Book Reviews

Andrea C. Bianculli and Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, eds., Regional Organizations and Social Policy in Europe and Latin America: A Space for Social Citizenship? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Abbreviations, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 317 pp.; hardcover $109, ebook $84.99. Barry Cannon, The Right in Latin America: Elite Power, Hegemony and the Struggle for the State. New York: Routledge, 2016. Tables, bibliography, index, 182 pp.; hardcover $127.50, paperback $44.59. Jordi Díez, The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Bibliography, index, 301 pp.; hardcover $48.99, paperback $29.99, ebook $24. Julio Ríos‐Figueroa, Constitutional Courts as Mediators: Armed Conflict, Civil‐Military Relations, and the Rule of Law in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Illustrations, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 256 pp.; hardcover $110, paperback $34.99, ebook $88. María Soledad Segura and Silvio Waisbord, Media Movements: Civil Society and Media Policy Reform in Latin America. London: Zed Books, 2016. Bibliography, index, 224 pp.; hardcover $95, paperback $29.95, ebook $23.96. Lee J. Alston, Marcus André Melo, Bernardo Mueller, and Carlos Pereira, Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Illustrations, tables, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 280 pp.; hardcover $39.50, ebook. Sean W. Burges, Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 296 pp.; hardcover $115, paperback $32.95, ebook. Alejandro Velasco, Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015. Maps, figures, notes, bibliography, index, 321 pp.; paperback $29.95. Tiffany D. Barnes, Gendering Legislative Behavior: Institutional Constraints and Collaboration. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Map, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 274 pp.; hardcover $99.99, paperback $34.99, ebook $28. Judith Teichman, The Politics of Inclusive Development: Policy, Sate Capacity, and Coalition Building. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Figures, bibliography, index, 261 pp.; hardcover $109, ebook $84.99.     

Women on the edge of crime: Crack cocaine and the changing contexts of street-level sex work in New York City

In this paper, we attempt to examine, engender and contextualize the theses that (i) women's emancipation escalates [women's] crime and violence and (ii) women's drug use escalates [women's] crime and violence, by drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in relation to women crack smokers and the changing contexts of street-level sex work in New York City. The paper attempts to illustrate how the position of women crack smokers can only be understood by locating their lives, their illicit drug use and their income-generating activities within the context of a specific set of localized socio-economic and cultural developments. We suggest that observations from our research refute the theses that women are becoming more criminal and/or violent in the context of either their consumption of crack cocaine or their alleged emancipation.An earlier version of this paper was presented by the first author at the Joint Meetings, Law and Society Association and Research Committee on the Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association, Amsterdam, 26–29 June 1991.     

Reviews

Ference Feher, Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus, Dictatorship Over Needs, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, xiii+312 pp. £22.50.

Pierre Kende and Zdenek Strmiska, (Eds.) Egalités et inégalités en Europe de l’ Est, Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris, 1984.

Lewis H. Siegelbaum, The Politics of Industrial Mobilisation in Russia, 1914–17: A Study of the War‐Industries Committees, London, Macmillan (in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford), 1983, xix + 312 pp. £25.00

William J. Conyngham, The Modernization of Soviet Industrial Management, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 332 + ix. £19–50.

Caroline Humphrey, Karl Marx Collective: Economy, society and religion in a Siberian collective farm. Cambridge, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1983. xviii + 522 pp. £30–00 (£10–95 paperback).

Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym, Soviet Jewish Emigration and Soviet Nationality Policy, London, Macmillan, 1984, vii + 185 pp. £20.00.

James E. Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation: National Communism in Soviet Ukraine 1918–1933, Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., Cambridge, Mass. 1983. xiv + 334 pp. $21.50.

Kalman Rupp, Entrepreneurs in Red, State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 1983. 260 + xvii pp. £37.60 (hardback) £14.25 (paperback).

Cole Blasier, The Giant's Rival: the USSR and Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983, xvi + 213 pp. $7.95 (paperback).     

Toxic waste and public procurement: The defense sector as a disproportionate contributor to pollution from public–private partnerships

Public procurement is a large sector of the economy with most procurement going to the defense sector. Procurement by the defense sector includes purchases made through contracts to private businesses that manufacture durable goods. Manufacturing of these goods results in pollution production with toxic wastes being among the most dangerous pollutants for public health. Despite green purchasing policy goals, most transactions in the United States through defense contracts result in disproportionately high-toxic pollution releases by manufacturers. We find that persistent exemptions granted defense agencies from following green purchasing policy result in a landscape where contractor environmental performance is unchanging with defense contractors persistently polluting in high amounts. Further, we find that defense contractors are linked to most toxic releases from procurement meaning that exemptions may be hindering potential advancements from green purchasing policy. Results can inform the design of new guidance about procurement and expand understanding of environmental inequality.     

