scholarly journals Earnings Management in Response to Regulatory Price Review. A Case Study of the Political Cost Hypothesis in the Water and Electricity Sectors in England and Wales

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Beekes
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Price Review ◽  
Political Cost

Political costs and earnings management: evidence from Tunisia

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mouna Ben Rejeb Attia ◽  
Naima Lassoued ◽  
Anis Attia
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Management ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Connection ◽  
State Control ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Political Cost

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the political costs hypothesis in emerging economies characterized by interventionist governments and weak protection of property rights. The paper uses executives’ political connection and state control to measure firms’ political costs. Design/methodology/approach Based on a sample of Tunisian firms, univariate and multivariate analyses are used to test whether firms’ political costs have any impact on earnings management. Findings The empirical analysis indicates that the executives’ political connection is not directly related to earnings management. However, the interaction between executives’ political connection and the state control affects the firm’s sensitivity to political pressure and its earnings management practices. More specifically, this study provides evidence that non-connected firms and state-controlled firms attempt to use accounting policies to decrease their earnings especially during periods of the former government when they had to face high political costs. This finding is robust to comparing means of political cost indicators between different groups. Indeed, private firms with political connection enjoy a significantly lower insurance right, tax and donations and grants compared to other firms. Research limitations/implications This study provides empirical evidence for the specific application of accounting theory in emerging economies. Practical implications Political influence may be an important criterion that will be used by auditors and investors to appreciate and detect specific manipulations of accounting earnings. Similarly, regulators should be aware of the political factors effect on discretionary behavior of managers to provide appropriate rules and standards. Originality/value The study is a pioneer in proving that a firm’s size is not always a suitable measure of its political cost. It extends the accounting literature on the role of political economy in the application of the political costs hypothesis. This hypothesis is confirmed in emerging economies by providing new and significantly measure of firms’ political costs

scholarly journals Is anyone home? Appropriating and re-narrativisating the post-criminalisation squatting scene in England and Wales

2020 ◽  
pp. 239965442096483
Author(s):  
Mel Nowicki
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Housing Policy ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The Political ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This paper explores the political significance of narratives of home. Using the aftermath of the 2012 criminalisation of squatting in England and Wales as a case study, the paper traces the ways in which the concept of ‘home’ is deployed to both reinforce neoliberal ideals, and is utilised as a tool of resistance by squatters. This paper focuses on the ways in which particular narratives of home are utilised to shape and legitimise housing policy and legislation such as the criminalisation of squatting through moralising language that delegitimise anti-capitalist homes as ‘nonhomes’. Following this, the paper goes on to explore how tropes and aesthetics of squatting are appropriated, re-narrativised and commercialised by neoliberal stakeholders. The remainder of the paper focuses on the methods by which squatters and other housing activists, too, utilise re-narrativisation tactics. Firstly, I highlight instances in which squatters have subverted assumptions of squats as ‘non-homes’ in order to make themselves invisible, and thus safe, in the urban landscape. Secondly, I explore linguistic methods utilised by squatters as a means of disassociating themselves from negative connotations through re-framing elements of the practice as ‘occupation’. The paper concludes by calling for closer attention to be paid to the political potency of the homespace, and the ways in which narratives of home can be utilised in the pursuit of social justice and anti-capitalist housing models.

Kämpfe um Bergbau und die Möglichkeiten demokratischer Transformation

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (189) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Dietz
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Mining Project ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Relationship

The article explores the political effects of popular consultations as a means of direct democracy in struggles over mining. Building on concepts from participatory and materialist democracy theory, it shows the transformative potentials of processes of direct democracy towards democratization and emancipation under, and beyond, capitalist and liberal democratic conditions. Empirically the analysis is based on a case study on the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia. The analysis reveals that although processes of direct democracy in conflicts over mining cannot transform existing class inequalities and social power relations fundamentally, they can nevertheless alter elements thereof. These are for example the relationship between local and national governments, changes of the political agenda of mining and the opening of new spaces for political participation, where previously there were none. It is here where it’s emancipatory potential can be found.

2018 Fiji Election Results: Patterns of Voting by Provinces, Rural-Urban Localities, and by Candidates

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruo Nakagawa
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Election Results

Akin to the previous, 2014 event, with no data on voter ethnicity, no exit polls, and few post-election analyses, the 2018 Fiji election results remain something of a mystery despite the fact that there had been a significant swing in voting in favour of Opposition political parties. There have been several studies about the election results, but most of them have been done without much quantitative analyses. This study examines voting patterns of Fiji’s 2018 election by provinces, and rural-urban localities, as well as by candidates, and also compares the 2018 and 2014 elections by spending a substantial time classifying officially released data by polling stations and individual candidates. Some of the data are then further aggregated according to the political parties to which those candidates belonged. The current electoral system in Fiji is a version of a proportional system, but its use is rare and this study will provide an interesting case study of the Open List Proportional System. At the end of the analyses, this study considers possible reasons for the swing in favour of the Opposition.

