Experiencing impartiality to invoke fairness in the n-PD: Some experimental results

Subjects play a 5-person Prisoner's Dilemma both from an impartial point of view and in a regular fashion to determine whether 1) Concerns for fairness increase cooperative behavior; 2) Play of a Prisoner's Dilemma from an impartial point of view results in significantly higher levels of cooperation than does normal play; 3) Concern for fairness has greater explanatory force in explaining cooperation in impartial plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma than in normal plays; and 4) Experience with impartial play of a Prisoner's Dilemma sensitizes subjects to normative imperatives and results in higher levels of cooperation in subsequent normal plays of Prisoner's Dilemmas. The first and second hypotheses are supported, the third is inverted, and the fourth is not supported. Concern for fairness is demonstrated to play a complex role in explaining cooperative behavior in regular plays of the game. An earlier version was presented at the Annual meetings of the Public Choice Society, 1993 Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans; 20 March 1993.     

Book notes

Jeffrey Mourssaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy: When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

Val Plumwood: Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge, 1993.

Karen J. Warren, ed.: Ecological Feminism. London: Routledge, 1994.

John Brinckerhoff Jackson: A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Wendy Harcourt, editor: Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development. New Jersey: Zed Books Limited and the Society for International Development, 1994.     

The Learning Orientation of Primary Health Care Teams in the English National Health Service: Is This a Myth That Should Be Perpetuated?

A qualitative study of primary health care teams in the UK provides insight into their co-ordination or learning-orientation and how this affects member commitment, conceptions of ‘core’ and periphery, group identification and willingness to integrate roles. Even if the ideal of a learning-oriented primary health care team is viewed as a myth, it can still perform useful functions despite an apparent withdrawal of its official authorization by the Cameron-led government. The perpetuation of this myth maintains a tension between reality and potentiality in the hopes that inspire its pursuit as an ideal of team formation.     

Economic development and democracy revisited: Why dependency theory is not yet dead

It is generally accepted that there is a relationship between economic development and democracy which can be demonstrated by quantitative empirical evidence. The difficulties of validating the empirical claims derive not so much from the measures of economic development as from the measures of democracy itself. Our inquiry deepens the investigation of the relationship by 'unpacking' the dependent variable into separate measures of eight core values of liberal democratic government for 40 countries over the period 1970-1998. Our model assumes that the quality of liberal democratic government is not one-dimensional but can be measured across this range of values, so creating 'performance profiles' and demonstrating the likely trade-offs across distinct democratic values. The results of the analysis confirm that economic development has positive effects on democratic performance, but these effects vary across diverse aspects of performance and also across regions.     

International sex offender registration laws: research and evaluation issues based on a review of current scientific literature

In many jurisdictions, anyone convicted of a sexual offense is required to register with police, often for life. Nine different countries have now implemented sex offender registries in an attempt to protect the public from the perceived threat posed by sexual offenders. Yet such laws have been criticized as being overly inclusive, tying up limited law enforcement resources to track many offenders who pose little risk of sexual reoffending. This paper considers the available research evidence relevant to the effectiveness of such laws for the deterrence of sexual offending and the investigation of sex crimes. It is concluded that significant gaps persist in our knowledge of whether existing laws effectively reduce sexual offending or reoffending and that large-scale, well-designed studies of the impact of sex offender registration on rates of offending, the collateral consequences to offenders and their families, and the costs of such laws are needed.     

Deaths and COVID-19: Talk,silence and alternative realities

This article critically considers the UK Government's insidious attempts to control the narrative around COVID-19 deaths through using the interrelated strategies of “talk and ‘silence’ in order to socially construct a definitive ‘truth’” around the virus. The article traces how these strategies worked in practice and the shift which took place from numerous press briefings and Parliamentary debates to an ominous silence around the number of deaths, in particular. At the same time, as the article illustrates, the government's truth has not prevailed. Their twin strategy has been contested and resisted by grassroots organizations and radical lawyers who have demanded that Ministers should take responsibility for the tens of thousands of preventable deaths which have occurred. Rather than government talk and silence prevailing, it is the voices of the haunted relatives of the dead, demanding accountability, which are creating an alternative narrative.