bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Knowledge Hierarchies and the Politics of Ideas in American International Commodity Policy
Authors: Livingston Steven G.
Published: November 2008

Multiple knowledges are available for utilisation in policy choice. The rank ordering of knowledges for use in decisionmaking is thus a fundamental predecision. This article shows how this predecision necessarily constrains the processes associated with a politics of ideas, using cases from American international commodity policy. Even when the supposed preconditions of this sort of politics are present, policy change did not occur when the proposed ideas arose from a knowledge accorded secondary status in policymaking circles. Several implications are discussed for the influence and the study of ideational politics. Ultimately, the politics of ideas, so often portrayed through cases of innovation, may be quite conservative, contained by knowledge hierarchies which reflect prior political circumstances.
Comparing Comparative Policy Studies — A Path Towards Integration?
Authors: Feick Jürgen
Published: November 2008

This paper tries to integrate and generalise research results from selected comparative policy studies in the fields of economic, social, educational, environmental and health and safety policies. The countries included are Britain, Sweden and the United States. The concepts of institutional and organisational structure, culture orientation and policy style are applied in order to develop descriptive taxonomies to suggest how these factors might influence ultimate policy outputs.
Are Industrial Policy and Corporatism Compatible?
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: November 2008

As intense international competition along with rapidly changing product markets and technology have come to dominate the economic environment for firms, industries, and nations, government pursuit of a coordinated, proactive industrial policy has increasingly been viewed as a key to national economic success. Owing largely to its utility in generating consensus-formation, corporatist concertation has been suggested by a number of commentators as an ideal mechanism for implementing industrial policies. However, the legitimacy of corporatism as a mode of interest intermediation rests on the capacity of interest group representatives to win benefits for all their members, while industrial policy decisions are by nature selective or discriminatory. This feature of industrial policy casts doubts upon its compatibility with corporatism. The postwar policy-making experiences of Japan, Sweden, and West Germany support this skepticism.
Explaining Foreign Economic Policy: A Comparison of U.S and West German Export Controls
Authors: Hofhansel Claus
Published: November 2008

This article analyzes differences between United States and West German export controls. It shows that United States controls are more extensive and stricter than controls in West Germany. Three possible explanations for this variation in policy are considered. First, these two states differ in regard to their positions in the international system and in their choice of economic strategies. Second, the extent of domestic political support for strict export control policies varies between the two countries. Finally, West Germany lacks the institutional framework to adequately control its foreign trade. The evidence presented corroborates the first two alternatives, while institutional explanations receive relatively little support. The article then discusses the historical development of United States and West German export control policies and institutions. The analysis shows evidence of both change and stability. More specifically, the article questions the argument that institutions in foreign economic policy, once established, persist and resist change, instead of adapting to environmental changes. Several hypotheses are considered to explain why in the area of export controls changes in policy, and to some extent institutions, occurred more frequently in West Germany than in the United States.
The Social Production of Welfare and Consumption of Social Services
Authors: Netten Ann , Davies Bleddyn
Published: November 2008

The social production of welfare provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of the consumption of social services and the impact of welfare policies. Based on the new home economics, it represents the unit of consumption as a unit of production of commodities. With the advent of disability this unit extends from the household to the informal care network. Social care agencies become involved when the production of basic commodities, such as nutrition and personal care, fall below threshold levels which threaten the survival of the informal care network. The social production of welfare allows comparisons across systems and provides the starting point for the development of tools for empirical analysis.
Why Communism Collapses: The Moral and Material Failures of Command Economies are Intertwined
Authors: Clark John , Wildavsky Aaron
Published: November 2008

Communism is vulgar capitalism; that is, the communist command economy is based on mistaken notions of how capitalism grew by exploiting workers. Command economies not capitalism fulfil Marx's predictions, collapsing because they are unproductive and immoral, basing economic choices on corrupted personal relations. Without competition, decision in command economies are unproductive through negative selection, and immoral, being based on corrupt personal relations. Each and every Marxist and neo-Marxist prediction about capitalism, from commodity fetishism to the alienation of the citizen from the state, comes true under communism. The explanation is straightforward: Marxist assumptions about the state and the economy are far more true for communist than for capitalist countries.
Institutions, Veto Points, and Policy Results: A Comparative Analysis of Health Care
Authors: Immergut Ellen M.
Published: November 2008

