The State of American Federalism, 2001-2002: Resilience in Response to Crisis

The past year has been one of repeated shocks to governmentand the larger society. Terrorist attacks in New York City andWashington, D. C., the burst of the dot.com bubble in the stockmarket, a wave of corporate scandals, and a slowdown in theeconomy posed severe problems for officials of all governmentsin the federal system. The combined effects of the war on terrorismand the economic turmoil forced federal policymakers to createnew agencies and to enact new policies. State and local governmentsalso responded to the multiple shocks with a variety of initiatives,often independent of Washington. Instead of a move toward centralizationthat might have been predicted as a consequence of the seriousshocks, all elements of the American federal system demonstrateda capacity and energy to marshal resources in a time of urgency.     

Empirical analysis of the STR profiles resulting from conceptual mixtures

Samples containing DNA from two or more individuals can be difficult to interpret. Even ascertaining the number of contributors can be challenging and associated uncertainties can have dramatic effects on the interpretation of testing results. Using an FBI genotypes dataset, containing complete genotype information from the 13 Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) loci for 959 individuals, all possible mixtures of three individuals were exhaustively and empirically computed. Allele sharing between pairs of individuals in the original dataset, a randomized dataset and datasets of generated cousins and siblings was evaluated as were the number of loci that were necessary to reliably deduce the number of contributors present in simulated mixtures of four or less contributors. The relatively small number of alleles detectable at most CODIS loci and the fact that some alleles are likely to be shared between individuals within a population can make the maximum number of different alleles observed at any tested loci an unreliable indicator of the maximum number of contributors to a mixed DNA sample. This analysis does not use other data available from the electropherograms (such as peak height or peak area) to estimate the number of contributors to each mixture. As a result, the study represents a worst case analysis of mixture characterization. Within this dataset, approximately 3% of three-person mixtures would be mischaracterized as two-person mixtures and more than 70% of four-person mixtures would be mischaracterized as two- or three-person mixtures using only the maximum number of alleles observed at any tested locus.     

Systematic differences in electropherogram peak heights reported by different versions of the GeneScan software

DNA profiling using STRs on the 310 and 3100 Genetic Analyzers routinely generates electropherograms that are analyzed with the GeneScan software available from the instrument's manufacturer, Applied Biosystems. Users have been able to choose from three different smoothing options that have been known to result in significant differences in the peak heights that are reported. Improvements in the underlying algorithm of the most recent version of the software also result in significant and somewhat predictable differences in peak height values. Laboratories that have performed validation studies using older versions of GeneScan should either reanalyze the data generated in those validation studies with the newest version of the software or otherwise take into consideration the systematically higher peak height values obtained as they begin following the recommendation of the manufacturer and use the new algorithm.     

Policy and Organizational Change in the Federal Aviation Administration: The Ontogenesis of a High‐Reliability Organization

Although the high‐reliability organization (HRO) literature identifies several attributes that differentiate HROs from other types of organizations, these studies do not explain how an HRO comes into being, nor do they provide a means to gauge or measure the extent to which an organization exhibits the specified features. This article reports the results of a 97‐year longitudinal case study tracking the emergence and continuation of HRO characteristics in the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control operations to answer the following questions: how do HRO functions emerge in public organizations, and do policy changes lead administrative changes, or is there little relation between policy and organizational change? The analysis shows that (1) HRO characteristics emerged incrementally over an extremely long period of time, and (2) policy changes preceded organizational changes early in the process of HRO development, but the relationship of policy change to organizational change decreased in later stages.     

Climate action versus inaction: balancing the costs for Gulf energy exporters

ABSTRACT

Climate change poses a strategic dilemma for oil-exporting states of the Gulf. By sapping global demand for crude oil, climate action threatens the economic rents that underpin their governance and regime legitimacy. However, the Gulf states are also among the countries most exposed to physical risks of a warming climate and thus would benefit most from reducing ongoing accumulations of carbon in the atmosphere and associated adaptation costs. In other words, the political and economic risks of climate action run counter to the physical and environmental risks. These bifurcated interests differentiate the Gulf producers from oil exporters in more temperate regions, which would experience milder short-run damage—or even benefits—from a warming climate. A successful economic diversification strategy could address both physical and economic risks but would require structural changes in rentier governance.     

The State of American Federalism, 2004: Is Federalism Still a Core Value?

Federalism as a political issue was conspicuously absent fromthe 2004 presidential contest. Unlike many previous campaigns,neither party's candidate made much mention of problems besettingstates and localities. The war against global terrorism andthe changing situation in Iraq shaped the election. Progresswas made on homeland security, but intergovernmental wranglingover federal grants continued unabated. Federal-state feudswere common in several policy areas, including education, environmentalprotection, and health care. State finances received a revenueboost as economic growth picked up, but rising costs for Medicaid,education, employee pensions, and prisons clouded states' financialforecasts. The U.S. Supreme Court decided several cases witha federalism dimension, and these decisions plus those of thepast several years suggest the Court has moved not so much togrant more power to the states but to prune back the power ofCongress. Much of what has happened during the first Bush administrationmust be seen against the larger background of changes in theAmerican political party system. Changes in party organizationand policy control, especially during the first Bush administration,reaffirm David Walker's assessment that over the past quartercentury American federalism has become more nationalized.     

The State of American Federalism, 2002-2003: Division Replaces Unity

The national unity formed last year in response to terrorismsoon vanished as more typical political infighting returned.Although overshadowed by the buildup to and the conduct of asecond war against Iraq, political issues grounded in the nation'sfederal character contributed to a rise in divisiveness. Themid-term elections of 2002 and redistricting battles in severalstates drove partisanship to new heights. The continued sluggishnessof the nation's economy also exacerbated interparty bickering.Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress,yet some of the president's policy initiatives encountered moreserious resistance in his own party than from the opposition.Many of the feuds within the majority party rested on stateand regional interests typical of federalism politics. Stateand local governments remained trapped in the third year ofa fiscal crisis, and even large reductions in expenditures didnot extricate these governments from the financial fix. Despitetheir pleas, state and local officials were unable to obtainany significant relief from the federal government. Federal-staterelations, as a consequence, exhibited more contentiousnessthan cooperation.