Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States

Motivated by recent work suggesting that low‐income citizens are virtually ignored in the American policymaking process, this article asks whether a similar bias shapes the policy positions adopted by political parties much earlier in the policymaking process. While the normative hope is that parties serve as linkage institutions enhancing representation of those with fewer resources to organize, the resource‐dependent campaign environment in which parties operate provides incentives to appeal to citizens with the greatest resources. Using newly developed measures of state party positions, we examine whether low‐income preferences get incorporated in parties’ campaign appeals at this early stage in the policymaking process—finding little evidence that they do. This differential responsiveness was most pronounced for Democratic parties in states with greater income inequality; it was least evident for Republicans’ social policy platforms. We discuss the implications of these findings for representation in this era of growing economic inequality.     

Of Revelatory Histories and Hatchet Jobs: Propaganda and Method in Intelligence History

This article explores a number of issues in the contemporary study of intelligence. These issues are methodological (relating to engagement with ‘primary’ sources), epistemological (concerned with notions of ‘bias’ and objectivity), and presentational (dealing with how scholars locate their work within existing debates). The article will contend that the study of intelligence, largely because of its ambiguous positioning on the borderland between political science and history, has been somewhat isolated from the debates over theory and method that have flourished in the wider historical discipline in recent decades, and that an engagement with such literature will yield commensurate benefits. Finally, the article will explore the place of intelligence history within the wider discourse of ‘popular’ history. Given its potentially sensational content, some intelligence literature is targeted at a ‘popular’ readership, but many of the claims made in authoring, promoting and reviewing such books are highly problematic. Since this is inimical to scholarly rigour, and is unlikely to facilitate wider public understanding of major historical issues, such matters need to be addressed.     

CIA's role in the study of UFOs, 1947–90: A die‐hard issue∗

This article is a reprint from a declassified issue of the CIA's in‐house journal. It testifies to the enormous impact of UFOs in North America and the involvement of the CIA and USAF from their very year of creation (1947). This year also featured the notorious Roswell incident in New Mexico. The phenomenon is examined decade by decade for the entire Cold War. The mere existence of official records and their release or non‐release has become a never‐ending bone of contention.     

Limiting America's Engagement: Roger Hilsman's Vietnam War, 1961–1963

This article examines the role of Roger Hilsman, an important State Department official in the Kennedy administration, in the formulation of American policy towards the Vietnam War between 1961 and 1963. Hilsman was one of the leading opponents of a conventional military escalation of the war in Vietnam, frequently clashing with the Pentagon and the American military establishment in order to limit United States' engagement. Hilsman was convinced that “victory” in Vietnam was possible if the United States adopted a counterinsurgency approach to the conflict. This perception was forged by his experiences as a guerrilla fighter in World War II. Perceived to be one of the main architects of the coup against President Diem in 1963, and vilified by elements in the United States military, he was removed from office by President Johnson early in 1964.     

Review of public budgeting and financial management

User charge is an alternative option to privatizing public service provision. But its use as a policy instrument, compared with that of asset sales or contracting out, for instance, is less researched and documented. This paper tries to fill the gap. By contrasting the experiences of employing user charge for two public services in Hong Kong with diametrically opposing results, this paper offers preliminary conclusions on several lessons, which governments, in their drive toward improved efficiency, can learn in commercializing their trading activities. Implications to public policy making are also suggested. These include: the user-pays principle has to be applied equitably, the public service market has to remain depoliticized, the management has to be transformed to behave more entrepreneurially, and the users have to be educated.     

