Two steps forward, one step back? Bias in the 2008 presidential election

The candidates running during the 2008 presidential campaign were the most diverse in America’s history. Prior to this historic election, female and minority candidates had little success in pursuing the presidency. Barack Obama’s victory signals a decline in those barriers. Yet some groups, especially religious ones, continue to face barriers, including Atheists, Mormons and Muslims. The paper takes a close look at bias in presidential voting. This examination will provide an opportunity to consider new hypotheses about why barriers remain, shedding light on the nature and extent of bias within the American public. We consider social desirability, ideology, social contact, and group threat explanations. To test our ideas, we rely on list experiments using national representative samples in 2007 and in 2008. These data provide a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the 2008 election, in particular, and the role of bias, in general. The results also offer some insight into future presidential elections.     

Reducing child support debt and its consequences: Can forgiveness benefit all?

As child support debt owed nationally persists at enormous levels, both noncustodial parents and the custodial families who are not receiving support suffer significant hardships, and states are forced to expend greater resources on collection and enforcement efforts. This paper presents findings from an evaluation of a demonstration program developed to help noncustodial parents with large child support debts reduce their debt while simultaneously increasing child support paid to families, through gradual forgiveness of arrears conditional on payment of current child support obligations. The evaluation employs a randomized experimental design, nonexperimental analyses using propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques, and focus groups and follow‐up interviews. Results show a pattern of effects that suggests individuals responded to the program as intended. State‐ and family‐owed child support debt balances decreased for program participants, and participants paid more toward their child support obligations and arrears and made more frequent child support payments. The study findings suggest promise for the effectiveness of this program model in reducing child support debt burdens and in increasing families' receipt of child support, and they also point to ways in which the implementation of the program might be improved. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Heckler’s Veto: Using First Amendment Theory and Jurisprudence to Understand Current Audience Reactions Against Controversial Speech

Pundits have recently used the term “heckler's veto” to describe instances in which vocal audiences seek to silence offensive or controversial speech by putting pressure on institutions that control the private forums that host the speech. The use of the term in these contexts, however, fails to take into account the jurisprudential nuances of the heckler's veto principle, as well as the principle's unique position within First Amendment theory. This article fills a void in mass communication law scholarship by examining the development of the heckler's veto principle in cases from the Supreme Court of the United States that discuss the persistent challenges that the heckler's veto principle presents and by analyzing the principle from the perspective of First Amendment theory. The purpose of these analyses is to distill the social values of tolerating extreme speech, and to apply those values to the governance of private forums of communication.     

Civil society,the state,and the limits to global civil society

Just as domestic civil society is widely regarded as serving the greater common good of a national democratic political community, global civil society is also promoted as a vehicle through which a host of humanity's ills may be remedied. This article argues that the pinning of such high hopes on global civil society is mistaken, for its proponents have failed to recognise that global civil society is insufficiently analogous to domestic civil society for it to be a similarly positive force. At the national level, civil society functions in a balanced interdependence with the state. At the global level there is no equivalent of the state to provide the necessary scrutiny and regulation that at the national level prevents constituents of domestic civil society from committing injustices.     

Central Asia and Xinjiang,China: Emerging energy,economic and ethnic relations

On an energy‐equivalent basis Central Asia is predominantly a gas producing region, with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan contributing substantially to the regional total. Kazakhstan is the primary oil producer in the region. Xinjiang, one of the poorest areas of China, is noted for its vast oil, gas and coal resources, though still largely undeveloped. As a means of facilitating economic development and prosperity in Central Asia and nearby Xinjiang, officials are promoting trade and investment among the countries in the region. This paper examines emerging economic relations within Central Asia and Xinjiang, with a focus on the lucrative oil and gas sectors. Importantly, the cooperation is being influenced by centuries‐old cultural and ethnic ties.     

The Phenomenon of the Urban Mummy

The environmental mummification of a body in an urban setting is an unusual event. Florida is known for its high temperatures and humidity, which typically result in the rapid putrefaction of bodies. However, under certain circumstances, Florida's climate provides an environment suitable for mummification, typically in isolated areas. We previously reported a case of a homicide/suicide in a residential neighborhood in which the mummified remains were undetected for several years. We have subsequently encountered two additional cases in which mummified bodies were discovered in urban settings. Presented in the historical context of the environmental conditions and postmortem processes involved in mummification, these cases illustrate the particular constellation of human behaviors and scenarios, as well as environmental conditions, which must coincide for this phenomenon to occur and highlight the necessity of the multidisciplinary approach to the medicolegal investigation of such deaths and the determination of the cause and manner of death.     

Capability,Credibility, and Extended General Deterrence

Deterrence theory suggests that extended general deterrent threats are likely to be more effective when a potential challenger views them as capable and credible. When states sign formal defense pacts, they are making explicit extended general deterrent threats. Thus, the population of defense pacts allows us an opportunity to judge the efficacy of extended deterrent threats with different characteristics. We find that defense pacts with more capability and more credibility reduce the probability that a member state will be a target of a militarized dispute. We also find that states can affect the capability and credibility of their extended deterrent threats through alliance design. Members of defense pacts that include higher levels of peacetime military coordination are less likely to be attacked. This analysis provides support for deterrence theory in the context of extended general deterrence. It also provides evidence that should aid policymakers in designing security structures to meet their goals.     

NEW TECHNOLOGY AND THE ADMINISTRATOR

Abstract: It is important to distinguish between the possible and the probable when speculating about developments in technology. It is difficult to foresee the uses which will be made of an invention, and often they are not the uses first proposed. With new technological developments almost anything is technically possible, although practical development of a possibility can be slower and more difficult than expected. Moreover, successful technical development does not guarantee acceptance by the public. Technology impinges on public administration in three ways. It is a tool, it creates new tasks, and new technology can change the expectations within society of the role and function of government and hence the role of public administration. Examples of the use of technology as a tool in public administration are evident in the areas of travel, telecommunications and data processing. Changes in technology create new administrative tasks related to increased public awareness of the dangers of many forms of technology, leading, for example, to consideration of problems of pollution, personal privacy and computer-related crime. New expectations created by the increased information available through technological advances in communication will prompt increasing calls for open planning and public participation in decision making which will in turn lead to increased visibility of administrators and a greater measure of real accountability.