[{"id":775,"title":"Dual-Role Actor- A Fresh Look At Bootlegger and Baptists Dynamics","sha":"6c16d34fb88d800ba24ebed18b1ba3df","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Bruce Yandle’s concept of Bootleggers and Baptists explains how seemingly opposing groups/individuals join forces for a single cause. The Bootleggers stand to gain from advocating the assumed policy position. The Baptists provide moral justification for the policy stance. It is always assumed that these seemingly impossible coalitions need to be comprised of two factions. However, why can’t a single group or individual be a Bootlegger and a Baptist? The individual or group assuming a “dual-actor” role in supporting a specific position.\r\n\r\nThe idiomatic expression “it takes two to tango” is not a hard and fast rule for Bootleggers and Baptists coalition building dynamics.  A single economic agent can possess multiple motives for their actions, opinions, or desires. The possibility of subordinate motives lurking the background provides some credence to this postulation. For example, an individual can donate to charity out of concern for the poor.  Simultaneously, also want to donate to charity because it fosters a positive public image. Making the philanthropic citizen both a Bootlegger and Baptist. This alignment of opposing motives is analogous to a coalition being formed between the psychoanalytical ID and Superego. This can apply to individuals and the aggregate motives of the group.   \r\n","created_at":"2020-07-24T15:29:10.779Z","updated_at":"2020-07-26T06:00:57.737Z","zenodo_id":3960398,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3960398","subject":null,"tags":["public choice theory","bootlegger and baptists","bruce yandle"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":881,"title":"The Paradox of Implicit Logrolling","sha":"75823d878348dc6cfaf4e51e473b8aef","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"The process of Implicit Logrolling (Buchanan \u0026 Tullock,1962) is a form of indirect vote-trading that heavily relies on the bundling of wedge issues. By way of tying specific groupings of policies to attract targeted demographics of voters to a political platform. This political strategy is especially effective in capturing the commitment of single-issue voters. These voters need to tacitly accept the rest of the policies on the political platform to have their one area of interest acknowledged. This is why implicit logrolling is such an effective mechanism in shaping the American political landscape.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMost analysts ignore how voters reconcile selecting programs and political candidates that hold logically inconsistent views. For example, an individual that defends abortion rights on the grounds of a bodily integrity argument concurrently favoring vaccine mandates. Here is where the Paradox of Implicit Logrolling comes in; voters then must rationalize these discrepancies due to the lack of logical consistency. In vote trading, the individual voter expects to make some concessions. However, when these concessions present logical and philosophical contradictions, few people question the conflict.  In short, the paradox describes how people are willing to accept contrary political positions if parceled with a party or policy they favor.\r\n","created_at":"2021-09-18T17:56:54.168Z","updated_at":"2021-11-01T11:43:11.353Z","zenodo_id":5606090,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5606090","subject":null,"tags":["public choice theory","james m. buchanan","gordon tullock","voting","implicit logrolling","vote-trading","calculus of consent"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":889,"title":"The Intrapersonal Collective Action Problem","sha":"e0152a80aaea6d057991b253db25a17d","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"As economist Thomas Schelling astutely points out in his paper Egonomics or the Art of Self-Management (1978),  people are often conflicted in their decision-making by current satisfaction and long-term goals. Since these goals are contrary, it is almost like two different people exist within the same person, the present and future version of ourselves. Both variants of the same person have stratified along a temporal chain of life events influencing the current decision-maker. The current version of ourselves can only anticipate but not fully know what our future self would prefer. We can only do the best we can to contend with potential future wants and current desires.\r\n\r\nSince we are navigating the clashing wants and needs of our future versions of ourselves with our current self, this seems to resemble an intrapersonal collective action problem. Traditionally economists have viewed collective action problems in the context of political decision-making. An individual is vying between current wants and future goals; in their decision-making, there is a potential for both sets of objectives to be at odds. A person is then suspectable to be indecisive or making concessions that find a middle ground (intrapersonal logrolling) between current and future aspirations.","created_at":"2021-10-31T05:31:27.958Z","updated_at":"2022-11-02T13:32:11.576Z","zenodo_id":5631186,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5631186","subject":null,"tags":["decision-making","thomas schelling","egonomics","collective action problem","mancur olson","new institutional economics","public choice"],"vote_count":3,"view_count":1,"score":3.