Learning under the cross: legal challenges to ‘cultural–religious symbolism’ in public schools

This article examines the nature and scope of the legal challenges mounted against religious symbolism in European public schools. It discusses religion in education and the relationship between Church and State in European societies. The European Court is defining what counts as a religious symbol through a secular lens and while the court upholds the right to hold a religious belief it qualifies this right to manifest belief in public. This article argues that the courts should be more accommodating in their approach towards the public manifestation of religious beliefs and traditions.     

Transnationalisation, Orientalism and Crime

The paper begins with the question: how applicable are European and North American criminological theories to the situation in Asia? It takes a transnational and comparative perspective in relating contemporary and historical trends in crime, crime definition and crime control in a variety of Asian countries that comprise the so-called Confucian sphere. It provides a criminological critique of the ‘Asian values debate’ and, through an analysis of trends in crime, crime definition and crime control in China and Japan, of organised crime across the region, as well as selected examples of state-organised crime, seeks to provide a perspective on the developing criminological discourses of ‘the Orient’. The paper argues that, although cultural aspects are important and interesting in understanding the crime situation in the region, ultimately it is changes in politics and governance, economy and society that are most efficacious in explaining current criminological trends and developments.     

Support for Le Pen in France: Two Elections in Trompe l'œil

There is a comforting consensus among political commentators that the 2007 presidential election marked the end of Jean-Marie Le Pen as a force in French politics. The shock election of the Front National leader to the presidential run-off in 2002, by contrast, is explained as a surge in the Le Pen vote specific to the prevailing electoral conditions. This article challenges that interpretation of both elections. It shows that, despite Le Pen's unforeseen success in 2002, there was no surge of support for him, and that despite Le Pen's supposed collapse in 2007, he won close to 4 million votes while popular agreement with his ideas rose to its highest recorded level. The article concludes that Le Pen remains a powerful presence in French politics and that his supporters continue to constitute a large and highly influential constituency.     

Modeling the influence of polls on elections: a population dynamics approach

We propose a population dynamics model for quantifying the effects of polling data on the outcome of multi-party elections decided by a majority-rule voting process. We divide the population into two groups: committed voters impervious to polling data, and susceptible voters whose decision to vote is influenced by data, depending on its reliability. This population-based approach to modeling the process sidesteps the problem of upscaling models based upon the choices made by individuals. We find releasing poll data is not advantageous to leading candidates, but it can be exploited by those closely trailing. The analysis identifies the particular type of voting impetus at play in different stages of an election and could help strategists optimize their influence on susceptible voters.     

An Election With No Losers: The 1994 Federal Elections in the New Germany

The German federal election in October 1994, just four years after German Unity, revealed that clear divisions between east and west Germany still exist. Whilst the PDS on the left of the political spectrum was supported by around one fifth of east German voters, the parties on the right gained negligible support in Germany as a whole. The federal German electoral system, based on a personalised sytem of PR, again played a key role; it is, however still too early in the development of the new Germany to speak of a single new party system.     

The draw a person test and young state hospital patients

Because of the increasing number of adolescents being admitted to state hospitals, because of the continuing need for appropriate testing materials for these patients, and because of the frequent criticism leveled against the DAP's validity, this study was undertaken in order to provide normative data for the DAP with this particular clinical population. The subjects were 84 male and 66 female psychiatric patients from the Adolescent Unit (AU) at Rusk State Hospital. As each patient was admitted to the AU, he was scheduled for psychological testing, with the DAP, the Revised Beta, and the MMPI being part of this testing. The results of this study indicate that the social factors of Ethnicity and Work Habits are significantly related to DAP test performance by male subjects, while Diagnosis is significantly related to DAP test performance by female subjects. A subject's performance on the MMPI and the Revised Beta Examination was not found to be significantly related to his performance on the DAP.Received B.S. in psychology from North Texas State University in 1967 and M.S. in psychology from North Texas State University in 1968. Research interest is child and adolescent psychology and etiology of deviant behavior.Received B.S. in psychoogy from Stephen F. Austin University in 1965, M.S. in psychology from Stephen F. Austin University in 1967, and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Alabama in 1971. Research interest is applied research in mental health and mental retardation with emphasis on learning theory and cognitive development.Received B.A. in education and psychology from Baylor University in 1963, M.A. in education from Baylor University in 1967, and Ed.D. in educational psychology from Baylor University in 1970. Research interest is applied research in mental health and mental retardation.Received B. S. in mathematics from William and Mary University in 1960, M.S. in mathematical statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1962, and Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1967. Research interest is statistical methodologies in the field of mental health and mental retardation.Received A.S. in data processing from Date Junior College, Miami, Florida, in 1966, B.A. in mathematics from the University of South Florida in 1968, and M.S. in statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1970. Research interest is statistcal methodolgies in the field of mental health and mental retardation.Received B.S. in psychology from Texas A & M University in 1970 and M.S. in psychology from Stephen F. Austin University in 1971. Research interest is child and adolescent psychology and etiology of deviant behavior.     

Diffusion and Diversity: Federalism and the Right to Die in the Fifty States

Right-to-die issues—from the right to have life-sustainingtreatment withdrawn to the right to assisted suicide—arebecoming important sources of state policy activity. Withoutmuch federal instruction, some state courts have constructeda general consensus position for other courts to follow usingthe federal Constitution to legitimize their decisions. Statelegislatures have accomplished less. Statutory diversity wasthe rule until recently, with legislatures passing a rich varietyof generally conservative rules. Lately, with the pressure fromrights-oriented interest groups and professional organizations,state legislators have been edging closer to the more liberalpattern of policy charted by judges of the state supreme courts.Policymaking that applies to assisted suicide may be expectedto follow the same pattern: the federal government will remainsilent while the state courts take the lead using the U.S. Constitutionas ammunition. The state legislatures can be expected to trailbehind, catching up to the courts only after statutory diversityis found wanting.     

The incumbency dilemma and rent extraction by legislators

An incumbent is able to shirk or otherwise obtain rents based on his tenure of office because more senior representatives are better able to advance their legislative agendas than are more junior members. The realization of incumbent rents implies that an electoral prisoners' dilemma occurs at the level of voters across electoral districts. Pivotal voters in each district would benefit if all incumbents were replaced by challengers with similar legislative programs because the cost of incumbent rents can be avoided, but each benefits if his representative has more seniority than those from other districts.