The Political Limitations of Evidence: A Critique of the Electoral Reform Society's It's Good To Talk

The Electoral Reform Society has called for more and better quality information to improve democratic debate in relation to referendums. This article argues that, particularly in relation to the European Union referendum, this would have had a marginal impact, because much of the debate was not reducible to facts and emotional and dispositional factors were of particular significance in the campaign.     

Adjustment Correlates of Social Media Engagement Among Early Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Social media engagement is common among adolescents, yet not all adolescents use social media in the same ways or experience the same adjustment correlates. This...     

The Personal Sources of Responsiveness. Introduction to a Special Section

Responsiveness is a core value in democratic politics. Individual legislators are important mechanisms for implementing this concern in real‐world settings and thus facilitating responsive government. This introduction to the special section on this topic starts out by highlighting the special relevance of individual legislators in this regard and by sketching important theoretical considerations that emerge from the political science literature on this issue. In its main part, it summarizes the key findings of the contributions in relation to its main theme, namely the personal sources of responsiveness. We end with a short conclusion that reflects on possible tensions between responsiveness and the personalization of representative systems.     

Challenging the Kerb Crawler Rehabilitation Programme

During recent years in North America and Europe many feminists have become increasingly critical of responses to street prostitution that concentrate solely on punishing women who sell sex while ignoring their male clients. In order to address this gender imbalance some feminists have advocated the enforcement and/or strengthening of kerb crawling legislation and other schemes that target men who pay for sex. During 1998–9 one initiative, which aimed to target men who pay for sex in the UK, the Kerb Crawler Rehabilitation Programme (KCRP), was piloted in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Although the KCRP received considerable media coverage there has been relatively little critical debate among feminists about this approach to working with clients of sex workers. This article draws attention to some of the opposition to the Leeds KCRP.     

Assertions of “Future Dangerousness” at Federal Capital Sentencing: Rates and Correlates of Subsequent Prison Misconduct and Violence

The federal prison disciplinary records of federal capital inmates (n=145) who were sentenced to life without possibility of release (LWOP) by plea bargain, pre-sentencing withdrawal of the death penalty, or jury determination were retrospectively reviewed (M=6.17 years post-admission). Disaggregated prevalence rates were inversely related to infraction severity: serious infraction =0.324, assaultive infraction =0.207, serious assault =0.09, assault with moderate injury =0.007, assault with major injuries or death =0.00. Frequency rates of misconduct were equivalent to other high-security federal inmates (n=18,561), regardless of infraction severity. Government assertions of "future dangerousness" as a nonstatutory aggravating factor were not predictive of prison misconduct. These findings inform federal capital risk assessments and have public policy implications for procedural reliability in death penalty prosecutions.     

LETTERS FROM THE RSAA ARCHIVE: SIR AUREL STEIN,COLONEL REGINALD SCHOMBERG AND A SECRET MISSION TO CENTRAL ASIA

In 2004 a collection of thirty-four letters from the Silk Road explorer Sir Aurel Stein was found in the archives of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and catalogued, although not transcribed or studied. Neither of Stein's biographers, Jeannette Mirsky (published 1977), nor Annabel Walker (published 1995) knew about these letters, and there are no references to them in more recent publications either. What is perhaps even more interesting is that the Society's letters are addressed to a man whose name does not appear in any published works on Stein; a man who remains an elusive figure more than half a century after his death – Colonel Reginald Schomberg D.S.O. (1880-1958), an explorer and spy. This article analyses the contents of the letters, which shed light on a secret mission undertaken by Schomberg in Chinese Central Asia in the early 1930s.     

The Formal Divide: Customary Rights and the Allocation of Credit to Agriculture in Tanzania

It is generally held that one mechanism to enable inclusive growth in Tanzania is enabling farmers to access credit to raise productivity and incomes. The formalisation of property rights in Tanzania is being undertaken by a multiplicity of actors at great expense to donors, individuals and the government. While there have been a variety of different justifications for allocating Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) to farmers in Tanzania, perhaps the most prominent argument is that it will enable farmers to finally overcome the divide between ‘informal’ customary rights and the formal banking sector. CCROs would provide the collateral that would induce banks to lend money to small-scale farmers. As part of a six-year investigation in Manyara, Mbeya and Dodoma regions, our research team evaluated the impact of formalisation on farmers’ access to credit. The paper will present the results while pointing to the continuing institutional and market imperfections that perpetuate the formal divide.     

Severity of penalty,seriousness of the charge,and mock jurors' verdicts

It has been suggested that jurors in criminal trials are less likely to convict when the penalty is more severe or the charge is more serious. This was explained by Kerr (1975) in terms of a perceived increase in the cost of a Type I error (convicting an innocent person) that resulted in a criterion shift in the amount of evidence jurors required to vote guilty. The previous research found only weak support for the prediction regarding severity but consistent support for the predicted effect of seriousness. However, in the case materials used in these studies, more evidence was legally required to prove guilt on the more serious charges. This article presents studies in which the amount of evidence needed to prove guilt was equated for all charges. Under these circumstances, there was no effect on verdicts of seriousness of charge or severity of penalty and no evidence of a criterion shift due to either variable. There may still be reason to believe that these factors affect real juries, but this belief is not supported by the systematic evidence from mock jury studies.