A panel model for political efficacy and responsiveness: an application of LISREL 7 with weighted least squares

Political efficacy is considered to be one of the most important attitudes in theories of political participation and democratic politics. It has been assumed that political efficacy is a stable, persistent orientation rather than a transient attitude. Several studies have examined the stability of political efficacy over time. In most of these studies, based on the analysis of the traditional SRC items, the stability assumption has been questioned. In this paper, we reconsider the stability issue but we adopt a different approach. We distinguish between two components of political efficacy: internal efficacy, a personal attribute and responsiveness, a system attribute, and we study their stability over time. To study the stability of political efficacy and responsiveness over time, we analyse the data with PRELIS and we develop a panel model using LISREL 7. As the observed variables are only ordinal, the estimation of the parameters of the model is based on polychoric correlations and on the weighted least squares method. Our analysis makes use of the Political Action Survey panel data for the USA. This data contains the six SRC efficacy items measured at two occasions. We find that the stability coefficients are higher than those reported in previous research. The difference in the values of the stability coefficients for each component seems to indicate that the personal component is more stable than the system component.     

White-collar workers,unionisation and political behaviour

Evidence from a variety of sources confirms that the number of non-manual employees in trade unions has been increasing rapidly over the past twenty years. The author surveys the explanations of this growth and examines the relationship between political behaviour and membership of white collar trade unions.     

How to refuse a vote on the EU? The case against the referendum in the House of Commons (1974–2010)

Under what conditions do politicians oppose referendums especially to decide questions of European integration? Existing literature has identified reasons why governments and political parties pledge to hold non-mandatory referendums to ratify EU treaties or determine a country’s participation in the EU project, and some studies have analysed the effect of voter demand and attitudes towards EU referendums. This study examines the positions politicians themselves take towards popular participation in decision-making on the EU. The paper presents a summative content analysis of parliamentary debates in the United Kingdom between 1974 and 2010, tracing MPs’ arguments against using referendums to determine the UK’s participation in EU integration. Our results indicate that the range of claims made by MPs in the House of Commons against referendums on European matters has narrowed over time, although opposing arguments have continued to fall into the same set of four argumentative strategies. We find that institutional arguments, reflecting a Burkean understanding of representative democracy, consistently predominate over arguments that cite practical, political and manipulation concerns.     

DO INSTITUTIONS AFFECT CITIZENS' SELECTION INTO POLITICS?

Political economy has primarily paid attention to the principal‐agent relationship between citizens and politicians and the role of competition and institutions in disciplining political agents. However, as the electoral control of politicians and the credibility of policy commitments are limited, this perspective needs to be complemented with an economics of political selection that takes into account the heterogeneity in the quality of those elected to political office. We review the emerging literature, which investigates the institutional determinants of political selection. We discuss pay in politics, parties, their candidate selection procedures and electoral rules, institutions enhancing transparency in politics, and institutions which govern dual office holding in different branches of government. We argue that further comparative analyses are essential in order to gain an improved understanding of the impact that institutions have on political outcomes, not only via the channel of accountability, but also via the channel of selection.     

Between Neoliberal Governance and the Right to the City: Participatory politics in Berlin and Tel Aviv

Based on a comparison of Berlin and Tel Aviv, this article investigates the ways in which ensembles of participatory instruments mediate between neoliberal urban regimes and political agency shaping differentially the meaning of participation and the types of claims that can be advanced. The article gives an overview of the recent history of both cities through the lens of participatory politics. Two in‐depth case studies further examine the relationship between participatory politics and claim making in each setting: the recent conflict over a social center in the district of Friedrichshain‐Kreuzberg in Berlin and the Levinsky tent city of 2011 in Tel Aviv. In the concluding section, the article suggests that, rather than assuming that participatory tools either co‐opt movements or can be appropriated by them, we need to rethink the relationship between participatory tools, rights and recognition, and ask how participatory structures and political agency constitute each other in interwoven dynamics.     

