John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series最新文献

{"title":"Common Ownership as a Basis for Human Rights: Political Not Metaphysical","authors":"Mathias Risse","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.963129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.963129","url":null,"abstract":"Human rights are rights that are invariant with respect to conventions, institutions, culture, or religion. One concern about such rights is the problem of parochialism, the question of whether human rights can plausibly be of global reach and thus justify actions even against societies that do not readily endorse relevant UN documents, or in whose culture those rights are not supported. Plausible responses to this problem also have to explain why the language of rights (rather than, say, goals) is appropriate here, and offer a substantive account of what duties (if any) accompany these rights. This study seeks to meet these challenges by transferring central elements of the approach to domestic justice in Rawls’ Political Liberalism to the global level. Crucial to my approach is the idea that humanity collectively owns the earth, and that it is implicit in the global political and economic order that individuals are seen as co-owners, in a manner parallel to how it is implicit in a constitutional democracy that individuals are seen as free and equal citizens. Human rights emerge as guarantees for co-owners to make the imposition of the global political and economic order, and its erection on commonly owned territory, acceptable to them, in a manner parallel to how principles of domestic justice make a political association of a different sort (the state) acceptable to free and equal citizens. This account will hardly serve to arouse passions for human rights activism. (Inquiries into foundational questions of morality rarely arouse passions.) However, if successful, it can contribute to an increase in the intellectual standing of human rights, and in particular address critics who claim that the language of “rights” is inappropriate in contexts in which we talk about “human rights,” as well as critics who argue that accounts of human rights are bound to be parochial.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126924007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ambivalence About the Law","authors":"F. Schauer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.832632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.832632","url":null,"abstract":"It is commonly thought that the United States is a highly legalistic nation, and as a result it is commonly thought as well that official disobedience of law is publicly and politically disfavored. Yet when we look at numerous contemporary and not-so-contemporary examples, we discover that public and political condemnation of officials who violate the law is so closely linked to condemnation of the underlying substance of the act that it is not clear whether breaking the law qua breaking the law is very much subject to public or political sanction at all. When officials break the law in the service of what are taken to be good ends, the violation of law is rarely taken to justify condemnation in the court of public opinion or punishment at the ballot box. And if this is so, then not only is official violation of the law not nearly as disfavored as is ordinarily supposed, but we have also created a climate of politics and public opinion that does little to discourage officials from treating the violation of law as substantially irrelevant to their policy and political decisions.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121627920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Formulas for Quantitative Emission Targets","authors":"J. Frankel","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.976542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.976542","url":null,"abstract":"Start from three premises: (1) Global Climate Change is a genuine problem; (2) the Kyoto Protocol constitutes the only multilateral framework we have to address it; and (3) the Protocol is inadequate, particularly with regard to incomplete coverage across countries (no participation of US or developing countries) and across time (nothing agreed after 2012). This paper argues that – given the combination of political, economic and scientific realities as they are – Kyoto is a good foundation, a good first stepping stone on the most practical path if we are to address Climate Change seriously. A constructive approach asks what are the requirements for the design of a second step in the process, a successor to the Kyoto regime of 2008-2012, one that would build on what is good about it and fix what is most lacking. This paper offers a proposal that seeks realistically to bring in all countries and to look far into the future. It argues that the path of emission targets for the 21st century must be selected sequentially, perhaps one decade at a time, all within a common framework. An analogy for the framework would be the post-war General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which gave us 50 years of successful rounds negotiating trade liberalization, even though the original signers did know what specifics would emerge. The paper proposes allocating relative targets across countries by means of a formula that is fairly general at first but that becomes increasingly specific as the decade in question approaches. New joiners would be obligated to adopt emissions targets, but these paths need not immediately fall below their “business as usual” growth path. Allowing new joiners to sell permits in the initial budget period would then provide them with an economic incentive to join, or at least would not penalize them. It would carry economic benefits for both rich and poor countries, while also bringing environmental benefits to all. Countries would be required in subsequent budget periods of their participation to adopt steeper reductions in their emissions targets relative to their “business as usual” paths. The extent of relative cuts across countries would depend on such factors in the formulas as the per capita income and past emission levels of the country in question. The extent of cuts in aggregate global emissions would depend – as is inevitable -- on how strong is the international political consensus for aggressive action at that point in history. Such a scheme provides the necessary flexibility and incentives to appeal to both industrialized and developing countries.