Challenges of Evaluating Democracy Assistance: Perspectives from the Donor Side

A large number of multilateral and bilateral donors have become engaged in the area of democracy and governance (DG) assistance over the last 15 years, stimulated by a series of trends and events. Despite the maturation of DG assistance as an important development area and the high profile of democracy promotion as a key foreign policy goal, research on the impact of this assistance and the effectiveness of different types of programming has been limited. Donors are constantly in need of feedback on the effectiveness and impact of their programming in order to revise programme designs, re-strategize aid portfolios, or address new DG issues. Moreover, legislatures increasingly require government aid agencies to be able to measure the results of their programmes, thereby demonstrating a ‘return on investment’ that would guide future assistance. Quality research is hampered by a daunting political, logistical, and methodological context, however. In 2005 a donor-sponsored workshop was organized to discuss challenges facing the evaluation and assessment of DG programming and assistance. The purpose of this article is to share insights from the workshop with a wider audience of scholars, practitioners and other policy-makers in the hope that this will stimulate additional research and thinking in this area.     

Unintended consequences: experimental evidence for the criminogenic effect of prison security level placement on post-release recidivism

Most prison systems use quantitative instruments to classify and assign inmates to prison security levels commensurate to their level of risk. Bench and Allen (The Prison Journal 83(4):367-382, 2003) offer evidence that the assignment to higher security prisons produces elevated levels of misconduct independent of the individual’s propensity to commit misconduct. Chen and Shapiro (American Law and Economics Review, 2007) demonstrate that assignment to higher security level among inmates with the same classification scores increases post-release recidivism. Underlying both of these claims is the idea that the prison social environment is criminogenic. In this paper we examine the theoretical premises for this claim and present data from the only experiment that has been conducted that randomly assigns inmates to prison security levels and evaluates both prison misconduct and post-release recidivism. The experiment’s results show that inmates with a level III security classification who were randomly assigned to a security level III prison in the California prison system had a hazard rate of returning to prison that was 31% higher than that of their randomly selected counterparts who were assigned to a level I prison. Thus, the offenders’ classification assignments at admission determined their likelihood of returning to prison. There were no differences in the institutional serious misconduct rates of these same prisoners. These results are contradictory to a specific deterrence prediction and more consistent with peer influence and environmental strain theories. These results also raise important policy implications that challenge the way correctional administrators will have to think about the costs and benefits of separating inmates into homogeneous pools based on classification scores.

Excellence in Psychological Injury and Law: Book Review of Motor Vehicle Collisions by Duckworth, Iezzi, and O’Donohue (2008)

In several ways, the book on motor vehicle collisions by Duckworth, Iezzi, and O’Donohue (2008) breaks new ground and should be considered a must-read for workers in the area of psychological injury and law. The editors have assembled a team of expert authors who have cogently analyzed the scientific evidence in the area of motor vehicle collisions and their aftermath, while calling for more research. The book is replete with information that will help practitioners understand and deal with cases involving conditions such as chronic pain, posttraumatic stress, and traumatic brain injury. Practitioners will learn about complications in such cases, including threats to validity and legal aspects. The inclusion of chapters from a medical perspective is a welcome innovation. The book is only lacking in that, although assessment is considered throughout, chapters specifically addressing this topic are not included. The book review concludes that the Motor vehicle collisions book by Duckworth et al. should be included as part of the growing list of excellent resources in the area of psychological injury and law.     

Psychotherapy for Psychological Injury: A Biopsychosocial and Forensic Perspective

This article reviews the predominant psychological approaches to therapy and other treatments in the field of psychological injury. Mostly, they concern cognitive behavior therapy and its variants. However, because of the simultaneous physical injuries or physiological effects that accompany these types of injury, practitioners should adopt an integrated biopsychosocial approach in treatment (Sperry, L., Treatment of chronic medical conditions: Cognitive-behavioral therapy strategies and integrative treatment protocols. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006; Treatment of chronic medical conditions: Cognitive-behavioral therapy strategies and integrative treatment protocols. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009). The paper presents a componential model of therapy that integrates the cognitive-behavioral, biopsychosocial, and forensic approaches. More research needs to be undertaken that takes into account the difficulties of conducting therapy with individuals who are expressing psychological injury. This will help in the quest to formulate evidence-based but flexible practice guidelines. The paper concludes with a model that may serve to scaffold the numerous psychotherapies that are available into a more coherent framework.