Shomron Center for Economic Policy Research

The leading Russian Social science interdisciplinary Journal “Obshestvennye nauki i sovremennost” (ONS, Social Sciences and Contemporary World) kindly provided us the Journal’s 2015 Content.

Among the key issues covered by the Journal’s articles’ authors – discussion on Social Liberalism, Russian society challenges, Institution history and modern state, Public opinion and more.

The file contain articles titles and short annotations.

You could find full texts of the ONS Journal Articles’  1991-2013 here, at the Journal page (Higher School of Economics’ web -site) – in Russian only.

Our new paper just uploaded at SSRN: “Political Factors of the Cuts and Surges in Government Spending: The Effects on Old Market Democracies and Post-Communist Countries“.

Based on the comparative analysis of the experiences of both old and new market democracies, this paper emphasizes key factors that have triggered changes in government spending routine, measured in terms of each nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). By analyzing the history of the last several decades, the authors of this paper outline the factors (such as territorial separatism, the domination of the left- and right-wing parties or the long one-party domination) that affect governments’ abilities to balance the budget. Much attention is paid to the phenomenon of universal suffrage, which led to the contemporary left-wing parties and strong interest groups within the bureaucracy.
This paper reaches the following conclusions: First, most political factors are time sensitive—they only last for so long—and they differ from country to country; however, those factors that depend on universal suffrage consistent throughout all periods and countries. Second, a severe crisis usually opens the window of opportunity that is necessary to cut public expenditure, while the favorable economic conditions stimulate spikes in government spending. Third, the most effective way to curb the instability of public finance is to form a political coalition of nationalists and free market supporters.

Modern military Justice punishes officers and soldiers of democratic nations’ armies  for their military success. “Excessive use of force” and similar artificial judicial constructions  undermine incentives of army officers, making the military machine virtually inoperative.  Artificially abridged Army capability prevents any opportunities to win the fight against terror, to defend democratic nations and to break trap of  violent dictatorship or warlords brutality  for peoples of rogue / failed states. Shurat a Din conference “Towards a new Law of War” addressed the  issues such as human shields, proportionality, fighting in civilian areas, defining war crimes in attempt to propose solution of the problem, to restore Democratic nations’ ability to defend themselves against Islamic  terrorism. Our comments are based on our extensive research program on the issues of Governments’ failures to provide sustainable defense for the people. The comments focused on the most obvious practical conclusions and recommendations based on the conference materials. The comments also raise some additional problems to be solved in order to restore our Armies’ deterrence capacities.

The notes proposed are poorly edited but, I hope, useful for people interested in the issue:

How to Scrap Modern Military Justice to Restore Army’s Deterrence Capacity.

The paper: “The puzzle of selectivity in fighting discrimination: A public choice approach” is very preliminary draft of the text for the coming books on new way to fight Freedom, “fighting minorities’ discrimination”… of course, selectively fighting.

Advocates of the war against discrimination and for affirmative action claim it is necessary to set up additional regulatory procedures that will defend interests of minorities who, previously, were not given enough chances to succeed. Because there is no set definition of a minority who suffered from discrimination in the past (Historically Excluded Groups [HEGs] consider all women to be a minority), law-enforcement practices are to a large degree dependent on precedence (judicial authorities) as well as the behavior of bureaucrats who have the authority to defend people against discrimination. Incentives and the true criteria for choosing minorities will be analyzed in this report.
There are practices in the USA and Israel, as well as statistics of EEOC practices (a committee on equal rights in hiring, that is a kind of specialized public prosecution office) supporting the hypothesis that the main anti-discriminatory activity aims to mobilize groups who traditionally voted against a limited government, to vote for a nanny state that provides cradle to grave care.
Keywords: historically excluded groups, pure public goods, discrimination, Limited Government

JEL codes: D72, D73, J15, K31

Why people less and less interested in the parties’ electoral platforms? Why Leftists in spite of numerous failures in security (“Peace Process”) and in spite of poor performance in economic issues are going on in pushing their radical ideas and Rightist so easily surrender their positions?

In proposed short paper we propose our explanation to this phenomena and provide short review of party positions on 11 issues:

1. The judicial / court system reforms
2. Private property, including Real Estate safeguards
3. Taxation / new Governmental spending (mandatory), budget balance / deficit
4. Business climate / business regulations
5. Arabians, Arabian autonomy, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem statute solution,
6. Freedom of speech, freedom of press and media-market
7.  Education
8.  The IDF statute, tasks, functions and responsibilities, “new military justice” and politicized prosecutions problem;
9. Self-defense and 2nd amendment (Right to bear Arms)
10. Family, Government intervention “to protect” wives against husbands and children against parents
11. Illegal immigration

We are focusing on parties’ deeds not on their platforms, first and foremost.

Israel primaries peculiarities’ short description in comparison with US original pattern provided (see annex 2).

We had started a series of short studies of terrorism “supply” and counter-terrorism “under-supply” incentives since 2004. After few years of break we returned to the issue starting with well forgotten story: how Oslo “peace” process was explained and advocated by needs to stop Arabian riots – so called 1st Intifada. So, here is very preliminary draft of new paper focused on the issue: how well founded were the decisions, made in 1992-94 to introduce radical changes in the terror-fighting strategy of Israel (switch from deterrence of terror to appeasement of terrorists)..

“The First Intifada, the Oslo Accords, and the Escalation of Terror: Causalities Revisited” (January 15, 2015). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2550441

Abstract of the paper:

The analysis of events of the First Intifada focused on the question of how well founded the decisions made at the time were to introduce radical changes in the terror-fighting strategy. Most sources treat the process at Oslo as an outgrowth of Israel’s inability to suppress the Arab riots. We will consider an alternative interpretation in addition to this widespread view. The alternative approach will be based on understanding Oslo as the outcome of developments dictated by certain interests within Israel.

The magnitude of the events of 1987-1990 does nothing to explain the leadership’s refusal to come up with a strategy for fighting terrorism in favor of choosing a strategy of pacification instead. Most of the steps taken by the Israeli leadership in the course of the conflict cannot be adequately explained without taking into account the struggle for power and the evolution of the leftist elite’s interests after their loss of the monopoly of power in 1977 — along with their loss of motives for defending the country or the security of its citizens. Citizen security saw a drastic drop in the priority status it had formerly enjoyed as a state objective. This came in the wake of the disintegration of mechanisms of responsibility and the interest taken by the authorities in providing security.

The Oslo Accords were in no way dictated by the First Intifada; even so, the Intifada is used extensively as a means of Oslo legitimatization. In actuality, one and the same process and one and the same political choice led to both the Oslo Accords and the terror boom.