Measuring legislative stability: a new approach with data from Hungary

Beginning from the hypothesis that Slavoj Žižek's recent ‘theological’ writing really concerns issues in political theory — historicity, modernity and freedom — ‘polemical ambivalence’ uses a fundamental structural ambiguity in his recent book, The Puppet and Dwarf, to interpret his larger project as split about the utopian aspect of modernity. The Puppet and the Dwarf is riven by modernity, with the text's central argument demonstrating the importance of the modern perspective but with the framing material (introduction, appendix, etc.) demanding that we reverse this appraisal. Modernism elicits both a basic allegiance from Žižek and (in the form of historicism) a basic opposition. Since for Žižek it is the only way that political theory can remain true to the utopian demands of freedom, such ‘ambivalence’ about modernity is the unacknowledged ground of Žižek's thought, and my paper moves toward a consideration of its value in explaining some of the elusive elements of his work — the role and limits of ‘science’ in politics, the necessity and impossibility of utopian imagination, the problem of belief and faith in revolutionary movements.

Can an apparent loser snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat? This question occupied the attention of the late William H. Riker during the last ten years of his career, and it is one that he answered in the affirmative: By constructing choice situations in order to manipulate outcomes, losers can become winners, and vice versa. Riker even coined a term, ‘heresthetics’, to describe this ‘art of political manipulation’. But is Riker’s rather large body of work the ‘idiosyncratic’ product of a ‘singular genius’ or can it serve as the ‘foundation of a new theory of politics’? Scholars have recently raised this question, and not unreasonably so, for Riker’s theory of heresthetics has yet to gain a serious foothold into the political science literature. We develop a game-theoretic model, which enables leaders — in our case, Chief Justices — to engage in heresthetical manipulations. From this model, we deduce propositions about the circumstances that would lead them to invoke heresthetical devices, as well as the particular strategies we would expect them to employ. Finally, we explore the propositions against data amassed from the private papers of two former justices. Our results indicate that Riker’s work was not the ‘idiosyncratic’ product of a ‘singular genius’ but rather can serve as the ‘foundation of a new theory of politics’.

Two important methodological debates in political theory concern (i) the place of historical research and interpretation in normative inquiry; and (ii) the importance of comparing different cultural traditions of political thought. The first question animates a long-standing controversy over the relative importance of ‘history of political thought’ versus ‘philosophy’ in political theory, while the second has been central to the recent growth of ‘comparative political theory’. Despite both debates being concerned, in fundamental ways, with history and comparison, they have remained surprisingly disconnected from broader debates in the humanities and social sciences about the use of comparative history and, in particular, of the prominent methodological approach in political science known as ‘comparative historical analysis’. This may reflect the fact that the debates over history of political thought and comparative political theory have fundamentally revolved around thought—history as the history of thought and comparison as the comparison of thought—whereas comparative historical analysis is more centrally focused on the study of political behaviour. In this paper I suggest that this neglect of comparative historical analysis in political theory represents a missed opportunity. Like other forms of social scientific inquiry, comparative historical analysis can yield important empirical knowledge for political theorists. But I wish to more ambitiously suggest that comparative historical analysis can also be adapted for conducting normative political theory itself. I summarise the key features of comparative historical analysis for political theorists, and explain how its use of historical cases can supplement both the use of imaginary thought experiments and the study of contemporary politics. I then delineate three specific ways in which comparative historical analysis might be used to support normative inquiry: deductive testing, inductive construction, and casuistic elaboration. All three, I argue, can help meet recent calls to bring the study of real political behaviour more centrally into political theory research.

Political power, economic trade-offs, and game theory in Indonesian gasoline subsidy reform

What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have? Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. This book moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small. In established constitutional polities, the book argues that law can and should — and to some extent already does — provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, the book carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.

The simplification of the political landscape in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’ is common across most democracies, if not most of the world. This would suggest that the terminology has a shared core meaning in different political contexts. While no such stable element has been established in the political science literature, various potential dividing lines that may form the core meaning have been proposed. This paper is the most extensive comparative study to our knowledge that evaluates these proposals by studying responses to open‐ended survey questions on what voters associate with the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. Data from eight different democratic political contexts are analysed using quantitative text analysis methods. The results demonstrate varied support for the different explanations. Evidence is found in all contexts for the hypothesis that acceptance of inequality divides left‐ from right‐wing politics. That the left‐right dimension is a divide between those for and against government intervention in the economy, or between those for change and against change, is mostly congruent with our findings. We find less evidence that either secular/religious divisions, or different conceptions of equality, consistently differentiate left from right. Our findings point towards the existence of a context‐independent underlying dimension of left‐right competition.

