The wisdom of the American Psychological Association's submitting amicus briefs to affect social or legal policy is questioned by an analysis of the brief claimed to be a strong example of the effective use of social science data in the public policy arena; namely, the APA brief (Bersoff & Ogden, 1987) inLockhart v. McCree (1986). The data relied upon in the brief do not appear to support the assertions based upon them, and other data are adduced to develop the critique. It is concluded that it is mischievous for the Association to address itself to the courts by generalizing a data base well beyond its useful limits: The adversarial and scientific methods of establishing truth are in several respects antithetical. 相似文献
This paper identifies spatial patterns of county-level presidential election outcomes from 1988 to 2000, and tests the retrospective (reward–punishment) and issue–priority models of voting behavior within the context of county-level geographical clusters. Based on our spatial analyses, we find that: the geographical concentration of the partisan vote has increased at both the global and regional scales. Globally, counties have become more likely to be clustered with similar counties in terms of their partisan support. Regionally, Democrats have increasingly received more votes from the East and the urban areas than Republican candidates while the opposite is true in the West and the rural areas. The regression analyses also support aspects of the issue–priority model of voting behavior, while the retrospective theory is confirmed only for 1996. 相似文献
We explore the impact of social institutions on economic performance in Jamaica through a reinterpretation of the plantation
economic model. In its original form, the plantation model fails to develop a causal link between the plantation legacy and
persistent underdevelopment. Despite its marginalization, the model remains useful for discussions on growth and development.
Consequently, we offer a reappraisal using the causal insights from Kenneth Sokoloff and Stanley Engerman. We use two examples
to demonstrate how inequality encourages the formation of institutions that are inconsistent with growth, and an empirical
analysis to confirm the hypothesized relationship between inequality, institutions, and economic development. Since inequality
is expected to influence growth indirectly, we use a structural specification, which follows William Easterly’s recent test
of Sokoloff and Engerman’s argument. Our reliance on a time-series specification is unique. We demonstrate that the expectation
that, on average, inequality and growth is negatively related and that institutions may compromise growth are accurate for
Jamaica, the most cited Caribbean nation in the current discourse. Our results carry several policy implications, including
support for the recent calls in Jamaica for political restructuring. However, both the paucity of similar studies and the
importance of the implications for sustainable growth and development demand further analyses.
Ransford W. PalmerEmail:
Dawn Richards Elliott
is a Jamaican economist and associate professor of economics at Texas Christian University. Her research and teaching interests
address Caribbean development issues from a political economy perspective.
Ransford W. Palmer
professor of economics at Howard University, has written several books and journal articles on Caribbean economic and migration
issues. He is a former chairman of the Howard University Department of Economics and former president of the Caribbean Studies
Association. 相似文献
This article provides an overview of the motivation for digitising Maynard's writings, evaluates the benefits and challenges of reproducing and publishing archives, and considers the implications of greater digitisation. Maynard's writings reveal that she drew on her evangelical belief system as a means of protection and inspiration, and never overcame the concerns of early educationalists to maintain ‘decorum’ and ‘femininity’ in the management of the college. Published and unpublished sources are considered to review Maynard's decision to enter higher education, the inspiration for a Christian college for women, impact of contemporary arguments opposing education for women on Maynard and Westfield College, and Maynard's reaction to the development of a science faculty in the early twentieth century. 相似文献
While block randomized designs have become more common in place-based policing studies, there has been relatively little discussion of the assumptions employed and their implications for statistical analysis. Our paper seeks to illustrate these assumptions, and controversy regarding statistical approaches, in the context of one of the first block randomized studies in criminal justice—the Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Project (DMAP).
Methods
Using DMAP data, we show that there are multiple approaches that can be used in analyzing block randomized designs, and that those approaches will yield differing estimates of statistical significance. We develop outcomes using both models with and without interaction, and utilizing both Type I and Type III sums-of-squares approaches. We also examine the impacts of using randomization inference, an approach for estimating p values not based on approximations using normal distribution theory, to adjust for possible small N biases in estimating standard errors.
Results
The assumptions used for identifying the analytic approach produce a comparatively wide range of p values for the main DMAP program impacts on hot spots. Nonetheless, the overall conclusions drawn from our re-analysis remain consistent with the original analyses, albeit with more caution. Results were similar to the original analyses under different specifications supporting the identification of diffusion of benefits effects to nearby areas.
Conclusions
The major contribution of our article is to clarify statistical modeling in unbalanced block randomized studies. The introduction of blocking adds complexity to the models that are estimated, and care must be taken when including interaction effects in models, whether they are ANOVA models or regression models. Researchers need to recognize this complexity and provide transparent and alternative estimates of study outcomes.
This article describes how issue specialization through deliberative institutions called “issue publics” can improve the quality of democratic decision making. Issue specialization improves decisions by instantiating a cognitive division of labor among the mass public, which creates efficiencies in decision making and grants large groups of average citizens a scalable advantage over small groups of even the smartest and most capable individuals. Issue specialization further improves decisions by capturing issue-specific information, concentrating it within the specialized deliberative enclaves of issue publics, and refining citizens’ issue preferences. These advantages are brought to bear in wider democratic politics and policy through information shortcuts and through the specialized electoral incentives of representatives. The article responds to concerns about political ignorance, polarization/partisanship, rent seeking, and socioeconomic bias and argues that issue specialization can provide a valuable brake to polarization yet needs institutional supplementation to engage marginalized citizens and combat bias. 相似文献
本文试图探讨一种新的发展趋势。即以市场为基准展开的犯罪预防。保险公司是该种新型犯罪预防模式的代表机构。尽管保险的传统关注点在于犯罪或其他灾难发生后所遭受的损失,我们在此将揭示保险业从反应型犯罪管理模式向主动型管理模式的转变。该种趋势是更广义上的“去中心化警务”(decentralization of policing)的一部分,即警务从国家控制的管理机构向以社区和市场为基准的第三方的转移。新的意识形态支持这种转变,包括针对犯罪的保险统计理念的更新和对谨慎之人看法的转变。 相似文献