In this paper we consider several ways in which voting systems can be manipulated and we pose some related ethical questions. Our focus is on the recent phenomenon of vote trading or vote swapping that was invented in 2000 and used in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. Vote trading is an Internet-based technique that sought to allow Democrats in heavily Republican states (like Texas) to effectively vote in swing states (like Florida), where (...) their votes would have more impact. We also look at some other new ways that voting systems can be manipulated and we consider the general question of whether there exist voting systems that cannot be manipulated. (shrink)

This paper examines the relation between trade, political openness, and agricultural trade policy in developing countries. It argues that trade openness and democracy contribute to lower taxes and control programs in the agricultural sectors. Examining the politics of agricultural trade policy in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, it was found that trade expansion and democratic regimes lead to fewer taxes and control programs imposed on agriculture. The results indicate that elected governments in industrializing countries are less likely to impose (...) more tax and control programs on agriculture in order to encourage exports and in order to appeal to farmers, who are a major voting bloc in these countries. (shrink)

Scientific activities strongly depend on concepts and classifications to represent the world in an orderly and workable manner. This creates a trade-off. On the one hand, it is important to leave space for conceptual and classificatory criticism. On the other hand, agreement on which concepts and classifications to use, is often crucial for communication and the integration of research and ideas. In this paper, we show that this trade-off can sometimes be best resolved through conceptual governance, in which scientific institutions (...) set a collective conceptual standard, and that voting can be a reasonable way to implement that governance. Voting is a means to simultaneously aggregate among conflicting values, preferences and priorities that often underpin conceptual or classificatory debates, all while signaling ongoing disagreement. We also discuss how the legitimacy of the voting process and its outcome can be ensured. (shrink)

The Dodd‐Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed into law by President Obama in July 2010, included two significant corporate governance mandates: “say‐on‐pay” shareholder voting and the frequency of such votes among all publicly traded companies. The say‐on‐pay rule requires publicly traded companies subject to proxy rules to offer their shareholders an advisory, or nonbinding, vote at least once every three years on the compensation packages of the most highly compensated executives. The actual data for the first (...) five years of say‐on‐pay voting indicates one intractable conclusion: that shareholder say‐on‐pay voting has not verified what many shareholder activists originally believed, i.e., that the majority of shareholders held similar opinions about business executives being significantly overpaid for their managerial performances. During its first five years in effect, the results of say‐on‐pay voting indicate that shareholders are overwhelmingly satisfied with executive compensation packages, as a 92 percent average shareholder say‐on‐pay approval result (i.e., exceeding 70 percent) among companies listed in the Russell 3000 Index attests. (shrink)

In this article I aim to provide the first normative discussion of barter voting markets, namely markets which allow the trading of votes on issues/elections for votes on other issues/elections. The article is framed within the wider literature on the legal permissibility of vote buying, with a particular focus on the recent debate between Christopher Freiman and James Stacey Taylor. I argue that while Taylor's objections successfully defeat Freiman's case in favour of standard voting markets, they are unable (...) to also defeat the type of voting markets outlined here. Furthermore, I argue that there are at least two plausible prima facie reasons in favour of barter voting markets, grounded in their capacity to contribute to the alleviation of injustice for systematically disadvantaged socio‐economic groups and to their capacity to reduce one form of bad voting, i.e. voting from ignorance. (shrink)

There has been much discussion of the justifiability of strikes by healthcare workers, but comparatively little discussion of the political processes through which strikes occur. This article focuses on the Trade Union Act 2016, which currently governs strike ballots in the UK. This legislation has important implications for healthcare workers being balloted on strikes (or other forms of industrial action). The article first explains the legal requirements for a strike mandate and illustrates how votes in strike ballots can be counterproductive, (...) bringing about outcomes opposite of what the voter wanted. Second, it argues that the turnout threshold responsible for these surprising results is undemocratic, since it means that outcomes need not reflect the wishes of those balloted. Third, it suggests that this has consequences for how balloted workers ought to vote, if they want the process to be more democratic. In particular, I propose that those who are neutral or indifferent have reason to cast spoiled ballots, in order to negate the turnout threshold. Further, those who oppose a strike also have reasons—if they value democratic decision-making—to vote, even though this may be less effective than abstaining. As I write, in August 2023, junior doctors in the UK are once again being balloted over strike action.1 While the global picture is more varied, strikes by medical professionals have historically been rare in the UK. When British doctors went on strike in 2012, over changes to pensions, it was the first time since 1975.2 Since then, however, industrial action has become more common. Some attribute this to an erosion of patient-centred professional values, which has made workers more prepared to strike in response to deteriorating pay and conditions.3 4 Whether or not this is the explanation, the increased prevalence of strikes has caused some concern. It is often …. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that in past history, freedom of speech, whether granted to few or many, was granted as bestowing some important benefit. John Stuart Mill, for example, in On Liberty, saw it as enabling us to learn from each other through discussion. By the test of benefit, I here argue that social media that are funded through trade in our personal data with advertisers, including propagandists, cannot claim to be supporting free speech. We lose our freedoms, if the (...) personal data we entrust to online social media are used to target us with information, or disinformation, tailored as persuasive to different personalities, in order to maximize revenue from advertisers or propagandists. Among the serious consequences described, particularly dangerous because of its effect on democracy, is the use of such targeted advertisements to swing voting campaigns. Control is needed both of the social media and of any political parties that pay social media for differential targeting of voters based on personality. Using UK government documents, I recommend legislation for reform and enforcement. (shrink)

Since the EU referendum took place in June 2016, the British government’s task to implementing the vote to leave the EU has been monumental. With regard to the future trade relationship with the EU27, the British government has proposed a ‘bold and ambitious’ free trade agreement aimed at the ‘freest and most frictionless trade possible’. The complexity of achieving such an agreement within the limited timeframe available has generated lot of controversy, uncertainty and anxiety. The aim of the paper (...) is to bring some clarity with regard to the challenges ahead. A proper appreciation of these challenges is key in order for a transparent, inclusive and realistic debate about the objectives, features and timeframe of the future UK-EU trade agreement. (shrink)

