bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Thought and Talk
Authors: Davidson Donald
Published: October 2003

Starting from the evident dependence of speech on thought, Davidson wonders whether the inverse dependence holds too,i.e. whether we can explain thought and its attribution independently of that of speech. Treating belief as central to all kinds of thought, Davidson develops the thesis that to have one belief is to have several, all of which are interlocked to form a ‘web of belief’ which also determines the content of each individual belief. Further, the attribution of such beliefs to others interlocks with a theory of action, since interpreting others as having beliefs relies on rationalizing their actions (Davidson refers us here to his Essays 10 and 12 of Essays on Actions and Events); both actions and beliefs are answerable to the interpretative principles outlined in Essays 9 and 10, among them the constitutive ideal of rationality. By adding that only a creature who has the concept of belief (i.e. the distinction between being right and being wrong) can have beliefs at all, Davidson concludes that being interpretable as having thoughts, and being able to interpret the speech of others, is constitutive of having thoughts.
The Method of Truth in Metaphysics
Authors: Davidson Donald
Published: October 2003

In this essay, Davidson sets out to demonstrate that successful communication or mutual interpretability indicates the presence of a shared, and largely true, view of the world. Beliefs must be shared for the attribution of error or disagreement can only occur against a widely shared background: error and disagreement can only be local and never massive or total (Essay 13). Truth is no longer relative to conceptual schemes but only to languages that can be shown to be largely correct about the world. Consequently, by studying one's language one can derive ontological conclusions: a truth theory (such as that developed in Essay 2) will reveal the overall ontology required by a particular language, and while quotations and intensions can be dispensed with as distinct entities (on a proper analysis of them, given in Essays 1, 6, and 7), an ontology of events cannot, provided the language contains causal statements (Essays 6 and 8 of Essays on Actions and Events). By eliminating the concepts of satisfaction and denotation from our truth theories (cf Essay 15), Davidson can eliminate their concomitant ontology (cf Essay 3) as well as avoid extending the ideology of the interpreter's language too much beyond that of the language to be interpreted (Essay 4).
What Metaphors Mean
Authors: Davidson Donald
Published: October 2003

Davidson argues that there are no strict rules determining which expressions in a language must count as metaphorical; and that metaphorical meaning is to be expressed in terms of, even though it cannot be fully paraphrased by, literal meaning. He argues against theories (such as Max Black's and Paul Henle's) that posit distinct ‘metaphorical meanings’, claiming that such posits are explanatorily inert. Instead, the meaning of metaphors has to proceed via a literal understanding of what is said and then progress to a special use of the words thus understood. Metaphors have to be defined, claims Davidson, by their characteristic ‘effect’ on the hearer (by what they make him ‘notice’) rather than as distinct cognitive contents; this also accounts, he says, for our frequent difficulty in paraphrasing metaphorical meaning into literal talk.
Communication and Convention
Authors: Davidson Donald
Published: October 2003

Davidson discusses the use the concept of convention has for illuminating linguistic behaviour and related semantic concepts. In particular, he discusses theories on which conventions connect (1) sentence types with particular (‘illocutionary’) uses of them (Dummett), (2) individual sentences with single uses (Chomsky), or (3) individual words to extensions or intensions (Lewis). In response to (1), Davidson denies that conventions govern the practice of assertion and the linkage of assertion to what is believed to be true. He claims that (2) offers at best a partial analysis of the connection of speakers’ intentions to their utterances; and that the conditions Lewis proposes for convention in (3) are partly unnecessary and jointly insufficient for the mutual interpretability between speakers. He concludes that convention is not a condition for language but vice versa.
Introduction: Institutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy
Authors: Belmont Katharine , Mainwaring Scott , Reynolds Andrew
Published: October 2003

Addresses three key questions. First, how far have political institutions acted as levers of conflict management in divided societies during the twentieth century. Second, how far can the constitutions of divided or plural societies be engineered to promote inter‐communal harmony and strengthened democracy. Third, the manner in which political institutions affect the trajectory of democratization in divided societies.
Institutions and Coalition Building in Post‐Communist Transitions
Authors: Shvetsova Olga
Published: October 2003

In the ten years of post‐communist transition, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe have passed through several election cycles, providing new evidence of the influence of formal political institutions on transition dynamics. This chapter examines the transitional development of their party systems as a function of institutional choices. Focusing on party systems, it identifies the process of coalition formation as the transmission mechanism by which institutions influence political consolidation at this stage. It addresses the transitional influence of combinations of majoritarian and power‐sharing institutions, suggesting that their interactive effect may undermine or weaken the incentives for party‐building that each of them can separately provide. The article provides supporting evidence from Poland and Romania.
Presidentialism and Democratic Performance
Authors: Cheibub José Antonio
Published: October 2003

