Reviews

Vexing questions: Women and philosophy

Moira Gatens, Feminism and Philosophy: Perspectives on Difference and Equality (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1991; Rosi Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1991.

Rethinking democracy, reaffirming equality

Ann Ferguson, Sexual Democracy: Women, Oppression, and Revolution (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Anne Phillips, Engendering Democracy (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1991.

Women's health

Claudia Bepko (ed.), Feminism and Addiction (Haworth Press) Binghamton, 1991; Helen Roberts (ed.), Women's Health Matters (Routledge) London, 1992.

Distinguishing the Intertwined: Multiplicity as Methodology and Recent Studies of Gender, Class, Ethnicity and Culture

Gill Bottomley, Marie de Lepervanche and Jeannie Martin (eds), Intersexions: Gender/Class/Culture/Ethnicity (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Kalpana Ram, Mukkuvar Women: Gender, Hegemony and Capitalist Transformation in a South Indian Fishing Community (Asian Studies Association of Australia Women in Asia Publication Series) (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991; Shanti Rozario, Purity and Communal Boundaries: Women and Change in a Bangladeshi Village (Asian Studies Association of Australia Women in Asia Publication Series) (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1992; Ann Game, Undoing the Social: Towards a Deconstructive Sociology (Open University Press) Buckhingham, 1991

Writing through the body?

Judith A. Allen, Sex and Secrets: Crimes Involving Australian Women since 1880 (Oxford University Press) Melbourne, 1990.

Re‐mapping terrains

Carol Pateman, The Disorder of Women (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1989; Lorraine Code, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Cornell University Press) Ithaca & London, 1991; Elisabeth J. Porter, Women and Moral Identity (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991.

Inversions

Betsy Warland (ed), Inversions: Writing by Dykes, Queers and Lesbians (Press Gang) Vancouver, 1991.

Living laboratories

Robyn Rowland, Living Laboratories, (Sun) Melbourne, 1992.

Sharing household work

Janeen Baxter, Diane Gibson with Mark Lynch‐Blosse, Double Take: The Links Between Paid and Unpaid Work (Australian Government Publishing Service) Canberra, 1990; Michael Bittman, Juggling Time: How Australian Families Use Time (Office of the Status of Women, Department of Premier and Cabinet) 1991.

Feminist knowledge

Sneja Gunew (ed.), Feminist Knowledge: Critique and Construct and A Reader in Feminist Knowledge (Routledge) London, 1990.

Emotion and Gender

June Crawford, Susan Kippax, Jenny Onyx, Una Gault and Pam Benton, Emotion and Gender: Constructing Meaning from Memory (Sage) London, 1992.

As good as a yarn with you

Carole Ferner (ed.), As Good As A Yarn With You: Letters between Miles Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Jean Devanny, Marjorie Barnard, Flora Elder show and Eleanor Dark (Cambridge University Press) Oakleigh, 1992.

Women's rights

Elizabeth Kingdom, What's Wrong With Rights?: Problems for Feminist Politics of Law (Edinburgh University Press) Edinburgh, 1991; A‐J. Arnaud and E. Kingdom (eds), Women's Rights and the Rights of Man (Aberdeen University Press) Aberdeen, 1990.     

Measuring Attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court

It is conventional in research on the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court to rely on a survey question asking about confidence in the leaders of the Court to indicate something about the esteem with which that institution is regarded by the American people. The purpose of this article is to investigate the validity of this measure. Based on a nationally representative survey conducted in 2001, we compare confidence with several different measures of Court legitimacy. Our findings indicate that the confidence replies seem to reflect both short-term and long-term judgments about the Court, with the greater influence coming from satisfaction with how the Court is performing at the moment. We suggest a new set of indicators for measuring the legitimacy of the Court and offer some evidence on the structure of the variance in these items.     

Price Effects around a Sales Tax Holiday: An Exploratory Study

Tax relief from a sales tax holiday depends on lower final prices for the eligible goods. In this article, prices are compared for ten goods across several retail locations before, during, and after the 2001 Florida sales tax holiday period. The comparison is also extended to the same items in a metropolitan statistical area just outside of Florida. The exploratory data indicate that before-tax prices are slightly higher in Florida retail establishments during the sales tax holiday, but it is not clear whether these prices reflect less generous markdowns by Florida managers or pricing decisions for much larger regions. Whichever the case, the tax policy forces consumers to speculate on non-holiday prices and choose items where the final price is, in fact, lower during the holiday.     