Were women agents of their own political emancipation or did politicians preemptively grant rights to them in a bid for electoral success? This article claims that both electoral politics and the ordinary strategies of women’s movements explain the timing of female suffrage. Drawing on archival evidence from the United Kingdom, I show how in an electoral environment where the incumbent Liberals saw disadvantage to reform, an enterprising group of Liberal suffragists formed a pact with the Labour party, trading economic (...) resources for the party’s promise to push for suffrage reform. The Election Fighting Fund, as the pact was called, was key to securing women’s place in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In raising the possibility that ordinary instead of revolutionary tactics proved key to voting rights reform, women emerge as an interesting new case for the study of democratization. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest in corporate law can be addressed by two main alternatives: a requirement of a majority of the minority vote or the imposition of duties of loyalty and fairness. A comparison of Delaware, the UK, Canada, and Israel reveals that while the conflicts of interest problem within publicly-traded corporations receives different treatment in the different jurisdictions — either a fairness rule or a majority of the minority rule — closely-held corporations receive the same treatment of an imposition (...) of duties of loyalty and fairness. This article explains this finding, demonstrating that determining which of these rules is adopted is, in fact, a choice between liability rule protection and property rule protection. This choice depends on the total and relative transaction costs. These costs include both the negotiation costs attendant upon a property rule, as well as the adjudication costs associated with a liability rule. The sum of these costs is influenced by the efficacy of the judicial system and of extralegal mechanisms such as the market for corporate control, the capital market, and the types of investors active in the market. Because the different jurisdictions have different relative costs, due to differences in the economy and the legal systems, publicly-traded corporations are treated differently in each system. However, sometimes conflict of interest situations share the same main characteristics — as with closely-held corporations—leading to the domination of one solution, and thus the same solution is applied for closely-held corporations in the different jurisdictions. (shrink)

Throughout the Peloponnesian War, no state remained as aggressively hostile toward Athens as Corinth. Following the affairs of Corcyra and Poteidaia, Corinth successfully argued that war be declared against Athens. After ten years of fighting, when Sparta agreed to the Peace of Nikias, Corinth refused to accept its terms and make peace with Athens. We know that Corinth and Athens were directly engaged in hostilities in 419 and 416 and were on opposing sides in the fighting between Epidauros and Argos (...) in 418. After Athens sent forces against Sicily in the summer of 415, Corinth voted independently to support Syracuse and encouraged Sparta to increase hostilities against Athens in both Greece and Sicily. When the Peloponnesian War came to an end in 404 with the final Athenian defeat, Corinth continued to oppose peace with Athens and urged that the city be destroyed. (shrink)

Although its title promises a discussion of such matters as prostitution, surrogate motherhood, and markets in blood and organs, this book by a professor of law at Stanford University is really a treatise on market rhetoric, not markets. Its target is the intellectual application of the tools of economic analysis to spheres of human life—such as sexual relations, family life, bodily integrity, and political commitment—that are purportedly structured by moral values and ideals rather than cold calculation of advantage. The “Chicago (...) School” of economics, the law-and-economics movement, and public-choice theory are the culprits here. Writers in these intellectual movements, on Radin’s characterization, think of children as commodities with “a price and a demand function”, explain laws against vote-selling as solutions to externality problems, and count rape as “no different from any other preference satisfaction”. They “want to extend the market to everything” as a tool of thought. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss James Buchanan’s contribution in the narrow domain of understanding committee voting under majority rule. We then go on to discuss Charles Plott’s seminal experimental work on the topic that sparked a wave of public choice experimental work. However, given Plott’s claims that Buchanan influenced him significantly, it is puzzling that his work with Morris Fiorina explores a question outside of those which Buchanan and Tullock found interesting. We suggest several ways to resolve this tension. Our (...) chapter concludes by discussing a lacuna in the experimental public choice literature in which Buchanan was particularly interested—logrolling, or vote trading. (shrink)

The philosophical debate concerning political exchange has largely been confined to debating the desirability of vote trading; where individuals can sell their votes or buy votes from others. However, I show that the vote credit systems prevalent in public choice theory entirely avoid the common objections to political exchange that afflict vote trading proposals. Namely, vote credit systems avoid equality concerns and inalienability concerns. I offer an alternative critique to formal mechanisms that encourage political (...) exchange by drawing on the role that impartiality and impartial moral judgements play in democratic and electoral institutions. (shrink)

A decomposition model of Net Final Values (NFV), named Systemic Value Added (SVA), is proposed for decision-making purposes, based on a systemic approach introduced in Magni [Magni, C. A. (2003), Bulletin of Economic Research 55(2), 149–176; Magni, C. A. (2004) Economic Modelling 21, 595–617]. The model translates the notion of excess profit giving formal expression to a counterfactual alternative available to the decision maker. Relations with other decomposition models are studied, among which Stewart’s [Stewart, G.B. (1991), The Quest for Value: (...) The EVA™ Management Guide, Harper Collins, Publishers Inc]. The index here introduced differs from Stewart’s Economic Value Added (EVA) in that it rests on a different interpretation of the notion of excess profit and is formally connected with the EVA model by means of a shadow project. The SVA is formally and conceptually threefold, in that it is economic, financial, accounting-flavoured. Some results are offered, providing sufficient and necessary conditions for decomposing NFV. Relations between a project’s SVA and its shadow project’s EVA are shown, all results of Pressacco and Stucchi [Pressacco, F. and Stucchi, P. (1997), Rivista di Matematica per le Scienze Economiche e Sociali 20, 165–185] are proved by making use of the systemic approach and the shadow counterparts of those results are also shown. (shrink)

One component in the vote to leave the European Union was a nostalgic image of Empire and the assertion by Brexiteers like Boris Johnson that after Britain had left the EU new trade links would be made with countries who were members of the Commonwealth, countries that Britain had previously governed as colonies. The foundation for this idea was the understanding that Britain’s governing of its colonies had been benign and, indeed, that British control had brought with it the (...) benefits of civilisation. This view of the British empire was pervasive in the UK. This article focuses on the sitcom As Time Goes By in which the male protagonist, Lionel, is writing a book about his time in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s. Everybody who reads the ms considers it boring. Yet Kenya during those decades was subject to a grass-roots uprising against the British colonists known as Mau Mau and Kenya was granted independence in 1963 by which time large numbers of white settlers had left the country. The portrayal of Lionel’s book as boring elides this history and reinforces the perception that British colonialism was well received by the indigenous population. (shrink)