The medical profession is reputed to control decision-making in medical care to such an extent that one can speak of professional dominance. Yet West European health policies have radically changed the working conditions and incomes of doctors in many countries. Why have some governments been able to ‘socialize’ medicine? This article seeks to refute the view that the medical profession exercises a universal veto power. In contrast to scholars who explain medical influence in terms of singular characteristics of the medical profession or through the historical process of professionalization, this essay focuses on the properties of distinct political systems that make them vulnerable to medical influence. It argues that we have vetopointswithin political systems and not vetogroupswithin societies. By comparing the lobbying efforts of medical associations in Switzerland, France, and Sweden, the article analyses the role of political institutions in accounting for different patterns of medical association influence on health policy.
Skeptical Reflections on a Europe of Regions: Britain, Germany, and the ERDF
Authors: Anderson Jeffrey J.
Published: November 2008

European Community policymaking has been predicated upon the member governments acting as gatekeepers which mediate between their respective domestic political systems and EC institutions. However, the sweeping changes associated with Project 1992 threaten the gatekeeping status of the Twelve. This article explores the domestic and international consequences, which are cast in terms of three scenarios: the maintenance of the status quo, the emergence of a ‘Europe of Regions’, and a variegated set of outcomes. As an attempt to move beyond the realm of pure speculation, concrete lessons are culled from the reform of the European Regional Development Fund since 1979 and its effect on national and subnational interests in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. The theoretical premise is that national and subnational actors respond to Community initiatives within a structured context, the domestic policy networks in which they are embedded. These clusters of interorganizational relationships at the domestic level reflect the underlying distribution of resources among actors, and endow them with different capabilities and vulnerabilities as they seek to cope with changes administered to their policy environment by the EC. The findings suggest skepticism of the image of strengthened regions breaking out of the orbit of weakened states with the assistance of the EC. While the ability of member states to retain their roles as gatekeepers varies, this capacity remains strong. Moreover, subnational actors often view the EC as yet another exogenous institutional constraint on action.
The European Community Social Charter and Labour Market Regulation
Authors: Teague Paul , Grahl John
Published: November 2008

The market orientation of the 1992 European Community programme has given way to a range of other projects involving institutional integration. Issues such as European Monetary Union and the EC Social Charter now dominate the Community's policy agenda. Inducing this shift from ‘negative’ to ‘positive’ integration was a growing realisation that institutional interventions are required to secure and coordinate the integration process. This paper examines the nature of the EC Social Charter as a positive coordination mechanism. First the controversies surrounding the adoption of the Charter are outlined. Then an appraisal is made of how the clauses of the Charter' accompanying action programme and recently published draft Directives affect existing national systems of labour market regulation. The conclusion is that although the Charter does not constitute a move towards a harmonised employment regime, it is a serious attempt to bring about greater coherence in Community labour markets.
Choice and Conflict about Census Data Adjusting the American Census Count
Authors: Cohen Michael L.
Published: November 2008

The census is a social fact, the outcome of a process that involves the interaction of public laws and institutions and citizens' responses to an official inquiry. However, it is not a ‘hard’ fact. Reasons for inevitable defects in the census count are listed in the first section; the second section reports efforts by the US Census Bureau to identify sources of error in census coverage, and make estimates of the size of the errors. The use of census data for policy purposes, such as political representation and allocating funds, makes these defects controversial. Errorsmaybe removed by making adjustments to the initial census count. However, because adjustment reallocates resources between groups, it has become the subject of political conflict. The paper describes the conflict between statistical practices, laws and public policy about census adjustment in the United States, and concludes by considering the extent to which causes in America are likely to be found in other countries.
Charity-State Relations: A Conceptual Analysis
Authors: Deans Tom , Ware Alan
Published: November 2008

This article examines the issues and the problems confronted by those conducting comparative research of charity-state relations in England, Canada and the United States. It also provides an explanation of why the interaction between charities and the state is important for political science: in part this is because in all three countries charities have become increasingly dependent on government for their income. In section I, the article examines the relationship between the concepts of a third sector, voluntary sector, non-profit sector and charity and concludes that the last might be the most appropriate to employ in comparative analysis. In section 2, the authors argue that in both England and Canada the state is formally responsible for the formation of certain kinds of charities; they also argue that in the United States a stricter separation between state and charity exists but that, in practice, the boundaries between charities and the state and the market are not clear ones.
Innovation in Local Government and Fiscal Austerity
Authors: Wolman Harold
Published: November 2008