Argues that the historical pattern of democratization in Latin America requires a reconsideration of the prevailing thesis that presidentialism has caused regime instability in Latin America, and of the mechanisms allegedly responsible for presidentialism's poor performance. The purpose of the chapter is to do so by means of an empirical examination of the factors that, according to the thesis, should account for variations in the political and economic performance of presidential regimes.
Federalism and State‐Building: Post‐Communist and Post‐Colonial Perspectives
Authors: Solnick Steven L.
Published: October 2003

Examines the process of bargaining over the creation of new rules and institutions after radical regime transitions. The analysis addresses the limited but important class of cases where a weakened central authority—whether constituted by the provinces or established as a legacy of imperial administration—must win the support or acquiescence of a minimal coalition of territorial actors in order to remain in power. It focuses on the relationship between cohesiveness achieved and impartiality of administration, with particular regard to the mode of the bargaining between central and provincial elites during the state‐building process. It then tests this theoretical account against the experiences of post‐communist Russia and Ukraine, of the consolidating Indian states in and around 1947, and of other post‐colonial cases.
Constitutional Engineering in Post‐Coup Fiji
Authors: Lal Brij V.
Published: October 2003

Analyses the historical background to the constitutional crisis that flared up in Fiji in 1987, when a military coup, led by native Fijians, overthrew a government democratically elected by a majority immigrant population. It then discusses the issues that led to the Fiji Constitution of 1990, and that continue to engage the attention of the Fiji Constitution Review Commission, regarding protection of the legitimate rights and interests of all ethnic groups in the island. It focuses on two major sets of issues: first, the elections to and composition of the parliament; second, the functioning of the institutions of government and questions of governance and accountability regarding social justice and human rights.
The Belfast Agreement and the British‐Irish Agreement: Consociation, Confederal Institutions, a Federacy, and a Peace Process
Authors: O'Leary Brendan
Published: October 2003

Reviews the political processes that led to the multi‐party and intergovernmental agreement reached in Belfast on 10 April 1998 (the ‘Good Friday Agreement’), and to the subsequent British–Irish Agreement of 1999. It then examines the details of the understandings arrived at. The story raises some interesting political science questions for formal theorists and comparative analysts regarding the nature of coalition government, the bargaining processes for allocating ministerial portfolios, and variations in consociational executive practice around the world.
Ethnic Diversities, Constitutional Designs, and Public Policies in India
Authors: Stuligross David , Ashutosh Varshney
Published: October 2003

Examines how India's constitutional provisions and public policies have dealt with the nation's four main sources of ethnic diversity—religion, language, caste, and tribe. It addresses three questions. First, how did India's constitution makers and founding fathers propose to deal with the problems of each category, as they went about building the nation? Second, what has been the impact of the constitutional provisions, institutional frameworks, and public policies that they devised? Third, could constitutional and public policy engineering have achieved the objectives set, or have some other factors intervened to produce the actual outcomes? It concludes that while India's constitutional design has been a great success in respect of linguistic diversity, the record has been mixed in respect of the other categories.
The God of the Self‐Movers
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

Unlike anti‐evidentialism, rational theism requires one to provide philosophically good evidence, on the basis of which one can rationally believe that God exists. Aquinas leads us to expect a posteriori demonstration of God's existence in which he argues that sense‐perceptible things, events, or states of affairs cannot be satisfactorily explained otherwise than on the basis of the existence of a being that is plausibly identifiable as God. Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God are examined, two of them in detail, (ascribed to Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics) in which Aristotle undertakes to prove God's existence on the basis of motion. The analysis develops the hypothesis that motion is to be explained in terms of self‐movers, and that all motion is ultimately to be explained in terms of a cosmic first self‐mover and a separated, altogether immovable first mover.
From Independence to Perfection
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

Identifying an acknowledged first cause as God requires further argumentation to show that this extraordinary entity must have characteristics that pick out the supreme being of the monotheistic tradition and to show that it must be the transcendent, personal, omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good creator, and governor of the universe. By means of the exclusive application of the eliminative method to an immutable first cause, Aquinas's account leads to eliminating the distinction between its nature and being, to its essential nature being identical with its own unique, necessary, and ultimately explanatory being. Through Aquinas's perfection argument, the ultimately explanatory being is also shown to be universally perfect.
Creation's Modalities
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