The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade. There is something highly paradoxical in the modern man's relation to war. Ask all our millions, north and south, whether they would (...) vote now (were such a thing possible) to have our war for the Union expunged from history, and the record of a peaceful transition to the present time substituted for that of its marches and battles, and probably hardly a handful of eccentrics would say yes. Those ancestors, those efforts, those memories and legends, are the most ideal part of what we now own together, a sacred spiritual possession worth more than all the blood poured out. Yet ask those same people whether they would be willing, in cold blood, to start another civil war now to gain another similar possession, and not one man or woman would vote for the proposition. In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible. -/- It was not thus in ancient times. The earlier men were hunting men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well as the most exciting, way of living. Thus were the more martial tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite for plunder. (shrink)

The term ‘communitarianism’ is often identified with ‘altruism’: an individual is taken to be communitarian-minded if he or she is concerned with the well-being of others, and not only with his or her own well-being. While communitarianism may embrace altruism, it is most appositely viewed as having a broader connotation. Consider, for example, the puzzle of voting behaviour, discussed by Amitai Etzioni and many others ). Casting one's vote entails a cost, albeit usually a small one: however, if there (...) are large numbers voting, then one's own vote has a negligible effect on the outcome. An altruist might therefore rationally refrain from voting, since he incurs a cost, and neither he nor anybody else receives a benefit. And yet, millions of people the world over regularly vote in elections. Other examples could also be given. ‘Group-oriented’ behaviour has been the focus of a number of recent studies. C. Clague, for example, examines the roles of guilt and shame in discouraging tax evasion, and informally discusses how social influences may affect the strength of these sentiments. R. Naylor and M. Cripps examine the influence of social custom on individuals' propensity to join trade unions, while P. Nelson argues that in choosing which party to vote for people assign some weight to the preferences of persons they associate with. (shrink)

This paper examines different mechanisms for adjudicating disagreement about distributive justice. It begins with a case where individuals have deeply conflicting convictions about distributive justice and must make a social choice regarding the distribution of goods. Four mechanisms of social choice are considered: social contract formation, Borda count vote, simple plurality vote, and minimax bargaining. I develop an agent-based model which examines which mechanisms lead to the greatest degree of satisfying justice-based preferences over the course iterated social choices. (...) Agents are ascribed two kinds of motivations: they wish to realize justice and to receive a greater package of goods. Each agent seeks to realize her ideal distribution, and the failure to do so leaves agents “disappointed,” resulting in their trading off the pursuit of gains in justice in favor of gains in self-interest. Mechanisms are assessed using the metric of how many agents remain interested in justice over the course of iterated adjudication. The mechanisms are also examined under some non-ideal conditions, such as the presence of power asymmetries or strategic behavior. Several significant results are addressed: social contract formation and simple plurality voting are robust under the conditions considered, bargaining is a highly ineffective means of adjudicating distributive disagreement, and lastly allowing for concessions in justice for gains in self-interest proves to be a crucial mechanism for ensuring the stability of resolutions. (shrink)

Democracy’s Trade-Off You are so stupid, I wouldn’t even trust you to watch my cat for five minutes. But I would fight for your right to vote. We all know people whom we deem unqualified to reason coherently and still we do not question universal suffrage. In Knowing Democracy – A Pragmatist Account of the Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics (Springer 2020), Michael Räber demonstrates that this contradiction is the center of the epistemic argument for democracy. Of course, he (...) has a mor... (shrink)

Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter is deeply ideological and conceptually confused. His book is shaped by pro‐market and pro‐expert biases and anti‐democratic attitudes, leading to one‐sided and conclusion‐driven arguments. His notion that voters are rationally irrational when they hold anti‐market and anti‐trade beliefs is incoherent, as is his idea that sociotropic voting can be explained as the rational purchase of a good self‐image.

ABSTRACTThe modern view of economic conspiracies stands in stark contrast to the view in the eighteenth century. Such classical economists as Adam Smith took conspiracy to be the natural result of our tendency to associate with one another. It manifested itself in collusion among both laborers and manufacturers to raise their income. By the mid-twentieth century, however, economists had come around to an entirely different view, according to which voluntary collaboration, especially in large groups, was unnatural and irrational, such that (...) the only way to sustain cartels and trade unions was via compulsory, tyrannical measures. The notion of rationality that underlies such a view—as seen in the parallel notion that it is irrational to vote—threatens the understanding of agency that is essential to democracy. (shrink)

The say-on-pay regulation in the Dodd-Frank Act requires publicly-traded U.S. firms to hold a nonbinding, advisory shareholder vote on executive compensation. Advocates claim that SOP voting gives shareholders a mechanism to hold managers and boards more accountable. Critics contend that SOP votes may simplistically reflect shareholders’ reactions to the overall value of CEO compensation or the firm’s net income. However, based on prior research, we contend that market participants’ SOP votes are likely to consider current income attributes. For example, (...) the market punishes firms that do not meet or beat benchmarks such as analyst earnings expectations, and that shareholders scrutinize the quality of the income sources of firms that consistently meet/beat analyst expectations. We thus expect that more shareholders will provide ‘agree’ SOP votes for a firm that consistently meets/beats analyst forecasts and does so when net income does not include nonrecurring gains. Further, we consider whether perceptions about the fairness of CEO compensation play a mediating role in the relationship between the interaction of these two current income attributes and SOP votes. Results from an experiment using evening MBA students as participants indicates that the two current income attributes significantly interact with respect to the percentage of agree SOP votes, and that compensation fairness perceptions fully mediate this relationship. Further, the mediating effect of compensation fairness perceptions is robust to including CEO-level and other determinants found in prior research. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and their implications for public policy and research. (shrink)