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121646803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Responding to Financial Crises","authors":"J. Frankel","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.963133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.963133","url":null,"abstract":"They say 'there are no atheists in foxholes.' Perhaps, then, there are also no libertarians in crises. Even those in favor of sharply reducing the role of the government usually agree that, for example, there is a valid Lender of Last Resort role for the central bank in the event of banking panics or disruptions as occurred on September 11, 2001. But crises should not become an excuse for public policy that is hasty or ill-informed, or that serves primarily the interests of the policymakers themselves or of special interests. The response must be appropriate and careful. It must be informed by the longer term perspective offered in the lessons of historical precedent, particularly regarding the fallibility of well-intentioned government intervention, and by an awareness of the dangers identified in the theory of moral hazard. This paper details some of the lessons from several past crises of varying nature: inflation crises, stock market crashes, bond market crashes, housing crashes, and various international crises, including the possibilities of a hard landing for the dollar, emerging market crises, oil shock, geopolitical crisis, and trade collapse. This paper draws heavily on US historical examples from the last four decades.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114169509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict","authors":"Marvin L. Kalb","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.963132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.963132","url":null,"abstract":"Based on content analysis of global media and interviews with many diplomats and journalists, this paper describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate, becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare. The paper also shows how an open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133587459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Who Misvotes? The Effect of Differential Cognition Costs on Election Outcomes","authors":"Erzo F. P. Luttmer, K. Shue","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.902394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.902394","url":null,"abstract":"If voters are fully rational and have negligible cognition costs, ballot layout should not affect election outcomes. In this paper, we explore deviations from rational voting using quasi-random variation in candidate name placement on ballots from the 2003 California Recall Election. We find that the voteshares of minor candidates almost double when their names are adjacent to the names of major candidates on a ballot. Voteshare gains are largest in precincts with high percentages of Democratic, Hispanic, low-income, non-English speaking, poorly educated, or young voters. A major candidate that attracts a disproportionate share of voters from these types of precincts faces a systematic electoral disadvantage. If the Republican frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic frontrunner Cruz Bustamante had been in a tie, adjacency misvoting would have given Schwarzenegger an edge of 0.06% of the voteshare. This gain in voteshare exceeds the margins of victory in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election and the 2004 Washington Gubernatorial Election. We explore which voting technology platforms and brands mitigate misvoting.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130219376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate","authors":"P. Peterson, Elena Llaudet","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.902389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.902389","url":null,"abstract":"On July 14, 2006, the U. S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a study that compared the performance in reading and math of 4th and 8th-graders attending private and public schools. Using information from a nationwide, representative sample of public and private school students collected in 2003 as part of the ongoing National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the NCES study reported that the performance of students attending private schools was superior to that of students attending public schools. But after statistical adjustments were made for student characteristics, the private school advantage among 4th-graders was reported to give way to a 4.5-point public school advantage in math and school-sector parity in reading. After the same adjustments were made for 8th-graders, private schools retained a 7-point advantage in reading but achieved only parity in math. In this paper, we argue that NCES’s measures of student characteristics were flawed by inconsistent classification across the public and private sectors and by the inclusion of factors open to school influence. Utilizing the same data as the original study but substituting better measures of student characteristics, improved, alternative models identify a private school advantage in 11 out of 12 public-private comparisons. In 8th-grade math, the private school advantage varies between 3 and 6.5 test points; in reading, it varies between 9 and 12.5 points. Among 4th graders, in math, parity is observed in one model, but private schools outperform public schools by 2 and 3 points in the other two models; in 4th-grade reading, private schools have an advantage that ranges from 7 to 10 points. However, although the alternative models constitute an improvement on the NCES model, no conclusions should be drawn as to causal relationships from these or any other results based on NAEP test scores, because they are too fragile to be used for such purposes. Inferring causality from observations at one point in time is highly problematic.