Focuses on the investigation of the question—why would an absolutely perfect being create anything at all? Aquinas's account of a non‐necessitated choice in the act of creating involves a return to the topic of God's power and omnipotence, opposing the single‐effect account of creation, and considering the modalities of intellection and volition. Aquinas denies any necessitation of creation stemming out of an obligation of justice or from God's perfect goodness. He then undertakes to show how not merely conditional but even absolute necessity characterizes certain aspects of the created world, despite his conviction that its original production is entirely free. Aquinas concludes his full survey of creation's modalities by showing how each kind of cause—material, formal, efficient, and final—gives rise to absolute necessity in nature.
Could the Created World Have Existed for Ever?
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

The grounds available in the debate over the propositions whether the world has existed for ever (Aristotle), or the world began to exist, became divided for the medievals into those holding the audacious assessment: the view that it can be, and indeed has been, demonstratively proved that the world could not have existed for ever and those holding the judicious assessment (including Aquinas): who deny that such purported demonstrations really do disprove that the world could not have existed for ever. Aquinas does not see a beginningless existence of created things as impossible. Arguments and objections are given to beginninglessness based on considerations of God, on considerations of created things, and on considerations of the making of things, about which Aquinas denies that creating is to be construed as a kind of making at all. He ends by positing an argument in support of the created world's having begun to exist, which he thinks has more probability than all those he rejected.
The Origin of Species
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

Aquinas now moves from arguments about creation to distinguishing things, which is, broadly speaking, to be described as his understanding of the origin of species. Like Augustine, Aquinas adopts a non‐literal reading of Genesis 1, a view, which would have equipped him to appreciate scientific accounts of evolution. He differentiates determinate distinguishing from general distinguishing, providing the fundamental metaphysical framework to explain the development of the world's species. Aquinas's theory of the distinguishing of things is preceded by, and based on, his theory of the origin of the stuff that gets distinguished: not by chance nor by the diversity of matter alone but by God's producing something out of nothing, a mind behind the scenes. An examination follows of God's choice of this world rather than another.
Intellects
Authors: Kretzmann Norman
Published: October 2003

