Search

Prominent and influential theorizing suggests that rules of the political game explain major political puzzles and are solutions to diverse political problems. But this theorizing relies on the assumption that these institutions become insulated from exogenous factors, including those which led to their original adoption. To explain this, institutional theorists argue that institutions largely endogenize their own support through diverse mechanisms of positive feedback. This emerges as a key micro-foundation in the institutionalist project in political science. This paper argues that institutionalists offer two main models of self-perpetuation: "proactive" endogenization of support, characteristic of major social policies; and "defensive" endogenization, characteristic of technologies and diverse social conventions. Several prominent studies argue rules of the political game approximate the second model, since they are solutions to coordination problems. I argue these rules do not meet the criteria of either model. Because these rules are caught up in distributional conflicts and the costs of their revision is not that high, they remain dependent on conditions exogenous to the rules themselves. As such, wider socio-political contexts rather than institutions provide the predominant explanation of several major outcomes. The conditions which generate stability vs. change in rules of the game are stylized in terms of variations in levels of distributional conflict and power asymmetries. The paper concludes that this dependence of rules on exogenous conditions profoundly jeopardizes our ability to recommend rules of the game as solutions to problems in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the civic potential of community-based energy. Through content analyses and participant surveys, we examine citizens' motivations for joining and participating in such organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the fundamental assumption that ‘elected organizations are (therefore) accountable’ does not -- as is often assumed by both [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the last generation, there has been a decline in the proportion of individuals who identify themselves directly with either of the two major political parties in the United States. Rather than seeing tremendous growth in the proportion of individuals who identify as “pure” independents, most of the growth is in those categorized as “independent leaners.” (Keith, et al 1992) Though we have seen this shift in identification, there has not been a corresponding shift in the fundamental beliefs of any large group of society, indicating that there must be another explanation for the shift in party identification. I propose that the decrease in the proportion of individuals who identify with one of the two major parties can be attributed to a decrease in person-to-person contacting on the part of the two major political parties. This contacting serves as a priming mechanism, causing those who are contacted to be more cognizant of the connections between their own political stances and the stances of the political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sets out to present a (rationalist) theoretical model, which predicts and explains behavioral changes that different institutional designs of CSR-PPPs in weak states cause on participating companies. It asks: Which institutional design of CSR-PPPs causes what behav-ioral changes on participating companies? The model focuses on three independent variables: Institutional design of CSR-PPPs, the pre-ference structure of companies that participate in CSR-PPPs, and the strategic environment (consisting of competitors, NGOs and business associations; their preferences and action al-ternatives) within which companies make decisions. A set of hypotheses is generated â€" each focusing on the effects of one variable while the other two are held constant â€", which define minimum requirements for, as well as conditions for more and less, behavioral changes of participating companies. To illustrate how constellations of these variables translate into hy-potheses, consider:H1: If companies face a cooperative collective action problem with respect to CSR-policies, a necessary condition for the institutional design of a CSR-PPP for behavioral change is â€" in case that no other relevant actors like NGOs and business associations are present â€" that it entails CSR-standards which are formulated with high degrees of precision and obligation and that it employs monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms.H2: If participating companies can achieve competitive advantages through a CSR-policy (e.g. in certain cases of HIV-treatment programs), CSR-PPPs need to offer "legitimate" benchmarks or managerial support (e.g. management systems) to have an impact.The applicability of the model will be demonstrated by illustrating examples. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relationships between nonprofits and the other two sectors - government and for-profit organizations. As the nonprofit sector continues to grow at a rapid rate, these long-standing relationships have taken on even greater depth and breadth. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]