Kin-enriched morphosyntax has emerged many times in distantly related Australian languages. An examination of language use in conversation reveals that this emergence can be explained in terms of convergent evolutionary pressures. All Australian Aboriginal societies have classificatory kinship, and all have taboos limiting the use of personal names. A conversational preference for avoiding restricted names (Levinson 2007) and preferences for achieving recognition and being succinct (Sacks & Schegloff 1979, Schegloff 1996) provide selection principles that assist speakers in choosing the most suitable expressions for the given occasions of reference. Because kin-based expressions are not names, but are nevertheless useful for securing recipients’ recognition of referents, they are regularly selected when names are unsuitable. Through repeated selection in conversation, the same preferences ultimately drive the diachronic development of kin-based morphosyntax. The Murrinh-Patha case study in this article presents the development of kin-based morphology through reanalysis. It then draws on fragments of face-to-face conversation exemplifying how conversational pressures bias the selection of kin-based structures. Finally, the micro- and macrocausal domains are linked through an ‘invisible hand’ explanation (Keller 1994).

What are the local characteristics influencing where new nonprofits will be established? How important are community needs, available resources, or the existence of similar organizations for nonprofits’ location? This paper analyzes how the characteristics of 5562 Brazilian municipalities in the year 2000 help explain the location of nonprofits formed between 2001 and 2010. Based on geographically weighted regressions, results indicate that neither access to resources nor poor socioeconomic indicators are powerful influences on nonprofit location in Brazilian municipalities. The main predictor of nonprofit entry is a high pre-existing density of nonprofits in that area. These findings, however, vary across regions and nonprofit fields of activity. By mapping the effect of key explanatory variables, this paper helps understand nonprofit location. The methodology and findings on nonprofit location presented here are novel and may contribute to research in other countries.

This article challenges the common assumption that the European Union (EU) has little power over taxation. Based on a comprehensive analysis of EU tax legislation and European Court of Justice (ECJ) tax jurisprudence from 1958 to 2007, the article shows that the EU exerts considerable regulatory control over the Member States' taxing power and imposes tighter constraints on Member State taxes than the American federal government imposes on American state taxation. These findings contradict the standard account of the EU as a regulatory polity that specialises in apolitical issues of market creation and leaves control of highly politicised core functions of government (defence, taxation, social security, education, etc.) to the Member States; despite strong treaty safeguards, national tax autonomy is undermined by EU regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to study questions about taxation and revenue sharing n federal systems. It is particularly concerned with the effect of the heterogeneity of regions on the pattern of taxation and distribution and on the capacity of the central government to retain revenue for its own purposes. It is argued that one useful way to study such questions is to treat federations as coalitions that try to maximise their returns from taxations schemes. This approach is developed using the theory of the core from cooperative game theory. Emphasis is placed on the political constraints on the capacity of the central government.

During the 1970s the Italian Communist Party had, contrary to the preceding decades, extremely variable electoral results. In this article, trends in the communist vote in the 1970s are studied, through an ecological analysis of electoral results in the Italian provinces. It also takes into account the organizational presence of the party and the socioeconomic characteristics of the electorate. The central thesis is that in the 1970s the Communist vote is different from both previous and subsequent results not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, in as much as it is characterized by different connotations and explanatory factors.

The article presents a case study of the contemporary Bolivian state in interaction with the major interest groups and locates the Bolivian example in its comparative context. An analysis of the internal organisational problems of the Bolivian state is followed by an account of its exceptional vulnerability to international pressures of various types and a description of the unusually intractable domestic political problems it confronts. These conditions are held to explain (if not to justify) many of the techniques of government adopted by successive Bolivian régimes. There follows a discussion of the pattern of political behaviour which major domestic interests are constrained to adopt in response to the normal conduct of the Bolivian state. In general such interests are highly insecure, aggressive in their pressure group tactics, deeply politicised and subject to wildly fluctuating fortunes. However, it is also recognised that they vary widely in the resources they command, the aims they pursue, and the alliances they can enter into. In the conclusion the uniqueness, or otherwise, of the Bolivian case is assessed and this country study is related to the general debate on the degree to which military bureaucratic régimes in the Third World may be considered autonomous from sectional interests and capable of promoting some forms of ‘modernisation’.

