bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of signalling. It then argues that the relation of signalling theory to philosophy is epistemology, because it deals with selection, transmission, and processing of information. It is philosophy of (proto)-language. It addresses cooperation and collective action — issues that usually reside in social and political philosophy.
3 Information
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This chapter shows that information is carried by signals. It flows through signaling networks that not only transmit it, but also filter, combine, and process it in various ways. We can investigate the flow of information using a framework of generalized signaling games. The dynamics of evolution and learning in these games illuminate the creation and flow of information.
8 Learning in Lewis Signaling Games
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This chapter argues that we can and do learn to signal. We are not the only species able to do this, although others may not do it so well. The real question is what is required to be able to learn to signal. Or, better, what kind of learning is capable of spontaneously generating signaling? If the learning somehow has the signaling system preprogramed in, then learning to signal is not very interesting. If the learning mechanism is general purpose and low level, learning to signal is quite interesting.
9 Generalizing Signaling Games: Synonyms, Bottlenecks, Category Formation
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a model of signaling with invention of new signals. It maintains the assumption that in all contingencies sender and receiver get the same payoff. But even where sender and receiver continue to have pure common interest, relaxing the strict assumptions on payoffs imposed so far may lead to new phenomena.
12 Complex Signals and Compositionality
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This chapter focuses on an earlier point in the evolution of signaling. It considers how one might come to have — in the most primitive way — a complex signal composed of simple signals. This is done with the smallest departure possible from signaling models that have been previously examined in this book.
14 Learning to Network
Authors: Skyrms Brian
Published: May 2010

This chapter introduces a low-rationality probe and adjust dynamics to approximate higher rationality learning in the basic Bala–Goyal models. Both best response dynamics and probe and adjust learned networks that reinforcement learning did not. In general, probe and adjust learns a network structure if best response with inertia does.
Origins of Objectivity
Authors: Burge Tyler
Published: May 2010

This book presents a study of what it is for individuals to represent the physical world with the most primitive sort of objectivity. By reflecting on the science of perception and related psychological and biological sciences, it gives an account of constitutive conditions for perceiving the physical world, and thus aims to locate origins of representational mind. The book illuminates several long-standing, central issues in philosophy, and provides a wide-ranging account of relations between human and animal psychologies.
6 Neo‐Kantian Individual Representationalism: Strawson and Evans
Authors: Burge Tyler
Published: May 2010

This chapter focuses on one strand of 20th-century neo-Kantianism. It begins with some brief remarks about Kant. It then discusses second-family neo-Kantian Individual Representationalism in Strawson and Evans. Strawson's work produced a train of variants on neo-Kantian Individual Representationalism. He developed four main themes primarily within his project of accounting for our conception of objectivity. Because Strawson blurred lines between that project and the project of accounting for constitutive conditions on objective representation, many post-Strawsonian philosophers, like Evans, developed Strawsonian themes within this latter project without serious argument.
10 Origins of Some Representational Categories
Authors: Burge Tyler
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses some relatively basic sorts of perceptual attribution: body, numerosity, spatial relations, and temporal relations. It elaborates accounts of constitutive conditions for having each of these four types of representation. It also discusses the form and content of these types, and whether each type is constitutive to perceptual representation. These accounts further develop the notions perception and representation.
The Achievement of Constitutionalism and its Prospects in a Changed World
Authors: Grimm Dieter
Published: May 2010

This chapter provides an overview of the achievements of constitutionalism, and outlines its central elements of democracy, limited government, and the principle of the rule of law. It argues that the achievements of constitutionalism are tied to an acknowledgement of its constitutive conditions — the boundary distinctions between public and private, and between internal and external. For this reason, to the extent that statehood is being eroded as a result of the blurring of these boundaries, then constitutionalism must be seen to be in decline. Internationalisation is opening up a gap between the exercise of public power and its modes of legitimation which constitutionalism is unable to close. Constitutionalism, in short, cannot be reconstructed on the international level.
The Morphogenesis of Constitutionalism
Authors: Prandini Riccardo
Published: May 2010

