Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?

Both pundits and scholars have blamed increasing levels of partisan conflict and polarization in Congress on the effects of partisan gerrymandering. We assess whether there is a strong causal relationship between congressional districting and polarization. We find very little evidence for such a link. First, we show that congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences. Second, we conduct simulations to gauge the level of polarization under various "neutral" districting procedures. We find that the actual levels of polarization are not much higher than those produced by the simulations. We do find that gerrymandering has increased the Republican seat share in the House; however, this increase is not an important source of polarization.     

Powerful perpetrators,hidden in plain sight: an international analysis of organisational child sexual abuse cases

ABSTRACT

There is virtually no literature on child sexual abuse committed by “powerful perpetrators”, who, use position, reputation, wealth and/or power, to become influential members of their organisation. Seventeen cases relating to youth serving organisations were identified using a comprehensive search of databases covering case reviews from England, Australia and the US. A Quantitative Content Analysis was used to analyse the sample with a focus on identifying offenders’ “modus operandi”. Findings revealed a number of critical differences between powerful perpetrators and other child sexual offenders described in the literature. Findings are discussed in relation to their implications for creating safer youth serving organisations. In particular, focusing on educating YSOs to recognise and address risks posed by powerful perpetrators; expanding organisational safety policies and practices and taking steps to develop a strong, positive organisational safety culture are commended as key approaches.     

Making women amateur filmmakers visible: reclaiming women’s work through the film archive

ABSTRACT

This article considers the place of women’s amateur film within regional and national film archive holdings through a specific case study of the ‘Women Amateur Filmmakers in Britain’ project at the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA). Reflecting on the process of cataloguing and presenting this collection, the article will explore the challenges of making women’s creative filmed work visible, suggesting that women’s amateur films exist at a crucial overlap of archival oversight and cultural stigma. We argue that prevailing associations of archive film with space, place and location could prevent feminist-led projects from gaining traction in the contested world of exhibition where locality often overshadows other thematic or stylistic approaches. We argue that only by reconsidering the types of films that are prioritised for preservation and presentation can women’s films be made fully visible.     

Assessing child-safe culture and practices in organisational settings: a validation and refinement of Kaufman's Organisational Safety Climate Survey

ABSTRACT

Using an Australian sample of employees (n?=?1068) we assessed the psychometric properties of Kaufman’s Organisational Safety Climate Survey and its practical utility for measuring child-safe culture within organisations. The 60-item survey was found to have adequate psychometric properties. Initial factor analyses indicated a unidimensional factor structure, despite the survey being originally conceptualised into four subscales. Cronbach’s α coefficients were .95 for the full survey, with subscales ranging from .65–.94. However, qualitative feedback from respondents indicated that the survey was somewhat laborious and repetitive, with some item ambiguity noted. Refinements to the survey resulted in a 24-item short-form survey. The psychometric properties of the short-form survey were re-assessed. Factor analyses indicated a three-factor solution. Despite a significant reduction in items, internal consistency of the scale was not compromised; reliability of subscales also improved. Validation of this short-form survey as an alternative, time-efficient measure to maximise employee participation and contribution, is recommended.     

The impact of disrupted caregiving for juvenile sexual offenders

ABSTRACT

Research that attempts to understand why young people commit sex crimes points to an array of family factors that may uniquely contribute to sexual offending over general juvenile delinquency. This study examines the potentially moderating role of disrupted caregiving in the relationship between offending and caregiver-child relationship quality. Two distinct moderators were tested: gender of caregiver and biological relationship between caregiver and child. Results indicate that juvenile sexual offenders have particularly poor relationships with their primary caregivers compared to incarcerated non-sexual offenders and community controls. Furthermore, sexual offenders with male caregivers were found to have lower relationship quality scores than sexual offenders with female caregivers. In contrast, sexual offenders raised by non-biological caregivers reported better relationship quality than did offenders raised by their biological parents. These findings suggest opportunities for early intervention, before caregiving is disrupted.     

Book reviews and notes etc.

HOW TO STUDY LAW. By A. Bradney, V. Fisher, J. Masson, A. Neal and D. Newall. [Sweet & Maxwell. 1986. 237 pp. (inc. index) £5.95 (paperback); £9.50 (cloth).]

READING THE LAW: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL METHOD AND TECHNIQUES. By Peter Goodrich. [Basil Blackwell. 1986. xi and 229 pp. £27.50 (hardback); £9.50 (paperback).]

DIRECTION, OR PREPARATIVE TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW. By William Fulbeck. [Wildwood House. 1987. xviii, 12 and 255 pp. £6.95.]

CONCORD: FREE TEXT INFORMATION RETRIEVAL. Version 3.0. By Bytesmiths Ltd. [Bytesmiths Ltd., Stoney Close, Cambridge Road, Ugley, Bishop's Stortford, Herts. 1986. £395 or £495 with full site licence]

HERACLES’ BOW: ESSAYS ON THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF THE LAW. By James Boyd White. [University of Wisconsin Press. 1985. xviii and 251 pp. (inc. index). £22.50.]

PUBLIC LAW AND POLITICS: Edited by C. Harlow. [Sweet & Maxwell. 1986. 255 pp. £28.00 (hardback).]

THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS—PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR THE CROWN PROSECUTOR. By G. Mansfield and J. Peay. [Tavistock. 1987. viii and 246 pp. £25.00 (cloth).]

POLICING INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. By Roger Geary. [Methuen. 1986. 171 pp. £5.95 (paperback).]

SEX SHOPS AND THE LAW. By Colin Manchester. [Gower. 1986. xx and 264 pp. (inc. appendices and index). £18.50.]

CIVIL LIABILITY STATUTES. By F. D. Rose. [Financial Training Ltd. 1987. x and 150 pp. £8.50 (paperback).]