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":935,"title":"Menu-Board Theory of Voting","sha":"89bb974c2efeff5c73437c6c4f7dcd61","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"The dictum of Public Choice Theory is that politics functions as a form of exchange. This assertion is very much true of the process of voting, where participants either select policies or representatives to make policy decisions. Public policy is nothing about purchasing decisions. Any commodity or service provided by the state is a public good. The government provides services that the private sector cannot otherwise supply due to practicality or legal sanctions.\r\n\r\nThe suggestion that voting is a form of purchasing public commodities and services (e.g. roadways and defense) validates the Menu-Board Theory of Voting. This theory suggests that anytime political decisions are made through a democratic process it is analogous to ordering food from a fast-food restaurant.  The clearest example of this is the Marijuana legalization referendums in the United States.  Through voting to legalize the sale and consumption, voters are not just purchasing the right to ingest cannabis, but they also acquire other complementary public goods (the proverbial fries and a drink). Voters also gain regulations from the state government to reduce the spillover effects of consumers ingesting unsafe products.  Also, additional tax revenue from the excise taxes will serve as funding for other services.","created_at":"2022-04-25T20:43:16.078Z","updated_at":"2022-06-15T06:00:38.199Z","zenodo_id":6643873,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6643873","subject":null,"tags":["economics","politics","public choice","voting"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1027,"title":"The Strategic Depth Theory of Diversity \u0026 Inclusion","sha":"eaaaba5c2f279de4f24b6b1f9a355a9b","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"It would be easy to assume that the increase in workplace Diversity and Inclusion programs was caused by corporate executives becoming more politically progressive. Is this even true? Per Fos, Kempf, and Tsoutsoura (2022), approximately; 69 % of corporate executives identify as Republicans. If this uptick in D\u0026I programs is not connected political orientation of leadership, what can explain this phenomenon? One potential cause for this shift could be firms wanting to avoid discrimination lawsuits. Lawsuits are monetarily costly and detrimental to the company’s reputation and impact future sales.\r\n\r\n\r\nThis is what the Strategic Depth Theory of  Diversity  \u0026 Inclusion attempts to answer.  Strategic Depth is a concept from military strategy; defined as “… the distances between the front lines or battle sectors and the combatants’ industrial core areas, capital cities, heartlands, and other key centers of population or military production...\" (Harkavy, 2001). Similar to how Israel gained Strategic Depth from the acquisition of the Westbank (Eisenkot, 1997), corporations obtain this geopolitical advantage by distancing themselves from the litigious incident by cultivating  D\u0026I programs. The Executives can then claim that the firm does not condone discriminatory behavior, effectively creating distance between the plaintiff and the firm.","created_at":"2022-11-27T03:11:05.144Z","updated_at":"2023-02-07T14:00:26.898Z","zenodo_id":7370019,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7370019","subject":null,"tags":["strategic depth","military strategy","diversity \u0026 inclusion","geopolitics","litigation","corporate governance"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1039,"title":"The Linchpin Framework of Adjudication","sha":"0a16846bc155f44244027576f1f1c74c","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"In the essay, Is Stare Decisis A Sand Castle? (2012), F.E. Guerra-Pujol details how judges possess the discretionary authority to bind and unbundle similar previous court cases.  The legal scholarship is in sync with Guerra-Pujol's observations; horizontal stare decisis does not effectively limit the SCOTUS (Cameron et al. 2019 \u0026 Lax, 2007). Why is this an issue? Because the lack of formal institutions restricting the court's latitude to interpret the law could result in judges reshaping it to benefit their political objectives (Macey, 1994). An accusation made by many pundits after Dobbs v Jackson overruled Roe (abortion access), Justice Thomas expressed interest in reexamining Griswold v. Connecticut (contraceptive access).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Linchpin Framework of Adjudication applies to any legal system that purports to adhere to the judicial doctrine of Stare decisis. It is analogous to pulling the linchpin from a grenade and allowing the bomb to detonate. In the absence of formal limitations, judges can “unbundle” similar cases to meet ideological goals with little regard for the law.  Allowing politically motivated judges to engage in judicial activism, blurring the line between making and interpreting the law.","created_at":"2023-01-13T19:03:56.574Z","updated_at":"2023-02-07T14:22:26.067Z","zenodo_id":7539358,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7539358","subject":null,"tags":["stare decisis","judicial activism","institutional constraints","limited government","f.e. guerra-pujol","judicial consequentialism"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1149,"title":"Terrorism as a Factor of Production in a Coup D'état","sha":"ca8363f2ea7fb263aaa1d1cac2c8513d","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Terror campaigns are perceived as a “.. weapon of the weak..” (Leiden \u0026 Schmitt, 1968), a refuge for actors lacking the political capital for a full coup d’état. Concentrated acts of terror could provide subversive political factions with clout, consensus, and supporters for a government takeover.  Terrorist organizations utilize various mediums to gain followers by disseminating propaganda glorifying the ideological objectives of the group (Nacos,2009). Terrorism also operates as a coercive mechanism (Olson, 1965), persuading the citizenry to accept the regime change. Analogous to an extortion racket, offering protection from the group’s violent acts if the citizenry supports the movement (Tomes, 2004).