Australian Democracy and Priveleged Parliamentary Speech

This article responds to recent cases of parliamentary speech which reflect the ascendancy of a totalising 'mainstream' approach to public discourse and a political leadership that may, at times, be overly attentive to the majority-rule dimension of democracy. These developments spark a more general discussion of the phenomenology of privileged parliamentary speech, the role of speech freedoms in liberal democratic orders and the duties of parliamentary representatives within them. I make two general conclusions. First, the ways in which we normally argue and think about free speech will not generally apply to the speech of parliamentarians because their speech rights cannot be universalised. Secondly, even if parliamentary speech could be treated as standard speech there would be no legitimate defence (from a liberal democratic point of view) for a strictly populist approach to its use since this could undermine the deliberative function of parliament and lead to the violation of other important liberal democratic principles.     

Toward a Theory of Fiscal Slack

Though the fiscal slack literature has advanced over the past decade, more research is needed for a systematic understanding of the determinants and uses of fiscal reserves at the local level. This paper reviews theory and empirical evidence on the determinants of municipal fiscal reserves offers a conceptual framework for analyzing fiscal reserves accumulation and tests a series of hypotheses using a panel of 2007–2012 financial data for 145 U.S. cities from 21 states. Generalized least squares models show that unassigned general fund balances and unrestricted net assets are positively associated with general fund surpluses in the previous year and with local household incomes, while not being related to measures of fiscal risk, revenue effort, and voter characteristics. Overall, the findings suggest a relatively stronger influence of the capacity to save than the need to save on local fiscal reserves.     

Republican democracy and compulsory voting

In this article, I focus on Chapters 4 and 5 of On the People’s Terms, chapters that deal with democratic influence and control. I take an applied political science approach to how Pettit’s republic might be practically achieved by exploring the under-appreciated capacity of elections to mobilise the resistance-prone, contestatory public upon which his republicanism depends. Whereas Pettit tends to focus on public contestation between elections and only demands that the public has the opportunity to vote when elections are held, I argue that they should be given a more prominent role within his republic and further, that access to voting is not enough: rather, citizens should actually vote. In order to ensure that participation is socially inclusive and that the public’s attempts at influence are ‘individualised’, ‘unconditioned’ and ‘efficacious’ in the manner Pettit desires, I suggest that compulsory voting should be a major pillar of his republicanism.     

Crisis intervention team officer dispatch, assessment, and disposition: Interactions with individuals with severe mental illness

The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model is a specialized police response program for people in a mental illness crisis. We analyzed 2174 CIT officers' reports from one community, which were completed during a five year period. These officers' reports described interactions with people presumed to be in a mental illness crisis. We used hierarchical logistic and multinomial regression analyses to compare transport to treatment to either transport to jail or no transport by how the calls were dispatched. The results revealed that both dispatch codes and officers' on-scene assessments influenced transport decisions. Specifically, calls dispatched as suspected suicide were more likely to be transported to treatment than calls dispatched as mental disturbance. Furthermore, calls dispatched as calls for assistance, disturbance, suspicious person, assault, suspicion of a crime, and to meet a citizen were all less likely than mental disturbance calls to result in transportation to treatment. Officer assessments of the use of substances, being off medications, signs and symptoms of mental or physical illness, and violence to self or others were associated with the likelihood of being transported to treatment. These results build on previous work that demonstrated differences in transport decisions between CIT trained and non-CIT trained officers.     

Attributions of Blame and Responsibility in Sexual Harassment: Reexamining a Psychological Model

Kelley’s (Nebr Symp Motiv 15:192–238, 1967) attribution theory can inform sexual harassment research by identifying how observers use consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness information in determining whether a target or perpetrator is responsible for a sexual harassment situation. In this study, Kelley’s theory is applied to a scenario in which a male perpetrator sexually harasses a female target in a university setting. Results from 314 predominantly female college students indicate that consistency and consensus information significantly affect participants’ judgments of blame and responsibility for the situation. The authors discuss the importance of the reference groups used to derive consensus and distinctiveness information, and reintroduce Kelley’s attribution theory as a means of understanding observers’ perceptions of sexual harassment.