Methodological Issues in Researching Criminal Justice Policy: Belief Systems and the ‘Causes of Crime’

Despite the influence of Heclo and a few other scholars, traditional conceptions of policy-making have failed to link the intellectual and political, economic and institutional aspects of the process by close ties of mutual relevance... The failure to link together ideas and events has seriously reduced the ability of these models to explain how policies change (Majone 1989: 148).     

Back to first principles: a new model for the regulation of drug promotion

The US Food and Drug Administration''s (‘FDA’ or the ‘Agency’) current regulatory framework for drug promotion, by significantly restricting the ability of drug manufacturers to communicate important, accurate, up-to-date scientific information about their products that is truthful and non-misleading, runs afoul of the First Amendment and actually runs counter to the Agency''s public health mission. Our article proposes a New Model that represents an initial proposal for a modern, sustainable regulatory framework that comprehensively addresses drug promotion while protecting the public health, protecting manufacturers’ First Amendment rights, establishing clear and understandable rules, and maintaining the integrity of the FDA approval process. The New Model would create three categories of manufacturer communications—(1) Scientific Exchange and Other Exempt Communications, (2) Non-Core Communications, and (3) Core Communications—that would be regulated consistent with the First Amendment and according to the strength of the government''s interest in regulating the specific communications included within each category. The New Model should address the FDA''s concerns related to off-label speech while protecting drug manufacturers’ freedom to engage in truthful and non-misleading communications about their products.     

Focus Point: a threats action for copyright?

The Court of Appeal for England and Wales has recognized a declarationof non-infringement of copyright regime which is comparableto the statutory regimes for wrongful threats of registeredtrade mark, patent, and design right infringement. The Courtused a four-step approach in assessing whether a declarationof non-infringement should be granted.     

The spaces of economic crisis: Asia and the reconfiguration of neo-Marxist crisis theory

Neo-Weberian and Marxist theories of crisis have typically been built around analysis of crisis tendencies in a single industrially developed national economy. While neo-Marxist theories of development have noted various implications of analyses that take seriously the specificities of capitalism in developing countries, there is somewhat less work from neo-Marxist perspectives on theories of crisis. The economic crisis that hit Asia in 1997 has important transnational and subnational dimensions that invite further elaboration of such a neo-Marxist perspective. This article engages such elaboration through critical reconfiguration of Samir Amin’s core-periphery spatial ontology and deployment of this reconfigured ontology to explain specific features of the uneven development of the Asian crisis. Jim Glassman is assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia. His interests are in state theory and the political economy of development in newly industrializing countries of Southeast Asia. He has conducted previous research on industrial development in Thailand, as well as on the economic crisis and structural adjustment in Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia. His current research focuses on populist and nationalist political reactions to the Asian economic crisis. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Global Economic Geography Conference in Singapore, December 1999. The author would like to thank participants in that conference, along with Ruth Berins Collier, Eric Sheppard, and two anonymous SCID reviewers for valuable comments and criticisms. Some of the research for the article was undertaken with the assistance of an Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia.     

Cross-border influences or parallel developments? A process-tracing approach to the development of social conservatism in Canada and the US

ABSTRACT

Social conservatism emerged in the 1960s in both Canada and the US as a variety of conservatism that emphasized opposition to feminism, liberalized abortion access, and the expansion of gay rights as critical political issues. Adopting Freeden’s framework for ideology analysis, the article examines how social conservatism differed from other varieties of conservatism when it emerged and how it evolved within religious institutions, social movements and political parties in the two countries. It then illustrates that adding a Multiple Streams Analysis approach and process tracing methodology (developed by scholars of public policy) allows for an improved engagement with two ‘how’ questions important to understanding social conservatism particularly and ideology more generally: how to trace the evolution of an ideology without a clear core of concepts or texts? and, how has Canadian social conservatism been influenced by its American counterpart? Offering short overviews of developments in the two countries, it deploys this framework to argue that American social conservatism directly influenced Canadian social movements and religious communities but not political parties. American social conservatism can, though, be shown to have an important indirect influence on Canadian politicians.     

House organ

“The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the geopolitical and ideological upheavals this has caused have altered the nature of class struggle throughout the world. Without the Soviet Communist Party, parties in the rest of the world have lost legitimacy and their claim to leadership of the working class. The basic tension between capital and labor remains, but the traditional means of addressing working class and minority grievances have necessarily changed. Without either a model or a support base — the two possibilities that the Soviets offered the working classes of other countries — those demanding economic and social justice must confront capital with new forms of organization and struggle.”     

Modeling and testing the diffusion of expectations: An EITM approach

This paper uses the empirical implications of theoretical models (EITM) framework to examine the consequences of the asymmetric diffusion of expectations. In the spirit of the traditional two-step flow model of communication, less-informed agents learn the expectations of more-informed agents. We find that when there is misinterpretation in the information acquisition process, a boomerang effect exists. In this equilibrium the less-informed agents’ forecasts confound those of more-informed agents. We apply the EITM approach to a key economic variable known to have a relation to economic fluctuations – inflation expectations. Using surveyed inflation expectations data for the period, 1978–2000, we find the boomerang effect exists. One implication of this finding pertains to economic policy and economic volatility: because policymakers have more information than the public, the boomerang effect can lead policymakers to make inaccurate forecasts of economic conditions and conduct erroneous policies which contribute to economic instability.     

Under the surface: the dynamic interpersonal and affective world of psychopathic high-security and detention prisoners

The present study yields an in-depth examination of the interpersonal and affective world of high-security and detention prisoners with possible (Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version [PCL:SV] ≥ 13) and strong (PCL:SV ≥ 18) indications of psychopathy. A group of male inmates (n = 16) was compared with noncriminal and non-personality disordered controls (n = 35) on measures of self and other (Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form [YSQ-SF], Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-Circumplex Scales [IIP-C]), and the experience and regulation of affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule [PANAS], Emotion Control Questionnaire 2 [ECQ2]). Results confirm the established grandiose, dominant, and callous characteristics of the psychopath (PCL:SV, Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders [SCID-II], DSM-IV and ICD-10 Personality Questionnaire [DIP-Q], IIP-C), while demonstrating personal distress and important nuances and variations in psychopathic offenders' interpersonal and affective functioning (YSQ-SF, PANAS, ECQ2, SCID-II, DIP-Q). These preliminary findings support, expand, and challenge the ordinary portrayal of the psychopath and, if replicated in larger samples, point to a need for an expansion or reformulation of the concept, measurement, and treatment of psychopathy.