This chapter argues that it is possible and necessary to talk about processes of constitutional morphogenesis. Morphogenesis is a socio-cultural cycle, whereby a given institutional and cultural structure gives rise — through cultural and structural interactions activated by societal actors — to new forms (morphogenesis) or which maintains the old ones (morphostasis). This process is contingent upon a plurality of variables, with nothing to be taken for granted. It is theorized that at the centre of this process there are two connected problems: the recognition of a real polity, and its self-governance framed in a constitutional way.
Introduction
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes how the essays in this volume illustrate the author's general views about the nature and function of criminal theory. It identifies and defends the many themes that run throughout the articles. Together, the essays present a desert-based analysis of issues in the philosophy of criminal law that resists the consequentialist approach more familiar among legal scholars.
Does Criminal Liability Require an Act?
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

This chapter argues against the claim that criminal liability is and ought to be imposed only for an act. No persuasive argument for this claim has yet been given. As an alternative, it suggests that criminal liability is and ought to be imposed only for states of affairs over which persons exercise a sufficient degree of control. It explores the advantages of this alternative principle for the justifiability of status criminality and the punishment of mental states.
Motive and Criminal Liability
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this chapter argues that the motive of the defendant is and ought to be relevant to his criminal liability. It attempts to show that motives are important to liability according to any philosophically plausible conception of the nature of motives. It discusses several respects in which motives are relevant to the substantive criminal law and traces some normative implications of the author's thesis.
The Nature and Justifiability of Nonconsummate Offenses
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

This chapter shows that an offense is consummate if the conduct it proscribes causes harm on each occasion on which it is performed. The paradigm, ‘core’ examples of crimes in any jurisdiction, satisfies this description. But some offenses proscribe conduct that does not cause harm on each occasion in which it is performed. Such offenses are called nonconsummate (or anticipatory or inchoate). Statutes that proscribe drug possession are examples of nonconsummate offenses. The chapter tries to make some headway in identifying the moral limits of the criminal law in creating and enforcing nonconsummate offenses.
Willful Ignorance, Knowledge, and the ‘Equal Culpability’ Thesis: A Study of the Deeper Significance of the Principle of Legality
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

This chapter examines the significance of the principle of legality in the context of the phenomenon of willful ignorance (or blindness). It begins by describing the culpable state of willful ignorance. It contends that some (but not all) willfully ignorant defendants are liable despite their failure to satisfy the mens rea requirement of the statutes for which they are convicted. After considering whether the culpability of such defendants is equal to that of persons who act knowingly, the chapter discusses the limitations of proposed statutory solutions to the problem of willful ignorance. It concludes by defending an approach to this problem that the author contends is preferable to alternatives.
Malum Prohibitum and Retributivism
Authors: Husak Douglas
Published: May 2010

Familiar attempts to justify the punishment of criminals often presuppose that they have committed a malum in se offense. This chapter critically investigates what might justify punishing persons who commit a malum prohibitum offense — a crime that is not wrongful prior to and independent of law. It considers and rejects various attempts to justify the punishment of persons who commit different kinds of mala prohibita offenses. If no justification succeeds in given cases, the enforcement of a great many penal laws may result in unjustified punishments.
4 Life Satisfaction
Authors: Kapteyn Arie , Smith James P. , Arthur van Soest
Published: May 2010

This chapter analyzes the determinants of global life satisfaction in two countries (The Netherlands and the U.S.), by using both self-reports and responses to a battery of vignette questions. This chapter finds global life satisfaction of happiness is well-described by four domains: job or daily activities, social contacts and family, health, and income. Among the four domains, social contacts and family have the highest impact on global life satisfaction, followed by job and daily activities and health. Income has the lowest impact. As in other work, the chapter finds that American response styles differ from the Dutch in that Americans are more likely to use the extremes of the scale (either very satisfied or very dissatisfied) than the Dutch, who are more inclined to stay in the middle of the scale. Although for both Americans and the Dutch, income is the least important determinant of global life satisfaction, it is more important in the U.S. than in The Netherlands. Indeed life satisfaction varies substantially more with income in the U.S. than in The Netherlands.
8 Happiness Adaptation to Income Beyond “Basic Needs”
Authors: Di Tella Rafael , MacCulloch Robert
Published: May 2010