This article relates a rich and diverse existing body of literature concerning innovation to an area of research on which it has yet to be brought to bear – the response of local governments to fiscal austerity. After reviewing innovation research literature with respect to its applicability to local government innovation as a response to fiscal stress, it sets forth six research questions for exploring the relationship between innovation and local fiscal austerity. The innovation research literature is then examined with respect to each of these questions to determine what findings or hypotheses emerge from this existing body of research which are relevant to these newly formulated questions.
Policy Recommendations for Multi-Actor Implementation: An Assessment of the Field
Authors: O'Toole Laurence J
Published: November 2008

One goal frequently professed in the research field of multi-actor implementation is to assist those actually involved in the policy process by developing good, empirically-based recommendations. The primary objectives in this article are to investigate the degree of progress attained thus far toward this aim and, as a consequence, to suggest an agenda for future research. The literature is found to impose a number of restrictions on the quality of advice available to practitioners. The field is complex, without much cumulation or convergence. Few well-developed recommendations have been put forward by researchers and a number of proposals are contradictory. Almost no evidence or analysis of utilization in this field has been produced. Two reasons for the lack of development are analyzed: normative disagreement and the state of the field's empirical theory. Yet there remain numerous possibilities for increasing the quality of the latter. Efforts in this direction are a necessary condition of further practical advance.
Problems of Expedited Implementation: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Authors: Weimer David Leo
Published: November 2008

At each stage of program implementation – strategic planning, systems design, development of the management control infrastructure, and project execution – different types of expertise are most critical to success. The civil service system, which is oriented toward the hiring of permanent employees, and personnel ceilings, which are often arbitrarily set in the budgeting process, interact to impede the transition from one implementation stage to the next. Cost overruns and long-run schedule slippage may result from attempts to expedite programs by beginning implementation stages in parallel, particularly if compensatory resources are not provided. These problems are illustrated with the history of the implementation of the strategic petroleum reserve program, a key element of US policy for reducing vulnerability to disruptions of the world oil market.
The Politics of Industrial Training in the United Kingdom
Authors: Anderson Malcolm , Jurue John Fairley
Published: November 2008

Important and controversial changes have recently taken place in industrial training in the United Kingdom. Training is a complex policy area – industrial, economic, educational and social objectives may be pursued through it. For the most part it has been policy formation which has been dominated by professionals and thus there has been a ‘closed system’ into which outsiders rarely intrude. But outside influences have become more powerful; consequently the professionals are careful about which issues they place on the agenda for discussion. However, the most striking impression made by the training system is its lack of coherence and this may undermine its effectiveness.
Flood Control Policy in China: The Policy Consequences of Natural Disasters
Authors: Ross Lester
Published: November 2008

This study of flood control policy before and after the Chinese floods of 1980–2 reveals the interactive effects of bureaucratic politics, the goals and careers of national leaders, and natural disasters in a communist regime. Policy is shown to be more reactive and influenced by longstanding bureaucratic rivalries than most previous research has found.
The Politics of Central Banks: Austerity and Unemployment in Europe
Authors: Kurzer Paulette
Published: November 2008

This article examines the divergences in labor market-performances in four small, open economies: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It argues that great unemployment in Belgium and the Netherlands is partly due to the implementation of deflationary policies during the 1980s. The decline of Keynesian intervention in Belgium and the Netherlands is traced to the institutional independence of their central banks to set monetary and exchange rate policies separate from government. Because the Swedish and Austrian central banks are more integrated in the policy process and their countries are not members of the Common Market or the European Monetary System, social democratic governments have been able to go against the European trend of monetary restrictiveness and fiscal austerity. Accordingly, business in Austria and Sweden is more optimistic about future profit returns and is more willing to invest in productive capital, resulting in lower unemployment.
Hearing Objections? Evaluating Energy Planning Procedures in Scotland and Germany
Authors: Clement Keith
Published: November 2008

The planning of major energy facilities in Western Europe has met with increasing opposition in the last 15 years. In Scotland formal objections to such developments are considered in public inquiries; in Germany the equivalent institution is the hearing. These two institutions differ fundamentally in scope and in the means of presenting and examining evidence. The involvement of the courts has been greater in Germany, where lengthy cases examining procedural and substantive issues have developed a new field in legal administration. Developers, objectors and administrators find fault with the planning and legal systems, but outcomes invariably favour the developers. Of the two institutions examined, the British public inquiry offers objectors considerably more scope than does the German hearing.
Do Institutions Make a Difference? Financing Systems of Labor Market Policy
Authors: Schmid Günther , Reissert Bernd
Published: November 2008

