Finally, dealers’ pricing decisions are embedded in three different cultures narratives: business, friendship, and street cultural stories, with widely varying implications for prices. Our findings demonstrate how an economic sociology of illicit drug distribution can extend insights from behavioral economics and cultural studies into a coherent criminology of illegal drug markets.     

Acculturation and fear of crime among Hispanics

Fear of crime has attracted significant attention in academic research. One area that has largely been overlooked concerns fear of crime correlates among Hispanics, the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Their unique cultural background as immigrants make them different from Non-Hispanic Whites and African Americans, and they all go through the acculturation process to some degree. However, the influence of acculturation has seldom been incorporated into the analysis. The current study attempts to use the acculturation thesis to examine two different types of fear among Hispanic residents in Houston, Texas. The findings suggest that acculturation is a significant predictor of crime-specific fear at home, but not of fear of crime in the neighborhood.     

内部控制制度与经济犯罪的信息经济学分析

在现代组织中广泛存在的委托代理关系可能诱发经济犯罪的产生,而内部控制制度因其自身特点可以监督和约束代理人的行为而抑制经济犯罪的发生。根据内部控制制度的目标要素和实施标准,从信息经济学角度分析,内部控制制度与经济犯罪有必然的因果联系,对症下药,要完善内部控制制度。