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Selected AbstractsFive Ways of Institutionalizing Political Opposition: Lessons from the Advanced DemocraciesGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2004Ludger Helms ABSTRACT Legitimate political opposition constitutes a key component of any form of liberal democracy, which has, however, received surprisingly scant attention in the more recent political science literature. In an attempt to revitalize the debate about the various forms of political opposition, this paper starts with distinguishing five different ways or models of institutionalizing political opposition in liberal democratic systems. It goes on to look at how these different models have worked in the constitutional practice of selected western democracies. In the second part of this article, the focus is on the possible lessons that constitution-makers in democratizing countries could draw from this experience. Whereas there is no best model of opposition in general, some models would seem to be better suited to meet the particular needs of new democracies than others. [source] International political marketing: a case study of United States soft power and public diplomacyJOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2008Henry H. Sun Political marketing can be categorized with three aspects: the election campaign as the origin of political marketing, the permanent campaign as a governing tool and international political marketing (IPM) which covers the areas of public diplomacy, marketing of nations, international political communication, national image, soft power and the cross-cultural studies of political marketing. IPM and the application of soft power have been practiced by nation-states throughout the modern history of international relations starting with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Nation-states promote the image of their country worldwide through public diplomacy, exchange mutual interests in their bilateral or multilateral relation with other countries, lobby for their national interests in international organizations and apply cultural and political communication strategies internationally to build up their soft power. In modern international relations, nation-states achieve their foreign policy goals by applying both hard power and soft power. Public diplomacy as part of IPM is a method in the creation of soft power, as well as, in the application of soft power. This paper starts with the definitional and conceptual review of political marketing. For the first time in publication, it establishes a theoretical model which provides a framework of the three aspects of political marketing, that is electoral political marketing (EPM), governmental political marketing (GPM) and IPM. This model covers all the main political exchanges among six inter-related components in the three pairs of political exchange process, that is candidates and party versus voters and interest groups in EPM ; governments, leaders and public servants versus citizens and interest groups in GPM, including political public relations and lobbying which have been categorized as the third aspect of political marketing in some related studies; and governments, interest group and activists versus international organizations and foreign subjects in IPM. This study further develops a model of IPM, which covers its strategy and marketing mix on the secondary level of the general political marketing model, and then, the third level model of international political choice behaviour based the theory of political choice behaviour in EPM. This paper continues to review the concepts of soft power and public diplomacy and defines their relation with IPM. It then reports a case study on the soft power and public diplomacy of the United States from the perspectives of applying IPM and soft power. Under the framework of IPM, it looks at the traditional principles of US foreign policy, that is Hamiltonians, Wilsonians, Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, and the application of US soft power in the Iraq War since 2003. The paper advances the argument that generally all nation states apply IPM to increase their soft power. The decline of US soft power is caused mainly by its foreign policy. The unilateralism Jacksonians and realism Hamiltonians have a historical trend to emphasize hard power while neglecting soft power. Numerous reports and studies have been conducted on the pros and cons of US foreign policy in the Iraq War, which are not the focus of this paper. From the aspect of IPM, this paper studies the case of US soft power and public diplomacy, and their effects in the Iraq War. It attempts to exam the application of US public diplomacy with the key concept of political exchange, political choice behaviour, the long-term approach and the non-government operation principles of public diplomacy which is a part of IPM. The case study confirms the relations among IPM, soft power and public diplomacy and finds that lessons can be learned from these practices of IPM. The paper concludes that there is a great demand for research both at a theoretical as well as practical level for IPM and soft power. It calls for further study on this subject. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Strategic management of the Tokyo taxi cab industry: an exploratory studyKNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 1 2007Walter Skok Taxicabs are an indispensable means of transportation in Tokyo, as they provide a 24/7 door-to-door service for a daily average of 1.3 million people. In 2002, legislation was introduced to abolish restrictions on the number of taxicabs on the road. This relaxation of regulation, together with the corresponding recession, raised new issues such as increasing cab numbers and reducing drivers' wages. The wide variety of stakeholders involved within the taxicab industry have conflicting positions, resulting in little agreement on the possible way forward. An exploratory study was therefore undertaken in order to investigate the management of Tokyo's taxicab operations in order to formulate strategies for improving the service. Two related papers report on the study. This paper starts by providing an understanding of the current situation, examining the roles of the major stakeholders and outlining day-to-day operations. Academic frameworks, for example PEST, Critical Success Factors and the Cultural Web, from the strategic management literature, are used to identify the structure of the industry and analyse the environment in which it operates. The results found that Tokyo's taxicab industry is highly efficient operationally, due to the high standard of customer service, effective driver's learning scheme and active use of IT. However, a paradoxical situation has been identified where the demand for cabs has decreased even though the available vehicles have increased. Finally, a uniform method to measure the level of taxicab service is recommended. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Future of the Defence FirmKYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 3 2003Keith Hartley Summary This paper focuses on the future of the defence firm. It forecasts that the defence firm of 2050 will be radically different, reflecting a combination of technology, economic and political factors. To provide insights into the future, the paper starts by outlining recent changes in the size, structure and organization of defence firms and industries. It concludes by suggesting that the defence firm has a future and that it will focus on systems integration with new and different forms of industrial organization and will include new entrants. [source] The origins of Turkish Republican citizenship: the birth of race,NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2005Bora Isyar This article explores the emergence of the dominance of racialised Turkish citizenship. Contrary to the conventional methods that investigate the early republican era, this paper starts by examining the final years of the Ottoman Empire with a special emphasis on the Balkan Wars as the birth of racialised technologies of citizenship. Then, I analyse the encounters between racialised thought in the Ottoman Empire in the twentieth century and its recurring counterpart in these encounters: ,European modernity'. Next, I dwell on an illustration of a materialisation of racialised citizenship in the Ottoman Empire: the displacement and elimination of Armenian citizens. Finally, by probing the dominant strand of modern citizenship and nationhood in Europe, I articulate the commonalities of racialised citizenship in Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. I conclude by arguing that race as a particular identity should not be seen as an institutionalised aspect of citizenship only in ostensibly ,Oriental and absolutist regimes'. Instead, the focus should be on moments at which ,European modernity' and various nationalisms (racial, ethnic, cultural) mutually constitute each other. [source] Bayesian methods for proteomicsPROTEINS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS, Issue 16 2007Gil Alterovitz Dr. Abstract Biological and medical data have been growing exponentially over the past several years [1, 2]. In particular, proteomics has seen automation dramatically change the rate at which data are generated [3]. Analysis that systemically incorporates prior information is becoming essential to making inferences about the myriad, complex data [4,6]. A Bayesian approach can help capture such information and incorporate it seamlessly through a rigorous, probabilistic framework. This paper starts with a review of the background mathematics behind the Bayesian methodology: from parameter estimation to Bayesian networks. The article then goes on to discuss how emerging Bayesian approaches have already been successfully applied to research across proteomics, a field for which Bayesian methods are particularly well suited [7,9]. After reviewing the literature on the subject of Bayesian methods in biological contexts, the article discusses some of the recent applications in proteomics and emerging directions in the field. [source] Theory & Methods: On the importance of being smoothAUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF STATISTICS, Issue 2 2002B. M. Brown This paper makes the proposition that the only statistical analyses to achieve widespread popular use in statistical practice are those whose formulations are based on very smooth mathematical functions. The argument is made on an empirical basis, through examples. Given the truth of the proposition, the question ,why should it be so?' is intriguing, and any discussion has to be speculative. To aid that discussion, the paper starts with a list of statistical desiderata, with the view of seeing what properties are provided by underlying smoothness. This provides some rationale for the proposition. After that, the examples are considered. Methods that are widely used are listed, along with other methods which, despite impressive properties and possible early promise, have languished in the arena of practical application. Whatever the underlying causes may be, the proposition carries a worthwhile message for the formulation of new statistical methods, and for the adaptation of some of the old ones. [source] Distinctions in descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theory: a challenge for empirical researchBUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Niklas Egels-Zandén Stakeholder theory is one of the most influential theories in business ethics. It is perhaps not surprising that a theory as popular as stakeholder theory should be used in different ways, but when the disparity between different uses becomes too great, it is questionable whether all the ,stakeholder research' refers to the same underlying theory. This paper starts to clarify this definitional confusion by distinguishing between three different ways in which different lines of stakeholder research are connected with descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theory. First, a distinction is made between research connected with descriptive and with instrumental stakeholder theory as defined by Donaldson & Preston in the narrow or broad sense. Second, a distinction is made between research that interprets descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theories as either hypotheses or research areas. Third, a distinction is made between research that interprets Donaldson & Preston's central concept of ,stakeholder management' as either behaviour or rationale. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of these differences for empirical research into stakeholder theory. [source] | |||||||||||||