In recent years the hopes of finding a solution for the puzzle of mass unemployment shifted to labor market institutions such as the system of regulation and industrial relations. The following study takes up a much neglected aspect of labor market institutions, the issue of financing labor market policy. After developing the analytical framework, the systems of financing labor market policy in six countries are briefly described. Next are analyzed the effects of different financing systems on expenditures for active labor market policy – as an essential element in fighting unemployment. Financial systems, however, influence not only the level but also the structure of labor market policy which in turn has implications for its allocational and distributional effects. Finally, some lessons are drawn from the international comparison, the main thesis is illustrated by the German case. Institutional incongruity, i.e. a mismatch between organizational structures and functions, may have two effects, leading political decision makers to behave in a generally unexpected way, and channelling the effects of political programmes in unintended directions.
Does Palermo Represent The Future For Moscow?
Authors: Hedlund Stefan , Sundström Niclas
Published: November 2008

This article addresses and expands on two points made by Robert Putnam in his recent study Making Democracy Work. The first concerns the observation that in order to find the cultural roots of Italian institution building, we may have to go further back in history than the 12th century, where Putnam stopped, and the second relates to the possible implications of this historical approach for the current transformation in the former Soviet bloc. The theoretical presentation revolves around the concepts of path dependence and multiple equilibria, finding much common ground between several of the social science disciplines. In conclusion it is argued that there may be cases of ‘pathological path dependence’, where public policy can have positive effects only if preceded by careful study of the anatomy of the pathological institutions that cause development traps.
The Impact of Regime Change on Public Policy: The Case of Spain
Authors: Gunther Richard
Published: November 2008

Does political regime matter? Parallel analyses of Spanish public expenditure and taxation policies under the authoritarian Franco regime and in the current democracy, as well as of decision-making processes under both regimes, based upon extensive in-depth interviews with relevant government officials from 1974 to 1996, indicate that political regime characteristics can have a profound impact on both policy processes and outputs. Ruling out a ‘socioeconomic’ explanation, the author concludes that striking aberrations in state spending and taxation policies in the early 1970s were systematic products of unusual features of Franquist policy-making processes, which were directly linked to the authoritarian nature of the regime itself. Subsequently, democratization has been accompanied by dramatic changes in both policy processes and outputs.
Labour and Citizenship: The Development of Welfare State Regimes
Authors: Boreham Paul , Hall Richard , Leet Martin
Published: November 2008

This paper is concerned with the political determinants of the significantly different rates of welfare expenditure which characterise advanced capitalist countries. The research concentrates on the connections between the organization and mobilization of a key political actor pursing social wage benefits – the labour movement – and different levels across nations of welfare provision, including expenditure on health, social security consumption expenditure and social security transfers. The paper uses disaggregated, pooled time series data on welfare provision in 15 OECD countries, 1974–1988, to test the association between more comprehensive welfare state regimes and state structures that facilitate the intervention of organized labour movements in the policy process.
Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework
Authors: Jenkins-Smith Hank C. , Sabatier Paul A.
Published: November 2008

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was developed to provide a causal theory of the policy process which would serve as one of several alternatives to the familiar stages heuristic, with its recognized limitations. This paper first summarizes the central features of the ACF, including a set of underlying assumptions and specific hypotheses. We next review the implications for the framework of six case studies by various authors dealing with Canadian education and with American transportation, telecommunications, water, environmental, and energy policy. While generally supportive of the ACF, the case studies also suggest several revisions.
Center–Local Linkages: The Impact of Policy Planning Systems
Authors: Skelcher Chris , Hinnings Bob , Leach Steve , Ranson Stewart
Published: November 2008

This paper examines policy planning systems in British central-local government relations, and in particular the formal, structured relationship in the local transport policy sector, as a means of exploring the impact in intergovernmental relations of the form of linkage between institutions. This impact is analysed in terms of central government's ability to use the planning system to promote policy processes and promote and regulate policy content in the locality. The use of specific and block grants by central government as a potential instrument of control in relation to policy planning systems is discussed. An examination of limiting cases reveals the importance of local resources in minimising central government influence through the policy planning system, and suggests that institutions will seek to restructure the form of linkage or underlying resources when they see themselves loosing advantage to others.
East-West Migration and the Czech Republic
Authors: Wallace Claire , Palyanitsya Andrii
Published: November 2008