This chapter tests for whether, once “basic needs” are satisfied, there is happiness adaptation to further gains in income using three data sets. Individual German Panel Data from 1985-2000, and data on the well-being of over 600,000 people in a panel of European countries from 1975-2002, shows different patterns of adaptation to income across the rich and poor. This chapter finds evidence that for wealthy Germans, and for the rich half of European nations, higher levels of per capita income don’t buy greater happiness. The reason appears to be adaptation. However even for the rich half of European nations such habituation may take over 5 years so the happiness gains that they experience, whilst not permanent, can still be relatively long-lasting. Finally the chapter studies a cross section of nations in 2005 from the World Gallup Poll and find that the past 45 years of economic growth (from 1960-2005) in the rich half of nations has not brought happiness gains above those that were already in place once the 1960s standard of living had been achieved. However in the poorest half of nations the null hypothesis cannot be rejected that the happiness gains they have experienced from the past 45 years of growth have been the same as the gains that they experienced from growth prior to the 1960s.
9 The Easterlin and Other Paradoxes: Why Both Sides of the Debate May Be Correct
Authors: Graham Carol , Chattopadhyay Soumya , Picon Mario
Published: May 2010

Research on the economics of happiness has raised a new debate on the relationship between happiness and income. Easterlin’s original work highlighted an apparent paradox: as countries grew materially wealthier — and healthier — over time, average happiness levels did not increase. A number of studies since then confirmed the general direction of his findings. Yet some recent papers, based on new data, find a stronger relationship between average per capita income and happiness levels, and question whether the paradox exists at all. This chapter shows how the steepness of the slope in the income-happiness relationship depends to a large extent on the particular question that is used; on the sample of countries and time frame selected; on the specification of the income variable; and on the rate of economic growth in addition to income levels. This chapter also highlights three related phenomena: the paradox of unhappy growth; happy peasants and frustrated achievers; and the paradox of low aspirations.
10 International Evidence on the Social Context of Well-Being
Authors: Helliwell John F. , Barrington-Leigh Chris , Harris Anthony , Huang Haifang
Published: May 2010

This chapter uses the first three waves of the Gallup World Poll to investigate differences across countries, cultures, and regions in the factors linked to life satisfaction, paying special attention to the social context. The principal findings are: First, using the larger pooled sample, the chapter finds that answers to the satisfaction with life and Cantril ladder questions provide consistent views of what constitutes a good life, with an average of the two measures providing a clearer picture than either measure on its own. Second, this chapter finds strong evidence for the importance of both income and social context variables in explaining within-country and international differences in well-being. For most specifications tested, the combined effects of a few measures of the social and institutional context are as large as those of income in explaining both international and intra-national differences in life satisfaction. Third, the very significant influences of both income and social factors permit the calculation of compensating differentials for social factors. We find very large income-equivalent values for key measures of the social context. Fourth, the international similarity of the estimated equations suggests that the large international differences in average life evaluations are not due to different approaches to the meaning of a good life, but to differing social, institutional, and economic life circumstances.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Authors: Cerny Philip G.
Published: May 2010

This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the primary theme of the book, which is that the fundamental underpinnings of world politics are being transformed in a globalizing world. It then discusses domestic politics and international relations in the study of political science; plurality, pluralism, and political theory; social conflict, stability, and globalization; and interest groups and the globalization process. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
Chapter 3 Space, Territory, and Functional Differentiation
Authors: Cerny Philip G.
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a reinterpretation of the way we understand the history and development of different forms of bordering and stratification, of territorial enclosure and the opening of crosscutting spaces, in this complex world; in particular, the relationship between social, economic and political processes, on the one hand, and geographical conceptions of space and territory on the other. The increasing interlinking and interpenetration of “horizontal” forms of social stratification, economic markets, and political structures, increasingly problematizes that traditional “container” of political systems and processes, the nation-state; not doing away with the state, but enmeshing it in expanding webs of social, political, and economic identities, patterns of behavior, and political action that transform its role and function in the wider transnational and global context.
Chapter 4 Reconfiguring Power in a Globalizing World
Authors: Cerny Philip G.
Published: May 2010

This chapter identifies a range of ways in which the character of power itself is being transformed by globalization. Today, the international system is undergoing a fundamental process of structural change that is transforming the way power is conceived, shaped, built up, organized, and used. This process of the reconfiguration of power increasingly cuts across state borders and is embedded in new but still embryonic forms of global governance, reflecting the sort of “higher” normative values that domestic actors have always pursued at home, shaped by transnational interests and global civil society rather than interstate conflict, organized through transnational and transgovernmental networks rather than unified foreign policy elites and military command structures, and informed by a growing sense that the use of force is becoming increasingly counterproductive in an international system characterized by complex interdependence; and, indeed, that international power must be increasingly civilianized and domesticated to be both effective and legitimate in a globalizing world. Given the increasingly counterproductive and delegitimized character of power in a globalizing world, transnational actors linked across borders are not merely taking advantage of new permissive conditions but are driving further change, both proactively and in feedback fashion.
Chapter 10 Some Pitfalls of Democratization in a Globalizing World
Authors: Cerny Philip G.
Published: May 2010