Aquinas devotes the entire third (last part) of Book II to considering only one kind of created things: intellects, or more precisely, only such kinds of created things as are essentially intellective in themselves. In only one of his arguments for why created things include intellective substances, does he make the point that created intellect is a necessary condition of God's manifesting his goodness. Aquinas's conception of freedom is based on the intimate relationship between will and intellect: the presence of intellect may be recognized as a sufficient condition for the presence of will. Created intellective substances cannot be material at all, but unlike God, there is a difference between their existence and essence, which leads Aquinas to a detailed analysis of the interrelations of matter, form, substance, being, potentiality, and actuality.
Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In this book, R. J. Hankinson traces the history of investigation into the nature of cause and explanation, from the beginnings of Ancient Greek philosophy in 600 bc, through the Graeco‐Roman world, to the end of pagan antiquity in c.500 ad The book consists of chapter‐length studies of the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle (two chapters), Atomism, Stoicism, Scepticism, and Neoplatonism, as well as the Sophistic movement, and Ancient Medicine. Hankinson is principally concerned with the following questions: ‘What did the Greeks understand by a cause?’, and ‘How did the Greeks conceive adequacy in explanation?’. The Ancient Greeks (excepting the Sceptics) are united in their belief that the world and at least some of its process can be rendered intelligible, and that this can be rendered by an inquiry into the nature of things, with reasoned argument as the appropriate method of exhibiting the real structure of the world. Thus, the Greek thinkers set the standards for science, because they are guided by logic and observation in their analysis of causation; but one can also recognize the growth of interest among the Greeks in the nature of explanation itself. The question that becomes central to the development of Greek philosophical science is whether nature can be understood in terms of teleology, or solely in terms of mechanical laws. Hankinson is interested in how the concepts of cause and explanation function in a properly scientific context; but he extends his investigation of these concepts to questions of freedom and responsibility, and fate and astrology, and also the treatment of disease. Hankinson points out that causes and explanations are connected ideas: an explanation is the proffering of reasons, and this involves an account of causes; they are, nevertheless, different concepts—causes are actual items, events, agents, facts, states of affairs, whereas explanations are propositional. Hankinson isolates certain causal principles that recur throughout Greek philosophy: for instance, the principle of sufficient reason, the principle of causal synonymy, and the principle that nothing can come to be from nothing.
Introduction
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In the Introduction, Hankinson identifies universality, simplicity, and the use of argument as the features that distinguish a properly ‘scientific’ explanation of natural phenomena, from a non‐ or pre‐scientific, e.g. mythical, account. For Hankinson, the Milesians are the first thinkers to display a scientific attitude to the investigation of natural phenomena: they sought to explain events by appealing to repeatable and generalizable laws that are invariant over time and which can ground predictions. Simplicity is an adjunct of generalization—the greater the generality of an explanation, the greater is its simplicity; since this involves the attempt to explain the widest variety of phenomena on the basis of the fewest fundamental principles, reductionism is at the centre of the scientific enterprise.
The Presocratics
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, Hankinson considers the contributions to the explanation of nature of each of the major Presocratic figures. Following a brief sketch of the cosmogonies of Homer and Hesiod, Hankinson discusses the Milesian thinkers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, focussing on the presence in their thought of notions such as material monism, the principle of sufficient reason, the Unlimited (apeiron), and the reduction of properties. Hankinson then discusses Xenophanes of Colophon, Heraclitus, Alcmaeon, Parmenides and his followers Zeno and Melissus, as well as the movement of Pythagoreanism. The Eleatics checked the confidence of Presocratic speculation by offering powerful a priori theses on causation, and the attempt to bypass these conclusions characterize the more sophisticated theories of causation of the succeeding thinkers Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the Atomists.
Science and Sophistry
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, Hankinson considers the treatment of causation and explanation in two important strands of Ancient Greek thought: rational medicine and the sophistic movement. The Hippocratic treatises of the fifth century bc represent a movement in Greek medical practice away from traditional types of explanation of disease in favour of a naturalistic, physiological model of human pathology, which leads to the emergence of the allopathic causal principle, ‘opposites cure opposites’. The Hippocratic treatises distinguished internal, constitutional factors from external causes, a distinction that helps towards explaining why some people are affected by a disease, or benefited from a cure, while others are not. Drawing upon Antiphon and Gorgias, Hankinson also discusses the sophist contribution to causation and explanation, in particular their emphasis on responsibility in the explanation of action. Finally, Hankinson highlights a tendency, evident in Herodotus’ History and also in the medical treatise Airs, Waters, Places, to explain general traits of physique and character in terms of ethnography, i.e. on the basis of environment, climate, and lifestyle.
Plato
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

Plato offers the first metaphysical exploration of the nature of causation and explanation, and the relationship between these and other metaphysical concepts, such as forms, properties, and the soul. Hankinson focuses on two dialogues, the Phaedo and the Timaeus; in the first of these, Plato rejects the materialism of natural science, in favour of the good as the ground of teleological explanations, and he invokes forms as invariable causal properties. Plato explores the notion of an archê, or ultimate principle, in his argument for the immortality of the soul; this notion comes together with the concept of hypothetical investigation and the casual account of knowledge in the Timaeus. Here, Plato offers a cosmogony invoking a divine artificer who fashions the universe from a receptacle, a material substratum that can receive all forms. In Plato's philosophy, there is the emergence of a concern with the correct form that an explanation ought to take, and also an emphasis on teleological explanation.
Aristotle: Explanation and the World
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, Hankinson examines Aristotle's philosophy of science, or the logical structure of explanation as set out in the Posterior Analytics, and which is based on the theory of the syllogism worked out in the Prior Analytics. For Aristotle, definition is fundamental to the project of exhibiting science in its appropriate explanatory form, i.e. proceeding deductively from fundamental principles and axioms about the structure of things. Science and scientific explanation are for Aristotle construed realistically: science must mirror reality, and therefore theory always must cohere with observation and empirical investigation. Hankinson discusses Aristotle's qualitative physics of motion, on the basis of the doctrine of natural places, his account of chemical combination, and his cosmology, which is at once teleological in character, while being empirically adequate. Hankinson also discusses Aristotle's successors Theophrastus and Strato of Lampsacus: Theophrastus developed and refined Aristotle's methodology while bringing some scepticism to the ubiquitous application of teleology; Strato also tends more towards mechanistic explanations.
The Stoics
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

