The Normality of Political Administration and State Violence: Casuistry,Law, and Drones

Large unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) equipped with missiles and bombs or battle-equipped have progressively become the newest wave in “warfare.” We argue that the use of drones for targeted assassinations is merely a new technological tool for state violence that is increasingly becoming a regular exercise of the US power in the construction and reification of the broader social geopolitical order. Further, it is through law, domestic and international, that state violence, wars and the use of drones for targeted assassinations are legitimated and are a normality, and continuation of, the political management of the state. Taken with the core of humanitarian law that legitimates war and state violence, we suggest that the use of drones can be interpreted within the body of legislation, political discourse, and laws that serve to normalize and legitimize their use: no different than such processes that occurred with the technological advances that offered military tanks, aerial bombing, projectile missiles or even nuclear and chemical weapons.     

The showup identification procedure: An exploration of systematic biases

Purpose. Showups are common, yet little research has investigated the biasing factors that may influence showup identifications. We investigated the effects of cross‐race conditions and clothing bias on showup identification decisions. Additionally, we explored identification decisions made in a subsequent lineup dependent on race, clothing, and showup‐target‐presence. Methods. Participants watched a mock crime and were presented with a showup in which suspect race, target‐presence, and the clothing worn by the suspect were varied. Following a delay, participants viewed a target‐present or ‐absent lineup and were asked to make a second identification decision. Results. Presentation of the suspect in the clothing worn by the perpetrator increased choosing rates in both own‐race and other‐race conditions. Despite this, differential patterns of decision response latencies indicated that eyewitnesses may use clothing information differently when making own‐race compared to other‐race identification decisions. No evidence for an own‐race bias in showup identifications was found; however, other‐race lineup identifications were less accurate than own‐race lineup identifications. Further, participants in own‐race and other‐race conditions differed in the extent to which they were affected by multiple identification procedures. Viewing an own‐race innocent suspect in a showup increased subsequent false lineup identifications, while choosing the innocent suspect from the showup was necessary to increase false lineup identifications in other‐race conditions. Conclusions. Different situational factors may affect the identification accuracy of eyewitnesses in own‐race and other‐race conditions for both showup and lineup procedures. Particular caution is advised when showups are clothing‐biased and multiple identification procedures are used.     

Effect of Substrate Interferences from High‐Density Polyethylene on Association of Simulated Ignitable Liquid Residues with the Corresponding Liquid

The effect of substrate interferences from high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) on the ability to associate an ignitable liquid residue with the corresponding liquid standard, using statistical procedures, is demonstrated. Gasoline, kerosene, and lighter fluid, at three different evaporation levels, were spiked onto HDPE and subsequently burned to generate simulated ignitable liquid residues (ILRs). Samples were extracted using a passive headspace procedure and analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The total ion chromatograms were subjected to data pretreatment procedures prior to principal components analysis and Pearson product moment correlation. Using the combination of these statistical procedures, simulated ILRs were successfully associated with the corresponding liquid type, despite the presence of compounds inherent to the HDPE substrate, as well as those resulting from pyrolysis of the substrate.     

Community Responsibility for Preventing Sexual Violence: A Pilot Study with Campus Greeks and Intercollegiate Athletes

Previous research has noted higher incidences of sexual violence on campus among members of campus Greeks and athletes and the need to do prevention programs with them. This article presents the results of an exploratory pilot study of a sexual violence prevention program with members of one fraternity, sorority, men's and women's intercollegiate athletic team. The program, experimentally evaluated and found to be effective with a general sample of undergraduates, was used to determine its efficacy specifically with Greeks and athletes. The model on which the program is based calls for prevention efforts that take a wider community approach rather than simply targeting individuals as potential perpetrators or victims. Results from repeated-measures analysis of variance indicate that the program worked overall. Future directions are discussed.     

Clarifying Consent: Primary Prevention of Sexual Assault on a College Campus

Although more universities are developing policies for students regarding consent for sexual behavior in response to the problem of sexual violence on campus, many students seem either unaware of these policies or what they mean for actual behavior. Policies are only as effective as peoples' understanding and use of them. The current study aimed to evaluate the utility of a prevention education program focused on teaching students about consent. Two hundred and twenty undergraduates, composing a control group, a shorter treatment group, and a longer one, participated in the study. The findings showed the greatest knowledge gain for participants in the longer treatment group that included a discussion of the policy and participation in an activity dealing with its implications. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

PAKISTAN (REVIEW ARTICLE)

Victoria Schofield reviews two books on Pakistan:- the third, much revised, edition of Owen Bennett Jones’ Pakistan In the Eye of the Storm and Hilary Synnott's Transforming Pakistan, Ways out of Instability. Both books are arranged thematically and are full of useful information. They underline how important it is for outsiders to understand the course of recent events. For even though the problems facing Pakistan can in the end only be resolved by Pakistanis, outsiders undoubtedly have a crucial role to play.     

The global game of football: The 2002 World Cup and regional development in Japan

Analysis of major sports or 'mega'-events, including the Soccer World Cup, enables consideration of several overlapping and intersecting issues. These include: centre-periphery relationships related to governance in world sport; power relations between nation states, supranational sport associations and the sports business; the media-sport-business connection; the cultural production of ideologies needed to cover emergent fissures-- such as over who actually controls 'global games'; and what the costs and benefits of hosting these events actually are. By focusing on the relationship between the 2002 World Cup and the development of the social and football infrastructure in contemporary Japan, this paper offers insight into the relationship between the global and the local, and especially the last of these issues. It concludes that attempts to utilise football and the (co-)hosting of the 2002 World Cup for sports purposes has benefited the development of the sport as a commercial spectacle rather than as an everyday practice. Related goals, such as the relocation of population from the centre to the periphery, economic income generation and a general improvement in the quality of life of the Japanese population as a whole, are still far from being accomplished.     

Charitable Choice Implementation: What Public Managers Should Know About Public Opinion and the Potential Impact of Government Funding on Private Giving

Charitable Choice, a cornerstone of President Bush's domestic policy agenda, provides that faith-based organizations (FBOs) will have an opportunity to compete for government contracts. However, few empirical studies examine the impact of public funding to FBOs on individual charitable giving to FBOs. Using public opinion survey data and multivariate analysis to examine this relationship, we find that most financial supporters of FBOs report that they would not change their giving behavior in the wake of increased government funding to FBOs, contrary to the much- established crowding-out hypothesis. The policy and management implications of these findings are discussed.     

An STR database on the Volga-Ural population

This work develops a reference STR database on the Volga-Ural population, Russia, comprised of 640 individuals that were sampled from eight ethnic groups (Finno-Ugric Mari, Mordva-Moksha, Mordva-Erzja, Komi-Permjak, and Udmurt, and Turkic-speaking Bashkir, Tatar-Mishary, and Chuvash) and typed with 10 autosomal STR markers: TH01, CSF1P0, FGA, vWA, D3S1358, TPOX, D16S539, D8S1179, D13S317, FES. The groups differentiate in allele frequencies, and therefore we computed θ-values between allele frequencies in each ethnic groups and those in the database as a measure of their differentiation. Nevertheless, the Volga-Ural ethnic groups form a relatively compact cluster that greatly deviate from the Romanic Moldovans and the Turkic Yakuts, taken for comparison, and are closer to the Slavic Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, although significantly differ from those as well.