Forecasting Australian elections: 1993, and all that

The link between economic conditions and election outcomes is a pillar of social science. Voters prefer ‘better times’ to worse and reward or punish incumbents accordingly. We investigate the extent to which this truism holds in the Australian context, with particular emphasis on the 1993 result. While Australian election outcomes are generally not well predicted by prevailing economic conditions, we are impressed by the extent to which the 1993 election outcome is at odds with the state of the economy. In particular, we find Labor performed up to five percentage points better than expected in 1993, making this result one of the most exceptional election results ever observed in Australia. The sizeable electoral penalty typically accompanying large increases in unemployment was effectively nullified in 1993. We accurately predict the 1993 result (ex post) only if unemployment is considered electorally irrelevant. We conclude by suggesting a research agenda for better understanding the link between economic context and election outcomes in the Australian setting.     

Globalization,Recession and the Internationalization of Industrial Districts: Experiences from the Italian Gold Jewellery Industry

Abstract

Globalization and the recent recession crisis are significantly challenging Italian industrial districts (IDs), leading to deep transformations in their internationalization, innovation and organization strategies. With our empirical focus on a single industry (gold jewellery) and a specific country (Italy) and through the theoretical lenses of the global value chain (GVC) approach, the evidence in this article sheds light on the differences in how three IDs within Italy's gold jewellery sector (Valenza Po, Arezzo and Vicenza) compete in the global arena. Our comparative analysis reveals striking differences among these districts with regard to their upstream and downstream internationalization strategies in response to two industry shocks: increasing global competition in the early 2000s and the world economic recession of 2008–2009. Our explanation for the varied gold jewellery district responses to these two global crises involves both internal and external factors: (1) structural differences between the three IDs; (2) distinct business strategies; and (3) how these districts are linked to the gold jewellery GVC.     

Cooperation and Collective Action in the Cultural Evolution of Complex Societies

Investigations of the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and collective action provide productive venues for theorizing social complexity, yet this multidisciplinary scholarship contains analytical and epistemological tensions that require reconciliation. We propose a course for integration of this diverse literature to investigate the emergence and developmental trajectories of complex societies. Greater attention to collective action problems, cultural mechanisms that promote cooperation, differentiation of human interests, and multiscalar research designs provide firmer conceptual underpinnings for a theoretically grounded cultural evolutionary framework. The case of agricultural intensification in pre-Hispanic highland Mexico is used to illustrate major points of the paper.     

Are Debates about “Morality Policy” Really about Morality? Framing Opposition to Gay and Lesbian Rights

A growing number of studies identify “morality policy” as a distinct category of public policy and have tested several related hypotheses. This article reexamines morality policy as a conceptual category and an empirical phenomenon. As others have pointed out, we should distinguish morality policy from other policies by how political actors frame issues rather than by its substantive content. In the first part of the article, I argue that we should view morality “policy” as one of two broad strategies for framing issues, rather than try to fit it into existing policy typologies. Next, I move beyond viewing morality policy as a single, broad category by identifying several distinct subtypes of morality frames. In the second part of the article, I challenge a basic assumption of the morality policy paradigm—that advocates frame morality policy issues by engaging in moralistic discourse that reflects their basic beliefs and values. Gay rights issues are a strong test of this claim because the literature cites them as typical examples of morality policy, and gay rights opponents would seem especially likely to engage in “morality talk” in framing these issues. Very few studies of morality policy actually observe framing behavior and what it reveals about the political strategy of each side. Congressional and state‐level data reveal that opponents usually do not frame gay rights issues in terms of the morality of homosexuality or religious injunctions against it, even in most states where we would expect to find it. Instead, they emphasize frames that focus on alleged negative social consequences from gay rights and procedural arguments about who should make policy and how it should be made. Although many opponents of gay rights disapprove of homosexuality on moral and religious grounds, their framing behavior reflects more complex strategic considerations. I speculate that opponents deemphasize morality talk because it is politically disadvantageous compared with other kinds of frames, and because of greater acceptance of gays in society. In reducing gay rights debates to moral and religious judgments, the morality policy perspective obscures the complexity of advocates' framing strategies and ignores many of their most important arguments.