Public Preferences for Program Tradeoffs: Community Values for Budget Priorities

A growing literature concerns techniques to improve community-based reforms and citizen-centered governance in order to reinforce the trust in democratic government. We analyze a contingent choice technique that systematically collects information about individual citizens' relative values of a set of state public programs. Individual citizens are asked to allocate a fixed increment of public funds. Individuals reveal their marginal willingness to trade off (MWTTO) additions in one program for additions in another. MWTTO values provide program rankings and information concerning the relative strength of citizen preferences. An example of a contingent choice survey is described.     

Solving for the X: Aspirations and Expectations of College Students

We questioned if there is a set of values and goals that distinguish Generation X individuals by asking 462 college students in four institutions to think ahead ten years, and rate the importance of success in various life domains to their future satisfaction. We also asked them to indicate obstacles, if any, that might prove to be barriers as they sought their life goals. As predicted, there was considerable value consensus across race, gender, and social class categories, and little to suggest that Generation X college students differ from preceding generations in their core concerns; for example, women students attached greater importance than men to attaining family goals, but men and women students did not differ in the importance they attached to economic success. Unexpectedly, we found that students of color rated economic success as more important than did white students. Women students of both races, and minority students of both genders, anticipated discrimination as a likely future obstacle. Contrary to the popular assumption of Generation X alienation, most students thought it likely that they would achieve their life goals, although students whose parents were less well-educated expressed concern that difficulties with connections, money, and getting the right education might impede their future success. Despite the general optimism of the youths we studied, we found no correlation between college academic performance as measured by grade point average, and the importance attached to future material success, suggesting that their hopes for the future may not be founded on present effort and accomplishment.     

Audience Costs and Interstate Crises: An Empirical Assessment of Fearon's Model of Dispute Outcomes

In a recent article, James Fearon advances an innovative approach to the study of interstate crises. He adds to the traditional view (that crisis outcomes are influenced by the balance of capability and the balance of resolve) the notion that domestic political audiences exert a strong influence over which state in a crisis is likely to achieve a successful outcome. His game-theoretic analysis yields a number of interesting hypotheses, which are tested in this study using data on militarized disputes, the structure of polities, and national capability. In general the results strongly support Fearon's model, though we find that relative national capabilities do tend to affect the outcomes of crises. This study highlights the importance of combining formal models of political events with large-N empirical tests.     

U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq: A Perspective on Year 5

President Bush's surge strategy intends to use the might of the U.S. military to establish secure conditions in Iraq under which the promise of political progress will be realized. The U.S. military used this approach in the past when the U.S. Fallujah Offensive of late 2004 established security for the Iraqi Election Cycle in 2005. But the promise of political progress for insurgents was not fulfilled in 2006 upon formation of the Maliki government, and they resorted to extreme levels of violence in response, killing 1,080 U.S. troops during the 12 months ending September 2007, more than in any other comparable period. In the second half of Year 5, from September 2007 through the fifth anniversary of the war on March 19, 2008, U.S. forces in cooperation with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias helped improve security conditions once again. But unless the surge's promise of political progress is fulfilled, the patience of the insurgents and militias is likely to dissipate and violence will increase once again in Year 6.     

Development of a Nomenclature System for a Canine STR Multiplex Reagent Kit*†

Abstract: Despite the popularity of dogs in US households, canine DNA evidence remains largely untapped in forensic investigations partially because of the absence of well‐defined forensic short tandem repeats (STRs), lack of standardized and validated PCR protocols, STR reagent kits, and poorly developed nomenclature. A nomenclature system was established based on internationally recognized recommendations for human forensic STRs for a recently developed canine STR reagent kit. Representative alleles were sequenced from each of the 18 STRs and the sex‐typing marker included in the kit. This study also reflects on the impact of point mutations, insertions, and deletions within and outside the STR core repeat structures. An understanding of the STRs’ sequence and repeat structures will enable development of a robust and reliable allele nomenclature and improve the accuracy and precision of allele fragment sizing in canine forensic profiling. The expected allele sizes have been calculated, and their repeat stuctures defined based on sequence information.     

The trouble with psychopathy as a general theory of crime

The concept of psychopathy, as defined by Robert Hare, is reviewed with respect to its status as a general theory of crime. A hybrid of the medical pathology model and personality trait approach, the psychopathy concept proposes that a significant portion of serious crime is committed by psychopathic individuals. Hare's version of psychopathy, besides demonstrating weak applicability and a propensity for tautology, is subject to labeling effects, oversimplicity, reductionism, the fundamental attributional error, inattention to context, and disregard for the dynamic nature of human behavior. It is concluded that the psychopathy concept is substantially limited with respect to its ability to describe and clarify general criminal behavior but that it may still have value as a partial explanation for certain types of non-criminal predatory behavior.     

Follower at the Frontier: International Competition and Japanese Industrial Policy

A dominant orthodoxy in political-economic analyses of international competition is to highlight how national industrial performance and the competitive balance between nations are determined by domestic features of national political economies. In contrast, this article reverses these causal arrows by highlighting how the international competitive environment itself can shape and reshape domestic and state structures. Japan's high-profile, large-scale national research and development programs in computer and semiconductor technologies serve as instructive testing grounds for this argument. Illustrating how shifts in international competitiveness can induce changes in domestic structures, Japan's R&D projects display a secular decline in the government's interventionist capabilities as the country's computer and semiconductor industry dramatically moves from industry follower to technological pioneer.     

Reports call for end to harms caused by Criminal Code prohibitions surrounding prostitution

The sale of sexual services between consenting adults is legal under Canadian law, yet the Criminal Code prohibits many activities related to prostitution and the sex trade. As a result, many people who work in the sex trade come into conflict with the law. In recent reports, two Canadian organizations have called for the repeal of the current Criminal Code prohibitions on activities related to the sex trade. Pivot Legal Society's report, "Voices for Dignity: A Call to End the Harms Caused by Canada's Sex Trade Laws," was released in March 2004. The Conseil permanent de la jeunesse, a 15-member advisory panel to the Québec government, released "Prostitution de rue: avis" in April 2004.     

Improper sealing caused by the Styrofoam integrity seals in leakproof plastic bottles lead to significant loss of ethanol in frozen evidentiary urine samples

Evidentiary urine samples (n = 345) stored frozen at -20 degrees C in their original containers (leakproof 100 mL plastic bottles) upon retesting for ethanol resulted in concentrations that were significantly lower (average loss = approximately 30%) than those prior to their storage at -20 degrees C (p < or = 0.0001). The observed loss of ethanol was independent of the method of thawing or the concentration of ethanol in the samples, but was dependent on the sample volume in the container, i.e., the larger the volume of sample the larger the magnitude of ethanol loss. The loss of ethanol was determined to be due to improper sealing by a Styrofoam integrity seal attached to the mouth of the container. Accordingly, adopting leakproof plastic containers that do not contain Styrofoam integrity seals, but rather an outside and across the cap tape integrity seal for evidence collection and long-term storage, will prevent loss of ethanol due to evaporation.