An interest in causation and explanation, as these concepts pertain to action, production and agency, is a characteristic of Hellenistic philosophy, and the Stoics are typical in this respect; a cause, or aition, for the Stoics, is something that actually does something. In this chapter, Hankinson discusses Stoic materialism with its distinction between Active and Passive principles, and discusses in detail the Stoic analysis of causation, which is conceived as corporeal and transmitted by contact. Hankinson shows that, while the Stoics embrace determinism to a greater degree than any of their predecessors, they nevertheless retain a genuine possibility of human freedom of action, with emphasis upon the notion of Fate (e.g. in Chrysippus) and responsibility (confatalia). The Stoics’ thoroughly materialistic view of the world does not rule out the presence of intelligence; intelligence, or pneuma, is itself also a material substance, which is identical with God.
The Age of Synthesis
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses the origins of syncretism, or the growing convergence of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism, focusing mainly on the Old Academy Platonists Speusippus and Xenocrates, the empiricist Stoic Posidonius, the lapsed sceptic Antiochus, and the orthodox Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias. Hankinson also discusses Eudorus, Philo of Larissa, and Plutarch, as well as briefly noting the influential Primer on Plato's Doctrines by Alcinous. The importance of the Old Academy is its influence upon the development of later Platonic tradition; Proclus, for instance, credits Xenocrates with a distinction between transcendent and immanent causation that became a central feature of Middle Platonism. Posidonius, a Stoic and Cicero's philosophical mentor, is important to the growing convergence of the schools because he introduced Platonism and Aristotelianism into his account of Stoicism, while Antiochus, a product of Philo of Larissa's sceptical Academy, pursued an eclectic Platonism. Alexander of Aphrodisias was the leading Peripatetic of Alexandria, around the second century ad; he revived an orthodox Aristotelianism, accepting Aristotle's four causes doctrine, and identifying Fate as an efficient cause.
Introduction
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

The introduction presents two key dimensions of the analysis of the role of trade unions developed in the book: (1) the facts and the causes of the decline in union power that has occurred in the last two decades of the twentieth century; and (2) the future developments of unions’ behaviour in Europe.
Union Membership
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

Discusses and describes trends in union membership as a starting point of a study on trade unions behaviour. Using data from the DUES (Development of Unions in European Societies) project, the study deals with the recent decline in union power, union members' choices, and the main (cyclical, structural, and institutional) factors explaining membership trends.
Unions' Involvement in the Welfare State
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

Shows that there are important correlations between the unions' strength and activities and their welfare outcomes. The chapter provides a taxonomy of the large differences across countries in unions' strength and social expenditure. The analysis distinguishes among four dimensions of union influence: (1) unions as political movements; (2) unions and self‐administration in public schemes; (3) unions and private pensions; and (4) institutional participation and political veto points.
Unions and Pensions: Theory, Evidence, and Implications
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

The relationship between union actions and welfare outcomes is developed, taking the provision of old‐age insurance as a natural example. This chapter develops the economic theory of how unions go about setting policies on pensions; it presents empirical evidence of their impact on occupational pensions and policies on state pensions and early retirement options; and it examines how union activities depend on labour relations institutions.
Learning from Welfare Reforms: The Case of Public Pensions
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

Provides a detailed account of the position of unions on pension reforms across Europe. This example is regarded as a major indicator establishing whether unions have a truly solidaristic approach in negotiating reforms or appear to be driven mainly by internal membership considerations and by a strong seniority bias.
Conclusions
Authors: Boeri Tito , Brugiavini Agar , Calmfors Lars , Booth Alison , Burda Michael , Checchi Daniele , Ebbinghaus Bernhard , Freeman Richard , Garibaldi Pietro , Holmlund Bertil , Naylor Robin , Schludi Martin , Verdier Thierry , Visser Jelle
Published: October 2003

Summarizes the main findings of this part of the report, stressing how the seniority bias in unions leads to economic outcomes that are more favourable to older workers. It analyses the ways in which unions can counteract this tendency and choose policies that benefit both young and older workers. Four final questions arise: (1) Do unions interact with the welfare state? How do they do it? (2) What explains union policies toward welfare outcomes? (3) Which institutional structure emphasizes unions' welfare‐enhancing activities relative to unions' rent‐seeking activities? (4) Can unions contribute to a reform of welfare systems?
Introduction
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

The chapter introduces the core arguments of the book: that the welfare state exists not only to relieve poverty (the ‘Robin Hood’ function) but also to provide insurance and consumption smoothing over the life cycle (the ‘piggy‐bank’ function). The latter is the focus of this book, which discusses insurance (unemployment insurance, medical insurance, long‐term care insurance), pensions (i.e. redistribution from one's younger to one's older self) and education finance, notably student loans (i.e. redistribution from one's older to one's younger self). The state has a major role in these areas because private institutions face problems of imperfect information, risk, and uncertainty.
Designing Student Loans
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

