Institutional Change in Swiss Cantons: A Contribution to Describing and Explaining Institutional Reforms

Most accounts of Swiss federal institutions are unable to explain institutional change. In this contribution the authors trace change in Cantonal reforms and then use multivariate explanation models to account for institutional reforms such as New Public Management reforms. The multivariate analyses used rely on an “event count model” to explain the frequency of institutional reforms and a “binary response model” to explain why Cantons adopt New Public Management reforms. This research demonstrates that policy research as well as innovation and diffusion theories can contribute to explaining institutional reform.     

Reconsidering Peer Influences on Delinquency: Do Less Proximate Contacts Matter?

Much research on adolescent delinquency pivots on the notion of peer influence. The peer effect that is typically employed emphasizes the transmission of behaviors and attitudes between adolescents who are directly linked. In this paper, we argue that to rely solely on those direct social ties to capture peer influence oversimplifies the realities of adolescent society. We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to show that indirect peer relations can exercise independent influences on adolescent delinquency. Adolescents actively draw on the examples of friends of friends, and even more distal peers, as they develop their repertoires of action and identity. We argue, however, that this behavior actually reflects adolescents’ ongoing struggle to impress their closest friends and to preserve their social circle. Indeed, the extent to which adolescents are willing to model the behavior of indirect contacts seems to decline as that behavior becomes more dissimilar from that of their close friends. Our findings dovetail with an account of the adolescent as a rational actor who struggles for social acceptance in a complex peer environment which offers conflicting behavioral models.

The rank,stock, order and epidemic effects of technology adoption: an empirical study of bounce protection programs

Karshenas and Stoneman (RAND J Econ 24(4):503–528, 1993) gathered four theories of technology adoption: the rank, stock, order and epidemic effects. Tests of these four effects reveal support for rank and epidemic but not the stock or order effects. Since then numerous other studies have tried to find evidence in support of the stock and order effects. But evidence has been elusive, until now. Further, a survey by Frame and White (J Econ Lit 42:116–144, 2004) concludes that much more work is needed into financial innovation. This paper accomplishes three goals: (1) evidence is found to support certain technology adoption theories (the order effects and possibly the stock effects), (2) since the technology under consideration is a financial innovation called bounce protection, the paper answers Frame and White’s call for papers, and (3) refinements are made to the Karshenas and Stoneman methodology and found to be superior to the original empirical model.

经济中心城市的集聚与扩散规律研究

经济中心城市具有集聚和扩散这两种基本运动形式。它们遵循着三条基本规律,即经济中心城市的集聚和扩散力随着其综合实力的提高而增强（增强律）,随着运输费用的提高而衰减（衰减律）,并趋向生产力布局的优区位（指向律）,根据这三条基本规律,城市的引力公式应修改为：两城市之间的引力与城市的质量成正比,与运输费用的平方成反比。     

Protesting with the ballot: Diffusion of methods of electoral protest in Spain

This paper shows the pattern of diffusion of a tool of protest – blank and null voting (BNV)– in the context of Spanish national elections. It shows how the 2004 protest mobilization by Batasuna (a Basque nationalist party) predicts null voting by identifying the relationship of this form of protest with both the level of grievance of the population and the political resources of the mobilizers. The paper then demonstrates that this large and visible use of a protest tactic is followed by a heterogeneous diffusion process after the main mobilized protest event and beyond the supporters of the original mobilizer. In the 2008 national election, across Spain, citizens with grievances toward the political system and, most importantly, with political affinity with the initiators were the ones to update their individual protest repertoire with this electoral protest tool.     

Diffusion and adaptation: why even the Silicon Valley model is adapted as it diffuses to East Asia

Diffusion scholarship expects little adaptation of core elements of policy models. However, the empirical reality is different; diffusion of even highly regarded models, such as the Silicon Valley venture capital (VC) policy model, results in marked adaptation. This article demonstrates why the Silicon Valley VC model is necessarily adapted differently by policy-makers in the geographically, ethnically and economically proximate states of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. More specifically, these policy-makers' interventionist orientations, private sector financing preferences and international versus domestic firm promotion biases drive contextually rational – and unique – adaptations of the Silicon Valley VC policy model.     

针刺干预无先兆偏头痛患者的弥散张量成像研究

目的 通过弥散张量成像（diffusion tensor imaging,DTI）技术和纤维束自动定量分析（automated fiber quantification,AFQ）方法探讨无先兆偏头痛患者在针刺干预前后脑白质纤维的变化。方法 纳入无先兆偏头痛患者20例和健康受试者10例,无先兆偏头痛患者进行每周3次、连续4周的针刺干预,干预前后分别进行DTI和T1像扫描,健康受试者不针刺,仅进行1次核磁扫描。比较无先兆偏头痛患者针刺前后以及无先兆偏头痛患者和健康受试者基于AFQ方法的各向异性分数（fractional anisotropy,FA）值。结果 与健康受试者比较,无先兆偏头痛患者右皮质脊髓束、右上纵束部分节点FA值显著减弱（P＜0.05）;与针刺前比较,无先兆偏头痛患者头痛天数及头痛程度显著下降（P＜0.05）,头痛频率下降不显著,无先兆偏头痛患者右皮质脊髓束、右上纵束、左扣带回部分节点FA值显著增强（P＜0.05）。结论 无先兆偏头痛患者存在广泛白质纤维束受损,针刺能促进受损的脑白质纤维恢复。     

The Diffusion of Military Intervention: Testing a Network Position Approach

This study assesses the fruitfulness of applying network analysis to diffusion of interstate military conflict. Specifically, the network position approach is applied in a statistical analysis, using a new global dataset of interstate military interventions in conflict systems, 1945-1991. We find that the network position approach is consistently supported, whereas competing or complementary approaches are less empirically successful. The findings reported in the present study can be utilized to refine the results of previous studies. While these show that interstate conflict diffusion tends to occur among contiguous states, the network position approach is able to identify which of the contiguous states are most likely to become targets of diffusion.     

Empirical Modeling of Policy Diffusion in Federal States: The Dyadic Approach

Policy diffusion is a common phenomenon in federal states: indeed, one of the normative justifications of decentralized policy making is that it permits the development and spread of best practices. Following Berry and Berry (1990), event‐history analysis has been the method of choice for the quantitative investigation of policy diffusion, but Volden (2006) has recently introduced a dyadic variant of this method in which units of analysis are not states but, instead, pairs of states. This article discusses the dyadic approach with a particular focus on the diffusion of policies in Switzerland. The goal is not to introduce a new method, but rather to provide a practical overview for researchers interested in using it. The article shows how the method has migrated from the international relations literature to the policy‐diffusion literature, describes the typical structure of a dyadic dataset in a diffusion context, and discusses several modeling issues. The usefulness of the dyadic approach is illustrated empirically with the example of health‐insurance subsidy policies in Swiss cantons.     

Collegiate Executives and Direct Democracy in Switzerland and Uruguay: Similar Institutions,Opposite Political Goals,Distinct Results

Uruguay, defining itself as the “Switzerland of Latin America”, took the Swiss model (collegial executives and direct democracy) as an example when building its own political institutions. Despite the similarities of these institutions, the results were quite different due to the different context. The comparison between the institutions in these two isolated countries highlights the ways in which the same institutions may produce different results and evolve in distinctive ways. This is important to recognize as foreign models and experiences continue to inspire policies. Contrary to common arguments presented in the literature, even in such a “most likely case”, institutions cannot simply be copied. Institutional effects are context‐dependent and we need to pay attention to this interaction. This article provides new evidence showing that universalist institutional arguments can be misleading.