Regulatory Failure and the Collapse of Japan's Home Mortgage Lending Industry: A Legal and Economic Analysis

This article analyzes the dynamics of contemporary cooperation and conflict in Japanese financial regulation through the prism of the "jusen problem," the collapse of Japan's home mortgage lending industry in the 1990s. The jusen problem is one of the most striking examples of regulatory failure, strategic interest group bargaining, and large-scale dispute resolution in Japanese history.     

Book reviews

M.B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War 1898-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) £35. ISBN 019-820270-9.

Keith Hamilton, Bertie of Thame: Edwardian Ambassador (Woodbridge/Suffolk: Boydell Press 1990 (= Royal Historical Society Studies in History, No. 60)), ix + 436 pp. ISBN 0-86193-217X. £35.

Anita Inder Singh, The Limits of British Influence: South Asia and the Anglo-American Relationship, 1947-56 (Pinter, 1993) pp. 309. £45.

Robert H. Ferrell (ed.), Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991) $37.50. ISBN 0-8262-0790-1.

Robert Pearce (ed.), Patrick Gordon Walker: Political Diaries 1932-1971 (London: The Historians Press, 1991) £20. ISBN 1-872273-05 X.

Richard J. Aldrich (ed.), British Strategy and the Cold War, 1945-51 (London: Routledge, 1992) £40. ISBN 0-415-07851-2.

Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe's Name. Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993) £25. ISBN 0-224-02054-4.     

Advancing police use of force research and practice: urgent issues and prospects

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de-escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety.     

Sexually violent predators and civil commitment: is selection evidence based?

Sexual offenses represent an alarming proportion of crimes committed yearly. To address these concerns, several states, including South Carolina (SC), have enacted laws requiring sexually violent predators (SVPs) to be civilly committed to treatment. To date, no published study has examined sexual offenders recommended for treatment in SC. This study used a specially designed statewide database (SC-SVP research database) to determine which offender and offense characteristics were associated with increased likelihood of being recommended for civil commitment. Factors correlated with being more likely to be recommended included: being of a younger age at time of evaluation, prior sex convictions, having related and unrelated victims, a higher number of victims, frequent substance use, and a history of suicide attempts. Prior sex convictions, having both related and non-related victims, and a higher total number of victims align with characteristics associated with sexual recidivism. Frequent substance abuse and a history of suicide attempts do not mirror previous findings regarding sexual recidivism. These findings present new information regarding the civil commitment process of offenders being committed to the SC-SVP treatment program, characterize types of offenders committed to SC-SVP treatment program, and provide a foundation for using a computerized database in conducting sex offender research.     

The New Aerospace Diplomacy: Reconstructing Post-Cold War US-Russian Economic Relations

Post-Cold War U.S.-Russian diplomacy reveals the increased importance of new diplomatic actors and processes, whilst underscoring the continued key role of state-state negotiation in reconstructing the bilateral relationship between the United States and post-Soviet Russia. The Clinton administration and Yeltsin government negotiated measures to promote political stability, democratization, and conversion to a neoliberal market economy in Russia, a centrepiece of which was the integration of Russia's globally competitive aerospace sector into the global production chain. Establishing the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, a top-level binational economic and technology policy committee, and signing a bilateral trade liberalization treaty on commercial satellite launch services paved the way for public-public and public-private bilateral space cooperation, and for major private joint ventures between US and Russian aerospace firms.