Imperfect information, risk, and uncertainty create capital market imperfections. As a result, conventional loans, i.e. mortgage‐type loans, are both inefficient and inequitable. Income‐contingent loans – i.e. loans with repayments calculated as x % of the borrower's subsequent earnings until he or she has paid off the loan – address these capital market imperfections by reducing the risks facing borrowers and lenders. Though its form and extent may vary, public involvement is necessary to collect income‐contingent loan repayments, and perhaps also to provide the loan capital.
Financing Higher Education: The Options
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

This chapter draws together economic theory and the experience of different countries, and discusses how higher education might be organized and funded in ways that are efficient and equitable, taking account of information problems and other technical problems such as externalities. Issues discussed include the role of market forces, who should pay, and the role of the state in a market‐oriented system of higher education. Countries discussed include the UK, USA, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. The chapter also discusses misleading guides to policy design, and concludes by setting out a strategy for financing tertiary education involving tuition fees, income‐contingent student loans, and active measures to promote access.
Twenty‐First‐Century Education Issues
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses a series of forward‐looking issues: methods of bringing private finance into tertiary education; student loans in the context of international labour mobility; extending loans beyond higher education; and developing individual learning accounts.
The Welfare State in Post‐Communist Countries
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

Post‐communist transition has two central elements: a move from central planning to market forces and a move from totalitarian to more democratic government. Because of the resulting economic, political, and social disruption, the reforming countries fail even more sharply than western countries to conform to the assumptions of the simple model described in Ch. 2. Information is highly imperfect, risk greater, and uncertainty pervasive. Two conclusions about the welfare state follow. Firstly, the role of the state is perhaps greater than in the advanced industrial countries. Secondly, – the subject of this chapter – the welfare state needs systematically to change to meet the needs of a market economy. The first part of the chapter establishes the simple analytics of transition. Subsequent sections parallel the rest of the book, discussing insurance issues, particularly in connection with labour‐market adjustment, the reform of pensions, and necessary changes in the education system.
The Welfare State in a Changing World
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: October 2003

The world is changing: real incomes are rising, income disparity is increasing, family structures are becoming more fluid, the population is ageing, and information and capital flows across national boundaries are instantaneous, increasing international competition. This chapter looks at the welfare state in the context of these forces. The first part of the chapter considers the ‘crisis’ in the welfare state and argues that it should not be exaggerated. The last part of the chapter discusses the ways in which the welfare state will adapt. The conclusion is that the reasons why a welfare state is necessary will not go away; its institutions are robust and responsive; in forms that will continue to evolve, it remains a continuing twenty‐first‐century challenge.
Introduction: Reviewing and Reassessing Parties
Authors: Ramón Montero José , Gunther Richard
Published: October 2003

Some scholars have concluded that the existing literature on parties is sufficient, and that there is little more that can be learned through additional study in the aftermath of a century of scholarly research on the topic. Others maybe led to dismiss further empirical study of parties on the grounds that parties are becoming increasingly irrelevant, since they are failing to respond successfully to a series of challenges, and many of their functions are performed better by less formally organized social movements, by direct contact between politicians and citizens through the broadcast media or the internet, or by innovations in direct democracy; in the view of this group of scholars, parties maybe seen as in an inexorable process of ‘decline’. Finally, there maybe some who have concluded that scholarly research on parties has failed to advance the task of developing rigorous and persuasive theory, and that further efforts along these lines are doomed to fail. Begins by reviewing each of these assertions, and concludes that such negative views are unwarranted. It concludes with a brief overview of the contributions made by the authors in each of the three parts of the book, which examine the core concepts that have guided empirical research on parties (reconceptualizing parties and party competition), their organizational structures (party organization and party models), and the changing and sometimes problematic nature of their relations with citizens in democratic political systems (party linkages and attitudes to parties).
Still the Age of Catch‐Allism? Volksparteien and Parteienstaat in Crisis and Re‐equilibration
Authors: Puhle Hans‐Jürgen
Published: October 2003

