A Dominant Coalition in Transition

2014 ◽  
pp. 203-242
Author(s):  
Jerry F. Hough ◽  
Robin Grier
Keyword(s):  
1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
SVEN STEINMO ◽  
CAROLINE J. TOLBERT

New institutionalism has emerged as one of the most prominent research agendas in the field of comparative politics, political economy, and public policy. This article examines the role of institutional variation in political/economic regimes in shaping tax burdens in industrialized democracies. An institutionalist model for tax policy variation is tested across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) democracies. Countries are conceptualized and statistically modeled in terms of majoritarian, shifting coalition, and dominant coalition governments. Regression analysis and cluster analysis are used to statistically model cross-national tax burdens relative to the strength of labor organization and party dominance in parliament. This study finds that political and economic institutions are important in explaining tax policy variation. Specifying the structure of political and economic institutions helps to explain the size of the state in modern capitalist democracies. This article specifies and demonstrates which institutions matter and how much they matter.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-347
Author(s):  
Lisa Mainiero

Purpose The #MeToo movement has brought questions of sexuality and power in the workplace to the forefront. The purpose of this paper is to review the research on hierarchial consensual workplace romances and sexual harassment examining the underlying mechanisms of power relations. It concludes with a call to action for organizational leaders to adopt fair consensual workplace romance policies alongside strong sexual harassment policies. Design/methodology/approach This paper represents a conceptual review of the literature on consensual workplace romance, sexual harassment, passive leadership and power relations. Passive leadership leads to a climate of incivility that in turn suppresses disclosures of sexual harassment (Lee, 2016). Consensual workplace romances across hierarchical power relations carry significant risks and may turn into harassment should the romance turn sour. Findings Two new concepts, sexual hubris and sexploitation, are defined in this paper. Sexual hubris, defined as an opportunistic mindset that allows the powerful to abuse their power to acquire sexual liaisons, and its opposite, sexploitation, defined as a lower-status member using sexuality to gain advantage and favor from an upper-level power target, are dual opportunistic outcomes of an imbalanced power relation. Sexual hubris may increase the likelihood for sexual harassment such that a mindset occurs on the part of the dominant coalition that results in feelings of entitlement. Sexploitation is a micromanipulation tactic designed to create sexual favoritism that excludes others from the power relation. Research limitations/implications Sexual hubris and sexploitation are conceptualized as an opportunistic mechanisms associated with imbalanced power relations to spur future research to tease out complex issues of gender, sexuality and hierarchy in the workplace. Sexual hubris serves to protect the dominant coalition and shapes organizational norms of a climate of oppression and incivility. Conversely, sexploitation is a micromanipulation tactic that allows a lower-status member to receive favoritism from a higher-power target. Four research propositions on sexual hubris and sexploitation are presented for future scholarship. Practical implications Most organizational leaders believe consensual romance in the office cannot be legislated owing to privacy concerns. Passive leadership is discussed as a leadership style that looks the other way and does not intervene, leading to workplace hostility and incivility (Lee, 2016). Inadequate leadership creates a climate of passivity that in turn silences victims. Policies concerning consensual workplace romance should stand alongside sexual harassment policies regardless of privacy concerns. Social implications The #MeToo movement has allowed victims to disclose sexual misconduct and abuse in the workplace. However, the prevalence of sexual harassment claims most often can be traced to a leadership problem. Employers must recognize that sexual hubris and sexploitation arise from imbalances of power, where sex can be traded for advancement, and that often consensual workplace romances end badly, leading to claims of sexual harassment. Consensual romance policies must stand alongside sexual harassment policies. Originality/value Sexual hubris and sexploitation are offered as novel concepts that provide a mechanism for conceptualizing the potential for abuse and manipulation from unbalanced power relations. These are original concepts derived from the arguments within this paper that help make the case for consensual workplace romance policies alongside sexual harassment policies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (04) ◽  
pp. 447-493
Author(s):  
BALÁZS VASZKUN

