Political leadership, conflict, and the prospects for constitutional peace

The emphasis on constitutional political economy has been that new rules and institutions can be devised that improve the welfare of a society. Given the number of societies that are infected with political conflict and, as a result, lower levels of welfare, this paper attempts to analyze why we do not see more constitutional conventions aimed at eliminating conflict. The key idea is that expressively motivated group members may create incentives for instrumentally motivated group leaders such that it leads them to choose conflict rather than compromise. Nonetheless, it is not argued that such a peace is impossible to obtain. This leads to a further question, that if such a constitutional agreement could be found, would the expressive perspective alter the conventional instrumental perspective on the sort of constitutional reform that should be undertaken?Education and Society,Post Conflict Reintegration,Peace&Peacekeeping,Social Conflict and Violence,Services&Transfers to Poor

The Good, the Bad and the Populist: A Model of Political Agency with Emotional Voters

This paper attempts to extend existing models of political agency to an environment in which voting may be divided between informed and instrumental, informed and ‘expressive’ (Brennan and Lomasky (1993)) and uninformed due to ‘rational irrationality’ (Caplan (2007)). It constructs a model where politicians may be good, bad or populist. Populists are more willing than good politicians to pander to voters who may choose inferior policies in a large-group electoral setting because their vote is insignificant compared with those that voters would choose were their vote decisive in determining the electoral outcome. Bad politicians would ideally like to extract tax revenue for their own ends. Initially we assume the existence of only good and populist politicians. The paper investigates the incentives for good politicians to pool with or separate from populists and focuses on three key issues – (1) how far the majority of voter’s preferences are from those held by the better informed incumbent politician (2) the extent to which the population exhibits rational irrationality and expressiveness (jointly labelled as emotional) and (3) the cost involved in persuading uninformed voters to change their views in terms of composing messages and spreading them. This paper goes on to consider how the inclusion of bad politicians may affect the behaviour of good politicians and suggests that a small amount of potential corruption may be socially useful. It is also argued that where bad politicians have an incentive to mimic the behaviour of good and populist politicians, the latter types of politician may have an incentive to separate from bad politicians by investing in costly public education signals. The paper also discusses the implications of the model for whether fiscal restraints should be soft or hard.Political Agency, Expressive Voting, Rational Irrationality, Democratic Inefficiency, Populism

Leadership and conflict

We model the choice of leaders of groups within society, where leaders influence both the mode of interaction between groups (either peaceful compromise or costly conflict) and the outcome of these interactions. Group members may choose leaders strategically/instrumentally or they may choose leaders expressively. We characterize the equilibria of the instrumental choice model and also argue that leadership elections may overemphasise the role of expressive considerations in the choice of leader, and that this may result in increased conflict between groups

Group formation and competition: instrumental and expressive approaches

We construct models of group formation designed to capture some of the key features of political and social competition. The models draw on the ‘citizen candidate’ approach and allow competition to be modelled as either compromise - where all groups influence outcomes; or conflict - where one group wins the right to dictate. We also consider both instrumental and expressive approaches to understanding group formation, first separately and then in a setting which encompasses both approaches. <br><br> Keywords; group formation, expressive behaviour, conflict, compromise <br><br> ISSN 0966-4246

Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications

A growing literature has focussed attention on ‘expressive’ rather than ‘instrumental' behaviour in political settings - particularly voting A common criticism of the expressive idea is that its myriad possibilities make it rather ad hoc and lacking in both predictive and normative bite. We agree that no single clear definition of expressive behaviour has emerged to date, and no detailed foundations of specific expressive motivations have been provided, so that there are rather few specific implications drawn from the analysis of expressive behaviour. In response, we provide a foundational discussion and definition of expressive behaviour that accounts for a range of factors. We also discuss the content of expressive choice distinguishing between moral, social and emotional cases, and relate this more general account to the specific theories of expressive choice in the literature. Finally, we discuss the normative and institutional implications of expressive behaviour.expressive behaviour; identity; moral choice; populism; institutional design

Political economics and normative analysis

The approaches and opinions of economists often dominate public policy discussion. Economists have gained this privileged position partly (or perhaps mainly) because of the obvious relevance of their subject matter, but also because of the unified methodology (neo-classical economics) that the vast majority of modern economists bring to their analysis of policy problems and proposed solutions. The idea of Pareto efficiency and its potential trade-off with equity is a central idea that is understood by all economists and this common language provides the economics profession with a powerful voice in public affairs. The purpose of this paper is to review and reflect upon the way in which economists find themselves analysing and providing suggestions for social improvements and how this role has changed over roughly the last 60 years. We focus on the fundamental split in the public economics tradition between those that adhere to public finance and those that adhere to public choice. A pure public finance perspective views failures in society as failures of the market. The solutions are technical, as might be enacted by a benevolent dictator. The pure public choice view accepts (sometimes grudgingly) that markets may fail, but so, it insists, does politics. This signals institutional reforms to constrain the potential for political failure. Certain policy recommendations may be viewed as compatible with both traditions, but other policy proposals will be the opposite of that proposed within the other tradition. In recent years a political economics synthesis emerged. This accepts that institutions are very important and governments require constraints, but that some degree of benevolence on the part of policy makers should not be assumed non-existent. The implications for public policy from this approach are, however, much less clear and perhaps more piecemeal. We also discuss analyses of systematic failure, not so much on the part of markets or politicians, but by voters. Most clearly this could lead to populism and relaxing the idea that voters necessarily choose their interests. The implications for public policy are addressed. Throughout the paper we will relate the discussion to the experience of UK government policy-making.Public Finance, Public Choice, Public Economics, Political Economics, Normative Analysis

Blood Tests on Capitol Hill?

The point of departure of this thesis is the assumption that a healthcare reform is necessary, and that accessibility of medical care by the entire population of the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is a right that people have acquired. Approaching the question of which alternative embeds the highest promise in effectively tackling the healthcare problem ceases to be a mostly ethical, moral, and political enterprise, and becomes a relevant economic question, that can be analyzed according to multiple lenses. In order to perform any meaningful analysis on alternatives that, at their core, are distinguished by the entry or non-entry of the government in the healthcare market, one needs to become familiar not only with the effects on competition that the entry of the government in a market might cause, but also with the specifics of each alternative model, that are contained in the currently proposed healthcare reform legislation

Microfluidic Quantitative Analysis of Cellular Secretions Via Droplet Based Fluorescence Polarization Immunoassay with On-Chip Preconcentration.

A droplet-based microfluidic preconcentration and quantitative immunoassay for protein and peptide analysis was demonstrated in model systems of insulin measurements for use in microdialysis sampling of neuropeptides. First, glucose stimulated insulin release was quantified with a droplet-based microfluidic immunoassay; specifically, on-chip generated chemical gradient stimulus of cultured Islets of Langerhans with perfusion sampling and a droplet-based fluorescence polarization immunoassay improved temporal resolution over existing techniques by an order of magnitude such that sub-minute oscillations in insulin secretion were directly measured. Second, an on-chip preconcentrator compatible with the highly ionic microdialysis sampling media was developed to store concentrated bands of peptides sequestered in droplets generated on-demand. Enrichment factors of charged species as high as 50,000-fold in an hour were achieved by applying a voltage across a fluidic channel with a bipolar (or floating) electrode such that ion concentration polarization resulted from the charge exclusion zone created near the electrode. Both sampling efficiency and droplet capture efficiency were mathematically analyzed. These systems demonstrate a proof-of-principle for a robust preconcentration and quantification system for any charged analyte with a commercially available antibody/labeled-antigen.Ph.D.ChemistryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91489/1/coilean_1.pd