The economic approach to political behavior: Governors,bureaucrats, and cost commissions

Cost control commissions provide two primary types of recommendations: widespread benefits-widespread costs and widespread benefits-narrow costs. Both types of recommendations are not of the form predicted by the standard economic models of political behavior. The paper explores why governors sanction these commissions and the types of recommendations governors will accept. Legislators use the maxim of concentrate benefits-spread costs to maximize votes. Governors, however, face a lower return to concentrated benefit policies and a lower cost from concentrated cost policies. This leads a governor to favor at the margin, policies which have widespread benefit-widespread cost or widespread benefit-concentrated cost. Evidence from 5 state cost control commissions support the difference between the politicians. The cost control commissions sanctioned by governors have proposed recommendations of the widespread benefit-widespread cost and widespread benefit-concentrated cost form. Governors accepted approximately two-thirds of the widespread benefit-concentrated cost proposals, although they were more likely to accept recommendations of the widespread benefit-widespread cost nature. Recommendations which required legislative approval saw a lower likelihood of acceptance. This is consistent with the view that legislators prefer concentrated to widespread benefit recommendations. qu][The politician's] favorite strategy is to create a commission to study a problem and make recommendations that may then be used as political cover. Call it government by commission.     

Supreme Court Ruling Creates More Standing Room in the Already Heated Global Greenhouse Gas Movement

This article reviews the recent April 2, 2007 Supreme Court decision in the Massachusetts v. EPA, a highly important case regarding greenhouse gases. The case centered on the Court's review of EPA's denial of a petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. The Court required EPA to reconsider its denial. The Court found that. 1) the petitioners have standing to challenge EPA's denial of their petition; 2) the Court has the authority to review the denial of the petition; and 3) the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. This article looks specifically at the Court's analysis of standing and jurisdiction by Justice Stevens, who wrote the Court's majority opinion, and two dissenting opinions by Justices Roberts and Scalia. Most interesting is how the closely divided Justices (5 to 4 decision) viewed, very differently, the issues regarding standing, the evidence that emissions from new motor vehicles are causing global warming and harm to Massachusetts, and the agency's judgment in denying the petition. Lastly, the article speculates on the impact of the decision and the current activities taking place at the state and regulated community level involving future regulation, litigation, and opportunities by various companies and coalitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The article then presents five broad areas where companies that emit greenhouse gases should need to maintain or increase awareness to better position themselves in the global greenhouse gas movement.     

Psychological factors influencing religious congregation members’ reporting of alleged sexual abuse

ABSTRACT

The sexual abuse of children within religious institutions has become a topic of increasing public concern in recent decades. However, to date there has been little in the way of psychological analyses of the processes by which congregation members judge the credibility of alleged abuses, or whether they would intend to report such allegations to the police. In this study, we examined the roles of ingroup identity, moral foundations, and social dominance orientation on reporting intentions and allegation credibility assessments among Church of England congregation members (n?=?454) and non-religious controls (n?=?457). While there were few predictors of reporting intentions, we found that churchgoers were consistently more sceptical of allegations of abuse, with these trends being differentially moderated by ingroup identification, the endorsement of various moral impulses, and anti-egalitarianism. We discuss our data in light of ongoing attempts to improve reporting procedures within the Church.     

Stipends in Volunteer Civic Service: Inclusion,Retention, and Volunteer Benefits

What is the role of stipends as an institutional facilitator in volunteer civic service? By examining the relationship of stipend receipt to volunteer diversity, time commitment, and perceived benefits from a longitudinal study of older adults serving in Experience Corps, this article assesses stipend status relative to volunteer sociodemographic characteristics, motivations, intensity and duration of time served, and volunteers’ self‐reported benefits. The findings underscore how stipends may promote participant diversity. In particular, stipended older adult volunteers serve for longer periods of time, but their motivations for serving do not differ. Stipended volunteers report higher perceived benefits than nonstipended volunteers. The results suggest that stipends may leverage wider inclusion, increase retention, and contribute to other benefits, but additional research is needed using more controlled and comparative designs.     

