Local governance and the local political career in Canada: A sample dataset

This research note introduces and describes a new dataset of political actors from the city of Kitchener, Ontario. The dataset is comprised of 348 complete political careers, across four local institutions, from 1912 to the present. This research note aims to show that large‐scale databases of local political actors can contribute to our understanding of (a) local political careers, (b) the dynamics of formal and informal local institutions, and (c) the nature and boundaries of local multilevel governance. This note concludes with some practical advice for those who wish to build similar datasets in other Canadian cities.     

Revealing the parameters of opinion: an interview with Frances Stonor Saunders

In 1999 Frances Stonor Saunders published Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta) (American title: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters). The book received much attention from the media and from academics, and triggered a renewed assessment of this important aspect of Cold War history. W. Scott Lucas interviewed Frances Saunders about the methods of the CIA, the role of the intellectuals in the political and cultural battles of the Cold War, the question of their autonomy, the need for financial support of cultural activities, and the debate about the principles of intellectuals.     

Teachers’ strikes in Argentina: Partisan alignments and public-sector labor relations

In a context of increasing teachers’ militancy in Argentina, this article provides the first empirical analysis of teachers’ strikes in all twenty-four Argentine provinces during the 1990s. Using a cross-provincial statistical analysis, it explains the wide variation across provinces and across time of Argentine teachers’ strikes. It demonstrates that political alignments between provincial governors and teachers’ unions explain these patterns better than organizational and institutional variables, which strongly shape public-sector labor relations in other countries. We emphasize the discretion of provincial governors, for both the application of labor regulations and budgetary appropriations in the politicization of provincial public-sector labor relations in Argentina, especially after the decentralization of education resulted in the provincialization of teachers’ protests. Maria Victoria Murillo is associate professor of political science and international affairs at Columbia University. She was previously an assistant professor at Yale University, a Peggy Rockefeller Fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and a Fellow at Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She is the author ofLabor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America (Cambridge University Press 2001) and various articles on the politics of market reforms, labor protest, and privatization of public utilities in Latin America. the authors acknowledge the useful suggestions of the editor and three anonymous reviewers, and the comments of Ernesto Calvo, Javier Corrales, Tulia Faletti, Miriam Golden, Frances Rosenbluth, Andrew Schrank, Kenneth Scheve, J. Samuel Valenzuela, James Vreeland; and the participants in the Seminar on Globalization and Labor Struggle at Columbia University, the Latin American Seminar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the seventh annual meeting of LACEA, and the Business School seminar at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. M. V. Murillo acknowledges the support of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and the Carnegie Program for the Study of Globalization, and L. Ronconi acknowledges the support of the CEDI at the Universidad de San Andrés.     

Beyond freedom,beyond control,beyond the Cold War: approaches to American culture and the state-private network

Cold War historiography has been through several recognizable stages over the last five decades, and the increasing interest over the last few years in cultural themes has added an important extra dimension to this. Yet the focus on ‘culture’ has rarely gone beyond studies of government support for particular cultural events and programs. Rarely have historical studies attempted to address the issue that such political uses of culture were part of an overall ideological offensive in both the East and the West. Recognition that the foreign policy of the Soviet Union was ideologically-driven is one thing, but historians have generally avoided a similar posture regarding the United States. Yet without sufficient attention as to how the US government attempted to mobilize and utilize all areas of social activity for the greater good of confronting the Soviet Union, there can be no satisfactory understanding of what the Cold War really involved In addition, this ‘ideological impulse’ has not disappeared with the end of the Cold War, as the reaction of the United States to the events of 11 September 2001 has demonstrated.     

Analysis of Ecstasy Tablets Using Capillary Electrophoresis with Capacitively Coupled Contactless Conductivity Detection

A method for the identification of 3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and meta‐chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) was developed employing capillary electrophoresis (CE) with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C⁴D). Sample extraction, separation, and detection of “Ecstasy” tablets were performed in <10 min without sample derivatization. The separation electrolyte was 20 mm TAPS/Lithium, pH 8.7. Average minimal detectable amounts for MDMA and mCPP were 0.04 mg/tablet, several orders of magnitude lower than the minimum amount encountered in a tablet. Seven different Ecstasy tablets seized in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were analyzed by CE‐C⁴D and compared against routine gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS). The CE method demonstrated sufficient selectivity to discriminate the two target drugs, MDMA and mCPP, from the other drugs present in seizures, namely amphepramone, fenproporex, caffeine, lidocaine, and cocaine. Separation was performed in <90 sec. The advantages of using C⁴D instead of traditional CE‐UV methods for in‐field analysis are also discussed.     

Voltammetric determination of Δ9-THC in glassy carbon electrode: An important contribution to forensic electroanalysis

Teeth are recently drawing attention for their potential as biological modeling investigation samples due to their ability to be collected and their slow substance metabolism. There is no active metabolism of elements after the completion of dentin. Dentin is surrounded by enamel and cementum, and is not affected by the oral environment. Therefore, the amount of trace elements in dentin may change with age, and this is considered to be a reliable biological load index. The objectives in this study are to demonstrate concentrations of elements in the dentin of healthy Japanese subjects by sex and age, and to reveal the relationship between element levels and age. 121 healthy teeth samples were extracted due to periodontal disease or orthodontic treatment. Each tooth was sliced from the crown to the root apex into 0.5-1mm thickness, then enamel, cementum, and the pulp were removed; the dentins were used as samples. The concentration of 10 trace elements (B, Mn, Co, Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr, Mo, Cd, and Pb) in the dentin was measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The differences Co and Pb in the dentin between men and women were significant (p<0.01). Significant positive correlation was observed between B, Co, Cu, Zn, Sr and Pb concentrations in the dentin and age (p<0.001). The results of the present study suggest that human dentin is an appropriate substance for relativity with sex and age at further future research.     

Decentralization and alienation

Researchers and policymakers alike have made the reduction of citizen alienation one of the important goals for decentralizing public services. Decentralization is thought to bring government closer to the public being served, and therefore to improve public attitudes toward government. No existing research fully tests this hypothesis. However, several national surveys provide sufficient data to examine the relationships between various types of citizen activity linked with decentralization and the two dimensions of political alienation, powerlessness/efficacy and distrust/trust. A review of these surveys reveals that decentralized activity, whether taking the form of citizen participation, citizen awareness of decentralized facilities, or service improvements, is consistently associated with people's sense of efficacy, but not to their sense of trust. The results thus suggest that decentralization may affect alienation in terms of reducing sense of powerlessness, but that it has no impact on people's trust in government. Decentralization of public services may therefore be one of many steps taken to reduce citizen alienation toward government, but it will not, contrary to expectations, significantly impact on alienation by itself.