The fall of the Berlin Wall led to fears of an influx of migrants from Eastern Europe. So far this ‘flood’ has not arrived, but new patterns of migration from East to West are emerging. In this paper we explore patterns of migration in the Czech Republic which has emerged as part of a ‘buffer zone’ between East and West Europe. We develop a preliminary typology of types of migration and some of the factors which govern migration in the Czech Republic by drawing upon more than 200 in-depth interviews with migrants in their own languages. Our conclusion is that the Czech Republic has become a ‘transit’ zone of migration. However, it is also increasingly a destination country in its own right, something which has hitherto received little attention in studies of East-West migration.
Sterile Debates and Dubious Generalisations: European Integration Theory Tested by Telecommunications and Electricity
Authors: Schmidt Susanne K.
Published: November 2008

Analyses of European integration processes are still dominated by the dichotomous debate between intergovernmentalism and suprana-tionalism. Sides are often taken in this debate based on very case-specific empirical findings. An analysis of two cases, European telecommunications and electricity policy, illustrates how misleading such generalisations can be. The former case is often used to support supranational claims, while the latter highlights the importance of intergovernmental vetos. However, further analysis reveals the very parallel supranational policy approach of the European Commission to both sectors and the resulting weakness of the dominant interpretation. An analysis using a multilevel governance approach to European integration can avoid these difficulties.
Sustainability: Demands on Policy
Authors: Dovers Stephen R.
Published: November 2008

In recent years, issues of environment and human development have been gathered together under the integrative framework of sustainability (sustainable development), creating unprecedented demands on policy. Major policy processes have been constructed and are producing new and supposedly far reaching agreements, policies and strategies. However palatable politically, the likelihood of these leading to significant positive changes in the environment or human use of it, however, is questionable. This situation is sketched, using the Australian setting as an example. The article then establishes in detail the problem attributes particular to sustainability, and argues the crucial proposition that this policy field is different from others in both kind and degree. Some implications of this for policy analysis and prescription are noted.
Social Insurance as an Efficiency Device
Authors: Barr Nicholas
Published: November 2008

Irrespective of views about equity, social insurance has a major efficiency role. Because of technical problems in private markets, neither unemployment nor inflation are risks against which private markets can supply actuarial insurance, and medical insurance cannot cover all risks for all types of individual. The existence of social insurance is therefore supported on the grounds that it does things which private, actuarial insurance would either not do at all or would do inefficiently.
Popular versus Elite Views of Privatization: The Case of Britain
Authors: McAllister Ian , Studlar Donley T.
Published: November 2008

Privatization is an idea that is popular among political elites throughout the advanced industrial world. In Britain, it has been the centrepiece of Margaret Thatcher's three Conservative governments, reflected in the sale of publicly-owned industries to the private sector and in the sale of council houses to their tenants. Using survey data, this article tests two models to account for privatization policy. The median voter model argues that it was a policy demanded and initiated by voters, while the elite interests model argues that it stemmed from the government and that little popular demand existed for it. The evidence confirms the elite interests model and shows that public opinion has generally accepted the status quo on the public ownership of industry. In addition, the Conservatives have made modest electoral gains from privatization. However, voters are not consistent in their views about privatizating particular industries, implying the Conservatives may lose votes with future privatization.
Fighting Political Terrorism by Refusing Recognition: A Critique of Frey's Proposal
Authors: Friedland Nehemia
Published: November 2008

Frey (1987) proposed a new information policy designed to lower the utility of terrorist action. The policy is predicated on the assumption that terrorists aim to draw public attention to their cause. Therefore, the terrorists' rewards can be reduced by refraining from attributing a particular terrorist act to any one group. Faced with diminished rewards, terrorists are likely to give up violent action or to resort to tactics that put them in greater jeopardy. The present article offers a thorough analysis of Frey's proposal. It shows that the proposal derives from a too limited view of the terrorist strategy and from unrealistic assumptions about the extent to which democratic governments can control the sources and the dissemination of information. A judgment of Frey's proposal according to criteria drawn from a more comprehensive view of the terrorist strategy leads to the conclusion that the proposed policy is both impractical and counterproductive.
Interpreting the unexpected: the case of AIDS policy making in Britain
Authors: Day Patricia , Klein Rudolf
Published: November 2008

