Presidents and prime ministers

An American, he has lived in Great Britain for many years and has been studying problems of political leadership in America and Europe for three decades. His books include Presidents and Prime Ministers; Managing Presidential Objectives; Understanding Big Government;and, forthcoming from Chatham House, The Post-Modern Presidency: The World Closes in on the White House.     

The Observers Observed

Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science (Routledge, 1989), £40 hardback.

Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, Sally Shuttleworth (eds), Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science (Routledge, 1990), £35.00.

Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), £21.25 hardback, £12.95 paperback

Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modem Science (Harvard University Press, 1989), £23.50.     

Australia's treaty activity in the Asia-Pacific: a sub-regional trends analysis

This paper investigates Australian treaty making with neighboringcountries in the Asia-Pacific. Patterns of Australian treatymaking with South East Asian countries are markedly differentto those with South West Pacific countries and the differenceis continuing to deepen. Treaties with the former are primarilybilateral and commercially oriented, whereas those with thelatter are plurilateral and oriented to natural resources managementand development. There is a major gap in Australian subregionaltreaty activity for natural resources management in South EastAsian countries. A coalescence of issues in the law enforcementand security categories is occurring and the new direction inAustralian regional treaty making for both subregions is tostrengthen capacity to enforce the rule of law in national legalsystems. Commercial treaty making remains and is likely to continueto be the strongest area of treaty activity. Received for publication November 4, 2006. Accepted for publication April 5, 2007.     

Coalitions of Contention: The Case of the WTO Protests in Seattle

Coalitions of organizations are cooperative arrangements that require ongoing management of conflicts among members and potential members. Using data on both successful and unsuccessful attempts at coalition building during the 1999 protests against the WTO in Seattle, we explain the variation in the formation of one type of coalition of organizations, the 'event coalition', in which social movement organizations coalesce around a specific protest event. We find that objectively common organizational interests and framing are necessary but not sufficient for explaining coalition partnering. Organizational representatives must also calculate a benefit from pooled resources and be able to commit credibly to delivering promised resources and to resolving the inevitable tensions that arise among coalition partners.     

Effects of personality,interrogation techniques and plausibility in an experimental false confession paradigm

Purpose. The goal of the present study was to investigate the effects of personality variables, interrogation techniques and the plausibility level of an alleged transgression on the experimental elicitation of false confessions. Methods. Two hundred and nineteen undergraduate students assessed on measures of compliance, self‐esteem, locus of control and interrogative suggestibility participated in the Kassin and Kiechel (1996) paradigm. Experimental manipulations included minimization and maximization interrogation techniques and high and low plausibility of the alleged typing mistake to examine rates of false confession and internalization. Results. The overall false confession and internalization rates across all conditions were 43 and 10%, respectively. An increased likelihood of false confession behaviour was associated with higher Shift scores on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, the use of minimization interrogation techniques and an increase in the plausibility of the allegation. Females were more likely to falsely confess than males in the high plausibility condition, whereas Caucasian and Asian participants were equally likely to falsely confess. Personality variables, such as compliance, most influenced the behaviour of males and Asians. Conclusions. The results of this study offer insight into false confession behaviour, suggesting that individuals who have a tendency to change their responses in the face of negative feedback may be more prone to false confession behaviour. The findings also serve to highlight the dangers of using minimization interrogation techniques and elucidate the limited generalizability of the paradigm to situations in which the alleged transgression is less plausible.     

“To This Day She Continues to Struggle with the Terror Imposed upon Her”: Rape Narratives in Victim Impact Statements

This study locates the victim impact statements of raped women in the sociolegal context of significant sentencing law reforms introduced in Canada to address an ascendant victim’s rights movement. We examine 38 reported sentencing decisions in sexual assault cases in Ontario, Canada (1999–2010). Our objectives are to discern (a) whether the archetype of the ideal victim continues to influence juridical discourse after conviction and (b) what narratives of harm intersect with sentencing objectives and aggravating factors. Our findings suggest women express profound fear of re-victimization and traumatic effects of sexual violence regardless of the relational context of their rape experience. Most surprisingly, our data show sentencing judges view the sexual assault of an intoxicated rape victim as an aggravating factor. Future consideration for victim impact statements in sexual assault cases is discussed.