The variety and complexity of the eight papers in this Symposium issue are evidence that immigration is a tough nut to crack both as a matter of policy and application. There is no way that any short summary can do justice to these papers, which take a variety of moral, economic, historical, and empirical approaches to some of the recurrent issues in the field, so it is best in this short issue to try to situate the problem in a general (...) classical liberal context, to show where the pressure points are most likely to appear.The initial way to approach this problem is to start with the simple proposition that the world today is divided into national territories where the practical norm is well-nigh universal: That each sovereign state has exclusive control over its own territory, which, among other things, allows it to decide which individuals are members of that state. These citizens have privileges that may be exercised, no questions asked, on such key matters as entering labor markets, owning property, voting, and otherwise participating in political affairs. All these activities may be denied or granted, at will, to any and all outsiders by the territorial sovereign.No one doubts the need for having some form of territorial control. The need to have some monopoly of force could not be achieved if the entire world, with its infinite diversity of locations and populations, were under a single sovereign. Indeed, in many cases, the divisions within a given country may be so pronounced that separation rather than aggregation is the norm. Thus, at the end of the British Raj, India split into India and Pakistan, and later Pakistan split into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Less dramatically, Czechoslovakia split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, while the former Yugoslavia split into five nations, starting from the northwest: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Macedonia. Clearly, these ethic differences, be they large or small, are a major obstacle to the expansion of the size of the state. And today, the territorial instinct reasserts itself as the member states of the European Union impose more restrictions on immigration.Yet at the same time, the normative foundations of this system seem elusive. There is the following deep skepticism about the importance of these borders, expressed in these essays by Jeremy Waldron and Ilya Somin, that these national boundary lines should have such a pronounced role in political economy. Michael Blake pursues this theme further by asking the extent to which classical liberals can justify exclusion through the use of violence—or is it force? The inquiry into the dominant role of territoriality can then be expanded, as by Peter Margulies, to examine all sorts of negative externalities that could be created both by easy and strict rules of admission.Taken as a whole, there is no doubt that these national barriers are a serious obstacle to the free trade in goods and services between two individuals, one inside the boundary and one outside. The general view is that these barriers block the gains from trade, which is what drives economic progress, so that ideally all tariffs and quantitative restrictions should give way to a system of free trade in which petty objections by domestic competitors of foreign firms should not dictate local policies.It should, of course, be evident that powerful conflicting forces on free trade and protectionism ebb and flow over time. It should therefore come as no surprise that the stakes are even higher where what is at stake is the movement of people across national boundaries. The loss to any given country from keeping out potential citizens can be enormous, and we see powerful political forces clamp down on open immigration, so many of these gains from trade are lost. The situation can be even more heartbreaking when the ability to leave a country exposes innocent people to imprisonment or death.So what is the explanation for so many nations closing their borders? Much of the explanation comes from old-fashioned protectionism. Your computer programmers will take the jobs of our specialists. There is all sorts of occupational licensing and other barriers to entry within a domestic economy, so there is no reason to expect that these forces will not exert even greater influence against outsiders who do not, after all, have a voice in the local economy and who, therefore, as Alex Nowrasteh, Michael Howard, and Andrew Forrester observe, have little ability to influence domestic policy even after they enter a country. In addition, as Gabriel Chin discusses, strong racial prejudices also lead to exclusions from the domestic economy. Not only are there objections in, say, the United States and much of Western Europe, of exclusion on straight racial grounds, as exemplified by Chinese exclusion acts. The force of these exclusions are also subject to political change. Thus, the Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act) was part of a white supremacist program, which gave way two decades later to a very different legal regime with the Immigration Act of 1965, which put an end to the venerable system of national-origin quotas.Yet two other reasons for exclusion are constantly at issue. Immigrants not only bring in their labor but also their families, cultures, and traditions that, in public spaces, may clash with local norms and cultures on such elementary and critical matters as to whether women should dress modestly and wear head coverings. Will freewheeling Danes and Swedes feel comfortable if large numbers of Muslims continue their traditional practices with strong barriers between men and women? There are no obvious market mechanisms that will mitigate these issues, and the situation becomes even more fraught if there are large welfare or educational costs that fall, at least in the short run, on local citizens. These are compounded by the fact that immigrants will typically gain political rights that could easily skew the balance of political power between established and newly arrived ethnic groups by altering the outcome of national and local elections. And letting people in is not just done on a simple open-borders policy. Thus, in many countries, as Lance Pritchett discusses, there is the controversial option of letting foreigners in on short-term labor visas that require them to leave after a certain period. And there are further questions about whether people should be deported if they lied on their entry applications or committed some crime while in the new country, as has occurred in the United States. The numbers of cases can be high and their complexity great, so it is fair to ask, along with Jill Family, whether some self-conscious exceptions to the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, analogous statutes elsewhere, should be regarded as part of the new normal.It is therefore necessary to deal with the thrust and counterthrust on all these issues. It is also fair to ask whether classical liberalism has a distinctive view on these issues, or whether the combination of private gains and multidirectional externalities gives rise to empirical questions that, as always, require further reflection, even when certain situations—the major influx of illegal immigrants on the US southern border—will generate such powerful emotions that detached intellectual inquiry is ever more difficult. We cannot answer these questions, and thus offer to you a set of essays that take a stab at these difficult topics. (shrink)

Cognitive biases that affect decision making may affect the decisions of citizens that influence public policy. To the extent that decisions follow principles other than maximizing utility for all, it is less likely that utility will be maximized, and the citizens will ultimately suffer the results. Here I outline some basic arguments concerning decisions by citizens, using voting as an example. I describe two types of values that may lead to sub-optimal consequences when these values influence political behavior: moralistic values (...) (which people are willing to impose on others regardless of the consequences) and protected values (PVs, values protected from trade-offs). I present evidence against the idea that voting is expressive, i.e., that voters aim to express their moral views rather than to have an effect on outcomes. I show experimentally that PVs are often moralistic. Finally, I present some data that citizens’ think of their duty in a parochial way, neglecting out-groups. I conclude that moral judgments are important determinants of citizen behavior, that these judgments are subject to biases and based on moralistic values, and that, therefore, outcomes are probably less good than they could be. (shrink)

