priorities (Powell, 2002; Wadman, 2005). Europeans have their own problems with dogmatic thinking too, albeit arising from a different historical and cultural background. Consider the often-irrational positions taken by the Green parties, pro-life groups and environmental groups in Germany and England who indiscriminately reject stem-cell research or genetically engineered crops. Or the fact th...

361 National Tax Journal Vol. LIII, No. 3, Part 1 Abstract The use of tax incentives instead of direct spending to promote social and economic goals is growing. This paper considers whether it matters if fiscal interventions take the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Tax breaks can, and increasingly do, replace spending programs with the same effects on resource allocation and income distr...

According to the minority empowerment thesis, minority representation strengthens representational links, fosters more positive attitudes toward government, and encourages political participation. We examine this theory from a cross-national perspective, making use of surveys that sampled minorities in the United States and New Zealand. Both countries incorporate structures into their electoral...

Apology is a social institution that restores frayed relationship not only in daily life but also in the domains of corporate governance, medical malpractice litigation, political reputation, organizational culture, etc. The theory shows that in a general class of moral hazard games with imperfect information about agents with two-dimensional type, apologies exhibit regular properties—e.g. apol...

For several years now, the Supreme Court has disquieted observers and commentators by reasserting the presence of constitutional limitations on national power resulting from the federal structure of the American political system. Although not quite amounting to a revolution in American constitutional law, the recent federalism cases are nonetheless striking. They are, of course, most remarkable...

Latin American countries (among many others) face tremendous social problems. A strategy to address those problems is the key challenge for these polities. At this point, there is no shortage of (reasonably sound) technical advice on these matters by international organizations and other actors, yet progress is quite limited in many cases. Most recently, attention has turned to the role of inst...

This paper examines how design thinking and serious games approaches can be used to support participation through the analysis of three case studies. Indeed we will analyze these approaches in three different contexts: (i) a state-owned multi-utilities company; (ii) a political party; (iii) an information system strategic committee. Our analysis framework relies on the concepts of "perceived us...

This article revisits a much-debated question: Why are women popular targets during witch hunts? By using in-depth interviews this article provides an answer. Women are easy targets or scapegoats for two reasons. First, it is widely believed in the community that was studied that witches do, in fact, exist, and the images of witches are always female. Second, tribal women hold lower positions t...

This article investigates the usage of blogs in electoral campaigns in Sweden, a country characterized by strong political parties and a party centered form of representative democracy. The central argument is that blogs are utilized in different ways by different parties. The empirical analysis based on a survey among over 600 blogging politicians indicates a vast difference in uptake and usag...

This paper develops a unique exposition about the relationship between facts and principles in political constructivism. It claims that facts form part of the ground for affirming principles insofar as reasons relating facts to the public sphere help generate criteria for assessing principles. One key element of political constructivism is that it focuses on specific political subjects. By offe...