Experience of modern political parties during the last fifty years can be briefly summarized under two headlines: the rise of the catch‐all party (Volksparteien) after the Second World War (earlier in the US), and the ‘crisis’ and restructuring of the catch‐all parties under profound challenges and severe ‘stress’ since the late 1970s. Both processes have been interrelated as it often seems that the ‘crisis’ has been due in part to a number of inherent characteristics and weaknesses of catch‐all parties, and that the ‘pure type’ of catch‐all party has been somewhat transitory in structure despite its apparent longevity. The analysis presented in this chapter of the character and the potential outcome of the perceived present ‘crisis’ begins with a description of the principal dimensions of the problem at hand. The next section, ‘Catch‐all parties and the Parteienstaat’ discusses the definition, characteristics, constellations, and the historical context and organizational modernization of the catch‐all party, which cannot be separated from the respective constellations of party systems and from the emergence of the European invention of the party state (Parteienstaat). The last main section of the chapter looks at the various symptoms of the perceived crisis of the catch‐all party, and the implications of the ‘third wave’ of politico‐organizational modernization of the final decades of the twentieth century, which is shown to have led to tentative new types of party, including numerous ‘catch‐all plus’ phenomena and a search for new terms to describe a ‘fourth’ type of party.
Electoral and Party Competition: Analytical Dimensions and Empirical Problems
Authors: Bartolini Stefano
Published: October 2003

Focuses on the concept of electoral and party competition as the key mechanism leading party elites to respond to the preferences of voters. While competition is of central importance in both democratic theory and in empirical studies of party behaviour, the concept (as operationalized in many studies) is vague and ambiguous; in particular, it has very different meanings in the real world of electoral and parliamentary behaviour, on the one hand, and in the formal models of rational‐choice scholars, on the other. Discusses the unintended by‐product (social value) of competition, and gives an overview of the intellectual origins (from Simmel, Schumpeter, and Downs) of this approach. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to an original criticism of the problems inherent in applying this import from economic theory to the study of electoral competition, first focusing on key dimensions of this competition—contestability, availability, decidability, and vulnerability, and then arguing that these four crucial dimensions of competition interact with one another in ways that are fundamentally incompatible with the simplifying assumptions upon which the economic model depends. Each of the dimensions of electoral competition impinges on the others in an interactive, if not sometimes contradictory manner, and as a result of these multidimensional interaction effects, party competition cannot be conceived of as a linear process that unfolds between minimum and maximum points on a single continuum, but rather as a moving point shifting about in a four‐dimensional space within which no equilibrium point can be identified; accordingly, electoral preferences cannot be regarded as exogenous to party competition, but are decisively influenced by parties and party elites.
A Crisis of Institutionalization: The Collapse of the UCD in Spain
Authors: Gunther Richard , Hopkin Jonathan
Published: October 2003

Political parties are such a fundamental part of democratic political life that they take on an appearance of stability and solidity that is rarely questioned—hence, when a political party collapses, political scientists are usually taken by surprise. In this context, the remarkable collapse in 1982 of Spain's governing party, the Union de Centro Democrático (UCD), long regarded as an exception to the rule of party stability, may provide some clues as to the causes of recent cases of party crisis. The catastrophic defeat of the UCD in the 1982 general election was primarily the result of a reaction by the electorate against the highly visible internal struggles and schisms, which beset the party during the preceding two years, and in many respects, represented a ‘punishment vote’ by an electorate that had become fed up with squabbles that had even reached the point (in an attempted military coup in 1981) of threatening the survival of the new democratic regime itself. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the origins of these destructive intra‐party conflicts, for which several different explanations have been set forth by scholars and journalists, and by UCD leaders themselves, the most important being that the UCD was insufficiently ‘institutionalized’. The first part looks at the concept of institutionalization, and further sections look at: the creation of the UCD—factions, incompatibilities, and the transition to democracy; the cost of constitutional consensus; the model of the party—catch‐all, factional or holding‐company; and internal conflict and external opportunities—a discussion of rational exits (defections) from the UCD.
Party Government, Patronage, and Party Decline in Western Europe
Authors: Blondel Jean
Published: October 2003