\r\n\r\nSince acts of terrorism are a common antecedent (Blomberg, Hess, \u0026 Weerapana, 2004) to political coups, we might be to view terror campaigns as a factor of production in the orchestration of a takeover.  Much as labor, raw materials, and other resources are factors of production for consumer goods; terrorism does the same for facilitating abrupt political change. The actions of terrorist organizations musters support out of either fear or notoriety, providing majoritarian support for the new regime.","created_at":"2023-08-16T17:39:01.222Z","updated_at":"2023-08-18T06:00:17.963Z","zenodo_id":8260071,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8260071","subject":null,"tags":["terrorism","economics","factors of production","political takeover"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1165,"title":"Weak Link Theory of U.S. Political Party Platforms","sha":"de8409ed01bf61d82b4a4718b0878b88","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Why do Republicans no longer support free trade? Neoliberal trade policy was a hallmark of the  Regan years (Wilson, 1993).  The Trump administration ended this decades-long consensus.  Per Ehrlich \u0026 Gahagan (2023), an ANES survey found only 33.1% of Republicans favor free trade.  How can a political party change a policy position it has held for decades? One potential antecedent engendering this shift has been the decline in “principled partisanship”. The trend since the Progressive Era has been American voters favoring a candidate’s personality over their conformity to political philosophy (Postell, 2018). Political labels serve more as a social identity than indicators of principled philosophical affiliation. (Barber \u0026 Pope, 2018).\r\n\r\nThe Weak Link Theory of U.S. Political Party Platforms suggests the pivot from political principles to candidate personalities, improving the ease of adding and removing planks from a party’s platform. When policy positions become unmoored by a decline in ideological commitment, the policies binding the party’s platform are weakened. Analogous to an eroded piece of chain link, enabling enterprising political actors to break it off from the rest of the chain.","created_at":"2023-10-09T21:30:28.557Z","updated_at":"2023-10-10T06:00:56.048Z","zenodo_id":8423526,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8423526","subject":null,"tags":["political parties","party platform","ideology","principled partisanship","free trade"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1170,"title":"Cookie-Cutter Effect of Regulation ","sha":"37d8c62402718627a2377f9c8258b9fa","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"The best description of the Brussels Effect is “unilateral regulatory globalization” (Bradford, 2012). Per Bradford (2012) this “..occurs when a single state can externalize its laws and regulations outside its borders through market mechanisms, resulting in the globalization of standards…”. Can this apply to regulatory regimes intra-jurisdictionally? In other words, can nearly identical regulations be applied under categorically homogeneous conditions? In the U.S., we have seen campaigns to “externalize” the regulatory frameworks of alcohol and tobacco (age restrictions, control boards, excise taxes, etc.) to emerging markets for recreational cannabis.\r\n\r\nThe Cookie-Cutter Effect of Regulation is a natural corollary of the Brussels Effect, but instead of being a geographically applying previously established regulatory regime, it is the application of similar regulations to categorically similar commodities and conduct. If it works in one similar country, it might work in another. If it works for alcohol, it might work for marijuana; this is the core assumption underlying this concept.\r\n","created_at":"2023-11-09T16:20:09.629Z","updated_at":"2023-11-16T06:00:26.702Z","zenodo_id":10140339,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10140339","subject":null,"tags":["brussels effect","regulation","political science","regulatory regimes"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1174,"title":"Thiel's Trap","sha":"4bf56fb9a5ae2522dfcab0f8760b2137","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Few economic concepts demonstrate scarcity as clearly as the Malthusian Trap. An economic condition where population growth outpaces food production (Malthus,1798). The fight for subsistence is in the rearview mirror of the developed world, but Malthusian logic is now applied to environmentalism(Hardaway,1997). This concept also applies to business.\r\n\r\nIn Zero to One (2014), PayPal founder Peter Thiel describes the dangers of intense market competition. Firms vying for razor-thin margins bring us to Thiel’s Trap (Thiel \u0026 Masters, 2014). The oversupply of producers greatly diminishes market share and consumer demand, generating a commons (Hardin, 1968). The participating firms do not exercise market dominance, all fighting over a narrowing market share.\r\n\r\nThe only way to escape the chasm of Thiel’s Trap is innovation. Similar to how agricultural advances helped the world climb out of the Malthusian Trap, the Schumpeterian winds of Creative Destruction (Schumpeter,1943) will lift your company out of Thiel’s Trap. Inventing a new product category is the escape hatch from subsistence in business.","created_at":"2023-12-15T20:42:06.071Z","updated_at":"2024-03-20T16:22:07.799Z","zenodo_id":10426529,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10426529","subject":null,"tags":["business","economics","thomas malthus","peter thiel"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]