Changing national rules: theory and evidence from the Netherlands (1960-2004)

This paper will empirically analyse the evolution of national rule changes for the domain of post-war Dutch higher education. We focus on rule changes because in the life cycle of rules - births, changes and repeals - change is the most common event. Our theoretical framework is mainly based on the organizational ecology and top management demography literatures. We will be integrating these perspectives, adapting them to our research context. In so doing, we focus on rule density, a minister's demographic characteristics (such as age and tenure) and cabinet features (for example, power and turnover) as deteminants of rule changes. The empirical results provide significant support for the majority of our theoretical predictions. Overall, the results suggest that the ecological processes are the most robust, followed by the characteristics of ministers and the features of cabinets

Globalism's Siren Song: The United Nations and International Law in Christian Right Thought and Prophecy

The role of the American Christian Right (CR) as an international social movement has perhaps received less attention than it is due. In this article, I explore the underlying global vision of the CR, and the ways in which this vision shapes the CR's international political activism. I focus on the CR's construction of the United Nations, examining various CR genres including movement publications, fiction, and prophecy writing. I also attempt to analyse the CR's ideological stance in light of the literature on `religion and globalisation'