This paper analyses the reactions of a government faced with an unpredictable and unexpected crisis with possible catastrophic long-term effects: the AIDS epidemic in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. First, the AIDS epidemic is defined as a case study of government forced to cope with uncertainty, moral ambiguity and the knowledge that there are no solutions, only ways of limiting the damage. Second, it examines the evolution of policy of British ministers, who initially preferred to ignore evidence of AIDS but were forced to act by signals threatening a popular backlash. They did so by creating a programme of action based on the advice and values of the medical profession and public health experts. The conclusion argues that this kind of policy response may be generalisable. When societies are faced with problems that do not appear to be soluble but which may imperil social cohesion they seek to create an elite consensus to treat them as technical matters, so insulating the policy process from possible disruptive populist pressures.
Management Accountability: The Signals sent by Auditing and Evaluation
Authors: Rist Ray C.
Published: November 2008

Auditing and Evaluation are two strategies which governments may use to ascertain if existing policies and programs are being administered as they ought. They provide critical information by which to determine the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of government action and are the basis for holding accountable those responsible for the government policies and programs. The analysis compares the strengths and weaknesses of auditing and evaluation as means of monitoring accountability. Three types of accountability are discussed. Auditing makes its strongest contributing to managerial accountability through a focus on fiscal or regulatory issues.
Social Steering and Household Strategies: the macropolitics and the microsociology of welfare states
Authors: Therborn Göran
Published: November 2008

An analytical perspective for grasping how welfare states relate to the ordinary life-pursuits of their population and how the latter relates to the welfare state is needed. What welfare states do is distinguished into social administration, social education, social reform, and social steering. Steering reaches furthest into people's lives. As such it is problematic both to integrative and aggregative theories of democracy; it can also include the possibility of calling forth more signals from the population than less ambitious democratic policies. A systematic overview of aggregate Swedish household data the major activities of households provides a basis for analysing how the population is affected by and affects the welfare state. The state appears as an important provider of work, housing, childcare, and leisure; the most effective signals from households to the state come forward when public provision and subsidy have created tight markets. From the household perspective, signals to government through individual action of various sorts, direct or mediated, appear crucial even in very organized Sweden.
The Transformation to the Market: At High Cost, Often with Long Lags, and Not Without Question Marks
Authors: Winiecki Jan
Published: November 2008

The shift from a command economy to a market economy is not only a question of following appropriate macro-economic policies but also a matter of instilling a market ethic in the minds of people who had been socialized and rewarded in a non-market command economy. In that system, many concentrated on technical rules of survival. The lumpenproletariat in favoured industries were rewarded even when they shirked or pilfered from state enterprises. The ethics of the lumpenintelligentsia reflected Communist party values, as professional. associations were under party control. The maintenance of such attitudes creates substantial resistance to the transformation of the economy, because a Weberian protestant ethic is lacking. Transition does occur, but the legacy of the old ethic imposes high transaction costs, inefficiencies and inhibits forward direct investment.
Welfare Over Time: Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism in Panel Perspective
Authors: Headey Bruce , Goodin Robert E. , Muffels Ruud , Dirven Henk-Jan
Published: November 2008

In this paper we analyse the effects, over time, of the liberal (US), corporatist (German) and social democratic (Dutch) welfare states on poverty, inequality and income redistribution 1985–89. Unlike previous international comparisons relying on static frameworks and cross-sectional data, we use panel data from the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel (SEP), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), and the American Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) — all of which have large samples (15,000+ respondents) and all of which have been running for fully a decade — to compare welfare state performance over one and five years. We find that both the corporatist (German) and especially the social democratic (Dutch) welfare states redistribute income substantially to reduce poverty and inequality, and that in both cases these effects are substantially greater over five years than one. In the social democratic (Dutch) regime very few people have incomes which, taking a five year average, put them below the poverty line. The corporatist (German) regime also turns out to be much more redistributive over five years than would ordinarily be expected. The liberal (US) welfare state, in contrast, is not only much less redistributive on a one-year basis but also no more so over five years than one. There is, however, evidence of efficiency losses in the more ‘generous’ social democratic welfare state, in that fewer people appear to escape poverty through labour markets than in the liberal welfare regime.
International Monetary Cooperation, Domestic Politics, and Policy Ideas
Authors: Odell John S. , Willett Thomas D.
Published: November 2008

International monetary problems moved from the back pages to the front pages long ago, and yet, despite much attention, they continue to trouble national leaders, entrepreneurs, international officials and scholars, and to affect the average citizen. World payments imbalances and currency fluctuations have substantial domestic economic effects, give rise to protectionist pressures, put unwelcome heat on politicians, and raise fears that resulting governmental conflicts could unravel political-security relations. Thus, large and small nations meet in various fora, from bilateral sessions through the Group-of-Seven powers to the annual IMF conference, to negotiate proposed changes.
From London to Bretton Woods; Sources of Change in Bargaining Strategies and Outcomes
Authors: Odell John S.
Published: November 2008