This chapter highlights some of the issues in the analysis and understanding of democracy, and poses the question of whether they make the prospect of global democracy illusory, on the one hand, or illuminate the path to that goal on the other, in the context of the continuing uneven pluralization of world politics. The author expresses skepticism as to whether the outcome will look like democracy as we have known it, or even whether democratization as such is becoming the kind of dominant global political process we would all like it to be. In setting out this argument, the chapter outlines five main problems and potential pitfalls of overegging the democratic pudding in today's world: historical trajectories, democratic stability/instability, the philosophical and normative substance of democracy itself, the question of “Who democratizes?” and the problem of institutionalization.
Repitools: an R package for the analysis of enrichment-based epigenomic data
Authors: Statham Aaron L. , Strbenac Dario , Coolen Marcel W. , Stirzaker Clare , Clark Susan J. , Robinson Mark D.
Published: May 2010

Summary: Epigenetics, the study of heritable somatic phenotypic changes not related to DNA sequence, has emerged as a critical component of the landscape of gene regulation. The epigenetic layers, such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and nuclear architecture are now being extensively studied in many cell types and disease settings. Few software tools exist to summarize and interpret these datasets. We have created a toolbox of procedures to interrogate and visualize epigenomic data (both array- and sequencing-based) and make available a software package for the cross-platform R language.

Availability: The package is freely available under LGPL from the R-Forge web site (http://repitools.r-forge.r-project.org/)

Contact:  mrobinson@wehi.edu.au
An Industrial Relations Perspective on Employee Participation
Authors: Ackers Peter
Published: May 2010

Industrial relations (IR) has two historical meanings. In one usage, the term describes public policy and the employment practices of employers and unions. But IR also refers to a specific academic perspective, centred on certain normative and theoretical principles. This article traces the argument between the British theorists of mainstream IR realism and their utopian ‘workers control’ protagonists. In the background, outside the mainstream IR community, runs a third, largely forgotten and widely despised, managerial, or unitarist view of organizational participation, as practiced on an ad hoc basis by a deviant group of British employers over the years and theorized by the human relations school from 1940s onwards. The approach here is highly selective and illustrative, rather than comprehensive. This article gives six historical examples of British IR approaches to organizational participation, which demonstrate the long and recurring intellectual dispute between radical utopians and pluralist realists.
Worker Directors and Worker Ownership/Cooperatives
Authors: Markey Raymond , Balnave Nicola , Patmore Greg
Published: May 2010

Employee participation in organizational decision making at the strategic management level is manifested in two main ways: first, employee representatives sitting alongside shareholder representatives on the boards of public companies and state-owned enterprises; and second, producer cooperatives in which the workers own the organization. Producer cooperatives are also likely to have extensive employee representation on their boards. However, the two forms of participation fundamentally differ. Employee representation on the boards of public companies and state-owned enterprises constitutes employee participation as employees, in common with the other forms of participation examined here. Producer cooperatives owned by the employees constitutes participation as owners. This article separately examines these two approaches to employee participation in organizational decision making at the strategic management level. It then analyses the incidence and effectiveness of each form of participation. The article concludes with general observations about the comparative viability and basis for each form.
Financial Participation
Authors: Kessler Ian
Published: May 2010

Financial participation is a mechanism by which employees are provided with a stake in the performance or ownership of an organization. This stake is reflected in remunerative arrangements, typically in the form of a payment linked to a corporate outcome measure or to an allocation of shares in the company. This article presents a structured and systematic overview of the character, use, and consequences of financial participation, with a view to exploring the contributions made by these different research communities to ongoing debate and understanding. In doing so, it also provides a map to facilitate movement through the considerable volume of material on the topic. The article considers the approaches to financial participation, the adoption of schemes, and the outcomes of various kinds.
Voice in the Wilderness? The Shift From Union to Non‐Union Voice in Britain
Authors: Gomez Rafael , Bryson Alex , Willman Paul
Published: May 2010