Islamic and Jewish Religious Feminists Tackle Islamic and Jewish Oral Law: Maintenance and Rebellion of Wives

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Ruth Roded
Keyword(s):  
State Policy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Parallel Case ◽  
First Time

Beginning in the early 1970s, Jewish and Muslim feminists, tackled “oral law”—Mishna and Talmud, in Judaism, and the parallel Hadith and Fiqh in Islam, and several analogous methodologies were devised. A parallel case study of maintenance and rebellion of wives —mezonoteha, moredet al ba?ala; nafaqa al-mar?a and nush?z—in classical Jewish and Islamic oral law demonstrates similarities in content and discourse. Differences between the two, however, were found in the application of oral law to daily life, as reflected in “responsa”—piskei halacha and fatwas. In modern times, as the state became more involved in regulating maintenance and disobedience, and Jewish law was backed for the first time in history by a state, state policy and implementation were influenced by the political system and socioeconomic circumstances of the country. Despite their similar origin in oral law, maintenance and rebellion have divergent relevance to modern Jews and Muslims.

Language Movement and Civil War in West Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ericka A. Albaugh
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Language Spread ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines how civil war can influence the spread of language. Specifically, it takes Sierra Leone as a case study to demonstrate how Krio grew from being primarily a language of urban areas in the 1960s to one spoken by most of the population in the 2000s. While some of this was due to “normal” factors such as population movement and growing urbanization, the civil war from 1991 to 2002 certainly catalyzed the process of language spread in the 1990s. Using census documents and surveys, the chapter tests the hypothesis at the national, regional, and individual levels. The spread of a language has political consequences, as it allows for citizen participation in the political process. It is an example of political scientists’ approach to uncovering the mechanisms for and evidence of language movement in Africa.

Bridging the Gap between Political and Penal Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Henham
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Value ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Sentencing Policy ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter argues that the relationship between penal policy and the political economy provides important insights into the political and institutional reforms required to minimize harsh and discriminatory penal policies. However, the capacity of sentencing policy to engage with this social reality in a meaningful way necessitates a recasting of penal ideology. To realize this objective requires a profound understanding of sentencing’s social value and significance for citizens. The greatest challenge then lies in establishing coherent links between penal ideology and practice to encourage forms of sentencing that are sensitive to changes in social value. The chapter concludes by explaining how the present approach taken by the courts of England and Wales to the sentencing of women exacerbates social exclusion and reinforces existing divisions in social morality. It urges fundamental changes in ideology and practice so that policy reflects a socially valued rationale for the criminalization and punishment of women.

An Intersectional Approach to the “Mobility Trap” That Ensnares Migrant Youth in China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaorong Gu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Urban China ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Political Economic

This essay explores the theory of intersectionality in the study of youths’ lives and social inequality in the Global South. It begins with an overview of the concept of intersectionality and its wide applications in social sciences, followed by a proposal for regrounding the concept in the political economic systems in particular contexts (without assuming the universality of capitalist social relations in Northern societies), rather than positional identities. These systems lay material foundations, shaping the multiple forms of deprivation and precarity in which Southern youth are embedded. A case study of rural migrant youths’ ‘mobility trap’ in urban China is used to illustrate how layers of social institutions and structures in the country’s transition to a mixed economy intersect to influence migrant youths’ aspirations and life chances. The essay concludes with ruminations on the theoretical and social implications of the political-economy-grounded intersectionality approach for youth studies.

Traditionalism and politics: A case study of Northern Nigeria

1967 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. O. Dudley
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
High Time ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
The North ◽  
The Right

In the debate on the Native Authority (Amendment) Law of 1955, the late Premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, replying to the demand that ‘it is high time in the development of local government systems in this Region that obsolete and undemocratic ways of appointing Emirs’ Councils should close’, commented that ‘the right traditions that we have gone away from are the cutting off of the hands of thieves, and that has caused a lot of thieving in this country. Why should we not be cutting (off) the hands of thieves in order to reduce thieving? That is logical and it is lawful in our tradition and custom here.’ This could be read as a defence against social change, a recrudescence of ‘barbarism’ after the inroads of pax Britannica, and a plea for the retention of the status quo and the entrenched privilege of the political elite.

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