While some groups are discovering new opportunities in the shifting political and economic structures of the former Soviet Union, others are finding that their paths towards upward social mobility have become less clear or blocked. There are also growing regional differences in benefits and losses. Although privileges in the old system often translate into advantages in the new, a contracting economy and the redrawing of political boundaries are altering the social order.
The 1959 and 1970 published Soviet censuses list several hundred categories of occupations. Yet far more types of employment exist than are indicated by this number of categories. TheDictionary of Occupational Titlespublished by the U.S. Department of Labor, for example, is composed of approximately 20,000 jobs. The sparsity of categories in any census is a product of the lengthy process in which (1) specific questions regarding employment are designed; (2) respondents interpret the questions and either answer or fail to answer them; (3) answers are coded into specific occupational categories; and (4) these categories are selected and sometimes grouped together for the purpose of the actual census publications. The selection and grouping of categories are of primary concern since here, as at earlier stages, the potential exists for deliberate or inadvertent distortions and for the compromise of the detail and precision of the census.
Abstract This paper investigates strategic alliances in the nonprofit sector in the form of franchising. Using a dynamic model of local public goods with endogenous affiliation and splitting, we show that local organizations may choose to affiliate with the national organization for faster capital accumulation. Temporary alliance occurs when a local organization strategically affiliates with the national organization only to break away after accumulating enough capital. Alliance is more likely to arise and persist when the local chapter is smaller, when the local chapter's mission is closer to the national organization's, when the national organization is more efficient in production, and when the local chapter is more patient. Moreover, regulation that requires the local chapter to be affiliated with the national organization would be welfare reducing when the local chapter is large, when the local and national missions differ substantially, and when production at the national organization is inefficient.
Abstract This paper analyses the rise of radical movements and the design of counter-radicalisation policies. A group derives meaning from participation in identity-based activities and a forward-looking organisation provides a platform for these activities. The warning sign for radicalisation is cultural purification by the organisation, i.e., the screening out of moderates and exclusive recruitment of radicals. While this shrinks the club, it puts it on a growth path along which it becomes larger and more extreme over time. Conventional counter-radicalisation policies can backfire. The radicalisation mechanisms we identify can be disabled by mild anti-radical messaging and informational interventions that eliminate stereotypes.
There is a tendency here to assume that the market is new, that nations have emerged anew, that civil society has suddenly come about, that all of a sudden people are speaking their native languages and going to school in their native language. I would like to argue that this is not the case at all.