Are hypnotically induced pseudomemories resistant to cross-examination?

Two experiments examined the effects of hypnotic procedures in response to interrogation and crossexamination in subjects who viewed a simulated robbery. Experiment 1 found that hypnotic and nonhypnotic leading interrogations were equally likely to produce misattributions and misidentification of mug shots. Moreover, under cross-examination subjects who had been given an hypnotic interrogation and those given nonhypnotic interrogations were equally likely to disavow their earlier misattributions and misidentifications. In both hypnotic and nonhypnotic treatments high hypnotizables were more likely than low hypnotizables to misattribute characteristics during interrogation and to disavow earlier misattributions during cross-examination. In Experiment 2 high hypnotizables given a cross-examination that legitimated their earlier errors as honest mistakes and that enabled them to disavow earlier testimony without discrediting themselves (hidden observer treatment) showed the highest and most consistent rates of disavowel. A stringent cross-examination that implied that subjects had been careless or dishonest during interrogation produced the lowest rates of disavowel.     

Political Manipulation Or Feedback In English Local Authorities’ Standard Spending Assessments? The Case Of The Abolition Of The Inner London Education Authority

The focus of attention in this article is on the major shift in Education Standard Spending Assessments, and with it central grants, in favour of Inner London which first took place in 1990, and has persisted since then. This coincided both with the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority and the transfer of education responsibilities to the Inner London Boroughs, and the introduction of the poll tax. The objective of this article is to test whether this shift in favour of Inner London was due to political manipulation or, instead, was another example of the long-established technical characteristic of 'feedback' in spending needs assessments in the English local finance system. A test is devised which distinguishes between these two explanations and involves the use of an Inner London dummy variable. The results provide strong evidence of political manipulation. The implications of this finding are considered.     

Policy process perceptions of senior Canadian federal civil servants: a view of the state and its environment

Abstract: Based on interviews with senior civil federal civil servants in Ottawa, perceptions of various actors' influence on public policy are examined. It is hypothesized that perceived influence patterns will change as one moves across the major phases of the policy process. Although it is expected that actors within the state will be of primary importance throughout the process, it is also expected that the relative importance of actors outside the state will increase as one moves from forming a policy agenda and selecting policy towards policy implementation. This should be particularly true of the perceived influence of private companies. Despite this change in perceived levels of influence of state versus non-state actors, the structure of correlation patterns for perceived influence patterns will probably not change dramatically from one policy process phase to the next. Results are also presented pertaining to the actual interaction patterns of the civil servants who were interviewed, as well as the relation between interaction and perceived influence. It is expected that there will be positive relations between these two types of variables but that direct interaction will not consistently explain the majority of variation in perceived influence variables. Sommaire: À la suite d'entrevues avec des hauts fonctionnaires fédéraux à Ottawa, on examine ici les perceptions quant à l'influence de divers intervenants sur les politiques gouvernementales. On prend pour hypothèse que ces perceptions évolueront à mesure que l'on avance d'une grande étape à l'autre dans le processus de définition des politiques. On s'attend à ce que les intervenants étatiques jouent un rôle primordial tout au long du processus, mais aussi à ce que le rôle relatif des intervenants extérieurs au gouvernement prenne de l'ampleur lorsqu'on passe de l'établissement d'une liste de politiques au choix des politiques elles-mêmes et, en?fin, à la mise en oeuvre de ces politiques. Ceci devrait s'appliquer tout particulièrement à la manière dont on perçoit l'influence des sociétés privées. Malgré ce changement du niveau d'influence perçu entre les intervenants gouvernementaux et les nongouvernementaux, la structure corrélative des influences perçues ne changera probablement pas de façon dramatique d'une étape à l'autre du processus d'élaboration des politiques. On présente également des résultats concernant l'interaction effective des fonctionnaires interviewés, ainsi que le rapport entre cette interaction et l'influence perçue. On prévoit des rapports positifs entre ces deux groupes de variables, mais aussi que l'interaction directe ne saurait expliquer de manière cohérente la plupart des variations dans les variables de l'influence perçue.     

The scope and limits of financial liberalisation in developing countries: A critical survey

This article reviews the growing literature on financial reform in developing countries. We draw both on the theoretical contributions outlining the case for and against liberalisation as well as on the experience of many developing countries with liberalisation. We argue that the existence of market failures in financial markets hampers the liberalisation process and indeed suggests that the simple liberalising strategy envisaged in much of the literature is inappropriate. We argue instead for an alternative strategy which integrates some aspects of liberalisation with the development of appropriate financial institutions designed to serve best the needs of the real economy.     

A CELEBRATORY FEMINIST AESTHETICS IN POSTFEMINIST TIMES

In 2011, something surprising happened in terms of Australian feminist cultural memory: a celebratory feminism arrived in the shape of the hugely popular ABC television mini-series, Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo. Eschewing dour social realism for a stylish and ludic narrative, Paper Giants uses the story of the women's magazine Cleo to tell the story of Australian women's liberation. This essay analyses the components of the mini-series' celebratory feminist aesthetics, examining the ways in which it mobilises feminist tropes to speak an intelligible feminist language in postfeminist times. Further, I detail how women's liberation becomes central to the national historical narrative underpinning the programme.