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"139 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126395774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Crime, Justice, and Growth in South Africa: Toward a Plausible Contribution from Criminal Justice to Economic Growth","authors":"Christopher Stone","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.902387","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.902387","url":null,"abstract":"Crime in South Africa is high and widely believed to restrain investment. Nevertheless, both the mechanisms through which crime constrains growth and the actions that might be taken to loosen its grip are poorly understood. In light of the limited knowledge in the field and the limited capacity of criminal justice institutions, this paper proposes focusing on two issues: (1) the costs of crime to business, especially household-based enterprises in low-income settlements, and (2) the perception of violent crime. In both cases, the paper proposes a cyclical process of iterative innovation in which government seeks to solve narrowly circumscribed crime problems, and then leverages each success to generate wider hope and confidence in the criminal justice system.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122138468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Long March in Hong Kong: Continuing Steps in the Transition from Colony to Democracy","authors":"Thomas S. Axworthy, H. Leonard","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.902380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.902380","url":null,"abstract":"Hong Kong is in the midst of the most rapid political transition in China, and the success of this transition is crucial not only for the seven million residents of Hong Kong but also for the future of China itself. How the authorities in Beijing respond to democratic demands from Hong Kong, and how the government of Hong Kong treads a democratic pathway within the boundaries of the Basic Law, are two of the most important questions in international politics today. China’s decisions about Hong Kong will tell us much about the prospects of democratic transformation in China itself. Under British rule, Hong Kong developed what we term a strong “culture of liberty” – which by itself does not constitute or provide democracy, but which is a necessary foundation for any democratic institutions worthy of the name. What Britain did not attempt – at least until 1992, and, some would say, even thereafter – was any serious development of locally-based institutions of direct democracy. This meant that when Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, it had in place a novel, untested, and at best incomplete set of political institutions for democracy. In this paper, we describe the political system of Hong Kong and the series of reforms that have been undertaken since 1997, and suggest further steps that we believe would help to build a more effective democratic system. We outline a set of general principles about democratic governance, observing that any democratic system must provide mechanisms for authority (the ability to act), accountability (the requirement to provide information about accomplishments and to be held accountable for performance), and answerability (the requirement to provide information and answers to the public, media, and legislative authorities). We view Hong Kong’s institutions through this lens, providing comparisons to the British, Canadian, and American systems. Finally, we provide a series of suggestions about additional reforms that Hong Kong should consider, focusing mainly on devices to make party politics more robust, effective, and socially productive by giving parties a better-defined and more influential role in governance.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126096744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Two Simple Mechanisms for Advancing the Democratic Governance of Hong Kong","authors":"H. Leonard, Thomas S. Axworthy","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.939652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.939652","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we outline two suggestions for making existing democratic institutions in Hong Kong more effective. First, we suggest placing more responsibility for policy-making at the District Council level, so as to provide greater stakes in District Council elections. Second, we suggest similarly increasing the stakes in LegCo elections by having some Principal Officials be appointed from LegCo based on the electoral success of their party’s platform – or (if current law is interpreted to prevent LegCo members from serving in the executive) by having each electorally-significant party nominate people associated with the party to be Principal Officials. By giving the parties that have significant electoral mandates material influence in executive policy formation, successful parties will become associated with and proponents and defenders of – rather than constantly being in opposition to – at least some of the policies being implemented by the government. This will also require the strengthening and development of Hong Kong’s political culture and its political party structures through building professional career tracks for talented politically-inclined people and through the addition of people within the major parties focused on designing party platforms through policy research, political marketing, and political strategy development.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126070999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}