Protecting “The Prize”: Oil and the U.S. National Interest

American national security policy is based on a misunderstanding about U.S. oil interests. Although oil is a vital commodity, potential supply disruptions are less worrisome than scholars, politicians, and pundits presume. This article identifies four adaptive mechanisms that together can compensate for almost all oil shocks, meaning that continuous supply to consumers will limit scarcity-induced price increases. The adaptive mechanisms are not particularly fragile and do not require tremendous foresight by either governments or economic actors. We illustrate these mechanisms at work using evidence from every major oil disruption since 1973. We then identify the small subset of disruptive events that would overwhelm these adaptive mechanisms and therefore seriously harm the United States. Finally, we analyze the utility of U.S. foreign military policy tools in addressing these threats. Our findings suggest that the United States can defend its key interests in the Persian Gulf—the world's most important oil-producing region—with a less-intrusive, “over the horizon” posture.     

Decision Aiding,Not Dispute Resolution: Creating Insights through Structured Environmental Decisions

Public participation in environmental decisions has become commonplace. A favored model for public input is to use the tools of dispute resolution to seek consensus among members of a multi‐party stakeholder group. The authors believe that a focus on dispute resolution and consensus building can pose impediments to the creation of insights for decisionmakers and lead to the adoption of inferior policy choices. Instead, they advocate an alternative approach to stakeholder participation characterized as “decision aiding” through a structured process based on constructive, multi‐attribute techniques and value‐focused thinking. In this paper some of the major difficulties posed by a dispute‐resolution approach are articulated, the principles of a decision‐aiding process reviewed, and this alternative approach illustrated by describing a stakeholder consultation involving water‐use planning for a hydroelectric facility on the Alouette River in British Columbia, Canada. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The generalized instructional set of the Criminal Attribution Inventory (CRAI): socially desirable responding and faking

Accurate assessment of criminal attributions can assist in explaining crime and identifying offender treatment targets. The current study examines the relationship between a new method of assessing the cognition of criminal attributes, the Criminal Attribution Inventory (CRAI) and a measure of socially desirable responding. 300 participants including incarcerated offenders, released offenders, sex offenders, and university students participated in the current study. Results indicate minimal relationships between socially desirable responding and the CRAI. In a fake-good testing situation, the faking index had appropriate sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive power in identifying fake-good responses. The CRAI's instructional set of general observation as opposed to self-representation appears to limit socially desirable responding and also allows the CRAI to be administered to nonoffender populations.     

Internationalisation of the Public Sector

This article argues a case for exporting government services in cases where the public sector has relevant expertise and can operate within acceptable risks. Drawing on Victorian experience, it suggests structures and procedures for effective operation in international markets.     

Antisocial constructs in predicting institutional violence among violent offenders and child molesters

This study investigated the ability of self-reported antisocial constructs to predict serious institutional infractions among a correctional sample of child molesters (n = 69) and violent offenders (n = 138). Each group had significant predictors, but the predictors differed between the two groups. Interpersonal problems accounted for significant incremental variance after age in the relationship with institutional violence for child molesters. With the violent offender group, alienation and impulse expression showed significant incremental variance after accounting for age. Alienation and impulse expression also added to age in the relationship with the function of failure over time for the most institutionally disruptive. Implications for institutional classification and clinical use in an offender population are discussed.     

The limits to global redistribution: Thinking like an egalitarian labour movement

Should global egalitarians based in a given country seek to redistribute all wealth equally amongst the world's people, recognising no priority for fellow citizens? This philosophical question is directly relevant to a pressing practical one: what is the appropriate stance for egalitarians to adopt in controversies around foreign aid and free trade? This paper explores how such matters might look to a labour movement situated in a better-off country but committed to global equality. There are several reasons offered why the latter would not seek an immediately equal share-out of its country's wealth among all the world's individuals. Yet the same considerations that support limiting global obligations also point to various limits to the limits, and imply redistributive generosity on the part of richer societies. A still more radical global redistribution becomes possible only with world economic governance, for which egalitarians should strive.     

Enduring Resilience: How Oil Markets Handle Disruptions

Plentiful spare capacity persists in the oil production and tanker industries, contrary to Michael Levi's contention in his response to our earlier article, “Protecting ‘The Prize.' ” OPEC leaders retain excess capacity to minimize cartel members' cheating, and tanker companies retain considerable flexibility that allows them to adapt to political-military and other fluctuations in the market. Oil supplies are not on a knife-edge; exaggerated claims of energy vulnerability distort U.S. national security policy.