Our most prominent theories of international bargaining miss elements essential for understanding national bargaining strategies and international outcomes. In particular they lack sufficient mechanisms of change over time. A focused contrast between the London economic and monetary conference of 1933 and the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 suggests three new dynamic hypotheses. (1) Changes, especially extreme ones, in national market conditions are likely to shift the state's bargaining strategy sharply even if its relative international position has not changed. A slump will produce a more exploitative strategy, while a boom will encourage either a passive or an expansive strategy. (2) Painful national experience running contrary to prevailing policy ideas is likely to discredit those ideas among politicians and officials, turn them toward alternative doctrines, and lead to corresponding strategy changes. The ideas most likely to spread politically are ones which had predicted the currrent problem, and those whose advocates mount the most sophisticated publicity campaign. (3) International technical disagreement can pose a decisive impediment to intergovernmental agreement, while in some conditions at least technical convergence facilitates official agreement.
Devaluation and Domestic Politics in Developing Countries: Indonesia in 1978
Authors: Woo Wing Thye
Published: November 2008

Devaluations are traumatic events. The historical record shows that a devaluation doubles the probability that a ruling group would be replaced and triples the likelihood that the Minister of Finance would be relieved. Yet in November 1978, Indonesia devalued its currency by 50 percent when observers were not predicting a balance of payments crisis in the near future. The devaluation was undertaken to effect an income transfer to the countryside and the Outer Islands, the centers of traditional agricultural export industries. Since this action contradicts the logic of the dominant models of the Indonesian state, we propose that authoritarian corporatism is a more accurate characterization of the state-society relationship. The economic conditions in the countryside and Outer Islands are important to policy makers because the former has a long history of agrarian radicalism and the latter a history of secessions.
Obstacles to International Macroeconomic Policy Coordination
Authors: Frankel Jeffrey A.
Published: November 2008

This paper considers the effects of uncertainty on the magnitude of prospective welfare gains from international macroeconomic policy coordination. Three different sources of uncertainty are studied: the initial state of the economy; the correct welfare weights to be assigned to policy targets; and the impact on the economy that economic models attribute to policy changes. Simulation results show that uncertainty about any of the three reduces the likely gains from coordination and creates the possibility of negative effects. The gains from improved economic knowledge can be quite substantial in relation to the gains from coordination. This suggests that the development and exchange of economic information can be an important function of international cooperation.
Convergence with divergence: A sound change in Vernacular Black English
Authors: Denning Keith
Published: November 2008

Some recent research proposes that changes observed in the morphology and syntax of Vernacular Black English (VBE), combined with the failure of VBE to participate in regional changes in the pronunciation of white speech, constitutes evidence for the divergence of VBE from white and standard varieties. The present article presents quantitative evidence for a change in VBE which appears to involve increasing similarity between VBE and other varieties: a marked tendency toward higher, fronter realizations of the final /i/ in words like happy in the speech of younger blacks. Evidence for the character of the change comes from English dialectology, historical phonology, and research conducted by the author on the speech of residents of East Palo Alto, California. It is proposed that whereas black and white varieties may remain distinct, undergoing some changes separately, this need not be regarded as absolute divergence. Distinct varieties in contact may, for complex sociological and linguistic reasons, be expected more realistically to appear to diverge and converge simultaneously.
The child as linguistic historian
Authors: Labov William
Published: November 2008

Though the diachronic dimension of linguistic variation is often identified with linguistic change, many stable linguistic variables with no synchronic motivation show historical continuity with little change over long periods of time. Children acquire at an early age historically transmitted constraints on variables that appear to have no communicative significance, such as the grammatical conditioning of (ing) in English. Studies of (td) and (ing) in King of Prussia families show that children have matched their parents' patterns of variation by age 7, before many categorical phonological and grammatical rules are established. Some dialect-specific and socially marked constraints are acquired before constraints with general articulatory motivation. Constraints on (td) appear in the speech of a 4-year-old, but there is no evidence in the productions of a 2-year-old child in the same family.
Sex, attitudes, and the assibilation of /r/ among young people in San Luis Potosí, Mexico
Authors: Rissel Dorothy A.
Published: November 2008

