Top-level Leaders Research Articles

US healthcare expenditures forecast into the new millennium

At the UC Irvine Graduate School of Management’s Seventh Annual Healthcare Forecast Conference [California, US; February 1998], top US government and healthcare industry leaders met to debate issues and solutions for providing care in an environment beset by diminishing public trust and intense political battles for control of emerging healthcare legislation. The conference, entitled‘Winners and Losers Under Managed Care’,provided a unique opportunity for top-level US government officials, business leaders and academics to share their perspectives and forecasts on key economic and political issues which impact healthcare in the US.

Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies

A major work from a seminal figure in the field of conflict resolution, Building Peace is John Paul Lederach's definitive statement on peacebuilding. Marrying wisdom, insight, and passion, Lederach explains why we need to move beyond traditional diplomacy, which often emphasizes top-level leaders and short-term objectives, toward a holistic approach that stresses the multiplicity of peacemakers, long-term perspectives, and the need to create an infrastructure that empowers resources within a society and maximizes contributions from outside.Sophisticated yet pragmatic, the volume explores the dynamics of contemporary conflict and presents an integrated framework for peacebuilding in which structure, process, resources, training, and evaluation are coordinated in an attempt to transform the conflict and effect reconciliation.Building Peace is a substantive reworking and expansion of a work developed for the United Nations University in 1994. In addition, this volume includes a chapter by practitioner John Prendergast that applies Lederach's conceptual framework to ongoing conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

Myth and Reality in Business Support for Democrats and Republicans in the 1936 Presidential Election

Using campaign contributions by business leaders as an indicator of their political preferences, this paper tests two different claims concerning the 1936 presidential elections: (1) Business leaders in mass-consumption industries differentially favored the Democrats for reasons of economic policy; and (2) business leaders in capital-intensive and internationally oriented industries differentially favored the Democrats for reasons of economic policy. The paper shows that in the 1936 election no industrial sector was more likely to support the Democrats when region, religion, and the special circumstances of the brewing industry (gratitude toward the Democrats for ending Prohibition) are taken into consideration. Democratic financial support came predominantly from southerners, members of the Jewish community, officers and directors of smaller businesses, and top-level business leaders from New York City.