This article deals with the emergence, presence, and gradual transformation of workplace voice in Britain. Britain is an interesting case because it has sustained one of the longest and most prolonged falls in union representation in the Western world. Some have interpreted this as a move away from institutionalized voice by both workers and employers in the face of global product market competition and attendant needs for greater labour flexibility. The article shows that union collective representation has been supplanted by non-union voice in new workplaces and, where union voice persists in older workplaces, it has been supplemented by non-union voice. The absence of formal voice in a significant minority of workplaces can be linked to certain observable firm characteristics, such as size, network externalities, ownership, and age of enterprise. The article defines workplace voice by partially drawing on insights from consumer theory, industrial organization, and transaction-cost economics.
High Involvement Management and Performance
Authors: Wood Stephen
Published: May 2010

The study of high-involvement management has been part of the wider human resource management (HRM)-performance research stream. The studies in the stream differ in their foci, measures of practices, and performance measures, as well as in their samples and methods of data collection. The results vary across studies, including across performance measures in the individual studies. This article first introduces the concept of high-involvement management as a form of participation and then the key studies that have directly measured it to show how they have explored it and its links to performance. It then compares the results of these studies with others within the HRM-performance research stream to see if they reveal stronger performance relationships than do these others.
Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism
Authors: Archer Robin
Published: May 2010

Ever since the Enlightenment, if not before, the idea of individual freedom has provided a basic ethical reference point against which the legitimacy of social and political institutions has been judged. This article appeals to an idea that is often thought to be a necessary element of the concept of freedom and which has a strong intuitive appeal. The idea, that an individual can only be free to the extent that his or her choices govern his or her actions, underpins one of the principle arguments for democracy. The article sets out the basic features of this argument. It then seeks to show that it applies not just to political institutions, but also to many other kinds of associations and, in particular, to economic enterprises. The article proposes to show that the same basic ethical commitments which lead to the promotion of political democracy should lead to the promotion of economic democracy.
Overview
Authors: Coen David , Grant Wyn , Wilson Graham
Published: May 2010

The Overview to this book starts by explaining the development of the field of the study of the relationship between business and government. Both, it states, are major forces in our lives, locked in a relationship with each other. The nature of that relationship varies across countries, over time, and between different sectors of the economy. The concern of this book is with the efficacy of the relationship between business and government. This book reviews the state of the literature across a number of disciplines, but it also identifies areas for future work.
Business Studies
Authors: Story Jonathan , Lawton Thomas
Published: May 2010

This article takes the position that strategy and policy must be seen as complementary because they provide a different lens to look on the future as the holism through which current resources in the firm are developed and allocated. It starts with time as the key variable to consider, and sketches a stylized survey of how corporate strategy thinking has evolved, with a view to teasing out the key tensions that businesses encounter when operating in a semi-integrated world market and polity. It then looks closer at the relation between corporate policies and the diversity of states, discusses the evolution of the global state and market system, and spells out some of the key challenges facing corporate leaders making strategies and policies to both shape and understand the future.
The Political Theory of the Firm
Authors: Hart David M.
Published: May 2010

This article argues for balancing corporate personhood—or, more precisely, the unitary rational actor political theory of the firm, which predominates in the social science literature—with two other theories of the firm that have not yet been as fully developed. These alternatives treat the firm as a complex nexus of contracts among individual rational actors or as a set of organizational routines enacted by individuals playing roles. Although the three theories sometimes yield conflicting hypotheses, they more often direct analytical attention to different phenomena. From this perspective, as the article argues, they are, at the broadest level, complementary, like the blind men who feel different parts of the elephant in the Indian folk tale.
The Rise of the Regulatory State
Authors: Moran Michael
Published: May 2010

The relationship between the American regulatory state and the business enterprise is strikingly distinctive, viewed comparatively. The simplest, but perhaps the most important, indicator of distinction is that this is a relationship with deep historical roots. The pre-industrial American economy was one where the state was closely involved directly in the conduct of economic life, for instance in the chartering of corporations. But the relationship with business took a special turn in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. That special turn was a reaction to a great economic revolution which spanned the generation following the end of the Civil War.
International Standards and Standard‐Setting Bodies
Authors: Büthe Tim , Mattli Walter
Published: May 2010