Cognitive biases that affect decision making may affect the decisions of citizens that influence public policy. To the extent that decisions follow principles other than maximizing utility for all, it is less likely that utility will be maximized, and the citizens will ultimately suffer the results. Here I outline some basic arguments concerning decisions by citizens, using voting as an example. I describe two types of values that may lead to sub-optimal consequences when these values influence political behavior: moralistic values (...) (which people are willing to impose on others regardless of the consequences) and protected values (PVs, values protected from trade-offs). I present evidence against the idea that voting is expressive, i.e., that voters aim to express their moral views rather than to have an effect on outcomes. I show experimentally that PVs are often moralistic. Finally, I present some data that citizens’ think of their duty in a parochial way, neglecting out-groups. I conclude that moral judgments are important determinants of citizen behavior, that these judgments are subject to biases and based on moralistic values, and that, therefore, outcomes are probably less good than they could be. (shrink)

In this contribution, different elements which clarify the influence of the four yearly social elections on workers'participation are brought together. The author explains that representatives of only two advisory bodies on company level are elected. Nevertheless the social elections have an effect on a broader scale. The elections play a part in the protection of representatives in the trade union delegation, a third representative body on company level. Furthermore the elections can affect the relations which are situated above the company (...) level. Moreover a growing package of powers is granted to the workers' representatives. There is however an important difference between the social and the political elections. Political elections can cause a genuine change of power, social elections on the other hand can never change the postwar basic compromise: the employer preserves most of the decision power.The author outlines furthermore the battle necks of this participation mechanism. The most important bottleneck certainly is the low turn out of candidates for the social elections. For the first time this problem is analysed sectoraly over a longer period of time. It is concluded that there are great differences not only between the economic sectors and the non-economic sectors, but also between the economic sectors themselves. The author also indicates that the decline of active participation in the economic sector since 1975 is mainly situated in seven sectors, which deliver altogether 60% of the mandates in the profit sector. Finally the author touches upon two more bottlenecks, which are already discussed before but which remain nevertheless very important: the low presence of women as candidates and likewise in the distribution of seats, furthermore the relatively great amount of invalid votes in the electoral colleges of workers and young people. (shrink)

The controversy over short selling has continued unabated from the introduction of modern equity trading in Amsterdam in 1610 to the present day. Nevertheless, the business ethics literature has not really addressed short selling. Short sellers not only profit from the misery of others, they also create it through their selling activities. However, they also provide a socially useful service by making prices better reflect true values, protecting other investors from purchasing overpriced securities. Short sellers can also help to (...) provide liquidity in the markets. Recently, there has been a hue and cry against so called "naked" short selling, which involves not delivering the shares that have been sold. This gives manipulators a tool for depressing stock prices and deprives purchasers of voting rights and potential stock lending revenue. Naked short selling creates ethical issues for short sellers, buyers, brokers, market makers, and regulators. Is it ethical to exploit a legal loophole that permits sellers to sell stock and delay delivering shares indefinitely? (shrink)

Appeals to nationalism based on a common sociocultural, geographic, and linguistic heritage are reactions against expansions of trade, information, and power - and anomie and xenophobia can be countered by giving substatal ethnicities, minorities and political parties a voice and a vote.

For Israel, the demographic significance of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa presents an opportunity to exchange development aid, trade deals and military agreements for votes in global forums. In this article, the author examines the idea of Israel as a trustworthy diplomatic partner of African countries by considering the impact of Zionism on Christian views. The author drew on media articles for examples of initiatives with African countries, and on reports, calls and minutes of global bodies to reflect on ecclesial and (...) spiritual identities. In contrast to the prevailing perception among Christians in Africa, Zionism cannot be associated with liberation theology. Loyalty to Zionism undermines indigenous spiritual notions, the ideal of an authentic African identity, and Christianity itself. There is an urgent need for theological schools, church leaders and clergy to familiarise themselves with the reality and take the lead in critically assessing and reviewing any hermeneutics and beliefs that inform support for Zionism. Contribution: This article highlights the threat of Israel’s diplomacy in Africa to religious identity, integrity and freedom. As an interdisciplinary, contextual contribution to the sociology of religion, it reveals that loyalty to Israel, a Zionist State, jeopardises Christ’s message of inclusive compassion, justice and equality. (shrink)