TORT. Fourth edition. By C. D. Baker. [Sweet & Maxwell. 1986. xxxii & 398 pp. £8.95 (paperback).]

AN OUTLINE OF THE LAW OF AGENCY. Second edition. By B. S. Markesinis and R. J. C. Munday. [Butterworths. 1986. xxi and 255 pp. £13.50 (hardback); £8.50 (paperback).]

CASES IN THE LAW OF BANKING 1983–1985. Second edition. By P. E. Smart. [Sweet & Maxwell. 1986. 95 pp. £6.95 (paperback).]

MAUDSLEY AND BURN'S LAND LAW CASES AND MATERIALS. Fifth edition‐. By E. H. Burn. [Butterworths. 1986. xcii and 865 pp. plus index. £21.95 (soft cover); £32.00 (hard cover).]

CASES AND STATUTES ON LAND LAW. Second edition. By E. L. G. Tyler. [Sweet & Maxwell. 1986. xxvii and 335 pp. £10.95 (paperback).]

DISCUSSIONS IN BIOETHICS. VHS Videos. [Educational Media International, 25 Boileau Road, London W5 3AL. £75.00 (sale); £20.00 (rental).]     

INTERNAL RESETTLEMENT IN LAOS

In this response to an article by Holly High, “The Implications of Aspirations: Reconsidering Resettlement in Laos,” published in Critical Asian Studies in December 2008 (vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 531–50), the authors do not dispute the notion that many people in Laos have aspirations for modernity and development. However, they are at odds with High in two key ways. First, she only presents a selective reading of authors who have written critically about highland to lowland resettlement in Laos, thus misrepresenting some of their ideas. Second, the empirical evidence High provides is insufficient or inappropriate to support her argument that people who are being resettled from the uplands to the lowlands in Laos are supportive of these state-sponsored schemes because they fit with their aspirations for modernity. The authors are concerned that High's article may inadvertently serve to justify the views of those who advocate and fund centrally planned resettlement of ethnic minorities in Laos and who believe that non-participatory and top-down resettlement is acceptable if increased funding is available and better planning is conducted, even when those targeted for relocation would rather not move.     

Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power

Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union. With Appendices by Herbert Block and W. Seth Carus. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. 241 pp.

Bogdan Mieczkowski and Oleg Zinam, Bureaucracy, Technology, Ideology: Quality of Life East and West. Charleston, Ill.: Association for the Study of the Nationalities in USSR and Eastern Europe, 1984. xiii, 463 pp. Paper.

Theodore Freedman, ed., Anti‐Semitism in the Soviet Union: Its Roots and Consequences. New York, N. Y.: Freedom Library Press of the Anti‐Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith, 1984. 664 pp.

Alexander Orbach, New Voices of Soviet Jewry : A Study of the Russian‐Jewish Press of Odessa in the Era of the Great Reforms, 1860–1871. Leiden: Brill, 1980. xiv, 289 pp.

Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym, Soviet‐Jewish Emigration and Soviet Nationality Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. vii, 185 pp.

Jakub Blum and Vera Rich, The Image of the Jew in Soviet Literature: The Post‐Stalin Period. New York: Ktav [for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, London], 1985. 276 pp.

Jack Miller, ed., Jews in Soviet Culture. Transaction Books: New Brunswick and London, 1984. 325 pp.

Rex Wade, Red Guards and Workers’ Militias in the Russian Revolution, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984. 391 pp.

Michael Bruchis, Nations — Nationalities — People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, New York, 1984. 230 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Ukrainskyi istoryk [The Ukrainian Historian]. U piatdysiatelittia smerty M. Hrushevskoho [On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Death of M. Hrushevskyi]. New York, Toronto, and Munich: Ukrainian Historical Association. 1978. Vol. XXI, nos. 1–4 (81–84). 316 pp.

Teresa Rakowska‐Harmstone, ed., Communism in Eastern Europe, Second edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. viii, 391 pp. Paper.

Michael J. Sodaro and Sharon L. Wolchik, eds., Foreign and Domestic Policy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.265 pp.

John F. N. Bradley, Czech Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century, Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1984. 200 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Bogdan Szajkowski, Next to God ... Poland: Politics and Religion in Contemporary Poland. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. x, 264 pp.

Alex N. Dragnich. The First Yugoslavia: Search for a Viable Political System. Stanford: California: Hoover Institution Press, 1983, 182 pp.

Theodore George Tatsios, The Megali Idea and the Greek‐Turkish War of 1897: The Impact of the Cretan Problem on Greek Irredentism, 1866–1897. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1984. ix, 302 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Justin McCarthy. Muslims and Minorities. The Population of Ottoman Anatolia at the End of the Empire. New York and London: New York University Press, 1983. $35.00.

M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up On The South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 1880–1976 Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985, 129 pp.     

K2 Toxicity: Fatal Case of Psychiatric Complications Following AM2201 Exposure

Limited forensic and clinical experience and the lack of confirmatory testing strategies for synthetic cannabinoids (SC) prevent adequate characterization of SC toxicity and the potential impact on public health. A statewide surveillance system identified a fatality involving a 23‐year‐old man found with a large stab wound to the neck following use of a SC product suspected of containing AM2201. Analytical testing for common SCs, SC metabolites, routine drugs of abuse, and over‐the‐counter medications was performed on heart blood obtained at autopsy. Additionally, assays were performed on the SC raw material and drug paraphernalia found on the decedent. High concentrations of AM2201 were detected in all samples. AM2201 metabolites were detected in postmortem blood. Other than a trace amount of JWH‐073 found in smoke residue, no other substances were detected. Psychiatric complications including self‐induced, lethal trauma can occur after the use of SC products.