Blondel approaches the question of party decline by asking to what extent it is a product of semi‐legal or illegal practices adopted by parties. At first glance it seems that the answer should be positive—the discovery of corruption or the distribution of favours by parties has made them the target of mass media attacks that have fed into increasing citizen dissatisfaction with or disaffection from parties; Blondel, however, adopts a more cautious and conditional stance, noting that negative electoral consequences of illegal or semi‐legal practices have been inconsistent among countries with significant levels of corruption. Develops a series of analytical distinctions and empirical generalizations focusing on the concepts of party government and patronage, which starts by noting that the most basic linkages between governments and their supporting parties involve policies and appointments, and that traditional parliamentary theory neglects patronage as one important aspect of these linkages. In order to speculate about the origins of cross‐national differences in the extent of patronage, Blondel develops a classification scheme based upon two dimensions: the first is derived from the various types of party–government relationships—adversarial, consensual, and conciliatory; the second involves the extent of parliamentary support for the government; in addition to these dimensions, a distinction is made between those parliamentary settings in which parties are, in general terms, dependent upon the government, those in which parties predominate over the government, and those in which the government and its supporting party/ies are linked in a situation of mutual interdependence. These typologies show that patronage is extensive and widely distributed in ‘partitocratic’ countries, is less common in Westminster‐type majoritarian polities, is greatly reduced in ‘conciliatory’ systems, and has grown notably since the 1980s, but only in the first two of these categories; suggests that this increase is because favours, bribes, and corruption are utilized as a partial substitute for the unfulfilment of over‐ambitious government programme commitments; argues that an assessment of the effects of patronage also requires a differentiation among types of party government.
The UNHCR and World Politics
Authors: Loescher Gil
Published: October 2003

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created over 50 years ago to be a human rights and advocacy organization. But governments also created the agency to promote regional and international stability and to serve the interest of states. Consequently, the UNHCR has always trod a perilous path between its mandate to protect refugees and asylum seekers and the demands placed upon it by states to be a relevant actor in international relations. A key focus is to examine the extent to which the evolution of the UNHCR has been framed by the crucial events of international politics and international security during the past half century and how, in turn, the actions of the first eight High Commissioners have helped shape the course of world history. A central objective is to analyse the development of national and international refugee policies and actions, placing these within the broader contexts of the changing global political and security environments in the Cold War and post–Cold War eras. One of the core findings is that UNHCR has over‐stretched itself in recent decades and has strayed from its central human rights protection role.
Introduction
Authors: Kahn Jeffrey
Published: October 2003

Presents an overview of the book's main themes: the variety of federal approaches, the risks of conceptual confusion and path‐dependency from previous state systems, the influence of regional political agendas, and the added complexities that confront multi‐ethnic and multi‐lingual states. These issues are explored at several stages of Soviet and post‐Soviet Russian political history. This book combines insights from the fields of Russian area studies, comparative law, and comparative politics. The author's methodology is presented, key terms are defined, geography and political divisions are explained (with maps), and followed by an outline of the book's chapters.
Federal Theory
Authors: Kahn Jeffrey
Published: October 2003

Theories of federalism are explored in detail, with particular attention to the work of Dahl, Lijphart, Riker, and Wheare. Issues addressed include anti‐majoritarianism, asymmetry, centralization, the role of the judiciary and the rule of law, nullification, over‐representation, secessionism, self‐determination, sovereignty, and subsidiarity. A wide variety of federal systems are possible under the rubric of federalism (including confederation, federacy, etc.) and these are explored. Different constitutional and institutional choices have different effects (and paradoxes) for democracy, law, and sovereignty in federal states. The role of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other social cleavages on the development and stability of federal systems is addressed. Empirical analysis of federalism in Brazil, Spain, Yugoslavia, the United States, and other state systems is provided. The theory of ‘non‐democratic federalism’ is disputed.
Soviet ‘Federalism’
Authors: Kahn Jeffrey
Published: October 2003

Although most scholars were quick to puncture the Soviet Union's sham claims to democracy, too many accepted at face value its claim to be a federal state. The shifting debates about federalism in Bolshevik doctrine and communist theory are explored. The formation, systematization, and stagnation of the so‐called ‘Soviet federalism’ is examined and debunked through analysis of the constitutions and political realities that existed under Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev.
Gorbachev's Federalism Problem
Authors: Kahn Jeffrey
Published: October 2003

The Soviet Union's ‘nationalities problem’ was one of the fundamental hurdles that Mikhail Gorbachev failed to clear in his attempt at systemic transformation of the USSR. Less understood, and far less studied, was Gorbachev's ‘federalism problem’. The institutional weaknesses of Soviet ‘federalism’ presented serious obstacles to would‐be reformers of the political system as well as to opponents of reform. After 70 years of Soviet rhetoric, there was deep confusion over just what terms like ‘federal’ or ‘sovereignty’ really meant. Efforts to construct a ‘renewed’ USSR and a new Russian Federation were deeply constrained by Soviet institutions and concepts.