Public support for the courts: An examination of alternative explanations

Public opinion surveys consistently show that there are generally high levels of support for the court system. While there exists general public support for the courts, the most often heard criticism is that the courts are too lenient. The purpose of this study is to describe public attitudes toward the courts and examine a number of explanations of public support for, or against, the courts. The article examines five hypotheses: (1) respondents who are pro-punishment would not be supportive of the courts; (2) respondents who are supportive of the police and the correctional system would be supportive of the courts; (3) respondents who are supportive of the police would not be supportive of the courts; (4) respondents who identify themselves as conservative would not be supportive of the courts; and (5) respondents who express fear and/or concern about crime, and/or who have experienced victimization would not be supportive of the courts. It is found that members of the public express diffuse support for the courts, but criticism center around court leniency and plea bargaining. At least partial support is found for all five hypotheses with support for strong punitive sanctions the best predictor of attitudes toward the courts.     

Measuring technology transfer performance: A case study

The debate continues on how to measure results of technology transfer. New and revised models are being conceived and tested in various economic settings. This paper addresses the performance measures that are being derived from the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce technology transfer program.     

THE BOOK SHELF

FAMILY IN TRANSITION , Arlene Skolnick & Jerome Skolnick
FAMl LIES: DEVELOP1 NG RELATIONSHIPS , Mollie Stevens Smart and Laura S. Smart
THE MARRIAGE DIALOGUE , A. Lynn Scoresby     

Reviews

Silvana Malle, The Economic Organization of War Communism, 1918–1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xv + 548 pp. £30.00.

Nicholas Lampert, Whistleblowing in the Soviet Union: Complaints and Abuses under State Socialism. (In association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham) New York: Schocken Books, 1985, xi + 221 pp. £25.00.

Christian Schmidt‐Häuer, Gorbachev: The Path to Power. London: I. B. Tauris, 1986, v + 218 pp. £12.95.

Zhores Medvedev, Gorbachev. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986, ix + 272 pp. £15.00.

Paul Dibb, The Soviet Union: The Incomplete Superpower. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan (in association with the International Institute for Strategic Studies), 1986, xiii + 293 pp. £27.50.

Mark Harrison, Soviet Planning in Peace and War, 1938–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xiv + 315 pp. $44.50.

Peter Rutland, The Myth of the Plan. Lessons of Soviet Planning Experience. Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London‐Melbourne‐Sydney‐Auckland‐Johannesburg, 1985, 286 pp. £15.00.

Stanislaw Gomulka, Growth, innovation and reform in Eastern Europe. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books Ltd, 1986, viii + 305 pp. £28.50.

Mark E. Schaffer, ed., Technology Transfer and East‐West Relations. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 273 pp. £22.50.

Jonathan Alford, ed., The Soviet Union: Security Policies and Constraints. London: Gower for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1985, xii + 180 pp. £16.50.

Daniel S. Papp, Soviet Perceptions of the Developing World in the 1980s: The Ideological Basis. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1985, xii + 176 pp. £22.00.

Jerry F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World. Soviet Debates and American Options. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1986, x + 293 pp. $32.95 h/b, $11.95 p/b.

Mark N. Katz, Russia and Arabia. Soviet Policy toward the Arabian Peninsula. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, xvi + 279 pp. £24.45.

James P. Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR: A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985, 362 pp. $35.00.

Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below. Boston, London, and Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986, xvi + 256 pp. £18.00.

S. Enders Wimbush, ed., Soviet Nationalities in Strategic Perspective. London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xxviii + 253 pp. £19.95.

Rosalind J. Marsh, Soviet Fiction Since Stalin: Science, Politics and Literature. London: Croom Helm, 1986, 338 pp. £25.00.

Ludmilla Alexeyeva, Soviet Dissent. Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 1985, xxii + 522 pp. $35.00.

Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941–45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. Basingstoke/Oxford: MacMillan/St. Anthony's, 1985, xvi + 214 pp. £27.50.

Donald J. Raleigh, Revolution on the Volga. 1917 in Saratov. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986, 373 pp. $35.75.

Janos Kornai and Xavier Richet, La Voie Hongroise: Analyses et Experimentations Economiques. Paris: Caiman‐Levy, 1986, 319 pp. 174F.

Maria Hirszowicz, Coercion and Control in Communist Society: The Visible Hand in a Command Economy. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986, vii + 226 pp. £25.00.

Irwin L. Collier, Connections, Effective Purchasing Power and Real Product in the German Democratic Republic. Heft 135, Reihe Wirtschaft und Recht, Berichte des Ost‐Europa‐Instituts an der Freien Universitä Berlin, 1985, ix + 216 pp.

