Infinite Lexicographic Products

We generalize the lexicographic product of first-order structures by presenting a framework for constructions which, in a sense, mimic iterating the lexicographic product infinitely and not necessarily countably many times. We then define dense substructures in infinite products and show that any countable product of countable transitive homogeneous structures has a unique countable dense substructure, up to isomorphism. Furthermore, this dense substructure is transitive, homogeneous and elementarily embeds into the product. This result is then utilized to construct a rigid elementarily indivisible structure.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Indivisibility, Fairness, Farsightedness and their Implications for Security

fair division, commitment, peace treaties, terrorist motivation

Extremism, Suicide Terror, and Authoritarism

This paper studies extremist behaviour, and its connection to authoritarianism. I divide extremists into two groups, leaders, who demand extremist acts such as assassinations, suicide terror or other forms of political violence from followers, who supply them. I assume that both the leaders of extremist groups and their followers are rational. The paper looks at three examples: Communism, Nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism. I show that leaders with extreme ideologies also tend to adopt violent methods when there is an indivisibility between the intermediate goal of the group and its ultimate goal. Turning to followers, the most important innovation of the paper is a simple model which explains how it is possible for a person to rationally commit suicide to further the goals of a group. The most important policy implications of the paper are, firstly, that one should look at the goals of extremist group in order to understand their actions. If one can unbundle the goal or make the indivisible divisible, then there may be ways to provide these goals in a way which satisfies some of the potential supporters of the group and thus dries up support for the grander ambitions of the leaders of extremist groups. Secondly, the provision of programs which foster social cohesion tends to dry up an important motive for extremist activity: the desire for solidarity. Thirdly, policy towards terrorists should should combine the use of “carrot” and “stick”. Finally, I argue that authoritarian regimes rather than democracies or totalitarian regimes are the most likely sources of suicide terror. So democracy is indeed part of the solution to the problem of suicide terrorism.Terrorism; extremist ideologies; extremist groups; authoritarian regimes;suicide terrorists;

Indivisible Labor and Its Supply Elasticity: Do Taxes Explain European Employment?

We first scrutinize and challenge Prescott's (2002, 2004) quantitative analysis of the role of differences in taxes in explaining cross-country differences in labor market outcomes, and then defend an alternative model that assigns an important role to cross-country differences in social unemployment insurance institutions that Prescott argues can be safely ignored. In the process, we explore how the assumption of indivisible labor interacts with assumptions regarding the (in)completeness of financial markets and any frictions in the labor market, to determine the labor supply elasticity.Employment lotteries, indivisible labor, labor supply elasticity, taxation, unemployment, unemployment insurance

The gender of representation: On democracy, equality, and parity

The debate regarding the statutory introduction of gender parity in electoral lists has been led, on the one hand, by those who envisage parity as a way to attain substantive equality between the genders. The opposition has been led by those who, on the other hand, reject it as going against the very principle of equality in its formal dimension, as well as against the autonomy of political parties. Based on the experience of France and Italy on this matter, this article discusses both sets of arguments and applies them to the Spanish context. It further defends the need to bypass the theoretical parameters of equality and affi rmative action in order to place the defense of electoral parity within the theoretical parameters of the postliberal democratic state. It aims, therefore, at articulating electoral parity as a conceptual requisite of the democratic state

Children’s rights law and human rights law : analysing present and possible future interactions

Following the development of different categorical and thematic human rights regimes, human rights scholarship has become increasingly specialised and departmentalised. Academics too rarely look beyond their niche of expertise. This book shows, however, that much can be learnt from taking off our blinkers and widening our gaze. Realising human rights – both in general and with respect to particular groups – may be well served by analysing more in depth the conceptual and practical developments in certain/other subfields of international human rights law. This does not imply that innovative concepts or distinctive approaches should be blindly transposed to other fields. It does mean that carefully analysing the benefits and drawbacks of the particularities of one human rights regime, may contribute to the enhanced effectiveness of human rights law as a whole and also lead to a more integrated experience of human rights