‘We were forgotten’: explaining ethnic voting in Bolivia’s highlands and lowlands

With the election of Evo Morales and his party Movement to Socialism (MAS) in 2005, Bolivia has become the only country in Latin America to have an indigenous party in power. However, it is misleading to take the MAS government as representing all of Bolivia’s ethnic diversity. Its indigenous population can be classified into peoples from the Andean highlands and from the Amazonian lowlands. Research has treated the indigenous population as uniform or focused on the Andean peoples and on parties rather than voters. This paper aims to differentiate this picture by showing that variances between highland and lowland indigenous peoples started with the appearance of Homeland’s Consciousness (CONDEPA) and have increased since MAS came to power. While the highland indigenous peoples have preferred left political parties, parties with pro-indigenous agendas or which used indigenous symbolism, the lowland peoples have tended to support centre-right parties. The paper attempts to explain these differences in the voting behaviour of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples. Ethnic voting is analysed in the time span from 1985 until 2014 within a mixed-methods design.     

Peace in the Twenty-First Century: States,Capital, and Multilateral Institutions versus Positionality Arbitrage,Everyday Mobility,Networks, and Multi-verticality

The ‘long peace’ of the last 25 years has been marked by various debates on liberal-democratic peace, human rights, and cosmopolitanism. They are all linked with various forms of intervention—from development to peacebuilding and humanitarian intervention. This ‘interventionary system/order’ model has come under pressure from a range of different fronts. This article examines how peace and development may be rethought in a global framework if the previous version of a progressive framework (i.e. the liberal peace) is now being revised and intervention has shifted towards neo-liberal forms.     

If You Go Down to the Woods Today: Infants’ Distress During a Teddy Bear's Picnic in Relation to Peer Relations and Later Emotional Problems

Infants’ emotional reactions to an unusual event were assessed at a simulated birthday party during which two costumed characters enacted a Teddy Bear's Picnic. Two hundred and fifty‐eight firstborn infants in a representative British community sample were observed at a mean age of 12.8 months in the presence of their parents and other participating families, in a laboratory sitting room decorated with balloons and banners. The picnic scenario was followed by free play with the other participating infants. At a mean of 36 months of age, mothers, fathers, and another informant who knew the child well completed the Child Behaviour Check List (CBCL). The majority of infants showed no vocal distress during the picnic scenario. A minority of infants expressed strong distress, which was correlated with elevated heart rate and production of cortisol. Infants who were not distressed were more likely to direct social behavior to their peers and especially likely to use physical force against peers. In comparison with strongly distressed and nondistressed infants, those who had shown mild distress during the picnic scenario were least likely to manifest later emotional problems. This pattern was particularly marked for boys. Taken together, the findings indicate that infants’ strong distress during naturalistic encounters that are meant to be entertaining can suppress sociability and might indicate risk for subsequent emotional problems.     

An actor-network perspective on business models: How ‘Being Responsible’ led to incremental but pervasive change

Business models have been studied as organizational value logics, which manifest in the states of cognition, artefacts, and activities. There is no conceptual perspective integrating all three of these states yet. In response, this paper develops a conceptual scaffold of an actor-network perspective: Value logics become programs of action as they are embodied in human actors’ cognition and inscribed into artefacts, forming actor networks that enact business model activity systems. An in depth case study of The Company (anonymized) and of its corporate responsibility initiative ‘Being Responsible’ illustrates the empirical application of this perspective. An analysis of 104 interviews with 72 individuals shows how The Company's business model was enacted by a network of human and nonhuman actors. The Being-Responsible artefact engaged in translation through which it enrolled business model actors to enact a responsibility logic in addition to their commercial logic. This changed the business model incrementally, but pervasively. The paper contributes (1) an integration of existing theory on business model logics manifesting cognition, artefacts, and activities in an actor-network perspective, (2) an extension of research on artefacts, exploring their agency when not explicitly related to the business model; and (3) the development of substantive theory that explains incremental, pervasive business model change through distributed processes of translation. The translation perspective also holds promise for explaining the dynamics of business model creation, maintenance, and radical business model change.     

Is it All About Money? – Affective Commitment and the Difference Between Family and Non‐family Sellers in Buyouts

In this paper we investigate private equity firm perceptions of sellers’ affective deal commitment in buyout transactions. Using a sample of 174 buyouts, we test trust, goal congruence and private equity reputation as potential antecedents of perceived deal commitment. We also examine whether and how different types of sellers, family versus non‐family firms, moderate sources of perceived affective deal commitment. In sum, we find evidence that non‐financial factors play a role in buyouts, particularly for family firm sellers.     

Determinants of Citizen Usage Intentions in e-Government: An Empirical Analysis

Local governments have implemented official websites, making e-Government a holistic access platform for modern public administration service provision. However, academic and managerial knowledge about the success of e-Government remains limited. Given that citizen needs have become a focus of interest, it is reasonable to investigate its success factors from a user-oriented perspective. Existing scientific knowledge does not comprehensively explain the usage intentions of today’s heterogeneous e-Government city portal users. Hence, this study conceptualizes important determinants of local e-Government portals identifying key factors that determine intention to use from a citizen viewpoint.     

When teams of employees spin-off partnerships: matching-technology, information structure, and the “pure” incubator effect

The successful foundation of entrepreneurial firms comprises a multitude of complementary human tasks. The effect of founders’ human capital on firm success hinges on the information structure that prevails when nascent entrepreneurs are matched in partnerships. Empirically, we assume that rational matching occurs in incubated spin-offs and corporate-sponsored ventures. The human capital structure in such firms significantly differs from that of Greenfield projects. Using coarsened exact matching (CEM), we compute weights to level out these differences in human capital endowments. The impact of corporate support in founding the new firm is positive and increases as CEM-weights are applied to more of our human capital variables.     

The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

This article analyses the US response under former President George W. Bush to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic at the intersection of neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism, highlighting the various ways their distinct gender logics collide to reproduce masculine privilege and gender inequalities on a global scale. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the United States global HIV/AIDS policy and is the largest commitment made by any single nation for an international health project. My analysis is based on PEPFAR's ‘formal’ policy texts, including its authorizing legislation, five-year strategic framework and specific policy directives for recipient organizations. In addition, I examine more ‘informal’ texts like Congressional reports and Presidential speeches delivered by George W. Bush on various occasions. Drawing on a rich body of feminist ethnographic work in the fields of global governance, international political economy, organizational theory and sexuality and masculinity studies, the following article examines the various ways market-based norms and practices can legitimate the moral imperatives of neo-conservatism to promote ‘traditional’ values and institutions in the global South as leading solutions to global problems and insecurities.     

Familiäre Netzwerke und Lebenszufriedenheit alter Menschen in ländlichen und urbanen Regionen

Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP) from 1996, we examined whether the size of elders’ family networks differs between rural and urban regions of Germany, and whether the size of the family network gives rural elders an advantage in terms of well-being. We analyzed the association between certain aspects of the family network (size, closeness of relationships, proximity of relatives), feelings of loneliness, sorrow and life-satisfaction in a structural equation model. Results revealed that rural elders do live in larger family networks compared to urban elders. The elders in rural areas had more family relations and felt closer to them; it was especially the latter aspect which had a positive effect on the subjective well-being of older persons. This effect was larger in the western part compared to the eastern part of Germany.