Can Incarcerated Felons Be (Re)integrated into the Political System? Results from a Field Experiment

How does America's high rate of incarceration shape political participation? Few studies have examined the direct effects of incarceration on patterns of political engagement. Answering this question is particularly relevant for the 93% of formerly incarcerated individuals who are eligible to vote. Drawing on new administrative data from Connecticut, we present evidence from a field experiment showing that a simple informational outreach campaign to released felons can recover a large proportion of the reduction in participation observed following incarceration. The treatment effect estimates imply that efforts to reintegrate released felons into the political process can substantially reduce the participatory consequences of incarceration.     

How Aspiration to Office Conditions the Impact of Government Participation on Party Platform Change

Considerable ambiguity exists regarding the effect of government/opposition status on party platform change. Existing theories predict that (1) it has no effect, (2) opposition parties change more, (3) opposition parties change more after several spells in opposition, and (4) parties’ responses vary because of different goal orientations. We propose that a party's aspiration to office, measured by its historical success or failure in entering office, determines a party's reaction to being in opposition or government. We hypothesize that, because of loss aversion, parties with low office aspiration change more when they are in government than when they are in opposition. Conversely, parties with high office aspiration change more as opposition party than as government party. We find evidence for these hypotheses through a pooled time‐series cross‐sectional analysis of 1,686 platform changes in 21 democracies, using the Comparative Manifesto Data and an innovative measure of party platform change.     

Border Controls as a Dimension of the European Union's Counter-Terrorism Policy: A Critical Assessment

This article critically examines the use and effectiveness of border controls in the European Union (EU)'s counter-terrorism policy. It shows that the EU has made substantial progress towards achieving the objectives that it had set for itself in this policy area, but has not managed to fulfil all of them, and certainly not by the deadlines originally set. It further argues that, contrary to their usual depiction in EU official documents, these border control measures make a limited contribution to the actual fight against terrorism, whilst having some negative effects. From that viewpoint, the fact that the EU has failed to meet all of its objectives in the use of border controls for counter-terrorist purposes may paradoxically be seen as a positive outcome.     

国家侵权精神损害赔偿制度研究

运行至今14年的《国家赔偿法》,自2008年10月28日至11月30日修正案草案公开向社会征求意见以来,法学界的修订建议不断,多位专家表示,若不进行系统性修正,从长远看势必影响法律的尊严与长期适用性,其中一个重大缺陷就是对与物质损害赔偿制度相适应的精神损害赔偿制度的规定甚少,存在诸多缺漏。精神损害赔偿制度的建立和完善体现了社会的进步,人们自主意识的增强和现代法律对人权的关注和保障,是社会正义和效率的要求。     

论马克思主义中国化的实践基础

马克思主义从诞生之日起就牢牢地扎根于社会实践的土壤，不断地从现实生活中吮吸自已的生命之泉，这是它坚不可摧而又不断发展的根本原因。马克思主义中国化就是遵循着马克思主义这一最基本的理论品质，把马克思主义的基本原理与中国实际情况相结合而形成的历史进程。     

Deterrence and delinquency: An analysis of individual data

Is commission of crime deterred by fear of arrest? Individual self-reported data on the commission of three crimes are analyzed in relation to perceived probabilities of arrest for more than 3000 French-speaking teenagers of the Montreal school population in 1974. The crimes are shoplifting, drug use, and stealing an item worth more than $50.00. In addition to the effect of the individuals' perceptions of the probability of arrest for the three crimes, age, sex, and previous arrest record are also taken into account. The data are all categorical. A multivariate log-linear probability model is estimated in order to test hypotheses concerning the direction and magnitude of bivariate associations among the variables. We conclude that there is clear evidence of a negative association between the subjective probability of arrest for each crime and the frequency of commission of that crime. We also find some negative cross-effects of the perceptions of the probability of arrest for one type of crime on the commission of another, holding constant the direct effects.     

Equity,health, and health care

Equity goals, such as equal treatment for equal need or equality of access, commonly take pride of place among the aims of health policy. But do these conceptions, or others derived from more fundamental philosophical systems such as those of the utilitarians or John Rawls, successfully capture the way in which the term equity is generally used? If not, is it possible to find some interpretation that can command a greater consensus? This paper answers no to the first question and yes to the second. It is argued that the standard conceptions of equity ignore the processes by which health states are determined and hence the extent to which they arise from factors beyond individual control. An alternative conception is proposed that directly incorporates these considerations.     

A cocaine body packer with normal abdominal plain radiograms. Value of drug detection in urine and contrast study of the bowel

Drug packets are usually detected by ordinary abdominal radiographs, which is of major importance in the apprehension and prosecution of drug body packers, but false negatives may occur. We report the case of a cocaine body packer who had used the prograde route and in whom the initial abdominal plain films were normal. The diagnosis of cocaine body packing was assessed by seldom-described complementary methods of detection, including drug detection in the urine and contrast study of the bowel.     

An Analysis of Presidential Preferences in the Distribution of Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities

Critics regarded the selection of urban empowerment zones and enterprise communities by Secretary Cisneros in 1994 as sympathetic to President Clinton's considerations. However, the secretary countered that cities were chosen based on their ability to revitalize their communities successfully, as outlined in their applications. To determine whether the secretary responded to top-down presidential preferences, data from the complete list of applications is used to test four hypotheses derived from principal—agent theory. The results of the logistic regression models do not validate the significance of the presidential variables (for instance, presidential support score for each city's congressional delegation, marginal districts, and 1992 state vote for President Clinton). Rather, many of the nonpresidential variables (community participation, size of the empowerment zone or enterprise community, and poverty) were significant in supporting the secretary's contention.