Bureaucracy and Radical Politics: The Case of the Greater London Council

New Left Organizational Theory contains a powerful critique of bureaucracy, and in its place offers a model of collectivist organization. This rejection of bureaucracy, however, is inadequate for understanding left political strategy in the advanced capitalist state. The experience of the radical Greater London Council during the early 1980s suggests a more dialectical critique of bureaucracy, one that recognizes structural opportunities for the democratic transformation of bureaucracy. This study outlines a Gramscian organizational theory that goes beyond New Left Organizational Theory by suggesting a strategy of participatory centralization for radical politics within the state.     

Recovery of DNA for forensic analysis from lip cosmetics.

To obtain a reference DNA profile from a missing person, we analyzed a variety of personal effects, including two lip cosmetics, both of which gave full DNA profiles. Further investigations were undertaken to explore this previously unreported source of DNA. We have tested a range of brands and types of lip cosmetics. Our studies have revealed that lip cosmetics are an excellent source of DNA, with almost 80% of samples giving a result. However, artifacts are frequently observed in the DNA profiles when Chelex is used for the DNA extraction and additional DNA purification procedures are required to ensure that an accurate DNA profile is obtained.     

The dynamics of federalism,subnational markets and trade policy-making in Canada and the US

Preferential trade agreements are now the dominant trend in the international trading regime. Unlike earlier ‘first generation’ agreements, the new agreements became more comprehensive in their coverage, impinging on areas that are subject to subnational jurisdiction of federal systems. Given constitutionally-prescribed competences allocated to subnational governments, the diversity of interests and sensitivities of subnational entities bring deeply entrenched regulatory practices under scrutiny. Few studies have focused on whether the combination of economic liberalization and political fragmentation will push federal and sub-federal entities to address domestic market fragmentation. We examine whether international market liberalization fosters domestic regulatory and structural reforms to cross-border barriers to trade in Canada and the United States. We show that while the political incentives and functional pressures generated by free trade agreements have fostered attempts at addressing internal market restrictions in Canada, the US has not followed the same path due to weaker mechanisms of intergovernmental coordination.     

Eyewitness identification

In a simulated crime stituation, 3 groups of eyewitnesses viewed 2 target persons through a one-way mirror and were tested for accuracy of identification after dealy periods of 2, 21, or 56 days. Subjects made identifications from either a live “show-up” or by looking at photographs. In both methods of testing only 1 of the 2 targets was actually present in the 5-man array. Results indicated that delay affects number of false alarms, test method affects number of hits. Photographs produced less accurate performance than live show-up. More than 60% of the subjects erroneously selected one of the 4 distractor persons, a finding relevant to the use of eyewitness identification in criminal investigations. Only 28% of the subjects made no errors of identification.     

Voters,dictators, and peons: expressive voting and pivotality

Why do the poor vote against redistribution? We examine one explanation experimentally, namely that individuals gain direct expressive utility from voting in accordance with their ideology and understand that they are unlikely to be pivotal; hence, their expressive utility, even if arbitrarily small, determines their voting behavior. In contrast with a basic prediction of this model, we find that the probability of being pivotal does not affect the impact of monetary interest on whether a subject votes for redistribution.