Introduction Paul Boshears The following excerpt from Paul Amitai's In Between States: Field notes and speculations on postwar landscapes (2012) confounds its reader. Presenting an alternate history of the State of Israel as a space station orbiting Earth, the excitement of possibilities crackles across the texts and images. Like Chris Marker's La Jeteé , the accompanying static images distort the viewer's temporality: are these archaeological items, images from a past, or a future? Why isn't this our future? In Between States (...) can also be seen as complementing Larissa Sansour's provocative science fiction works, Space Exodus (2009) which "documents" the Palestinian space program, and her Nation Estate (2012), in which Palestine is relocated into a skyscraper. Amitai's vision opens onto an intergalactic diaspora, wherein the refugees of World War II are given the stars as Western Europe continues to fight over terrestial colonies. —PFB Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. In 1941 an investigation by the US Justice Department exposed a marriage cartel between John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) and I.G. Farben. The two corporations had formed a joint operation in 1927 called Standard IG Farben. It was revealed that the two had shared patents in order to control prices and markets in their respective regions. Standard was accused of hiding patents from the US Navy and supplying fuel to German submarines, which lead to charges of criminal conspiracy. The Pentagon intervened, requesting that President Roosevelt stop the investigation in order to protect war production and oil supply. Roosevelt agreed, and the Senate committee investigating the matter, headed by Senator Harry Truman, was halted. Standard Oil paid a fine of $5000 and promised to stop supplying fuel to the enemies. Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. Furious at the decision to terminate the investigation of acts he considered treason, Truman initiated a new inquiry into Standard Oil’s war-time practices after succeeding Roosevelt as president in 1945. With the chief executives of I.G Farben simultaneously on trial at Nuremburg, Truman brokered a deal with the Allies that reduced or withdrew criminal charges leveled against both corporations in exchange for Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s sponsorship of one of Truman’s most ambitious postwar projects—the relocation of the Jewish people. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. The third critical player in this bold experiment was the nascent North Atlantic Space Agency. Formed by Allied forces using the seized assets and engineering expertise of Hitler’s hitherto classified space program (conquer Earth, then the stars), the North Atlantic Space Agency was a pre-NATO foray into interstellar nation building, with orbital occupation as the first point of order. By 1947, NASA was nearly ready to deploy the first manned space station. Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s advanced fuel refinement capacities and deep, war-enriched financial resources allowed NASA to speed up their launch schedule significantly. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. Diplomatic efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine were failing to gain traction, while post-colonial England held its ground on immigration restrictions and bands of Jews and Arabs battled over territory on the ground. More immediate was the issue of temporarily housing Holocaust survivors and refugees across scorched Europe. Leaders of the continental nations demonstrated, at best, reluctance to accommodate the Jews, who in turn were, at the least, resistant to returning to the same bloody cocktail from which they had fled. Truman used the impasse to advance a plan for NASA’s space station to be put to use as a temporary Jewish outpost, an orbital displaced persons camp, to be operated by the US Army. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. Final preparations advanced rapidly. Viewing the orbital displaced persons (ODP) camp as a solution to their immigration problem both at home and abroad, England came on board as a willing partner. Spaceship Exodus was positioned for takeoff on German farmland 20 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt. On December 30, 1947, one month after the UN General Assembly voted down the separation plan for Palestine, Exodus rocketed into the atmosphere hauling the first module of barracks designed to house 1,500 refugees. Transport vehicles arrived shortly thereafter, loaded down with leftover wartime military rations and 3,000 Jews of Russian and Polish origin. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. "The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule."—Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer , trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 96. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. The ODP camp proved to be a longer-term solution than originally envisioned. Additional installations were positioned to form swollen clusters of interlocking units – sleeping quarters, schools, clinics, canteens. The UN was brought in to monitor the camp following two chaotic years of US Army control in which food shortages, pandemic diseases, and rampant black market trade had brought the camp to near total collapse. No less bureaucratic or ineffectual, the UN relief agency at least had prior experience facilitating contexts of a similar magnitude and could potentially predict outcomes. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. What had been unexpected was the degree to which the camp would evolve into its own self-regulated, hive-like ecosystem where previously accepted rules of conduct were not applicable. The ODP camp was an exceptional space, a riverboat casino, an offshore research lab of social experimentation and entrepreneurial innovation. No longer Earth-bound, touching soil knotted by prescripts of Talmudic law, the camp residents were able to rationalize loopholes and detonate barriers standing in the way of absolute production. The Jewish archipelago was renamed Israel after the ancient homeland. If the temple couldn’t be rebuilt in the motherland, a post-national rhizome would sprout up in its stead. Eyes everywhere, beyond all borders. More information on the project at the author's site. (shrink)

Other aspects of the election may be more illuminating in this regard. Almost half the electorate did not participate and voting correlated with income, a long-standing "comparative peculiarity of the American political system" that is plausibly attributed to "the total absence of a socialist or labourite mass party as an organised competitor in the electoral market", as the political scientist Walter Dean Burnham puts it. Higherincome voters favour Republicans, but class-skewed voting alone does not account for the vote for (...) George W Bush; his greatest success was among the white working class, particularly males. By large margins they favoured Al Gore on policy issues, and among voters concerned more with issues than "qualities", Gore won handily. But the genius of the political system is to displace such matters. Business and public attitudes commonly diverge: on trade, budget, public spending, and much else. In such cases, issues of great importance to the public either do not arise in the campaigns or are obscured and overwhelmed by peripheral concerns. (shrink)

These are hard days for globalism. A major candidate for the United States presidency ran on an anti-immigration, anti-free-trade platform and denounced such venerable international institutions as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. The European Union is under threat after the vote for Brexit; the Euro is under strain. China is denouncing and ignoring the result of an international arbitration over its claims to the South China Sea. Nationalist, xenophobic political parties are in the ascendency around (...) the world, buoyed by the fears and pains of populations for whom global trade has been no boon and to whom waves of new immigrants seem threatening both economically and socially. So it is both strange and uplifting, in this atmosphere, to encounter the ambitious and enthusiastic globalism of Lawrence Gostin's important, field-founding work, Global Health Law. Equal parts encyclopedia and manifesto, the book seeks both to provide exhaustive and up-to-date descriptions of the already-substantial body of international health law and of its implementing institutions and to chart Gostin's vision for their vigorous expansion. And that vision is nothing if not expansive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The University and Democracy: A Response to “Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University”Lee A. McBride IIIira harkavy has given us much to consider. His paper, “Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University,” invites us to critically assess our democracy and the role of colleges and universities in the propagation of our democratic way of life. Harkavy suggests that universities are failing to fulfill their function, that (...) is, “to educate students to be ethical, empathetic, engaged, democratic citizens, and advance knowledge for the continuous betterment of the human condition” (50). He suggests that universities are central societal institutions in the world, and research universities are most central—“they develop new ideas and technologies, incubate businesses, serve as cultural and artistic centers, and are engines of local, national, and global economics” (50). Our universities produce our teachers and our teachers’ teachers; they shape the learning, values, and the aspirations of students (Harkavy 50). But, again, universities are not fulfilling their social function of “creating and sustaining an inclusive, just democratic society” (Harkavy 51). Harkavy boldly asserts that a revolutionary change is required in higher education if it is to fulfill its democratic function.Closed LoopI have a concern about the role of Research 1 (R1) universities in this picture. I am led to believe that R1 universities, like the University of Pennsylvania, exist in rarefied air. Penn, for example, has a ridiculous endowment—more than $20 billion. Penn apparently accepts only 9% of its applicants. The resources and demographics of R1 institutions are unlike those at state schools and small liberal arts colleges. The various canons, the faculty, and the student body at elite R1 universities have historically represented the thoughts, [End Page 76] experiences, and perplexities of well-heeled white heteronormative men. The vast majority of the faculty and students at R1 universities are predominantly of Anglo-European descent and a higher socioeconomic status. This gives me pause. If R1 universities are placed as the central engines of democratic fomenting, I worry that the faculty and students at R1 universities will direct research and social amelioration projects in particular directions and retain particular presuppositions that will buttress the continued flourishing of elite R1 universities. A closed loop. I worry that both the material and the social capital needed to (re)shape social conditions will arise only from and circulate only between those who attend elite R1 universities. I mean, Harkavy suggests that the departments, programs, and institutes at R1 universities create and sustain those knowledges and skills that produce the scholars and thoughtful people who will drive our K–12 education, who will fashion new cooperatives and entrepreneurial ventures, and who will become our community activists and political leaders. As such, the knowledge and skills to implement a more just and inclusive democracy will be disseminated from the R1 university. Harkavy also explains that it is necessary that universities strive to be democratic civic universities, sites where university folk work alongside members of the surrounding communities to address and ameliorate the problems on the ground. This “would involve significant and ongoing engagement of an institution’s comprehensive assets (academic, human, cultural, and economic) in partnership with community members to produce knowledge and educate ethical students with the ability to help create and maintain just, anti-racist, democratic societies” (Harkavy 53). The democratic civic university would then nurture a culture of democracy that exceeds mere voting practices— democracy as a way of life (Dewey 226). Prima facie, this seems like a noble goal. And yet, I still worry that those university folks who do this work will be a small representative group of people who bear particular life experiences and perhaps phenotypic markers.I would suggest that other sites outside of the R1 university (e.g., the trade union meeting, the settlement house, the church, the community garden, etc.) will need to be taken as legitimate sites of knowledge creation or legitimate sites of communication and joint activity (Collins 269). This would at least bring differing life experiences to the table; that is, it would bring differing life experiences to the fore and recognize alternative non-academic sources of insight and wisdom. These sites and alternative... (shrink)

