Book reviews

Ephraim Maisel, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1991–1926 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 1994), £35. ISBN 1–898723–04–4.

Timothy P. Maga, The World of Jimmy Carter: U.S. Foreign Policy 1977–1981 (West Haven, CT: University of New Haven Press, 1994). 189 pp. ISBN 0–936385–23–0.

Michael Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of South‐East Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), xii + 271pp. £45. ISBN 0–415–04219–4.

Christopher C. Harmon and David Tucker (eds.), Statecraft and Power: Essays in Honor of Harold W. Rood (Lanham and London: University Press of America with the National Institute for Public Policy, 1994), 284pp ISBN 0–8191–8718–6.     

Preface

ABSTRACT

Although first explicitly coined in Renaissance Italy, the notion of a ‘balance of power’ – the conduct of state actors to meet the logics of power balancing – goes back to pre-modern times. Traditionally, scholars have looked to the Punic Wars and the early modern period as early evidence for the balance. However, the ancient Near East during the second-millennium BC has received far less attention. Yet Western Asia existed as an international arena of states fully integrated in a system based on interdependence and power balancing. In the field of International Relations, systematic analyses of this phase in world history remain under-developed. Accordingly, the question of when a systemic environment for the balancing behaviour existed for the first time has been addressed less in International Relations theory where the literature leans primarily on the European experience.     

Does resting heart rate at age 18 distinguish general and violent offending up to age 50? Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Purpose

There is a sizable literature documenting the relationship between resting heart rate and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Absent from the literature is the extent to which heart rate has long-term prediction into late middle adulthood and the extent to which such effects are specific to certain crime types, such as violence, or whether heart rate effects are more general.

Methods

This study uses data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London males followed through age 50 in order to examine these two research questions.

Results

Results suggest that lower heart rates are significantly associated with total conviction frequency and involvement in violence. This pattern of relationships is not altered by the inclusion of additional risk factors such as early childhood risk factors, adolescent involvement in smoking, body mass index, participation in team sports, binge drinking, or a measure of impulsivity.

Conclusions

Heart rate was found to be a significant correlate of criminal offending. Study limitations and implications are discussed.     

The relationship between schemas and offence supportive attitudes in mentally disordered sexual offenders

Abstract

The study of schemas in sexual offenders is a relatively new approach in attempts to understand the deviant beliefs and attitudes of sexual offenders. Emerging findings suggest that offence supportive attitudes may be the product of an offender's underlying schemas. This study aims to establish the relationship between offence supportive attitudes and schemas in a sample of mentally disordered sexual offenders (MDSOs). Thirty-one male sexual offenders held within low through high security forensic mental health units were assessed using the Young Schema Questionnaire - Short Version 3 and the Questionnaire on Attitudes Consistent with Sex Offending. Correlational analyses suggested a pattern of relationships in which Insufficient Self-control, Entitlement and Enmeshment arose as the schemas associated with most offence supportive attitudes. This supports a relationship between schemas and offence supportive attitudes in MDSOs and is consistent with the literature to date. Implications for further research and treatment are considered.     

His,Hers, or Ours: Impacts of a Training and Asset Transfer Programme on Intra-Household Decision-Making in Zambia

This paper studies the effects of a multifaceted asset transfer programme on the decision-making dynamics of smallholder households. Constructing separate indexes of participation in household decision-making for adult females and males, and using difference-in-differences to assess the impact of livestock transfer and training, we find evidence that these interventions increased the share of decisions in which individuals participated, regardless of gender. Increases in decision-making participation by both men and women are driven by an increase in joint decision-making within the household on the extensive margin. Decisions made jointly by men and women increased by 16 per cent across all household activities, with statistically significant declines in independent decision-making by men and women. Findings are encouraging given the evidence of welfare gains associated both with increases in participation in decision-making by women as well as increased cooperation within households.     

A Tangled Web: Complexity and Inequality in the English Local Government Finance Settlement

The £29 billion formula grant stands at the heart of the English local government finance system. This transfer of resource from central to local government has, since 2006–07, been distributed using the so-called ‘four block model’. This extraordinarily complex formula-based funding mechanism aims to ensure that all local authorities are able to provide individuals with a broadly comparable level of public service – offering greatest support to local authorities with high service needs and/or low capacity to raise revenue. This paper outlines the structure and workings of the four block model and, drawing attention to key methodological shortcomings, explains why the resulting distribution of the formula grant is both arbitrary and inequitable. In particular it argues that key model parameters – specifically the need and resource equalisation proportions – are set in order to fulfil a particular funding outcome. This flies in the face of the basic tenets of resource allocation methodology in that, being outcome-led, the approach is clearly neither need-based nor impartial. The paper argues that the four block model fails to meet its own goal of fiscal equalisation, is likely to lead to increasing service disparities, and must be replaced as a matter of urgency.     

Investigating political marketing using mixed method: the case for campaign spending data

This article is a response to calls for new research methods in the study of political marketing. We submit that the mixed method approach to studying how political parties use opinion research and political communication is underused. More specifically we believe that campaign spending data, which are commonly analyzed in electoral studies, can become a significant source of information for the study of political marketing. We summarize the availability of electoral expenditure data in 13 established democracies before using a mixed method design to study political marketing management in Canada. We seek to validate quantitative data about marketing spending activity by administering semi‐structured interviews with practitioners who held senior campaign positions in major political parties. Our preliminary look at campaign finance through a political marketing scholarship lens reveals the strengths of drawing insights from such data but also some limitations. We conclude that, as other research has posited, Canadian political parties focus more on advertising in their approach to campaigning. More broadly, we propose that students of political marketing should balance proprietary interviews with transparent, standardized, replicable and objective sources of information such as campaign spending data, and vice‐versa. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Share the Wealth: Redistribution Can Increase Economic Efficiency

People frequently face uncertain income and the threat of loss can inhibit economic investments. Government redistribution can insure citizens against economic losses, but its effect on people’s investment decisions depends on how they react to redistributive rules. We apply methods from experimental economics to study how a redistributive institution affects people’s investment decisions. Experiment 1 tests whether redistribution can increase economic efficiency when people face risk problems—investment opportunities that are profitable on average but could result in a loss. In a between-subject design, participants decide whether to make a risky investment either individually or under an institution that redistributes earnings equally among four group members. We find greater investment and profits when participants are required to share their earnings. In Experiment 2, we examine free-riding by comparing an institution that allows non-investors to exploit investors to an assortment institution that matches investors with investors. We find that vulnerability to free-riding suppresses investment, whereas an assortment mechanism increases investment by preventing free-riding and thereby facilitating risk pooling.