Jan Jozef Lipski, KOR: A History of the Workers’ Defence Committee in Poland, 1976–1981. Translated by Olga Amsterdamska and Gene M Moore. Berkeley and London: University of California Press 1985, x + 561 pp. £33.95.

Patrick F. R. Artisien, Joint Ventures in Yugoslav Industry. Brookfield, Vermont: Gower, 1985, xv + 223 pp. h/b £16.50.

Barbara Holland, ed., Soviet Sisterhood. Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press, 1985. 272 pp. £17.95 h/b, £5.95 p/b.

Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer, eds., Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, xiv + 453 pp. h/b $42.50, p/b $16.95.     

Raising standards: A prototyping strategy for undergraduate education

Public concerns about the quality of undergraduate education merit the attention of research universities. This policy analysis documents standards of learning and teaching that fall far short of a liberal education in one department. It attributes the problem primarily to factors that obscure differences in standards, especially quantitative performance measures. And it recommends liberating small working groups of faculty volunteers to develop and distinguish courses that do raise standards. This prototyping strategy is an alternative tot the status quo, which is unsustainable, and a comprehensive, centrally-directed plan, which is impractical. It may be adapted to similar situations elsewhere.     

Science and social responsibility

Science in the aggregate has not lived up to its promise to work for the benefit of society as a whole. This problem stems from the narrow perspectives that basic and applied researchers typically take to their work. Among the barriers to broadening those perspectives, the most tractable is the myth that the overriding purpose of science in human affairs is prediction; that such predictions are prerequisites for major policy decisions; and that scientific inputs to these decisions are objective and value-free. This article challenges the myth from three standpoints - epistemology, the historical context, and contemporary case studies - as a step toward improving the responsibility and accountability of science to society.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Symposium on New Paradigms for Managing Post-Industrial Societies at the meetings of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, Denver, Colorado, July 14, 1992.     

Reviews

Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (An extensively revised and enlarged edition by Jerry F. Hough of Merle Fainsod's How Russia is Ruled). Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1979, xiv + 679 pp. £12.00.

Karen Dawisha, Soviet Foreign Policy Towards Egypt. London: Macmillan Press, 1979, 271 pp. £12.00.

Robert O. Freedman, Soviet Policy toward the Middle East since 1970 (Revised Edition). New York, London, Sydney, Toronto: Praeger Publishers, 1978. 373 pp.

Daniel Park, Oil and Gas in Comecon Countries, London: Kogan Page & New York: Nichols Publishing Company, 1979. 240 pp. £15.00.

Avi Shlaim and G. N. Yannopoulos (eds.), The EEC and Eastern Europe. London: Cambridge University Press, 1978. 251 pp. £15.00.

Daniel Tarschys, The Soviet Political Agenda: Problems and Priorities, 1950–1970. London: Macmillan Press, 1979. i + 217 pp. £10.00.

Soviet Society and the Communist Party, edited by Karl W. Ryavec. Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1978. xviii + 220 pp. $15.00.

Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1978. xxi + 464 pp. $37.50.

Barbara Wolfe Jancar, Women Under Communism. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press, 1978. x + 291 pp. $16.00.

Norman Saul, Sailors in Revolt. The Russian Baltic Fleet in 1917. Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1978. xii + 312 pp.

Richard K. Debo, Revolution and Survival: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1917–18. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1979. xiii + 462 pp. £15.00.

William O. McCagg, Jr. Stalin Embattled, 1943–1948. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978. 423 pp. $18.95.

Arvind Vyas, Consumption in a Socialist Economy. The Soviet Industrialization Experience, 1929–1937. Foreword by Maurice Dobb. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1978. xii + 239 pp. Rs. 50.00.

Alfred D. Low, The Sino‐Soviet Dispute: An Analysis of the Polemics. London: Associated University Presses, 1977. 364 pp. £8.25.

Morris Rothenberg, Whither China: The View from the Kremlin. University of Miami. Monographs in International Affairs, xxi + 310 pp.

Morton Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. 216 pp. £8.75.

A. Szymanski, Is the red flag flying? London: Zed Press, 1979. 235 pp. Paperback £2.95.

John Dunstan, Paths to Excellence and the Soviet School. Windsor: NFER Publishing Co., 1978. 302 pp. £9.75.

Leopold H. Haimson (ed.), The Politics of Rural Russia 1905–1914 (Studies of the Russian Insitute, Columbia University). Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1979. x + 309 pp. $19.50/£13.65.

R. W. Seton‐Watson and the Yugoslavs: Correspondence, 1906–1941, Vol. II 1918–1941. Introduction by H. & C. Seton‐Watson. London and Zagreb: British Academy and University of Zagreb, Institute of Croatian History, 1976. 468 pp. + 474 pp. (two books).