Democratization as a cost-saving device

We propose a theoretical analysis of democratization processes in which an elite extends the franchise to the poor when threatened with a revolution. The poor could govern without changing the political system by maintaining a continuous revolutionary threat on the elite. Revolutionary threats, however, are costly to the poor and democracy is a superior sys- tem in which political agreement is reached through costless voting. This provides a rationale for democratic transitions that has not been discussed in the literature.

Devolution & Entrenched Household Poverty: Is Scotland less mobile?

The Scottish National Party led Scottish Government has identified household poverty as a key focus for its anti-poverty strategy. The government’s ‘Solidarity Target’ seeks to both increase wealth and increase the share of total income gained by these three deciles. The ability to demonstrate the advantages of policy divergence within Scotland, relative to the other parts of the United Kingdom, is central to the Government’s aim of gaining support for increased powers for the devolved government. This paper seeks to provide evidence on one aspect of the government’s anti- poverty strategy; the degree to which Scotland differs from the rest of the UK over levels of entrenched poverty. The paper demonstrates that not only does Scotland have greater entrenched poverty but that the changes in mobility since the 1990s have impacted on Scotland to a lesser degree than the rest of the UK.

How Heavy Is A Job?: A Critical Survey of Job Evaluation as a Payment Device.

With salaries subjected to scrutiny more than ever, it is increasingly important that the process by which they are determined be understood and justifiable. Both public and private organisations now routinely rely on so-called “job evaluation” as a means of constructing an appropriate pay-scale and as such it is ever more necessary that we appreciate how this system works and that we recognise its limits. Only with such an understanding of the way in which salaries are set can we hope to have a meaningful discussion of their economic function. This paper aims to expound the details of job evaluation both in theory and in practice, and critically assess its shortcomings. In Section 1 below we describe the job evaluation system and in Section 2 we briefly outline the history and the usage of the system in both the private and the public sector. In Section 3 we theoretically analyse the often unstated but nonetheless implicit assumptions made by practitioners of the art of job evaluation. Section 4 applies the analysis of Section 3 to review a particular and important case study, namely The Senior Salaries Review of the Welsh Assembly 2004. Section 5 concludes.