Setting standards is an important means for shaping the behavior of firms and other economic actors. Governments may or may not be directly involved in this element of the governance of markets, though compliance with, or implementation of, a standard is often a function of public policy and business–government relations at other stages of the “regulatory process,” consisting of agenda setting, negotiation of standards, implementation, monitoring, and enforcement. This article first differentiates two key problems that arise from economic interdependence which are commonly solved or ameliorated through standards. It then sketches how the international integration of product and financial markets has internationalized these problems and led to a shift from local and domestic to international standard setting. It then differentiates and discusses the operation of four types of bodies that set standards for the international economy.
Taming Globalization?
Authors: Vogel David
Published: May 2010

This article explores the political dynamics of new forms of transnational non-state governance designed to make global firms more responsible and accountable. It begins by defining “civil regulation,” describing its growth and placing its development, structure, and purposes in a broader historical and institutional context. It then explains the development of civil regulation as a response to the shortcomings of the global and national governance of global firms and markets. The third section describes how various policy entrepreneurs, led by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and often supported by some national governments and international organizations, have, through a complex process of conflict and cooperation, persuaded large numbers of global firms to accept non-state regulatory standards.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Government
Authors: Moon Jeremy , Kang Nahee , Gond Jean‐Pascal
Published: May 2010

This article is about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and aims to distinguish different types of CSR–government relationship and to understand these in the context of broader state roles and government–business relations. It investigates these relationships comparatively, historically, and in terms of new institutionalism. It does so comparatively by investigating CSR and government in four types of political system on the assumption that CSR reflects features of respective national business systems, or varieties of capitalism, in which government roles are critical. Thus it considers CSR in the USA, in Europe, in the transitional economies of East Asia, Eastern Europe, and South Africa, and globally. The article's special focus on the USA is justified because, although business responsibilities have long existed throughout the world, in America the concept of CSR emerged as a basis for reflection on its relation to the wider purpose of the firm in the context of institutions of governance.
Network Utilities
Authors: Chick Martin
Published: May 2010

The largest section of the industrial economy of most persistent concern to governments is that of the network-containing industries (electricity, water, telecommunications, gas, trams and light railways, railways, post and telecommunications). These industries have been at the heart of political debate concerning forms of ownership (nationalization, privatization) and economists and politicians have frequently been at odds over the appropriate pricing and investment rules, and industrial structure for such industries. Often characterized by lumpy, sunk distribution and transmission investments giving rise to natural monopoly characteristics and enjoying large potential economies of scale, investment in these industries has consistently outpaced that in manufacturing industry.
Formal Modeling, Strategic Behavior, and the Study of American Elections
Authors: Aldrich John H. , Lupia Arthur
Published: May 2010

This article examines the contributions of formal modeling to the study of American elections and voting behavior. It concentrates on strategic voting and voter competence for which formal models have been used to explain complex, subtle, and important patterns of behavior that other theories did not explain well. It then tries to clarify the broader potential contributions of the method to the study of voting behavior. Moreover, it provides a brief discussion of the likely role of formal modeling in future voting behavior scholarship. In so doing, it presents examples of current scholarly pursuits whose precision and validity could be improved by greater clarity about assumptions and logical transparency in inference. Formal models provide a rigorous means for converting knowledge from fields such as social or cognitive psychology into more effective research designs and stronger conclusions about why voters act as they do.
The American Voter
Authors: Jacoby William G.
Published: May 2010

Ever since the appearance of The American Voter, there has been a general consensus among political scientists that three variables stand out as the most critical proximal influences on voting: personal attachments to political parties; individual reactions to public policy controversies; and evaluations of the candidates' personal characteristics. The theoretical importance of party identification stems from its temporal stability and broad influence across a range of other political beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. It is also significant because partisan attachments help to integrate individuals into the political world. Feelings about the candidates comprise a very reasonable heuristic device for cutting through the complexities that abound in any election campaign. The American Voter emphasized the importance of election-specific ‘short-term forces’.
Constructing The Vote
Authors: Armoudian Maria , Crigler Ann N.
Published: May 2010