Japan is going through a transformation, yet it is difficult to judge which model should be chosen as a direction to go in with corporate reforms. Badly needed initiatives seeking to replace outdated managerial habits by new best practices in Japanese firms are being jeopardized by organizational members whose goal is to maintain the status quo — in terms of both political power and everyday work routines. Yet managerial habits and behaviours need to change if Japanese firms are to be entrepreneurial and innovative. According to institutionalism, blocking new initiatives is normal, and societal support is needed for major reform attempts. The focus of this paper is to shed light on how society in Japan is divided when it comes to large firms altering practices with which they have been traditionally managed. Our proposition is that complex, multi-element reform packages — having a potentially opposing dominant coalition, which is the case of Japan — ought to be implemented following a well-defined, prioritized listing of elements. After examining an attitude survey carried out in Japan, our findings revealed two clusters with a particularly high level of support for traditional management. Moreover, out of the two, one appeared to be extremely passive and resistant to any sort of change. In order to fight general resistance and reform outdated practices, our survey shows that Japan could move further towards a system compensating performance rather than seniority and giving more chance to women, discarding mass-recruitment, slow promotion whilst also maintaining the most deeply-rooted traditional values such as job security, paternalism or harmony in corporate life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Valeria Tarditi ◽  
Davide Vittori

The aim of this paper is to analyse the organizational model of one of the most successful European radical left parties, the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). Our goal is to analyse SYRIZA’s organizational transition from the electoral arena to the government (2015). Our main finding is that SYRIZA started as a socially-oriented organization led by an oligarchic dominant coalition and converted itself into a political party, characterized by a prevailing role of the party in public office/party government. Both the institutional environment and the party organization’s first configuration have had an impact on this change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Fischer

AbstractActors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions, i.e. the degree of federalism of a project, its degree of Europeanisation and the openness of the pre-parliamentary phase of the decision-making process. The cross-sectoral comparison includes the 11 most important decision-making processes in Switzerland between 2001 and 2006 with a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results suggest that Europeanisation or an open pre-parliamentary phase lead to a dominant coalition, whereas only a specific combination of all three conditions is able to explain a structure with competing coalitions.


2003 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan H. Reber ◽  
Glen T. Cameron

The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations posits that public relations practice moves on a continuum from total client or employer advocacy to total accommodation of a public. A survey of ninety-one top public relations practitioners was used to quantify contingency theory by constructing scales of five theoretical constructs: external threats, external public characteristics, organizational characteristics, public relations department characteristics, and dominant coalition characteristics. While the default response of practitioners was that bridge building is the best public relations practice, specific contingencies were found to limit bridge building or accommodation. Practitioners cited fear of legitimizing activist claims, credibility and commitment of an external public, and the place of public relations in the dominant coalition as contingencies impacting dialogue with contending publics.


1970 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Charles Bamford ◽  
Patrick Rogers ◽  
Alex Miller

A change in the strategic direction of an organization is usually regarded as a deliberate effort to impact firm performance. Yet empirical examinations of the drivers of organizational transformations have been inconclusive. In this study of banks, results indicate that financial performance is inversely related to a transformation of strategic type while changes in the dominant coalition are significant predictors of subsequent change in the firm's strategic type. It appears that a firm's ability to change its strategic focus is highly dependent upon it changing the membership of its Board of Directors, CEO, and its top management team.


Author(s):  
Ali Riaz

This paper explores the tumultuous political history of Bangladesh since it embarked on democratization process in 1991 after two decades of civilian and military authoritarianism, using the political settlement framework. Political settlement, in this paper is understood as, an agreement among elites and other social forces regarding ‘distribution of benefits supported by its institutions consistent with the distribution of power in the society’ (Khan, 2010). At the political level the arrangement is expected to ensure that the system would not unravel by conflict and violence. In the past decades, the country not only experienced repeated episodes of violence but also hopes of a democratic transformation have faded. Bangladesh has moved towards a non-inclusive political system. The paper argues that the period in question is marked by the emergence and collapse of a political settlement among political elites. It explores the nature and scope of the political settlement that emerged in the 1980s and collapsed by 2010, and demonstrates that by 2014, an exclusionary authoritarian settlement has emerged characterized by a lack of inclusivity and coercive apparatuses’ heightened role. The breakdown of political settlement was predicated by the nature of the settlement, its implications for the elites in the challenger coalition, and the degree of inclusivity of the dominant coalition. The exclusionary political settlement provides a semblance of ‘stability’ for a limited period but fails to contain the tension in the long term even when it delivers economic growth.


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