Stultifying Politics Today: The “Natural Science” Model in American Political Science—How is it Natural,Science, and a Model?

This article “follows the actors” to examine the high regard for “the natural science model” in contemporary American political science. How this model is accepted as a science remains an ongoing struggle for epistemic control. This conflict shapes ideological and institutional struggles over who dictates to whom how the “study of politics” is conducted in evolving mainstream professional networks as well as civil society at large given the organizational dynamics of the contemporary American research university. These approaches to “studying politics today” also appear to be “stultifying politics today” inasmuch as this putative methodological objectivity exerts a dulling effect on civic discourse, political vision, and active citizenship.     

Trends in suicide by carbon monoxide inhalation in King County, Washington: 1996-2009

Carbon monoxide (CO) inhalation is one of the leading methods of suicide in the United States. A sharp increase in suicide by inhaling the CO produced from burning charcoal has been reported in parts of Asia; however, the incidence of this method has not been determined in a U.S. population. Thus, we determined trends of CO suicide in the ethnically diverse population of King County, Washington, U.S.A. During the period 1996-2009, we identified 158 cases of suicide by CO poisoning, with 125 because of automotive exhaust, 26 because of charcoal burning, and seven from other CO sources. While historical U.S. data indicate >99% of CO suicides in the United States occurring by automobile exhaust inhalation, in the most recent years analyzed, c. 40% of CO-related suicides in King County, Washington, were because of charcoal burning, indicating a possible shift in suicide trends that warrants further scrutiny in additional populations.     

Sleep deprivation does not mimic alcohol intoxication on field sobriety testing

Previous research shows that sleep deprivation (SD) produces cognitive impairment similar to that caused by alcohol intoxication. Individual studies suggest that SD also causes deficits in motor skills that could be mistaken for intoxication. Consequently, SD often is used as a defense when an impaired driver is charged with driving while intoxicated. Twenty-nine adult subjects participated in two test sessions each, one after a full night's rest and the other after wakefulness of at least 24 h. Subjects consumed prescribed amounts of alcohol during each session. Law enforcement officers conducted field sobriety tests identical to those with which a driver would be assessed at roadside. Researchers also measured clinical responses of visual function and vital signs. The presence and number of validated impairment clues increase with increasing blood alcohol concentration but not with SD. Thus, SD does not affect motor skills in a manner that would lead an officer to conclude that the suspect is intoxicated, unless intoxication also is present.     

Death in custody: a historical analysis

This research delineates the historical evolution of death in custody. A retrospective, exploratory analysis of 145,425 cases from Maryland's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, occurring from 1939 to 2004, was conducted. Two hundred and two custodial deaths were identified and subsequently examined relative to time, agency, decedent characteristics, and cause and manner of death. Results indicate that there have been substantive changes in custodial deaths over time. Cardiovascular disease was the most frequent cause of death from the 1930s to the 1970s, except for the 1940s, when syphilis and tuberculosis took precedence. Asphyxia, the predominant cause of death in the 1980s, reflected an increase in suicidal hangings. Emerging in the 1980s, drug intoxication deaths were prevalent in the 1990s and 2000s. Sudden unexplained deaths involving violent behavior, the use of multiple restraints, and drug intoxication were not identified until the 1980s, coinciding with periods of increased cocaine abuse nationally.     

Network Analysis and the Law: Measuring the Legal Importance of Precedents at the U.S. Supreme Court

Timothy R. Johnson Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 1414 Social Sciences Building, 267 19th Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55455 e-mail: trj{at}umn.edu James F. Spriggs, II Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1063, One Brookings Drive, St Louis, MO 63130 e-mail: jspriggs{at}artsci.wustl.edu Sangick Jeon Department of Political Science, Stanford University, 616 Serra Street, Encina Hall West, Room 100, Stanford, CA 94305-6044 e-mail: sjeon{at}stanford.edu Paul J. Wahlbeck Department of Political Science, George Washington University, 1922 F Street, N.W. Suite 401, Washington, DC 20052 e-mail: wahlbeck{at}gwu.edu e-mail: jhfowler{at}ucsd.edu (corresponding author) We construct the complete network of 26,681 majority opinionswritten by the U.S. Supreme Court and the cases that cite themfrom 1791 to 2005. We describe a method for using the patternsin citations within and across cases to create importance scoresthat identify the most legally relevant precedents in the networkof Supreme Court law at any given point in time. Our measuresare superior to existing network-based alternatives and, forexample, offer information regarding case importance not evidentin simple citation counts. We also demonstrate the validityof our measures by showing that they are strongly correlatedwith the future citation behavior of state courts, the U.S.Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In so doing,we show that network analysis is a viable way of measuring howcentral a case is to law at the Court and suggest that it canbe used to measure other legal concepts. Authors' note: We appreciate the suggestions of Randy Calvert,Frank Cross, Pauline Kim, Andrew Martin, Richard Pacelle, JimRogers, Margo Schlanger, Amy Steigerwalt, and participants inthe Workshop on Empirical Research in the Law at WashingtonUniversity in St Louis School of Law. We presented former versionsof this article at the 2006 meeting of the Midwest PoliticalScience Association, Chicago, April 20–23; the 2006 meetingof the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA,January 5–7; and the 2006 Empirical Legal Studies Conference,Austin, TX, October 27–28.     

Survey Research in Public Administration: Assessing Mainstream Journals with a Total Survey Error Framework

Survey research is a common tool for assessing public opinions, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors for analyses in many social science disciplines. Yet there is little knowledge regarding how specific elements of survey research methodology are applied in practice in public administration. This article examines five mainstream public administration journals over an eight‐year period regarding current methodological practice, organized around the total survey error framework. The findings show that survey research in the field of public administration features mainly small‐scale studies, heavy reliance on a single data collection mode, questionable sample selection procedures, and suspect sample frame quality. Survey data largely are analyzed without careful consideration of assumptions or potential sources of error. An informed evaluation of the quality of survey data is made more difficult by the fact that many journal articles do not detail data collection procedures. This study concludes with suggestions for improving the quality and reporting of survey research in the field.     

Does hypernatremia cause subdural hematoma in children?: two case reports and a meta-analysis of the literature

Hypernatremia has been causally linked with subdural hematoma (SDH), but more recently this has been called into question. Conversely, there is a well-established link between SDH and injury. We wish to examine the evidence base that hypernatremia in infants and young children causes SDH.We present 2 cases of children with severe hypernatremia whose intracranial contents were assessed by imaging in the first case and postmortem examination in the second. Neither demonstrated SDH. The first case was important as the hypernatremia was iatrogenic occurring in a controlled hospital environment.We also searched the literature from 1950 to 2007, collecting data on all reported cases of hypernatremia in children younger than 7 years whose intracranial contents were examined by imaging, surgery, and/or postmortem examination. Of 124 cases reported in 31 articles, 112 cases developed hypernatremia in the community, and 12 in the hospital. Subdural hematoma was demonstrated in 7 cases, all of which had developed hypernatremia in the community under circumstances that would make it difficult to exclude nonaccidental injury. None of the 12 cases that developed hypernatremia in a controlled hospital environment had SDH.The evidence base supporting the hypothesis that hypernatremia causes SDH is poor, depending on isolated reports with uncertain histories.