A majorization comparison of apportionment methods in proportional representation

From the inception of the proportional representation movement it has been an issue whether larger parties are favored at the expense of smaller parties in one apportionment of seats as compared to another apportionment. A number of methods have been proposed and are used in countries with a proportional representation system. These apportionment methods exhibit a regularity of order, as discussed in the present paper, that captures the preferential treatment of larger versus smaller parties. This order, namely majorization, permits the comparison of seat allocations in two apportionments. For divisor methods, we show that one method is majorized by another method if and only if their signpost ratios are increasing. This criterion is satisfied for the divisor methods with power-mean rounding, and for the divisor methods with stationary rounding. Majorization places the five traditional apportionment methods in the order as they are known to favor larger parties over smaller parties: Adams, Dean, Hill, Webster, and Jefferson. Received: 5 August 2000/Accepted: 24 October 2001     

Territorial Modernity and Public Space: Lessons from the Politics of Water Conflict Along the US/Canadian Border

Conflict over water resources is a major problem throughout the world. This essay describes the long-standing and often successful effort to insulate decisions on how to allot water among contending users, and how to reduce water pollution along a 5000-mile international border. The effort has been fraught with political and scientific complexity. Yet, after more than 90 years of experience, it provides a model that other nations are beginning to examine as relevant to their own efforts to find solutions.     

Binding the Generations: Household Formation Patterns among Vietnamese Refugees1

Much of the analysis of refugee and immigrant adaptation has stressed the interaction of prior experience with the requirements of life in a new country. For refugees, that interaction has often been jarring because of the after‐effects of their flight and their relative inability to prepare for a new life in a new country. Yet refugees have often done rather well in economic terms in that new country. The reasons for that relative success have been phrased in cultural terms (e.g., the predisposition toward education) and in general socioeconomic terms (e.g., refugees as educated and skilled). This article examines a set of factors that lie between these customary cultural and socioeconomic categories. Specifically, the paper examines key features of household formation among Vietnamese refugees. An examination of historical data from southern Vietnam indicates patterns in household formation that appear durable over time yet are not shared across the breadth of Vietnam and cannot thus be viewed as “cultural” in the usual sense. A comparison of the historical data with recent national survey data on refugees in the United States indicates that these patterns continue among Vietnamese refugees and are ‐ as compared to other refugees ‐ distinctive to them. These patterns of household formation provide Vietnamese refugees with important options in adaptation to a new country.     

On social work and what gender has got to do with it

Living in gendered societies makes it necessary to take into account the specific ways in which social problems and social issues affect the lives of women and men, girls and boys. Not only are social problems and social issues very often gender biased; this is also true for the professions dealing with these problems and issues, and for the training programmes for professions like social work. Sociological analysis of society and philosophical understanding of a good life are permeated by gender-specific perceptions -- often without those involved being aware of them. Furthermore, social policies reinforce gender-specific biases because they are based on gender-specific (i.e. male) standards. Gender as an analytical category has been brought into scientific and public discourse by feminist theoreticians and activists making women -- and thus also men -- visible with regard to structure and subject issues. The development of gender theory and research highlights the significance of gender arrangements to understand social phenomena and to support gender-equality ways of thinking and policies. At the same time, men and women are not only confronted with gendered structures, but via socialization processes and personal development they also reproduce these gender differences in their daily lives by 'doing gender'.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

---

Editorial

     

Dementia Problem Behavior and the Production of Informal Caregiving Services

Informal caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease spend a considerable amount of time providing care. In this paper, we use Grossman's health production and Becker's time allocation models to develop a model of informal care provision to elderly dementia patients. In our model, time inputs produce caregiving services, which provides utility to the caregiver, but reduces leisure. We assume that time is less productive of services on the margin as the disease progresses. In this framework, an increase in patients' disease severity does not necessarily increase informal caregiver time input. The cost of formal care establishes a reservation price for informal caregiving. When the costs of informal caregiving rise above this reservation level, the patient is institutionalized. We test empirically the effect of deterioration in the patients' condition, proxied by both disease severity and dementia problem behavior, on informal caregiving time. We find that dementia-related problem behaviors and functional limitations significantly increase inputs of informal caregiving time. Patients' problem behavior exerts a modifying effect on functional limitations, and patients' comorbidities have no effect on informal caregiving time.