大学行政化之组织政治：追逐政府资源

大学行政化催生了大学组织成员所特有的组织政治行为、组织政治认知（知觉）、组织政治技能。我国大学中的组织政治行为集中表现为“名实分离”的特征;组织政治认知表现为大学中普遍存在的印象管理、圈子意识、边缘感;组织政治技能表现为大学的沉默、行政与学术互为资本、关系运作。为此,有两个问题值得我们深思：一是高校资源分配的主体,即如何把提供资源与分配资源这两个相连环节适当分开;二是高校资源分配制度的再完善,包括分配原则、制度设计、信息公开等方面的重新梳理。     

HR department professionalism: a comparison between the UK and other European countries

Although HRM professionalism in terms of the competence of individual HR practitioners receives considerable attention, the collective professional behaviour of HR departments in organizations is more frequently overlooked. This paper, based on Europe-wide survey data, attempts to bridge this gap in our understanding by examining HR department professionalism in terms of strategic involvement in corporate activities. Findings for the UK indicate that HR departments as a whole demonstrate limited professional behaviour and that this situation has remained largely stable over the last decade. However, variations between national contexts are notable. A key observation is the consistently significant positive correlation in the UK between board membership and the department's level of strategic involvement.     

Female participation in parliament. Are we ever going to converge to Scandinavia?

Despite the fact that female political participation has been steadily growing over time, women’s representation in politics is substantially lower than their proportion in society. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of women’s representation using a GMM system estimation to address the possible endogeneity. We employ a unique dataset that covers data for 130 countries from 1972 to 2005 in 7 different geographical regions to estimate a dynamic model for women’s representation and calculate each region’s steady state. In general, we find that the steady state values are above each region’s current percentage of women in parliament; however, without changing other variables, no region significantly increases the percentage of women in parliament. Moreover, we find that 66–87% of the gap between each region’s steady state with Scandinavia is explained by female secondary education enrollment, labor force participation, and political and economic rights.     

参政女性职业生涯发展影响因素分析

参政女性职业生涯的发展是女性人力资源发展中的重要组成部分。参政女性职业生涯发展受多方面因素的制约，它包括社会因素、组织制度因素以及女性自身的因素。本文基于对参政女性职业生涯发展状况的研究，运用层次分析法，找出影响参政女性职业生涯发展的主要因素，并对如何改善参政女性职业生涯发展现状提出一些建议。     

组织政治氛围对员工离职倾向的影响:有调节的中介模型

组织政治氛围是员工离职倾向的重要前因变量,但现有文献还未对这种关系及作用机制进行系统研究。基于资源保存理论,引入员工沉默作为中介变量,以政治技能作为调节变量,构建被调节的中介模型,探讨组织政治氛围对员工离职倾向的影响机制。通过线性回归、Bootstrap等方法对328份样本进行实证分析,结果表明:组织政治氛围正向影响员工离职倾向,员工沉默在该过程中起部分中介作用;政治技能负向调节组织政治氛围与员工沉默之间的关系,政治技能负向调节了员工沉默在组织政治氛围与离职倾向之间的中介效应。     

Three Kinds of Economists:

A bstract . The diversity of thought among American economistsis investigated using samples of the memberships of the American Economic Association, the Union for Radical Political Economists and the Association for Evolutionary Economics. Discriminant analysis reveals a complex web of theoretical and organizational integration and separatism involving theoretical orientation in economics, emulative economists, scholarly research focus, organizational membership, and political values. The modal radical economist espouses a radical political economic philosophy and pursues Marxist/radical scholarship in an academic setting. The modal neoclassical economist , radical in neither disciplinary nor personal political beliefs, is found, more often than the other types, in nonacademic administrative work. Marxist/radical and institutionalist scholarship are mutually exclusive. Other dimensions of the professional role, as well as a number of social and biographical background characteristics, do not differentiate between types of economists.     

THE ORGANIZATION AS POLITICAL ARENA

Politics and conflict sometimes capture an organization in whole or significant part, giving rise to a form we call the Political Arena. After discussing briefly the system of politics in organizations, particularly as a set of ‘political games’, we derive through a series of propositions four basic types of Political Arenas: the complete Political Arena (characterized by conflict that is intensive and pervasive), the confrontation (conflict that is intensive but contained), the shaky alliance (conflict that is moderate and contained), and the politicized organization (conflict that is moderate but pervasive). the interrelationships among these four, as well as the context of each, are then described in terms of a process model of life cycles of Political Arenas. A final section of the paper considers the functional roles of politics in organizations.     

Convergence,Divergence or Stability – How do Politicians' and Bureaucrats' Attitudes Change During an Election Period?