Birds of a Feather Fight Together: Status-Enhancing Violence,Social Distance and the Emergence of Homogenous Gangs

Objectives

This study proposes a theoretical framework for understanding two empirical findings from gang research: (1) gangs are generally racially homogenous, even in heterogeneous environments, and (2) gang violence tends to be intra-racial. We draw from the extensive literature on street gangs as well as from research on group formation and status-enhancing behavior to develop a theoretical model of gang formation.

Methods

Using game theory, we model the simultaneous decisions of individuals to commit status-enhancing acts of violence and to seek protection by joining a gang. We then conduct computer simulations to examine the resulting patterns of violence and gang composition.

Results

We demonstrate that as long as some social distance exists between racial groups in a community, gang violence will be intra-racial and gangs will be homogenous. We find that our results are robust to a number of simple variations of the model and allow us to generate several hypotheses about the nature of gang formation and patterns of violence.

Conclusions

When violence is motivated by socially constructed rewards, socially closer targets are likely to yield greater rewards. In such a system, individuals must reduce their likelihood of victimization by entering a social contract of non-violence (i.e. gang membership) with individuals who might view them as status-enhancing targets (i.e. socially close individuals). The result is that gangs are made up of socially close individuals interested in attacking other socially close individuals. Therefore, gangs tend to be racially homogenous and violence is overwhelmingly intra-racial.

     

Book reviews

Martin McCauley and Stephen Carter, eds., Leadership and Succession in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1986. xiii, 256 pp.

Murray Yanowitch, Work in the Soviet Union: Attitudes and Issues. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1985. 196 pp.

Elizbieta Szczepanik, Republiki Azji Sródkowej. Oblicze gospodarczo‐spolteczne. Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk, 1983. 310 pp.

David Berger, ed., The Legacy of Jewish Migration: 1881 and Its Impact, Social Science Monographs‐Brooklyn College Press: 1983. 187 pp.

Janka Kupala andJakub Kolas in the West: Bibliography. Vitaut Kipel and Zora Kipel, compilers., New York: Belorussian Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1985. 350 pp.

Borys Lewytzkyj, Politics and Society in Soviet Ukraine, 19531980. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1984. 219 pp.

James E. Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation; National Communism in Soviet Ukraine, 1918–1933. Cambridge, Mass. Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., 1983. 334 pp.

Taras Hunczak, ed., Ukraine and Poland in Documents, 1918–1920. Parts 1 and 2. New York ‐ Paris ‐ Sydney ‐Toronto: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1983. 456 pp., 468 pp.

David Saunders, The Ukrainian Impact on Russian Culture; 1750–1850. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1985. 415 pp.

J[urij] Bojko‐Blochyn, ed., Ukrainische Romantik and Neuromantik vor dent Hintergrund der europäischen Literatur: Symposium der Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München und der Weltvereinigung der ukrainischen Exilschriftsteller, Literaturwissenschaftler und Kritiker “Slovo” am 11. und 12. Januar 1983. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1985. 152 pp.

Stephan M. Horak, The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1985. 373 pp.

Stephan M. Horak, ed., Eastern European National Minorities 1919–1980: A Handbook. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1985. 353 pp.

Bela K. Kiraly ed., East Central European Society and War in the Era of Revolutions, 1775–1865. New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1984. 651 pp.

Steven L. Sampson, National Integration through Socialist Planning. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1984. 352 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1984.

The Birth of Solidarity: The Gdansk Negotiations, 1980, translated and introduced by A. Kemp‐Welch. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.

Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination, 1964–1983. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 247 pp.

Paul Bödy, Joseph Eötvös and The Modernization of Hungary, 1849–1870. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, CLXXIV, 1985. 134 pp. 2nd revised edition.