А здесь несколько важных для меня статей.
I. Our paper “Universal Suffrage: The Century of Corrupting Incentives?” has been published (at long last) at Volume 14 of the New Perspectives on Political Economy (now on-line) – see pp. 63-89. (separately from thewhole NPPE Volume 14)
Conflict of interest of welfare-dependent voters creates wrong incentives. These incentives inherent to universal suffrage, yield consequences, as predicted by John Adams back in the 18-th century. Historically the rise of the modern welfare state might be traced to the emergence of mainstream left parties, which promoted government care “from the cradle to the grave”. This paper will address the damages to Democracy caused by the conflict of interest, which led to irresponsible leadership and a permanent peacetime budget deficit. Historical examples from the 1990-ties show possible escapes from the trap of universal suffrage.
We tried to explain surges and cuts in government spending of Democratic countries by some of the political factors affecting governments’ abilities to balance the budget broadly discussed in the literature. We focus on territorial separatism, minority government, grand coalition, single-party government, and the ruling party’s ideology. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of universal suffrage, which has caused the rise to power of modern left-wing parties and strong special interest groups within the bureaucracy.
Most political factors turn out to be time- and case-sensitive except for universal suffrage. A severe crisis can open the window of opportunity to cut public expenditure, while favorable economic conditions stimulate claims for redistribution and spikes in government spending. The most effective way to curb the instability of public finance is to strengthen pro-reformist political coalitions, claiming defense of national identity and moral values, that encourage austerity and are market-friendly.
The paper has been published by Problems of Economic Transition, (Tailor and Francis) vol. 59, no. 4, 2017, pp. 294-320 2017, doi: 10.1080/10611991.2017.1321418
Early and unedited version of the article you could find at SSRN site.
The full (draft version of the) text of the article could be sent by request (corresponding authors’ mail is yanovskiy.moshe at gmail.com).
III. “To kill Hope? In Search of a Reliable Strategy to Fight Terrorism”
Our article “To Kill Hope? In Search of a Reliable Strategy to Fight Terrorism” by
Jewish Political Studies Review (JPSR Volume 29, Numbers 1–2 pp. 27-57).
One could download the article (draft version) as pdf – file from SSRN or read it at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs web-site. Access through Jstor see at JPSR page here.
A panoply of anti-terrorism strategies were utilized in Israel throughout its history, beginning with Palestine under the British Mandate and continuing after the creation of the State of Israel to the present day. This history similar to international experience overall, and provides no basis to link terrorism with poverty or despair.
Nor does history suggest any reasonable expectation that terrorists will be appeased by concessions of any kind, whether the transfer of funds or relinquishing territory to terrorist control. Neither statistical analysis nor the study of particular incidents supports such a hypothesis.
The immediate and most obvious criterion of success for parties in mutual conflict is the control of new territory and its population, which allows terrorists freedom of movement and opportunities to try new terrorist technologies and take the initiative in dynamic situations. Loss of land and population, humiliating defeat, or ostentatious display of triumph by the enemy, in contrast, discourage both terrorist leaders and perpetrators, who would lose the posthumous reward typically promised them in the guise of prestige and income for their families.
Factual instances and statistical data provide evidence to support the hypothesis that terrorism is best put down by force. When opting for such a strategy, it is of critical importance that military personnel be provided with appropriate legal protection.
The supplementary materials for this paper may be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2747130 or at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs site – below the article .
IV. Journal of Constitutional Political Economy just published (Volume 28, Issue 4, December 2017 pp. 311-320) our article “A Proposal for a More Objective Measure of De Facto Constitutional Constraints”.
Simple and easily correctable measures of institutions are based on observable/detectable events, not on the experts’ personal opinions.
We tried to detect (initially) three types of events, so for each country, at each year we ask just three questions:
-1. Will the ruling elite leave power and join the opposition if it loses an election (the power rotation criterion developed by Adam Przeworski )?
-2. Has the government ever lost in court and complied with the court’s decision even if the litigation significantly reduced its prestige and authority?
-3. Can the media and opposition criticize the government [including (a) accusations about its incompetence, (b) immorality, or (c) crimes, and call for its replacement, without experiencing intimidation or punishment]?
The full text of the article could be sent by request (corresponding authors’ mail is yanovskiy.moshe at gmail.com).
V. How Butter beats the Guns
After years of hysterical or totally senseless reviews and editors’ reactions, we got from economic journals we had switched to military ones. Now we have got this very important for our publication in the Czech military Journal “Defence and Strategy” (Obrana a Strategie).
To clarify our point regarding the conditionality of the Government’s ability to defend, to deter potential aggressors we referred to examples from Czech history. Voters and the Government must promote (not punish) the most gifted military leaders like Jan Žižka – a great leader and typical winner but not the “nice man” who could discuss matters of religious coexistence with Justin Trudeau.
Here is the article (just click it):
Yanovskiy Moshe, Zatcovetsky Ilia “How Butter beats the Guns” Defence and Strategy, 2017 Volume 17, Number 1 (June 2017) pp.141-154 doi 10.3849/1802-7199.17.2017.01.141-154;
and the Supplementary materials