Suchergebnisse

In international negotiations governments defend national interests. What impact does a government's ideological position have on its negotiation position? Are international agreements more likely if negotiations are conducted by governments of similar ideological orientation? In this paper we argue that the analysis of a government's ideological composition ought to receive more attention in International Relations. We look at the party-political 'center of gravity' of the Council of the European Union & report the partisan composition of all EU-member states between 1957 & 2003. Furthermore, we examine how sympathetic left- & rightwing parties were towards integration & how homo- or heterogeneous the member states -- & therefore the intergovernmental EU bodies -- were during this time period. For this we use data from both expert surveys & the Comparative Manifesto Project. A detailed case study of the evolution of EU social policy since the Treaty of Rome complements & emphasizes our quantitative analysis. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The changing rhetoric underlying the conservative position on tax cuts is explored to argue that conservatives prioritize economic consequences to make their messages compatible with the rhetorical environment. A discussion of the role of rhetoric in politics highlights the framing, strategies, & development over time to argue for them as important areas of study in politics. Examination of the case of economic insecurity is related to a recasting of rhetoric by conservative intellectuals Alfred Jay Nock, Freidrich Hayek, & Milton Freidman in a reinterpretation of the works as responses to the threat of powerful states & centralization characterized by WWII, & extended further to address economic insecurity during the 1970s. Content analysis of conservative rhetoric in the National Review identifies a transition in 1973 that prefaced the increased use of supply-side economics & tax reduction. Conflicts inherent in the development of conservative rhetoric are concluded to be a valuable study of ideological conflict in American politics. J. Harwell

The flagrant incoherencies of both neoliberal & the increasingly influential Latin American neostructuralist ideas are explored in the domain of labor policies & labor/capital relations to argue that the decline in unemployment, poverty, & inequality predicted with deregulation is an explanative failure by both approaches. An overview of neoliberal & neostructuralist perspectives traces the construction of causal linkages between labor flexibility, poverty, & inequality. Comparative analysis of the two approaches to a radical political economy (RPE) perspective highlights the transference of costs of production & reproduction through the valorizationation of capital. Analysis of neoliberal predictions to outcomes of Latin American labor markets, & a case study of Chilean labor outcomes delineates the high levels of inequality in the region & the state. Analysis of Latin American labor markets from an RPE perspective is concluded to elucidate the failure of the mainstream paradigms to create opportunity, & the transformation engendered by the current forms of capitalist development in Latin America. Tables, References. J. Harwell

In the wake of the third wave of democratization, competitive authoritarianism has emerged as a prominent regime type. These regimes feature regular, competitive elections between a government & an opposition, but the incumbent leader or party typically resorts to coercion, intimidation, & fraud to attempt to ensure electoral victory. Despite the incumbent's reliance on unfair practices to stay in power, such elections occasionally result in what we call a "liberalizing electoral outcome" (LEO), which often leads to a new government that is considerably less authoritarian than its predecessor. Using a "nested" research design that employs both cross-national statistical analysis & a case study of Kenya, we seek to explain how & why LEOs occur. Our findings highlight in particular the importance of the choices made by opposition elites to form a strategic coalition for the purpose of mounting a credible challenge to the ruling party or candidate in national elections. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The fringe at the heart of the city : Introduction and discussion.
The notion of "fringe" addressed in this dossier raises methodological questions — the subject of the foreword by Philippe Hugon. In the introduction, Marie Morelle and Laeticia Laumonier lay out the analytic framework used to assemble the case studies, and put into perspective the contributions made by other social sciences towards defining connections between the fringes of society and the spatial fringe. But this position is worth discussing, as Frédéric Giraut and Michel Rochefort do, putting socio-economic power relationships back at the centre of the debate and highlighting the multi-layered imbrication of territorial realities and networking. Bruno Lautier then reminds us that other disciplines were first to use the term "fringe" and points to the ambiguities that result when these unacknowledged inherited meanings are applied to spatial phenomena in search of concepts. The six articles in the dossier complete the presentation.