The Role of Family for Youth Friendships: Examining a Social Anxiety Mechanism

The quality of family relationships and youth friendships are intricately linked. Previous studies have examined different mechanisms of family-peer linkage, but few have examined social anxiety. The present study examined whether parental rejection and family climate predicted changes in youth social anxiety, which in turn predicted changes in friendship quality and loneliness. Possible bidirectional associations also were examined. Data for mothers, fathers, and youth (M _age at Time 1?=?11.27; 52.3% were female) from 687 two-parent households over three time points are presented. Results from autoregressive, cross-lagged analyses revealed that father rejection (not mother rejection or family climate) at Time 1 (Fall of 6th Grade) predicted increased youth social anxiety at Time 2 (Spring of 7th Grade), which in turn, predicted increased loneliness at Time 3 (Spring of 8th Grade). The indirect effect of father rejection on loneliness was statistically significant. Mother rejection, father rejection, and a poor family climate were associated with decreased friendship quality and increased loneliness over time. Finally, there was some evidence of transactional associations between father rejection and youth social anxiety as well as between social anxiety and loneliness. This study’s findings underscore the important role of fathers in youth social anxiety and subsequent social adjustment.     

Progress toward Pay Equity in State Governments?

Are state governments fulfilling their responsibilities to be model employers of women and minorities? Using U.S. Census Bureau data on individual employees from 1980 to 2015, this article looks at how much progress state governments have made toward eliminating racial and gender pay differences. It examines whether differences in education, age/experience, citizenship, English ability, hours worked, and occupation explain the pay differences. Patterns and explanations vary substantially by group, but state governments are doing a better job than private firms of closing pay gaps on almost every measure .     

Restoring trust in the police: Why female officers reduce suspicions of corruption

Recent studies show a clear link between women in government and reduced concerns about corruption. Until now, it remains unclear which underlying attitudes about women explain the perception that they will reduce corruption. Using a survey question about adding women to a police force, with an embedded experimental treatment, we examine three distinct stereotypes that might explain the power of women to reduce concerns about corruption: gender stereotypes of women as more ethical and honest, the perception of women as political outsiders, and beliefs that women are generally more risk averse. We find that people do perceive women as more effective at combating corruption, and these perceptions are greatly enhanced when information about women's outsider status and risk aversion is provided.     

Unheeded warning of war: why policymakers ignored the 1990 Yugoslavia estimate*

This article examines the lack of policy response to the 1990 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that predicted the collapse of Yugoslavia. Contrary to common criticisms of estimative intelligence, the NIE was accurate and unambiguous. Why was good intelligence unheeded? For some policymakers, the analysis was not closely tied to their interests and competed with other priorities for attention; for those who were substantive experts, the NIE’s grim message was hard to accept. Moreover, policymakers read intelligence reports in the context of popular concepts – a lingering Cold War lens distorted more than it clarified. Finally, while the NIE made hard-hitting judgments, it did not include any analysis of opportunities to influence the outcome. Rather than pushing an already difficult estimate to the breaking point, including opportunities would likely have increased the odds of policymakers taking action. These lessons have broader implications for analytical tradecraft and the often-challenging relationship between intelligence and policy.     

Shifting cultivation,contentious land change and forest governance: the politics of swidden in East Kalimantan

Swidden has historically been one of the most widespread land uses in upland Southeast Asia. In recent decades, swidden systems across the region have undergone rapid transformation. While most analyses focus on swidden as a livelihood practice, we direct attention to the political nature of swidden. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork and household surveys from two villages in East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia, we examine the politics of swidden along two key dimensions. First, at the household level, we describe swidden as a land control strategy. We identify territorialization and speculation as drivers of ‘contentious land change’ in swidden systems under pressure from expanding plantations and mines. Second, at the village and district levels, we examine the politics of swidden within new forest governance arrangements. Control of swidden has provided a focus for multi-stakeholder forest governance, but with ambivalent effects, developing village land management and livelihoods at a cost of temporary increases in swidden clearing and with minimal impact on deforestation for industrial land uses. Our analysis suggests forest governance efforts will be ineffective in eliminating contentious land change or reducing district-level deforestation until they address plantation and mining expansion as the dominant direct and indirect drivers of forest conversion.     

Privadentiality: Developing a Coherent Framework for Establishing Communication Protections in Family and Child Protection Dispute Resolution Methods

The emergence of innovative family and child protection dispute resolution (DR) methods has resulted in a varying array of communication protections. Review of these communication protections in the United States reveals a lack of consistency and clarity within each form of DR, and no clear policy to guide the development of the different communication protections across the spectrum of DR methods. This article proposes a new term, privadentiality, to describe communication protections which may be provided for a wide range of DR methods and a framework for categorizing DR methods in order to develop more consistent and appropriate communication protections across the spectrum of DR. This article concludes with recommendations to improve party and professional understanding of DR communication protections; protect families from escalating conflict; promote the integrity of DR methods; and enable courts to appropriately review and, where appropriate, approve DR outcomes.