This article explores the changing nature of the media's power to influence electoral decision making, reviewing the vast research on the effects of media content, including agenda-setting, priming, persuasion, learning, and the influence of visual and emotional cues on information seeking and opinion formation. The internet and expanded sources of political information such as soft news and entertainment programs are making the construction of political messages and meaning more dynamic and participatory. Appearing on talk shows and entertainment programs helps candidates relate to voters personally and add emotional dimensions that become critical to voters' candidate evaluations. Constructionist perspective argues that socioeconomic conditions, institutions, culture, and emotions all shape the activities and communications of content providers, campaigns, and audiences. The media play an important and evolving role in American elections.
Gauging the God Gap: Religion and Voting in US Presidential Elections
Authors: Green John C.
Published: May 2010

Worship attendance is typically understood as a measure of religious commitment. The relevance of the attendance gaps can be easily illustrated for the 2004 presidential election. The attendance gaps appeared to have increased in size toward the end of the twentieth century. Three strands of the literature help explain how worship attendance can be politicized: through religious traditions, religious beliefs, and religious engagement. These three strands are discussed separately. The God gap suggests new avenues of future research on religion and politics.
The Study of Local Elections in American Politics
Authors: Marschall Melissa J.
Published: May 2010

This article reviews four explanations for why participation and urban politics scholars have largely ignored local elections and outlines the themes of volume and variation in describing the landscape of local government and local elections. The landscape of local governments and elections in the US is described. Research on local elections and local electoral behavior can be divided into two main types: macro-level studies that treat the local jurisdiction as the unit of analysis, and micro-level studies that treat the individual as the unit of analysis. At present, the literature does a reasonable job explaining post hoc which groups supported minority candidates in specific elections, but is very far from predicting when and where minority candidates succeed, let alone when and where they will emerge as serious challengers.
Money and American Elections
Authors: Powell Lynda W. , Wilcox Clyde
Published: May 2010

This article briefly describes some rules relevant to money in American elections. Campaign finance regulations can be categorized as: spending, source prohibitions, contribution limits, public funding, and disclosure. Two problems plague research on the impact of campaign finance laws. First, new regulations are not necessarily exogenous to the political process. Second, laws may appear to constrain donating or fundraising more than they actually do because of readily available equivalent alternatives for making contributions. Most interest groups are not active in elections, and some that are active do not contribute or spend money. The impacts of money on policy are described. Solving both measurement and statistical problems is central to understanding questions of influence in both elections and in governmental process at both national and state levels. Normatively, evaluating the representational quality of democracy rests on these understandings.
The Presidential Veto
Authors: Cameron Charles M.
Published: May 2010

This article outlines what political scientists have, and have not, learned about the use of vetoes, the effects of vetoes, and the significance of the veto power. It starts by summarizing the micro-politics of the veto. It then turns to the macro-politics of the veto. It specifically points out the knotty problems that plague macro-political studies: the ‘wheat from the chaff’ problem, the ‘small-n’ problem and the ‘no institutional variation’ problem. Some new points of departure are provided. The article points to the possibility of theoretically modeling, and empirically studying, integrated presidential strategy, including the veto. The themes in Cameron 2006 are elaborated. Models of integrated presidential strategy knitting together veto power, proposal power, and strategic pre-action would establish a new vision of presidential governance, a vision reflecting the rise of the modern administrative state, polarized politics, the plebiscitary presidency, and the continuing reality of interbranch bargaining.
Assessing the Unilateral Presidency
Authors: Waterman Richard W.
Published: May 2010

This article summarizes the literature on the president's unilateral powers and explores the implications of the related unitary executive model. It first investigates the association between unilateral power and Richard Neustadt's bargaining model. Neustadt argues that presidents must use their resources wisely if they are to have influence in Washington. Unilateral action provides an alternative to the Neustadt bargaining model for presidents who seek to increase their political influence. While there are a number of unilateral powers, political scientists focus most of their attention on executive orders. A central concept of the unitary executive is the idea of ‘departmentalism’ or ‘coordinate construction’. The issues raised by the unitary executive and the president's unilateral powers offer fodder for additional qualitative and quantitative studies of the presidency, as well as more developed theories that will better help in the understanding of the continuing evolution of the presidential office and presidential power.
The Psychology of Presidential Decision Making
Authors: Walker Stephen G.
Published: May 2010