This article analyzes the assibilation of /r/ among young people in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in light of previous research on women's speech in language change. It is demonstrated that assibilation, an innovation known to have first appeared in the speech of women of the middle and upper social echelons, is closely associated with sex, sociocultural level, and attitude toward traditional male and female roles. These attitudes are suggested as a factor that plays an important role in the dynamics of the change, showing opposite effects among young men and women. That is, young men with traditional attitudes assibilate least, whereas young women with traditional attitudes assibilate most frequently. Parallels between this study and one of a similar innovation in Argentinian Spanish suggest a generalized pattern of change in which variables introduced by women of the middle and upper social echelons become markers of gender display in the lower classes, where they grow to be favored by women and avoided by men. The discovery of the role of attitude toward traditional sex roles in this pattern of change is unique to the present study.
Deletion as an indicator of SVO → SOV shift
Authors: Clements J. Clancy
Published: November 2008

The Indo-Portuguese (IP) creoles display a well-known and uniform manner of marking the simple past and present continuous with the preposed particlesja(<Ptg.já‘already’) andtE(<Ptg.esta‘is’), respectively. Moreover,n3(<Ptg.no‘in the’) andd3(<Ptg.de‘of, from’ ordo‘of, from the’) are typically used as prepositions to express goal or location. Those creoles with Neoaryan adstrat languages, of which Korlai Creole Portuguese (KP) is one, theoretically possess the option of deleting these markers or prepositions if they are contextually or otherwise redundant. Using data from several sources spanning approximately 100 years, it is shown thatja, tE, n3, andd3in KP have undergone or are undergoing gradual deletion. It is argued that this development is part of a much larger SVO → SOV shift. The status of the typological shift indicators of verb-object/complement, adposition, and adjective-noun order are shown to corroborate the findings regarding deletion.
Phonation differences and the phonetic content of the tense-lax contrast in Utah English
Authors: Di Paolo Marianna , Faber Alice
Published: November 2008

This article presents data bearing on the question of what happens at the phonetic level during a sound change of the type which Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner (1972) labeled an “apparent merger.” Our production data come from three generations of native Utahns who participated in the Intermountain Language Survey (ImLS) and four New Yorkers who served as control subjects. The phonetic subject of our study is the ongoing change in the tense-lax pairs /i-I, e-ε, u-υ/ before tautosyllabic dark [†] in Utah English. Previous studies reported that the resultant vowels are usually, but not always, perceived by both transcribers and speakers as lax. Acoustic analysis, self-categorization data, and perception data demonstrate that, after the usual F1/F2 contrast has been lost, contrasts between these and lax vowels may persist in phonation differences and that these phonation differences may be available to hearers.
The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change
Authors: Labov William
Published: November 2008

Two general principles of sexual differentiation emerge from previous sociolinguistic studies: that men use a higher frequency of nonstandard forms than women in stable situations, and that women are generally the innovators in linguistic change. It is not clear whether these two tendencies can be unified, or how differences between the sexes can account for the observed patterns of linguistic change. The extensive interaction between sex and other social factors raises the issue as to whether the curvilinear social class pattern associated with linguistic change is the product of a rejection of female-dominated changes by lower-class males. Multivariate analysis of data from the Philadelphia Project on Linguistic Change and Variation indicates that sexual differentiation is independent of social class at the beginning of a change, but that interaction develops gradually as social awareness of the change increases. It is proposed that sexual differentiation of language is generated by two distinct processes: (1) for all social classes, the asymmetric context of language learning leads to an initial acceleration of female-dominated changes and retardation of male-dominated changes; (2) women lead men in the rejection of linguistic changes as they are recognized by the speech community, a differentiation that is maximal for the second highest status group.
Near-mergers and the suspension of phonemic contrast
Authors: Labov William , Karen Mark , Miller Corey
Published: November 2008

In 1972, Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner reported a series of “near-mergers” that have since proved to be difficult to assimilate to the standard conception of the phoneme and that challenged our current understanding of how language production is related to perception and learning (Labov, Yaeger, & Steiner, 1972). In these situations, speakers consistently reported that two classes of sounds were “the same,” yet consistently differentiated them in production. Labov (1975a) suggested that this phenomenon was the explanation for two “falsely reported mergers” in the history of English, where word classes were said to have merged and afterward separated. It appears that sound change may bring two phonemes into such close approximation that semantic contrast between them is suspended for native speakers of the dialect, without necessarily leading to merger. This article reports on further observations of near-mergers, which confirm their implications for both synchronic and diachronic issues, and presents the results of experiments that show how phonemic contrast is suspended for an entire community.