Globalization,robotization, and electoral outcomes: Evidence from spatial regressions for Italy

Criticism of economic globalization and technological progress has gained support in Italy in the last two decades. However, due to the differentiated exposure of local labor markets to this process, electoral outcomes have varied considerably across the country. By observing the local impact of three global economic phenomena (flows of migrants, foreign competition in international trade, and diffusion of robots) alongside with the patterns of local electoral outcomes potentially associated with discontent, this study analyzes the economic forces driving the evolution of general elections in 2001, 2008, and 2013 in Italy. The analysis reveals that all these global factors had an impact on political outcomes associated with discontent, albeit in different ways and changing over time. All three factors are associated with increases in votes for far‐right parties in the period 2001–2008, but only robotization continues to have such an impact in the following period, while immigration is associated with an increase in votes for the Five‐Star Movement at the expense of far‐right parties. The results and extensions exploiting recent advances in political geography, political economy, and spatial econometrics make it possible to draw some general and methodological conclusions. Global drivers interact with elements pertaining to the political supply that empirical researchers should not be oblivious about. Political spillovers across neighboring areas add to the direct impact of locally mediated economic factors. Finally, the adoption of shift–share instrumental variables to identify the impact of robotization may lack robustness.     

Immigration and the pursuit of amenities

Immigrants to the United States live disproportionately in metropolitan areas where nominal wages are high, but real wages are low. This sorting behavior may be due to preferences toward certain quality‐of‐life amenities. Relative to U.S.‐born inter‐state migrants, immigrants accept lower real wages to locate in cities that are coastal, larger, and offer deeper immigrant networks. They sort toward cities that are hillier and also larger and networked. Immigrants come more from coastal, cloudy, and safer countries—conditional on income and distance. They choose cities that resemble their origin in terms of winter temperature, safety, and coastal proximity.     

Private Citizens as Policy Entrepreneurs: Evidence from Autism Mandates and Parental Political Mobilization

Growing bodies of research in the social sciences point to politicians, bureaucratic officials, interest groups, and other actors who serve as policy entrepreneurs. In this paper, we argue that private citizens can also serve a primary role as policy entrepreneurs. To analyze this phenomenon, we investigate the behavior of private citizens and their role in changing state policies surrounding insurance mandates for autism coverage. Using a thematic analysis of focus groups and interviews conducted with individuals active in the push for autism policy change, we demonstrate that private citizens meet all of the requirements identified for policy entrepreneurs in the existing literature. We then investigate when, why, and how these private citizens step forward into the policy process as entrepreneurs. We show that entrepreneurship occurs when private citizens have needed resources, a sense of duty to fix a policy status quo they see as unjust, and a stake in policy change. We conclude by discussing the importance of our findings to the study of public policy and their generalizability beyond autism policy.     

英国现代社会保障制度的建立(1870-1914)

1870-1914年是英国现代社会保障制度建立的时代。社会问题的严重化和济贫法制度的失效是英国现代社会保障制度建立的基本原因。工人运动的发展极大地促进了这一制度的建立,费边社会主义、集体主义和新自由主义为英国现代社会保障制度的建立提供了理论基础。1908年的《养老金法》、1911年的《国民保险法》所建立起来的社会保险制度,标志着英国现代社会保障制度的基本确立。英国现代社会保障制度的建立是英国社会福利制度的一次根本性转变,但它还存在一些明显的局限性。     

旅行社责任保险初探

以旅行社责任保险为主体的责任保险新近实施,其与旅游意外保险在性质、特点上存在很大差别。本阐述旅行社责任保险的内容和意义。     

West African Tradition in the Decoration of Colonial Jamaican Folk Pottery

In the early colonial period, Jamaican slaves manufactured pottery that incorporated traditional West African technology with selected European innovations. Recent examination of Afro-Jamaican wares from the seventeenth-century site of Port Royal suggests that the decorative elements are consistent with those that are in wide use among West African pottery traditions, particularly those of the Gold Coast (Ghana). Stamped designs prevail as the clearest example of this continuity. Potential Amerindian contributions to the Jamaican folk pottery industry during this period are considered and shown to be unlikely. The isolation of decorative traits demonstrates how certain craft elements of West African peoples were transported to the New World and integrated with other cultural traditions. It also corroborates the documentary record pertaining to the geographical origin of Jamaican slaves during the early colonial period.     

农村市场参与者的特征和行为感应分析

将行为方法引入到农村市场的研究中来是十分必要的。作者以行为理论为基础,通过详细的调查研究,揭示了区域性农村市场上消费者和商人的行为特征及其感应和偏好。     

Making Real Estate Markets: The Co-Production of Race and Property Value in Early 20th Century Appraisal Science

Analysing the standardisation of appraisal alongside the development of modern real estate markets in the early 20^th century, this article demonstrates that the construction of a racialised proper(tied) economic subjectivity was pivotal for realtors’ ability to secure legitimacy and profit as a burgeoning profession. Appraisal embedded racial logics within real estate markets such that their routine functioning could generate the submarket differentiation necessary for the realisation of class-monopoly rent. This study’s focus on appraisal before federal redlining addresses key lacunae in the historiography of segregation by foregrounding markets’ historical function as infrastructures that produce and spatialise the social difference crucial for profit in real estate. This article also seeks to inform engagements with contemporary processes of land speculation, commodification, and financialisation shaping US cities by advocating attention to the specific mechanisms that constitute race as a modality for the appropriation of surplus by real estate capital.     

Whiteness and Farmers Markets: Performances,Perpetuations … Contestations?

Abstract: Academics and activists highlight the potential for alternative agrifood movements to contribute to the evolving coalescence of justice and sustainability. This potential, however, is constrained by what scholars have identified as the prevalent whiteness of such movements. This paper uses ethnographic research at two northern California farmers markets to investigate how whiteness is performed and perpetuated through the movements’ discourses and practices. We found that many managers, vendors and customers hold notions of what farmers and community members should be that both reflect and inform an affluent, liberal habitus of whiteness. Although whiteness pervades these spaces, we have also witnessed individual discourses and acts of solidarity and anti‐racism, as well as fledgling institutional efforts to contest white cultural dominance. We conclude by discussing the potential of farmers markets to create an anti‐racist politics of food.