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1. Societal Adjustments to the Threat of Terrorist Attacks

Author:
Seymour Spilerman and Guy Stecklov
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Terrorist attacks in the United States and in Western Europe have been rare and the public awareness of the terrorist menace has largely been molded by a few horrific events. In contrast, other countries have experienced chronic terrorism, with attacks on busses, restaurants, coffee shops, and retail establishments. In this paper we assess the impact of terrorism on civilian society in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Israel. We examine the psychological effects, the adaptations made by individuals to enhance their safety, and the consequent adjustments made by institutional actors and by commercial establishments to ensure continued economic viability. We review the various theories of societal adjustments to exogenous shocks, and point out that a very different formulation is required for the case of chronic terrorism than for the societal experience of a one-time attack.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Israel, and Ireland

2. Non-Working Time, Income Inequality, and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands

Author:
Ellen Verbakel and Thomas DiPrete
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
The distribution of well-being in society and comparisons of well-being across societies depend both on the amount of inequality at the national level and also on the national average level of well-being. Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP/capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do Western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well-known is that (depending on the country) much or all of this gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Cross-national comparisons of well-being have typically relied on the methodology of generalized Lorenz curves (GLC), but this approach privileges disposable income and cash transfers while ignoring other aspects of welfare state and labor market structure that potentially affect the distribution of well-being in a society. We take an alternative approach that focuses on the value of time use and the different distributions of work and family time that are generated by each country's labor market and social welfare institutions. We show that reasonable estimates of the greater contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do Western European countries.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Netherlands

3. Spaghetti Politics

Author:
Peter Bearman and Paolo Parigi
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
This article describes the impact of the Italian electoral reforms of 1993 on the structure of political alliances. The reform, which moved Italy from a pure proportional representation system to a mixed largely majoritarian system, was designed to increase transparency, reduce corruption, limit the number of political parties, and create the conditions for a politics of interests, rather than a politics of influence. Paradoxically, moving to a mixed electoral system had the opposite effect. In this article, the authors demonstrate this impact, by modeling the structure of political alliances at multiple levels (municipal, provincial, and regional) of the Italian polity from 1986 to 2001, from data on roughly 441,000 persons elected to serve in almost 3 million positions.
Topic:
Democratization, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

4. Negotiating the End of Transition: A Network Approach to Political Discourse Dynamics, Hungary 1997

Author:
Péter Csigó and Balázs Vedres
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
The initial question of this paper is how the large scale social process of postsocialist transition ends. We argue that transition is closed by discursive innovations in the political field, rather than just spontaneous crystallization. The political field is depicted as a dynamic symbolic structure that is an arena of local action. First the possible discourse positions are extracted from the two mode network of speech acts and statements. Then using these typical positions the dynamics of responses and responses to responses is explored. We give an account of an emergent univocal government position that represents a successful role claim (an exit from the loops of local action) on the government's side to coherently frame the end of transition.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Substitutability Cross-Stream Between Oriented Markets: Conventions in the Wine Sector of France

Author:
Harrison C. White
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
I explicitly model the social mechanism that constructs markets. Producers array along a market profile along which buyers trade off quality for volume. Outcome features can be predicted from two ratios of parameters, yielding a MAP. Five distinct families of market cultures correspond to its regions. As previous work showed, Supply equaling Demand is transmuted into matchings across local variabilities of valuation with volume and with quality. Such matching is vulnerable to unraveling, but it can be achieved with market oriented either upstream or downstream.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and France

6. Alternative Models of Dynamics in Binary Time-Series-Cross-Section Models: The Example of State Failure

Author:
Nathaniel Beck, David Epstein, Simon Jackman, and Sharyn O'Halloran
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
This paper investigates a variety of dynamic probit models for time-series–cross-section data in the context of explaining state failure. It shows that ordinary probit, which ignores dynamics, is misleading. Alternatives that seem to produce sensible results are the transition model and a model which includes a lagged latent dependent variable. It is argued that the use of a lagged latent variable is often superior to the use of a lagged realized dependent variable. It is also shown that the latter is a special case of the transition model. The relationship between the transition model and event history methods is also considered: the transition model estimates an event history model for both values of the dependent variable, yielding estimates that are identical to those produced by the two event history models. Furthermore, one can incorporate the insights gleaned from the event history models into the transition analysis, so that researchers do not have to assume duration independence. The conclusion notes that investigations of the various models have been limited to data sets which contain long sequences of zeros; models may perform differently in data sets with shorter bursts of zeros and ones.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and France

7. "Contentious Europeans: Is There a European Repertoire of Collective Action?";

Author:
Doug Imig and Sydney Tarrow
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
The research reported here was inspired by a talk that the second author was induced to give for a seminar in West European Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford, in February 1994 by Vincent Wright, to whom we express our gratitude and to whom all complaints and cavils should be directed.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Western Europe

8. Spaces of Contention

Author:
Charles Tilly
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
November 1830 brought London to one of its greatest nineteenth-century peaks of visible, vigorous, and often violent popular contention. When King William IV rode in state through Westminster from St. James to the opening of Parliament on 2 November, people who gathered along the streets cheered the king but jeered prime minister Wellington. Onlookers roared “Down with the New Police! No martial law!” (MC [ Morning Chronicle] 3 November 1830). Near Parliament, two people waved tricolor flags, ten or a dozen men wore tricolor cockades, and members of the crowd cried out “No police” or “Vote by ballot” (LT [ Timesof London], 3 November 1830).
Topic:
Security, Democratization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and London

9. The Dark Side of Social Capital

Author:
Martin Gargiulo and Mario Benassi
Publication Date:
09-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Research on social capital has stressed the advantages that networks can bring to managers and other economic actors. The enthusiasm with this "bright side" of social capital, however, neglects the fact that social bonds may at times have detrimental effects for a manager. This paper tries to correct the optimistic bias by looking at the "dark side" of social capital. Continuing benefits from social capital require that managers can adapt the composition of this social capital to the shifting demands of their task environment. This often implies the ability to create new ties while lessening the salience of some of the old bonds--if not severing them altogether. Available evidence, however, suggests that this ability may be encumbered by the same relationships purportedly responsible for the prior success of the manager. When and how this may happen is the central question we address in this paper. We argue that strong ties to cohesive contacts limit the manager's ability keep control on the composition of his network and jeopardize his adaptability to changing task environments. We test our ideas with data on managers operating in a special unit of a European high-technology firm.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe