Why Buy Local?

This article critically assesses the moral arguments that speak in favour of three consumer options: buying local food, buying global (non‐local) food, and buying global food while also purchasing carbon offsets to mitigate the environmental impact of food transportation. We argue that because the offsetting option allows one to provide economic benefits to the poorest food workers while also mitigating the environmental impact of food transportation it is morally superior to the alternatives.     

Are we all exploiters?*

This paper argues that two single-factor accounts of exploitation are inadequate and instead defends a two-factor account. Purely distributive accounts of exploitation, which equate exploitation with unfair transaction, make exploitation pervasive and cannot deliver the intuition that exploiters are blameworthy. Recent, non-distributive alternatives, which make unfairness unnecessary for exploitation, largely avoid these problems, but their arguments for the non-necessity of unfairness are unconvincing. This paper defends a two factor account according to which A exploits B iff A gains unfairly from B and either A believes that the gains he receives in the transaction wrong B, or A is culpably unaware that the gains he receives in the transaction wrong B. This account avoids the problems of non-distributive approaches and also delivers the intuition that exploiters are blameworthy.     

The Role of Individual Characteristics in Predicting the Stability of Party Identification: A Cross-Cultural Study

The present study examined political partisanship stability in the context of transitional and consolidated democracies. We hypothesised that (a) in both democratic systems, personality differences as well as socialisation patterns and socioeconomic factors would be related to the stability of party identification directly, and that (b) the relationship between individual factors and party identification patterns would be moderated by democracy type and by socialisation strength. A total of 521 participants (293 American, 228 Romanian) completed surveys assessing partisanship stability, individual dispositions, socialisation strength, and socioeconomic status. In support of hypothesis (a), the stability of party identification was significantly predicted by socialisation, desire for control, and positive economic perceptions. In support of hypothesis (b), type of democracy moderated the relationship between economic perceptions and partisanship stability, and parental socialisation moderated the relationship between desire for control/self‐consciousness and the stability of party identification. La présente étude examine la stabilité de la préférence politique dans un contexte de démocraties en transition ou consolidées. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que (a) dans les deux systèmes démocratiques, les différences de personnalité, comme les modèles de socialisation et les facteurs économiques sont directement liés à la stabilité d’identification à un parti et que (b) la relation entre les facteurs individuels et les modèles d’identification à un parti est affaibli par le type de démocratie et la force de la socialisation. Un total de 521 participants (293 Américains et 228 Roumains) ont répondu à une enquête évaluant la stabilité de la préférence, les dispositions individuelles, la force de la socialisation et le statut socio‐économique. En accord avec l’hypothèse (a), la stabilité d’identification à un parti est significativement prédictible par la socialisation, le désir de contrôle et la perception positive de l’économie. En accord avec l’hypothèse (b), d’une part, le type de démocratie affaiblit la relation entre les perceptions de l’économie et la stabilité de la préférence, d’autre part, la socialisation parentale affaiblit le lien entre le contrôle/la conscience de soi et la stabilité de l’identification à un parti.