This paper critically examines how senior figures in the UK Labour Party and wider labour movement discussed the topic of immigration in the immediate aftermath of the UK's vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Influenced by the Discourse Historical Approach, the paper is based on an analysis of 86 public interventions by Labour figures, over a 6-month period, delivered in speeches, articles and essays. The paper examines argumentative strategies adopted by Labour figures – including Members of Parliament, (...) advisors and trade union leaders – who called for stronger immigration controls from an avowedly ‘left-wing’ perspective. Foregrounding their commitment to progressive politics, Labour politicians argued that restricting the number of migrants entering Britain was democratic, anti-racist and an expression of the Labour Party's commitment to the interests of working-class people. Nevertheless, it is the contention of this paper that the Labour Party's rhetoric tapped into right-wing populist discourses which constructed immigration as a threat to the racialised privileges of a ‘white’ working class. (shrink)

In the global economy, linguistic diversity influences economic and political development as well as public policies in positive and negative ways. It leads to financial costs, communication barriers, divisions in national unity, and, in some extreme cases, conflicts and war--but it also produces benefits related to group and individual identity. What are the specific advantages and disadvantages of linguistic diversity and how does it influence social and economic progress? This book examines linguistic diversity as a global social phenomenon and considers (...) what degree of linguistic variety might result in the greatest economic good.Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber look at linguistic proximity between groups and between languages. They describe and use simple economic, linguistic, and statistical tools to measure diversity's impact on growth, development, trade, the quality of institutions, translation issues, voting patterns in multinational competitions, and the likelihood and intensity of civil conflicts. They address the choosing of core languages in a multilingual community, such as the European Union, and argue that although too many official languages might harm cohesiveness, efficiency, and communication, reducing their number brings about alienation and disenfranchisement of groups.Demonstrating that the value and drawbacks of linguistic diversity are universal, How Many Languages Do We Need? suggests ways for designing appropriate linguistic policies for today's multilingual world. (shrink)

This article engages with H. P. P. Lötter’s account of democracy, liberty, and poverty in this IJAP symposium devoted to his book, Poverty, Ethics, and Justice. For Lötter liberty and democracy are intrinsically part of what is meant by poverty eradication and necessary instrumentally to secure whatever else it means. Lötter insists that liberty rights and socio-economic rights are interdependent and that neither has moral priority. This account is pitched at a level of generality, and contains ambiguities, that evade certain (...) hard but necessary questions, the main one being whether Lötter’s theory of the ‘co-originality’ of liberty and social rights is opposed to all reasonable constructions and entailments of the thesis of the priority of liberties. I suggest that he must accept a ‘weak’ priority thesis in order to insulate his overall argument from an authoritarian reading. Yet it is not clear whether Lötter’s would accept that politics enjoys a necessary centrality in adjudicating uncertainties within economic theory and policy-making, that democracy is irreducibly procedural in ways that licence particular voting and governing actions that are not necessarily pro-poor, and that political liberties plus a range of ‘negative’ civil liberties ought to be protected from trade-offs with prospective welfare and equality gains. Several aspects of Lötter’s account seem to block such moves, but I contend that the struggle against poverty and inequality is necessarily undertaken on a terrain of political and epistemic uncertainty, and that a democratic polity premised on institutionalised respect for uncertainty offers the best bet for realising welfare and social justice at an acceptable cost while respecting autonomy. (shrink)

This article engages with H. P. P. Lötter’s account of democracy, liberty, and poverty in this IJAP symposium devoted to his book, Poverty, Ethics, and Justice. For Lötter liberty and democracy are intrinsically part of what is meant by poverty eradication and necessary instrumentally to secure whatever else it means. Lötter insists that liberty rights and socio-economic rights are interdependent and that neither has moral priority. This account is pitched at a level of generality, and contains ambiguities, that evade certain (...) hard but necessary questions, the main one being whether Lötter’s theory of the ‘co-originality’ of liberty and social rights is opposed to all reasonable constructions and entailments of the thesis of the priority of liberties. I suggest that he must accept a ‘weak’ priority thesis in order to insulate his overall argument from an authoritarian reading. Yet it is not clear whether Lötter’s would accept that politics enjoys a necessary centrality in adjudicating uncertainties within economic theory and policy-making, that democracy is irreducibly procedural in ways that licence particular voting and governing actions that are not necessarily pro-poor, and that political liberties plus a range of ‘negative’ civil liberties ought to be protected from trade-offs with prospective welfare and equality gains. Several aspects of Lötter’s account seem to block such moves, but I contend that the struggle against poverty and inequality is necessarily undertaken on a terrain of political and epistemic uncertainty, and that a democratic polity premised on institutionalised respect for uncertainty offers the best bet for realising welfare and social justice at an acceptable cost while respecting autonomy. (shrink)

