Validation of voter recall: Time of electoral decision making

Accuracy of respondent recall has long been a concern in political science research. Earlier analyses of voter behavior discovered errors which included 10 to 25 percent of the sample. The present work examines an important attitudinal question which appears in each national election study: the time at which the respondent recalls making a final presidential vote choice. Data from the four-wave 1980 National Election Panel Study are used to validate the recall variable for that election campaign. A new variable — candidate preference patterns — is created which reflects consistency in individual voter preference. Only forty percent of the sample reflect consistent responses on the two measures. Furthermore, partisan strength and political involvement are found to be positively related to inconsistent behavior. Cognitive dissonance and the bandwagon effect are offered as explanations for these results.     

'Portrait of a profession revisited'

On the walls of my private office hang the photographs of my seven distinguished predecessors as Secretary of the Cabinet. I sometimes find myself staring at them for inspiration, not always successfully I admit. A week or two ago I found myself looking at the great Lord Bridges, Secretary of the Cabinet and War Cabinet from 1938 to 1946. I wondered what he would have made of it if in the space of a week one of his predecessors had published an article in The Spectator advertised as ‘The Descent of the Civil Servant’ and another had appeared on the Frost programme to reassure the world that the Service was still in good shape. Both predecessors, Lords Butler and Armstrong, I hasten to say, were acting in the most supportive spirit and spoke from what for all of us is a deeply shared view of the role of the Civil Service. But, staring at Bridges, I could see a bubble emerging from his mouth enquiring: what precisely is happening on your watch, Sir Richard?     

The Limits of Disclosure: What Research Subjects Want to Know about Investigator Financial Interests

Research participants' views about investigator financial interests were explored. Reactions ranged from concern to acceptance, indifference, and even encouragement. Although most wanted such information, some said it did not matter, was private, or was burdensome, and other factors were more important to research decisions. Very few said it would affect their research decisions, and many assumed that institutions managed potential conflicts of interest. Although disclosure of investigator financial interest information to research participants is often recommended, its usefulness is limited, especially when participation is desired because of illness.     

The Dictator Game, Fairness and Ethnicity in Postwar Bosnia

This study considers the effects of ethnic violence on norms of fairness. Once violence is a foregone conclusion, will cooperative norms ever (re‐)emerge beyond ethnic boundaries? We use an experiment that measures how fairly individuals in a postconflict setting treat their own ingroup in comparison to the outgroups—in this case, examining the behavior of 681 Muslims, Croats, and Serbs in postwar Bosnia‐Herzegovina. To assess fairness, we use the dictator game wherein subjects decide how to allocate a sum of money between themselves and an anonymous counterpart of varying ethnicity. We find that the effects of ethnicity on decision making are captured by our experiments. Although results indicate preferential ingroup treatment, the incidence and magnitude of outgroup bias is much less than expected. We conclude that norms of fairness across ethnicity are remarkably strong in Bosnia, and we take this to be a positive sign for reconciliation after violent conflict.     

Balancing revisability and robustness? A new institutionalist perspective on local government modernization

This article focuses upon one particular aspect of new institutionalist thinking – that which analyses the scope for, and constraints upon, deliberate interventions in institutional change. New institutionalist insights are used to illuminate the challenges faced by the British Labour government in its programme for modernizing local government. The focus is upon two core concepts: robustness and revisability – a pairing which highlights the potential contradictions that exist within the new institutionalist approach to design. It is argued that New Labour struggled to achieve a balance between these key design criteria during its first term, with revisability increasingly sacrificed in favour of robustness. In its second term in office (since June 2001), Labour has sought to rebalance robustness and revisability, largely through the principle of 'earned autonomy'. In this context the values informing the institutional redesign of local government have become less clear and more contested, and there has been a progressive shift from commitment-based to control-based strategies for change.     

Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews and the Journal of Experimental Criminology: Reflections on the last 20 years

Journal of Experimental Criminology -     

Leonard Woolf,the League of Nations and Peace Between the Wars

Co‐founding The Political Quarterly was one among many of Leonard Woolf's achievements during a long career as a progressive political thinker and publicist, particularly in the field of international affairs. To mark the centenary of the publication of International Government, his most innovative and influential work on the subject, this article seeks to assess Woolf's contribution. It examines the Fabian background to Woolf's work, his support for and approach to the League of Nations and his commitment to collective security as an approach to peace. Through a broader understanding of the League it argues that certain failings in the area of collective security, however profound, should not be permitted to blight an otherwise impressive intellectual legacy.     

People with special needs and sexual behaviour problems: balancing community and client interests while ensuring effective risk management

Abstract

Deinstitutionalisation movements of the mid-1900s led to changes in policy and practice in the management of people with special needs (defined for this article as people with severe and persistent mental illness, intellectual disabilities and high levels of personality factors that interfere with treatment participation). Although the majority of clients with special needs receive care in community settings and interact more with family, friends and others in the community, some such clients require more rigorous case management. For clients who have offended, especially sexually, community-based services are scarce, and concerns regarding reoffence potential often supersede traditional understandings of diminished capacity. Recent reports suggest that jails and prisons have replaced hospitals as the institutions-of-choice for clients with special needs who engage in inappropriate conduct. This paper examines policies and practices regarding community risk management of people with special needs who have sexually offended. Vignettes are provided to illustrate how some clients and agencies have been affected, and suggestions are made to ensure best practices in risk management and public safety.