Military competition and the emergence of nationalism: putting the logic of political survival into historical context

This essay aims to make a contribution to the conversation between IR and nationalism literatures by considering a particular question: What is the relationship between interstate military competition and the emergence of nationalism as a potent force in world politics? The conventional wisdom among international security scholars, especially neorealists, holds that nationalism can be more or less treated like a “technology” that allowed states to extract significant resources as well as manpower from their respective populations. This paper underlines some of the problems involved with this perspective and pushes forward an interpretation that is based on the logic of political survival. I argue that nationalism’s emergence as a powerful force in world politics followed from the “mutation” and absorption of the universalistic/cosmopolitan republican ideas that gained temporary primacy in Europe during the eighteenth century into particularistic nationalist ideologies. This transformation, in turn, can be best explained by the French Revolution’s dramatic impacts on rulers’ political survival calculi vis-à-vis both interstate and domestic political challenges. The analysis offered in this essay contributes to our understanding of the relationship between IR and nationalism while also highlighting the potential value of the political survival framework for exploring macrohistorical puzzles.

Competition for land

A key challenge for humanity is how a future global population of 9 billion can all be fed healthily and sustainably. Here, we review how competition for land is influenced by other drivers and pressures, examine land-use change over the past 20 years and consider future changes over the next 40 years. Competition for land, in itself, is not a driver affecting food and farming in the future, but is an emergent property of other drivers and pressures. Modelling studies suggest that future policy decisions in the agriculture, forestry, energy and conservation sectors could have profound effects, with different demands for land to supply multiple ecosystem services usually intensifying competition for land in the future. In addition to policies addressing agriculture and food production, further policies addressing the primary drivers of competition for land (population growth, dietary preference, protected areas, forest policy) could have significant impacts in reducing competition for land. Technologies for increasing per-area productivity of agricultural land will also be necessary. Key uncertainties in our projections of competition for land in the future relate predominantly to uncertainties in the drivers and pressures within the scenarios, in the models and data used in the projections and in the policy interventions assumed to affect the drivers and pressures in the future.

Microstructure of the Euro-area government bond market

This chapter highlights similarities and differences of equity and fixed- income markets and provides an overview of the characteristics of European government bond market trading and liquidity. Most existing studies focus on the U.S. market. This chapter presents the institutional details of the MTS market, which is the largest European electronic platform for trading government, quasi-government, asset- backed, and corporate fixed- income securities. It reviews the main features of high- frequency fixed- income data and the methods for measuring market liquidity. Finally, the chapter shows how liquidity differs across European countries, how liquidity varies with the structure of the market, and how liquidity has changed during the recent liquidity and sovereign crises.

The competition–performance relation: a meta-analytic review and test of the opposing processes model of competition and performance

What is the relation between competition and performance? The present research addresses this important multidisciplinary question by conducting a meta-analysis of existing empirical work and by proposing a new conceptual model—the opposing processes model of competition and performance. This model was tested by conducting an additional meta-analysis and 3 new empirical studies. The first meta-analysis revealed that there is no noteworthy relation between competition and performance. The second meta-analysis showed, in accord with the opposing processes model, that the absence of a direct effect is the result of inconsistent mediation via achievement goals: Competition prompts performance-approach goals which, in turn, facilitate performance; and competition also prompts performance-avoidance goals which, in turn, undermine performance. These same direct and mediational findings were also observed in the 3 new empirical studies (using 3 different conceptualizations of competition and attending to numerous control variables). Our findings provide both interpretational clarity regarding past research and conceptual guidance regarding future research on the competition–performance relation.