Those who knew the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell at the turn of the century referred to him as 'the Day of Judgement'. This acclaimed selection of his early letters, available in paperback for the first time, reveals the full scope of Russell's life and innermost thoughts up to the First World War. It includes letters to his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith, reveals the background to his now famous work in philosophy and the foundations of mathematics and how his mind (...) was stirred by socialism, free trade and votes for women. It also contains letters on his famous affair with Ottoline Morrell, providing yet another insight into one of the great intellectual figures of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Those who knew the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell at the turn of the century referred to him as 'the Day of Judgement'. This acclaimed selection of his early letters, available in paperback for the first time, reveals the full scope of Russell's life and innermost thoughts up to the First World War. It includes letters to his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith, reveals the background to his now famous work in philosophy and the foundations of mathematics and how his mind (...) was stirred by socialism, free trade and votes for women. It also contains letters on his famous affair with Ottoline Morrell, providing yet another insight into one of the great intellectual figures of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The idea of state education developed by activists associated with the governments that ruled in Poland after the May Coup which they put into practice was to educate citizens to be strongly attached to the Polish state, regardless of nationality and religion. All educational factors, including religious education, were to serve this purpose. Based on this assumption, the educational authorities aspired to have a decisive influence on the appointment of religious teachers, determining their qualifications, establishing the curricula and the choice (...) of textbooks. This led to conflicts with Catholic bishops, generally concerned with autonomy and exclusivity in setting rules on these issues. Ecclesiastical autonomy in matters of communicating the faith, formally accepted by law and church authorities, presupposed that the Church determines the content of religious instruction, the scope and shape of religious education, and selects teachers to communicate the principles of the faith to Catholics on its behalf. The bishops could not give the state a casting vote, for to do so would be to misappropriate their own duties, which stem from the nature of the episcopal mission. This was not understood by the state authorities who were unwilling to compromise in any way between the May Coup and the beginning of 1937 and wanted to have a decisive voice in the appointment and qualifications of religious teachers, in the scope and shape of religious curricula and textbooks, as well as complete control over church organizations allowed to function in schools. While church authorities, Catholic columnists and educators, as well as the activists of church organizations spoke out and discussed and even protested publicly about coeducation, the presence of non-Catholic teachers in mainstream schools, and the anti-religious attitude of teachers affiliated with left-wing trade unions, the issues of the appointment and qualifications of religious teachers, curricula and textbooks, on top of the control of church organizations in schools were raised only during discussions and correspondence between the church and school authorities. Except for one statement by the School Committee published in the diocesan journals intended for the clergy, these disputes were not publicized on a national scale by either the Church or the state side. (shrink)

The four-yearly social elections in Belgium took place for the tenth time in june 1991.The results show a renewed victory for the christian trade union ACV; all the other unions and lists lost. The socialist union ABW, which was once the most powerful in Belgium, felt the decline most strongly. It could maintain a narrow relative majority in votes in Wallonia but was outnumbered in seats by the ACV.For many years Wallonia was considered to be a "red bastion". Another important (...) shift was that the three "general" unions together gained the majority of votes of the executive staff members, at the expense of their "specific" lists : those of organizations and groups representing only members of the executive staffs.These elections showed a further decline in attendance, in spite of all the propaganda made by the Ministry of Labour, urging the employees to take part in the elections. (shrink)

From a 1996 survey comparing the views of economists and ordinary voters, Bryan Caplan deduces several biases—anti‐market, anti‐foreign, pessimistic, and makework biases—to support his thesis that voters are rationally irrational, i.e., that, aware of the inconsequentiality of their votes, they rationally indulge their “preferences” for public policies that have harmful results. Yet if the standard of comparison is the public’s opposition to harmful policies, rather than the level of its opposition relative to that of economists, the “biases” disappear. In absolute (...) terms, voters support free trade and are against protectionism, such that free‐trade agreements are more prevalent among democratic, rather than autocratic, regimes. Finally, the protectionist policies that are adopted in this country are the product of interest‐group politics, not of voters’ wrongheaded policy preferences. (shrink)

The Australian political system is in some ways democratic, and in some ways not. The relationship between Prime Minister, Parliament and electorate seems to me the most democratic part of the system. The undemocratic features include bicameralism, federalism, monarchy, and some others. In calling certain features undemocratic I don't necessarily mean they're bad. For the views of 19th century liberals on whether democracy is a good thing, and if so subject to what limitations (if any), and several similar questions, see (...) Liberal Democracy . My own view is that democracy (in the sense of deciding by majority vote) is not an absolute or basic political value. There is no guarantee that democratic decision making will produce justice for racial, linguistic, religious and other minorities, or that it will produce just and wise decisions about relations with other nations (e.g. on war, trading policies), or about environmental questions and other matters affecting the interests of future generations . Democracy needs to be tempered by culture or by institutions, e.g. by a liberal legal tradition, by education, by a Bill of Rights (perhaps), by special representation ("over"-representation by democratic standards) of minorities, etc. These things are connected with the "liberal" tradition, rather than with democracy. There is no reason why individuals or minorities should not press for such balances to democracy, undeterred by any opposition from the majority -- there is no political obligation " to conform to majority views. Having got that off my chest, I will look at Australia's political institutions from a democratic point of view: How democratic are they? (shrink)

This paper discusses ensembles of simple but heterogeneous classifiers for word-sense disambiguation, examining the Stanford-CS224N system entered in the SENSEVAL-2 English lexical sample task. First-order classifiers are combined by a second-order classifier, which variously uses majority voting, weighted voting, or a maximum entropy model. While individual first-order classifiers perform comparably to middle-scoring teams’ systems, the combination achieves high performance. We discuss trade-offs and empirical performance. Finally, we present an analysis of the combination, examining how ensemble performance depends on error independence (...) and task difficulty. (shrink)