The American population aged 65 years and older is growing rapidly, creating an increased demand for social workers. Reimbursement structures of Medicare and Medicaid present significant barriers for aging individuals seeking social work services as well as social workers wanting to provide services to the elderly. To build a case for the modification of these reimbursement structures, a review of studies of social work services in aging was conducted to (a) make explicit the current knowledge of the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these services, (b) identify current gaps in knowledge, (c) promote a research agenda to address the gaps, and (e) assure that the knowledge identified addresses payers'needs to understand the value of social work services in aging. The results indicate that social work interventions can have a positive impact on the health care costs, the use of health care services, and the quality of life of older Americans.

This study describes the development of a moral imagination (MI) scale. The data were obtained from 491 participants from various organizations. A 29-item Likert-type scale of moral imagination was constructed and shown to be free of socially desirable responses. Analyses of moral imagination suggest that three facets of moral imagination can be distinguished empirically as well as theoretically, namely reproductive, creative, and productive. Construct validity was evaluated by expert judges and, overall, was high. Validation data also included correlation with peer ratings. Furthermore, to explore the relation between moral imagination and actual behavior, a case study was conducted in which participants were asked questions to measure their capacity for moral imagination. The subjects who scored high on MI were judged to have a greater capacity than were the subjects who scored low. Empirically, the MI scale was shown to correlate with an internal locus of control, tolerance of ambiguity and empathy. This scale also correlated negatively with Machiavellianism.

AbstractThe integrated use of scenario planning and multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been advocated as a powerful combination for providing decision support in strategic decisions. Scenario planning helps decision makers in devising strategies and thinking about possible future scenarios; while MCDA can support an in‐depth performance evaluation of each strategy, as well as in the design of more robust and better options. One of the frameworks proposed recently, by Goodwin & Wright, suggests the use of scenario planning with multi‐attribute value theory, a mathematically simple, yet extensively researched and widely employed multi‐criteria method. However, so far, such framework has been presented only using hypothetical problems. In this paper, we describe two case studies where this approach was used to support real‐world strategic decisions. We discuss the challenges and limitations we encountered in applying it and suggest some possible improvements that could be made to such framework. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the 1970s & 1980s, migratory flows of Portuguese & luso-Africans from old Portuguese African colonies towards to Sao Paulo were the result of the pressures of difficult & complex African & Portuguese politics. Three very different cultural experiences were in play: that of the portuguese colony, the african context, & the Brazilian character of the destination, Sao Paulo. This paper explores the migrant's complex displacement experiences, the insertion of the migrant into the new context & the conflicts of identity that this migratory process entailed. We concentrate on the recent past, which has not been extensively researched. We use a method we call 'summarized life-histories', which seemed appropriate, as we didn't know what the immigrants would tell us. We present a number of specific cases to exemplify our analysis. Through them, we can see that memories refer to events, people & places from the three continents, through the conscious & unconscious construction of multiple identities.

"This paper explores the role of social capital and governance in rural development within Slovensky Raj National Park. Based on the theory of Common Pool Resources and Network Governance, the case study explores the external and internal influences on cooperation. Current decision making in the Park is still affected by post socialist relations. In particular inefficient institutional design and non-robust governance of the resources have resulted in over-exploitation of natural resources and treating common property as open-access. On one hand, evidence emerged on domination of interpersonal trust and failure of institutional design. These were found as barriers for the National Park to be viewed by various actors as an asset. On the other hand, municipal and tourism networks show that cooperation is gradually moving from being externally to internally driven, while displaying characteristics of bottom-up development. A hierarchical governance structure is thus slowly opening up, shifting towards networks." (author's abstract)

Analysts have claimed over the last years that the volatility of an asset is caused solely by the random arrival of new information about the future returns from the underlying asset. It is a common belief that volatility is of great importance in finance and it is one of the critical factors determining option prices and consequently driving option-trading strategies. This paper discusses an empirical option trading methodology based on efficient volatility direction forecasts. Although in most cases accurate volatility forecasts are hard to obtain, forecasting the direction is significantly easier. Increase in the directional accuracy leads to profitable investment strategies. The net gain is depended on the size of the changes as well; however successful volatility forecasts in terms of directional accuracy was found to be sufficient for positive results. In order to evaluate the proposed methodology weekly data from CAX40, DAX and the Greek FTSE/ASE 20 stock indices were used.