This article argues that there has been considerable progress in conceptualizing and measuring the psychological characteristics of US presidents. It further argues that an alliance between psychological theories of the personal presidency and rational choice theories of the institutional presidency may have a multiplier effect on progress in analyzing presidential decision making in the domestic and foreign policy domains. Specifically, the article suggests a future research agenda for studies of the personal presidency that focuses on decisions and on the psychological sources of risk orientation and strategic choice as features of presidential decision making. The empirical data indicate that presidential personality traits, motivations, world view, and cognitive processes are most directly linked to the pre-decision, diagnostic stage of the decision-making process. It also shows that the degree of rationality depends on the degree to which positive and negative consequences are identified and taken into account when making a choice.
Presidential Agendas, Administrative Strategies, and the Bureaucracy
Authors: Durant Robert F. , Resh William G.
Published: May 2010

This article identifies what is known, what is not known, and what needs to be studied to inform better both practice and theoretical debates over the efficacy of five major administrative tools: centralizing policy making in the White House, establishing regulatory clearance and program evaluation in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), reorganizing agencies, appointing loyalists to run them, and wielding unilateral tools. The Bush administration's efforts to require OMB clearance of agency guidance documents suggest that centralization pressures may trump decentralization pressures. In general, this article provides a broad overview of some of the most important and promising lines of inquiry for improving the understanding of the promise versus the performance of administrative strategies designed to advance presidential agendas.
Nominating Federal Judges and Justices
Authors: Epstein Lee , Segal Jeffrey A.
Published: May 2010

This article uses the large extant of literature to explore the president's goals and the constraints he confronts in attempting to achieve them. It also addresses what scholars have said about whether presidents ultimately achieve their goals; that is, it considers the question of whether presidents get what they want in their judicial appointments. Presidents may whine about disappointing appointees; and they may fail to pack the courts. But they do seem rational in their anticipation that the federal judges and justices they name can help ensure their ideological legacy at least in the first few years after they depart from office.
The Party Faithful
Authors: Green John C.
Published: May 2010

This article discusses the religious elements of the major party coalitions in the American public. It first addresses why religion is relevant to party politics at a conceptual level. The religious character of the major party coalitions is summarized. The article considers the recent party coalitions, comparing the Democratic and Republican faith-based supporters in 1952 and 2008. It finally describes the ‘party faithful’ in the early years of the twenty-first century. The comparison of 1952 and 2008 reveals that faith-based coalitions can change, and quite dramatically, over relatively short periods of time. The present ethno-theological politics could continue, with deepening divisions based on religious observance. A return to ethno-religious politics, with divisions based on religious affiliation, is becoming more important. It is possible that a new aspect of religion will become politicized in much the same way that religious observance became politically relevant in recent times.
Party Nominating Procedures and Recruitment—State and Local Level
Authors: La Raja Raymond J.
Published: May 2010

This article explores the roles that parties play in state and local nominations and the research on those roles, finding a relative dearth of scholarship despite the opportunities for important comparative work. It specifically analyzes how the selection process affects who runs for office. It also investigates political parties, asking how the selection process affects the distribution of power in the organization, its ideological coherence, and electoral success. It then postulates about the influence of selection processes on political campaigns, representation, and governing. It explains its impact on voter behaviour and how nomination practices influence elite behaviour in public office. The study of selection practices shows much about the winnowing of American political leadership through its political parties, interest groups, and elections.
The Response to Nitric Oxide of the Nitrogen-Fixing Symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti
Authors: Meilhoc Eliane , Cam Yvan , Skapski Agnès , Bruand Claude
Published: May 2010

Nitric oxide (NO) is crucial in animal– and plant–pathogen interactions, during which it participates in host defense response and resistance. Indications for the presence of NO during the symbiotic interaction between the model legume Medicago truncatula and its symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti have been reported but the role of NO in symbiosis is far from being elucidated. Our objective was to understand the role or roles played by NO in symbiosis. As a first step toward this goal, we analyzed the bacterial response to NO in culture, using a transcriptomic approach. We identified approximately 100 bacterial genes whose expression is upregulated in the presence of NO. Surprisingly, most of these genes are regulated by the two-component system FixLJ, known to control the majority of rhizobial genes expressed in planta in mature nodules, or the NO-dedicated regulator NnrR. Among the genes responding to NO is hmp, encoding a putative flavohemoglobin. We report that an hmp mutant displays a higher sensitivity toward NO in culture and leads to a reduced nitrogen fixation efficiency in planta. Because flavohemoglobins are known to detoxify NO in numerous bacterial species, this result is the first indication of the importance of the bacterial NO response in symbiosis.