Government policy under price uncertainty: a source of volatility in illegal immigration

In this paper we provide an alternative explanation for why illegal immigration can exhibit substantial fluctuation. We develop a model economy in which migrants make decisions in the face of uncertain border enforcement and lump-sum transfers from the host country. The uncertainty is extrinsic in nature, a sunspot, and arises as a result of ambiguity regarding the commodity price of money. Migrants are restricted from participating in state-contingent insurance markets in the host country, whereas host country natives are not. Volatility in migration flows stems from two distinct sources: the tension between transfers inducing migration and enforcement discouraging it and secondly the existence of a sunspot. Finally, we examine the impact of a change in tax/transfer policies by the government on migration.

e-Government as a regulatory response to the financial crisis: the case of the UK

This paper seeks to discuss EU policies relating to securities markets, created in the wake of the financial crisis and how ICT and specifically e-Government can be utilised within this context. This study utilises the UK as a basis for our discussion. The recent financial crisis has caused a change of perspective in relation to government services and polices. The regulation of the financial sector has been heavily criticised and so is undergoing radical change in the UK and the rest of Europe. New regulatory bodies are being defined with more focus on taking a risk-based system-wide approach to regulating the financial sector. This approach aims to prevent financial institutions becoming too big to fail and thus require massive government bail outs. In addition, a new wave of EU regulation is in the wind to update risk management practices and to further protect investors. This paper discusses the reasons for the financial crisis and the UK’s past and future regulatory landscape. The current and future approach and strategies adopted by the UK’s financial regulators are reviewed as is the lifecycle of EU Directives. The regulatory responses to the crisis are discussed and upcoming regulatory hotspots identified. Discussion of these issues provides the context for our evaluation of the role e-Government and ICT in improving the regulatory system. We identify several processes, which are elementary for regulatory compliance and discuss how ICT is elementary in their implementation. The processes considered include those required for internal control and monitoring, risk management, record keeping and disclosure to regulatory bodies. We find these processes offer an excellent opportunity to adopt an e-Government approach to improve services to both regulated businesses and individual investors through the benefits derived from a more effective and efficient regulatory system.

An experiment on spatial competition with endogenous pricing

Hotelling's (1929) principle of minimum differentiation and the alternative prediction that firms will maximally differentiate from their rivals in order to relax price competition have not been explicitly tested so far. We report results from experimental spatial duopolies designed to address this issue. The levels of product differentiation observed are systematically lower than predicted in equilibrium under risk neutrality and compatible with risk aversion. The observed prices are consistent with collusion attempts. Our main findings are robust to variations in three experimental conditions: automated vs. human market sharing rule for ties, individual vs. collective decision making, and even vs. odd number of locations.

Multiproduct activity and competition policy: The Tetra Pak case

We propose the Tetra Pak case as a real-world example to study the implications of multiproduct activity for European Competition Policy. Tetra Pak, a monopolist in aseptic carton packaging of liquid food, competes with Elopak in the nonaseptic sector. The EC Commission used the effect of Tetra Pak's dominance in the aseptic sector on its rival's performance as an evidence of the former's anticompetitive behavior. With linear demand and cost functions and interdependent demands, the Commission's position can be supported. However, a more general model suggests that the Commission's conclusions cannot be supported as the unique outcome of the analysis of the information available.

Do IMF and World Bank programs induce government crises? an empirical analysis

We examine whether and under what circumstances World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs affect the likelihood of major government crises. We find that crises are, on average, more likely as a consequence of World Bank programs. We also find that governments face an increasing risk of entering a crisis when they remain under an IMF or World Bank arrangement once the economy's performance improves. The international financial institution's (IFI) scapegoat function thus seems to lose its value when the need for financial support is less urgent. While the probability of a crisis increases when a government turns to the IFIs, programs inherited by preceding governments do not affect the probability of a crisis. This is in line with two interpretations. First, the conclusion of IFI programs can signal the government's incompetence, and second, governments that inherit programs might be less likely to implement program conditions agreed to by their predecessors.

Monopolistic product line competition with ex post consumer heterogeneity

We model monopolistic competition in product lines, assuming that consumer heterogeneity is the result rather than the cause of product variety. Our results contradict some well-known policy implications yielded by the standard monopolistic competition framework.