协商民主的优势与作用

协商民主不仅充分体现了中国社会主义民主政治的特色,而且是我们党深化政治体制改革的有力措施。协商民主有助于改进党的领导方式和执政方式;有助于拓展公民有序政治参与的渠道;有助于国家治理体系和治理能力现代化。推进中国特色社会主义民主政治的发展,必须发挥协商民主的优势和作用。     

Influence of eco-product innovation and firm reputation on corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A mediation-moderation analysis

Eco-product innovation is a response to environmental legislation and social responsibility movements. Established agricultural manufacturers must figure out how to use green ideas and reputation to compete for business excellence. This study adopted a knowledge-based approach to examine corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage. This study also examined how eco-product innovation and reputation affect firms' competitive advantage. The proposed model was tested on 427 Nigerian agro-allied manufacturers using causal pathways and structural equation modeling. Business competition is directly and indirectly affected by corporate social responsibility, eco-product innovations, and firm reputation. Additionally, eco-product innovation partially mediated the nexus between corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage, while reputation moderated the influence of eco-product innovation. The findings suggest that manufacturers pursuing green initiatives should strive to participate in an eco-friendly competition and deal with policy pressures in order to meet environmental standards. Overall, this study adds the environment and business competition to the idea of innovation.     

A second chance elsewhere. Estimating the effect of winning (vs. being the runner-up) on future electoral prospects

The effect of being the winner (vs. being the runner-up) on winning subsequent elections has been estimated across a series of countries using regression discontinuity design. We contribute to this literature by incorporating politicians who move across constituencies. The US and the UK are our case studies. UK–US differences are not apparent when comparing estimates of the individual incumbency advantage, i.e., winning the same office in the same constituency. UK–US differences in the career advantage of winning office are almost entirely driven by the ability of the UK’s close-race runners-up to win elsewhere subsequently. Runners-up are more likely to move to safer seats. Marginal winners become locked-in to their seat. In the US, we observe negligible movement across constituencies.     

Does the early bird always get the worm? First round advantages and second round victories in Latin America

Runoff systems allow for a reversion of the first-round result: the most voted candidate in the first round may end up losing the election in the second. But do voters take advantage of this opportunity? Or does winning the first round increase the probability of winning the second? We investigate this question with data from presidential elections since 1945, as well as subnational elections in Latin America. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that being the most voted candidate in the first round has a substantial positive effect on the probability of winning the second round in mayoral races – especially in Brazil –, but in presidential and gubernatorial elections the effect is negative, though not statistically significant at conventional levels. The positive effect in municipal races is much stronger when the top-two placed candidates are ideologically close – and thus harder to distinguish for voters – but weakens considerably and becomes insignificant when the election is polarized. We attribute these differences to the disparate informational environment prevailing in local vs. higher-level races.