This paper develops a signaling model of corporate lobbying in democratic capitalist societies to analyze the conditions that lead to a powerful political position of business. Proceeding from the traditional dichotomy of structural economic determinants versus business’ political action, our model predicts the conditions under which elected political decisionmakers modify their policy pledges ...

This paper asks whether political competition has played a role in moderating the governance issues that arise in relation to Canada’s fiscal structure. By fiscal structure we mean three distinct but interrelated fiscal dimensions of the state: financial stability, long run size and short run interventions into the private economy, particularly with respect to the business cycle. The distinctiv...

the present article studies the quran's view on free will and freedom. some related issues discussed here are: (1) human freedom is the basis of the creation; (2) respecting human freedom is the basis of the prophet's invitation of the people to islam; (3) political freedom is the foundation of forming political societies, and so on. with reference to the quranic verses and moslem sch...

The output side of the political system provides services for citizens and societies. It is on the output side daily interaction among citizens and public administration take place and is maintained. This is, indeed, a crucial aspect of daily life for most citizens and their interpretation of a good life, not at least in mature welfare states with extensive provision of public social services a...

Significant political and economic changes occurred in Tibetan pastoral areas after the 1950s: Tibet's political economy was transformed from a feudal theocracy, to collectivized communes (19671980), through to the contemporary hybrid of capitalism and socialism (1981-present). These sweeping changes prompt this investigation into the dynamics of common property in relation to political develop...

BACKGROUND We reviewed the implementation of New Zealand laws in relation to the activities of the tobacco industry and their allies. Material for two brief case studies was obtained from correspondence with official agencies, official information requests, internet searches (tobacco industry documents and official government sites), and interviews with 12 key informants. RESULTS The first ca...

When agent A exercises power over agent B, what is the effect on B’s freedom? Is B less free as a result? Does A remove any specific freedoms of B? Most of us feel intuitively that there are many kinds of social power, and that while some of these may affect B’s freedom to a great extent, others may affect it less, and others still may leave B’s freedom completely intact. It would seem to be im...

The controversy regarding the direct relationship between income distribution and health remains unresolved. Empirical evidence has often failed to advance our understanding because in the countries studied there was limited ability to distinguish hypotheses. This study examines the relation between inequality and mortality in the context of Costa Rica. Costa Rica's unique social and political ...

If democracy implies political equality, in the sense that everyone has roughly the same opportunity to influence political decisions, we may ask: ”Who are included among ‘everyone’?” In other words, if ”democracy” is government “by the people”, who are included among “the people”? This may be called ”the boundary problem in democratic theory”. The problem is not what actually existing peoples ...