The empirical facts about Right-Node Raising (RNR) lead to fundamentally conflicting analytical conclusions. There is strong evidence that RNR does not obey syntactic constraints of any kind, which in turn suggests that RNR is not a syntactic operation, but there is also evidence that strongly favors a syntactic analysis. The idiosyncratic and almost paradoxical nature of the phenomena indicates that no simple unified analysis of RNR can be formulated. In order to resolve this empirical and theoretical impasse, I propose that what is usually called RNR is best seen as the conflation of three completely unrelated kinds of phenomena: VP/N’-Ellipsis, Extraposition, and (Backward) Periphery Deletion. Although they are fundamentally different, these phenomena can yield structures that are superficially similar and, in some cases, apply to the same strings. The latter is one of the major factors that has misled previous accounts. Once this threeway confound between ellipsis, extraposition, and deletion is taken into account, the contradictory idiosyncrasies about RNR vanish, and a wide range of cases are obtained as predictions of independently motivated accounts of VP/N’-ellipsis and ATB extraposition phenomena. This article offers an explicit formalization of the phenomena under discussion in sign-based construction grammar (Sag 2012), a framework that combines insights from head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG; Pollard & Sag 1994) and Berkeley construction grammar (Fillmore & Kay 1996).

One of the important developments in post-Communist Hungary has been the growth of the voluntary or non-profit sector. Under the Communist regime, voluntary associations were controlled and independent organisations were largely suppressed. During the 1980s, advocacy groups and independent associations emerged to challenge the Communist monopoly on organisation. These challenges were instrumental in laying the foundation for the post-Communist non-profit sector, providing models of organisation and experienced activists. After the creation of a new legal framework in 1989 and 1990, the growth of the non-profit sector was dramatic. Two types of non-profit organisations have developed in democratic Hungary: associations predominate in membership activities, while foundations are active in fields requiring fund-raising. Attempts by the Hungarian Democratic Forum-led government to shape the non-profit sector to meet its goals were met with political pressure from professionals in the non-profit sector. The result was the beginnings of a contract-for-service regime and increased organisation of interests within the non-profit sector itself.

This article aims to provide an overview of the general development of Chinese political science and a critical analysis of the problems and challenges faced by Chinese scholars. The development of Chinese political science is characterised by institutionalisation, professionalisation, and internationalisation on the one hand, and tensions between Westernisation and indigenisation, scientification and methodological pluralism, and the “ivory tower” and political relevance, on the other. The debate centres on contending beliefs on the nature of political knowledge and ways to convert understanding of Chinese politics into knowledge and shows a serious tension and conflict between scientific, universalistic, and positivist traditions on the one hand and particularistic, historical, and contextual traditions on the other hand. We argue that a “glocalisation” approach might be adopted to integrate “globalisation” and “localisation” of Chinese political studies by exploring the reciprocal influences of the two aspects, being methodologically both “scientific” and “pluralistic”, and balancing between scholarship and public relevance. We hope to help Western academics learn about achievements and struggles in the study of political science in China, and also to push Chinese political science to engage more with the rest of the world.

As NGOs have emerged as arguably the most prominent actors within the global development enterprise, their international activities and presence have grown to represent a key area of inquiry for development scholars. Existing literature on the geographic distribution of development NGOs leans heavily on quantitative analysis, which lends little insight into the deeper motivations behind the location-based decisions that these organizations make; this study uses a qualitative lens to fill this gap, shedding light on the question “Why do NGOs work where they do”? After interviewing representatives from 22 Canadian development NGOs, the research team determined several key catalysts, which shape the geography of these entities. These factors include existing relationships, personal visits, local requests, logistical ease, funder restrictions, documented need, and humanitarian crises. Furthermore, the decision-making framework related to project locations appears to evolve as organizations grow.