Abstract

The possibility that administrators mould politicians into bureaucratic thinking has been a recurring theme in politics since the writings of Weber and von Mises. However, empirical studies of attitude change in the interface between politics and officials are scarce. This study, using data from thirty Norwegian municipalities, investigates whether political attitudes towards diverse political issues change during an election period, and whether any such change aligns politicians' attitudes with those of the administrative leaders in the municipalities. Attitudes were measured among both politicians and administrators in 2000 (six months after the election) and 2003 (six months before the election). In general, there are few signs that politicians' attitudes converged with those of the administrators in the period studied. When attitudinal change does occur, it appears to be parallel in both groups. The findings do not support the notion that politicians' attitudes become aligned to the attitudes of leading administrators. Different explanations are discussed.     

Gathering Information and Exercising Influence: Two Forms of Civic Virtue Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Political behavior at work often is disparaged as self-serving activity that undermines the efficient pursuit of organizational goals. Yet politics has a more benign meaning as well: responsible participation in decision-making processes, keeping informed, and promoting innovative ideas that serve long-term organizational interests. To date, the negative image of organizational politics among managers and scholars has limited research on the positive contributions of responsible political participation, a form of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) known as civic virtue.This paper draws on political philosophy and organizational research to consider two forms of civic virtue OCB: gathering information and exercising influence. Both are proactive and can have beneficial results for individuals, organizations, and society. Conceptually, the two forms of civic virtue are related. Yet they also are different. Results of a field study of 245 employees and their supervisors provide support for similarities and differences in the two forms of civic virtue. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our study, and the benefits of continued research on both aspects of civic virtue OCB.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Orlando FL, April 2003, in a symposium entitled “New Perspectives on the Dimensionality of Organizational Citizenship Behavior.” A newer version of this paper was presented at the October 2005 International Meeting of the Association on Employment Practices and Principles (AEPP) in Baltimore, MD.     

Charitable donations by China’s private enterprises

The number of private enterprises in China has grown rapidly, and donations from them are an important source of philanthropy in China today. This paper investigates donations made by private enterprises in 2011 using a survey of data covering all 31 provincial-level units of China. The data show that philanthropy practised by Chinese private enterprises is widespread, but the amounts of donations are unequally distributed. Furthermore, donations are positively related to a company’s profit and in most cases also to the owner’s political participation as expressed in membership in the People’s Congress (PC) as well as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at different levels. Donating is also positively related to the presence of a branch of the Communist Party of China and a trade union within the firm. In contrast, there is little support for donations being related to the characteristics of the major owner of the business, such as their gender, age, previous employment experience, party membership or to the governance structure or location of the private firms.     

高管政治升迁对企业价值的影响研究综述

随着中国经济和政治的发展,越来越多的公司管理者获得了某种形式的政治升迁,高管获得政治升迁后势必会对相关企业产生影响,而高管的政治升迁与政治关联既有联系又有区别,政治关联往往是高管政治升迁的结果,政治关联会导致高管追求政治升迁。国内外学者以政治关联为出发点,对政治关联、政治关联对企业价值的影响以及其经济后果的研究现状进行阐述,很有必要在此基础上进行评价、分析,为日后的研究奠定基础。     

Testing the Political Replacement Effect: A Panel Data Analysis*

This article tests for the existence of the political replacement effect, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson: [American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, pp. 115–131]. They argue that the implementation of market‐oriented reform is crucially driven by the political calculus of incumbent governments: they implement economic policy change if such a choice is not expected to reduce their chances to retain power. This implies a non‐monotonic relationship between the level of political competition and the extent of economic reform. We test this hypothesis using data for 102 countries over the period 1980 to 2005. Our results strongly support the theory.     

The Development of Corporate Charitable Contributions in the UK: A Stakeholder Analysis

This paper investigates the determinants of corporate charitable donations within a comparative study of corporate behaviour in two time periods, 1989–90 and 1998–99. The analysis is based on a longitudinal data set that includes over 400 UK listed companies. The determinants of corporate charitable donations are explored within a stakeholder model and the relationship between corporate charitable donations and a set of firm and industry variables is estimated using OLS. Particular emphasis is placed on industry effects and the impact of social and environmental stakeholders. The results highlight a significant change in behaviour between 1989–90 and 1998–99 that may reflect a strategic response by corporate decision‐makers to external concerns over corporate social responsibility. In the early period corporate charitable donations were substantially determined by profits. However, this relationship has weakened during the 1990s as firms have become increasingly responsive to stakeholder influences. The results for the later period emphasize the increasing importance of corporate visibility, and the development of social and environmental influences on corporate charitable contributions.