Higher Modified Charlson Index Scores Are Associated With Increased Incidence of Complications, Transfusion Events, and Length of Stay Following Revision Hip Arthroplasty

The detailed recording of hospice care has made it possible to delineate the RN role which may lead to increased insight into all nursing care. The present study is part of a longitudinal study. The conceptual framework is a composite of economic and nursing theory and Carney & Burns (1985) model of health services. The sample (n = 360) is patients who died in a single hospice over four years. Data analyses include ordinary least squares multiple regression. Examining minutes of care by week, RN time was high the week of admission and the week of death, but dropped in other weeks, forming a U shaped curve. This curve contrasts markedly from that of other staff. Regression models were specified with two definitions of intensity of RN care: (1) total RN minutes and (2) RN minutes/day. The first estimates startup costs and the second relates the explanatory variables to amount of daily care. Startup time was well above 10 hours. Significant explanatory variables in equation 38(1) were patient age, patient/family calls, race, social class, and diagnosis. Significant variables in equation (2) included patient/ family calls, one week survival, two week survival, and diagnosis. Almost 2/3 of the variance of RN time can be explained by the equations. The findings can be used to develop acuity indices. Also, the equations illustrate the inadequacy of present methods of reimbursement which do not consider startup time.

Predicting energy consumption and savings in the housing stock: A performance gap analysis in the Netherlands

Construction projects are incredibly dynamic, which means a lot of dangers that could impact the success of the project in Gondar, Ethiopia. Therefore, study aimed to identify the risk factors affecting project performance, and also develop the research model representing risk factors affecting project performance. Data was collected from 26 valid responses were collected via questionnaire survey from the construction professionals. The stratified simple random sampling technique is used in the present study. A total of 26 completed and valid questionnaires were returned, yielding an 81.25 percent response rate. Factor analysis (FA) was employed to extract the factors of construction projects where seventeen independent factors (risk factors) and one dependent factor (project performance) were extracted. SPSS-23 software was used to analyze the relationship among three risk factors and their impact on project performance. The results showed that the five top-ranked risk variables with the highest magnitude of impacts, based on a quantitative risk analysis using the RII method and risk allocation number, were inflation and price increases; flawed design; poor material quality; delayed payment to the contractor, and subpar work. The five risk variables that were least important and had the least impact were labor strikes, a lack of a clear scope of work, delays in acquiring site access, and a lack of site access. Factor analysis and regression modeling were employed to determine the importance of the risk factors. The eight most significant risk variables for building projects were determined using the results of the factor analysis, and they are as follows: Construction and design risk, poor management, insufficient funding, uncertain political conditions, a lack of economics in the project budget, a lack of law and order, an unfavorable climate, and other risk factors are just a few examples of risk factors. The regression model indicates that inflation and price rises, delays in acquiring site access, and late contractor payments have a significant impact on the project's overall risk factors. The construction sector in Gondar, Ethiopia is anticipated to benefit significantly from these findings in terms of managing risk elements in construction contracts.

he discussion on the relations between terrorism and social media mainly focuses on social media's role in spreading the terrorism ideology and recruiting the member of the terrorist group. However, social media has also become means to share fake news related to terrorism. Considering the relationship between fake news and terrorism, the primary purpose of this study is to examine the content, language used, and emotion of fake news about terrorism in Indonesia. It also reveal what kind of language used in fake news to manipulate the public and what emotions it appeals to. We analyzed fake news about terrorism in Indonesia using quantitative text analysis methods, such as sentiment analysis and dictionary-based analysis methods with R statistical software. We created two dictionaries covering the religious and violence words, and fake news was examined under these two dictionaries. For reliability, we applied the "Split-half test" to the results and we reached similar results. This study shows that ISIS, Aceh, and terrorist action in Sulawesi are three dominant topics in fake news. Second, the language on fake news is mostly about terrorism and violence to create fear in society. Third, violence and religious language are equal in the language of misleading content. We interpreted the results obtained with the traditional fear of crime theory. We then discussed the major results of this research and made effort to explain reasons behind our research results. The study has a limitation because of the small number of fake news. Future studies may overcome this limitation by selecting multiple countries as cases or increasing the date range of fake news. The dictionary-based method we used in this study is relatively new for the literature and provides the opportunity to analyze fake news content effectively. Our results using the Dictionary-based method can provide valuable clues for policymakers in the counter-terrorism field.

The essence of the concept of political ideology, its role in the development of society, and the interpretation of ideology in the teachings of Eastern and Western thinkers are studied. A comparative analysis of the political doctrines of Eastern thinkers such as Abu Nasr Farabi, Amir Timur, Western scholars Destut de Tracy, Mannheim, Gramshi, Gouldner, Voloshinov on political ideology is carried out. In the course of the research, the role of ideology in the management of society, ensuring social stability, and the formation of state and civil relations is analyzed. The main goal of the research is to illuminate the theoretical foundations of the concept of political ideology, to reveal how the issue of ideology was interpreted in the views of Eastern and Western thinkers, and to analyze the influence of these views on modern political processes. The methodological basis of the research is historical-comparative analysis, a systematic approach, the logical-analytical method - a comparative study of the views of Eastern and Western thinkers, an analysis of the role of ideology in the political system as a whole, a logical interpretation of the concept of political ideology and its elements. The research results will serve as additional educational material for students studying political science, philosophy, history, and social sciences. Ideological aspects of the teachings of Eastern thinkers - although there are commonalities between Eastern and Western political thought, their ideological foundations differ significantly. In the East, politics is harmonized with spiritual and moral values, while in the West, emphasis is placed on the political system, law, and civil rights. At the same time, the common goal of both schools is the formation of a just society and ensuring the stability of society. Thus, by identifying the commonalities and differences in the views of Eastern and Western thinkers, it is possible to determine which ideas are of priority importance in modern political processes. It will also be possible to determine the influence of various political ideologies on public consciousness, their role in the formation of management systems, and their contribution to the development of political culture. Key words: idea, ideology, political ideology, western ideology, eastern ideology

[Author Affiliation]James M Walker, * The Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Department of Economics, Indiana University, Wylie Hall 105, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. E-mail: walkerj@indiana.edu.Elinor Ostrom passed away June 12, 2012, after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Her husband, Vincent, passed away June 29, 2012, after a long battle with prostate cancer. Lin and Vincent left a lasting legacy as researchers who spent their lives focusing on complex, highly relevant policy issues and as educators who gave unselfishly to their students and colleagues.Lin dedicated her pathbreaking book Governing the Commons (Ostrom 1990) to Vincent for his love and contestation. In many ways, this dedication also captures the approach Lin and Vincent brought to the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, hereafter the Workshop, which they founded in 1973.1 The research and educational life of the Workshop is very much a product of the passion and intellectual drive that lies at the core of their research programs and their lives. In essence, the students, colleagues, staff, and visiting scholars of the Workshop became the Ostrom's family. In a setting that fostered collaboration and contestation in a multidisciplinary environment where multiple methods of analysis were embraced, Lin and Vincent created a unique and world-renowned institution for the study of collective action and self-governance.As a Ph.D. student in political science at UCLA in the early 1960s, Lin's dissertation research grew out of a class project examining the role of entrepreneurs in devising groundwater management rules in California. In her research, she concluded that the use of equity proceedings in state courts (the shadow of the law) was an important facilitator in devising rules that accounted for the complex patterns of interagency arrangements necessary to prevent saltwater incursion from the ocean and to assure the replenishment of groundwater supplies. Even in these early years, Lin's awareness of the importance of multiple methods of research was apparent. In addition to the analytical framework guiding her research, she conducted in-depth interviews, archival research, and nonparticipant observation of negotiations to establish the basis for institutional agreements. What was to become a common theme in her work, Lin discovered in her dissertation research that a factor crucial to successful local institutional agreements was the existence of institutional arrangements at the state level that authorized local associations, special districts, and public and private agencies to deal with local problems, relying on local knowledge of particular physical and contractual constraints.Lin's path to the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is one of intellectual passion, collaboration, and what appeared to be a limitless capacity for work. Despite Lin's early research on natural resource management, her first large-scale empirical research program as a faculty member at Indiana University focused on the provision of government services. In this research, it was demonstrated that the nature of the good or service was a crucial variable in the relationship between scale of production and citizen evaluation of agency performance. …

Classical generalized linear models assume that marginal effects are homogeneous in the population given the observed covariates. Researchers can never be surea prioriif that assumption is adequate. Recent literature in statistics and political science have proposed models that use Dirichlet process priors to deal with the possibility of latent heterogeneity in the covariate effects. In this paper, we extend and generalize those approaches and propose a hierarchical Dirichlet process of generalized linear models in which the latent heterogeneity can depend on context-level features. Such a model is important in comparative analyses when the data comes from different countries and the latent heterogeneity can be a function of country-level features. We provide a Gibbs sampler for the general model, a special Gibbs sampler for gaussian outcome variables, and a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo within Gibbs to handle discrete outcome variables. We demonstrate the importance of accounting for latent heterogeneity with a Monte Carlo exercise and with two applications that replicate recent scholarly work. We show how Simpson’s paradox can emerge in the empirical analysis if latent heterogeneity is ignored and how the proposed model can be used to estimate heterogeneity in the effect of covariates.

Drawing on data collected by Barry Latzer and using a logistic regression model that employs pooled time-series, this article tests a variety of factors for their impact on state high court decisions to diverge from U.S. Supreme Court criminal procedure doctrines from 1969 to 1989. Several factors predict the development of independent state doctrines protective of civil liberties, including popular-vote retention elections and longer terms of office for state court justices, high court reputations, state wealth, and regional distinctions (with western courts most likely to advance individual rights). This study represents only a small step in understanding an area of judicial behavior that has been long ignored in the political science literature.