An organizational analysis of political action committees

As the number and putative importance of political action committees have grown, so too has scholarly attention to this new breed of political organization. Yet this attention has been uneven. Although much is now known about the aggregate spending patterns of PACs, much less is known about their internal lives. The present study attempts to open the PAC black box to empirical inquiry. Drawing on interviews with the managers of 70 Washington-based political action committees, we suggest how theoretical perspectives about formal voluntary associations may be usefully applied in explaining the behavior of PACs. After examining the relationships among several variables — organizational goals, constituency relations and decision making, strategy, and interorganizational relations — we show how these forces affect the behavior of corporate, trade/membership, labor, and nonconnected PACS.     

Coping with Electronic Data Discovery Issues

This article provides an overview of the steps a company should take if electronic discovery is requested from it during the course of litigation. Either by seeking a protective order or by inducing a motion to compel by objecting to the discovery requests, a ruling should be obtained from the court as to the parameters and limits of the requested discovery and who bears the cost of retrieving and producing the electronic data. If production is ordered by the court, the producing party must ensure through the use of formal review measures that any privileges protecting the data are not waived. While severe sanctions may be imposed on a party who destroys electronic evidence after litigation is initiated or when it is reasonably likely that litigation will ensue, a company may prevent a broad-scale, expensive production of electronic evidence by installing prior to any litigation a system of routine organization and disposal of non-essential electronic data.     

Explaining fear of crime in Queensland

A model to explain fear of crime in Queensland is developed and fitted to data from the 1991 Queensland Crime Victims Survey. Fear of crime is measured from the answers to the question about respondents' feelings of safety when walking alone in their area after dark. The results suggest that factors such as gender, age, poverty, educational level, labor force status, level of incivility in the area, perceived amount of crime in the area, and neighborhood cohesion all make an impact on fear of crime in a way that is consistent with the theory. The results also show that fear of crimein Queensland is explained by very concrete factors that can be subject to intervention and policy formulation by relevant bodies.The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government Statistician's Office or the Queensland Government.     

Book reviews

Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Case William Fierman Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1991, Contributions to the Sociology of Language No 60, XIII, 375 pp, $110.00

Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and Autonomy in Twentieth‐Century Iran Touraj Atabaki London, England: British Academic Press, 1993, pp 238

Central Asia: New Arc of Crisis Shirin Akiner London, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1993, 79 pp,appendices, £4.95

Without right and left Nursultan Nazarbaev Class Publishing, London, 1992, 171 pp, photos, pb NP

The Islamization of Central Asia. A Case Study of Uzbekistan Diloram Ibrahim Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1993, 32 pp, £1.50

Survival Among the Kurds. A History of the Yezidis John S. Guest London: Kegan Paul International, 1993, 324 pp, Illus., bibliography, index, £45

Samarkand compiled by Andrei Nedvetsky, 159 pp, illustrated, Bukhara compiled by Andrei Nedvetsky, 159 pp, illustrated, Khiva compiled by Andrei Nedvetsky, 127 pp, illustrated, Reading, England: Garnet Publishing, 1993, £16.95 each

My Golden Road from Samarkand Jascha Golowanjuk London: Quartet Books, £14.95, 244 pp

Turkey's New Geopolitics From the Balkans to Western China Graham E. Fuller, Ian O. Lesser, Paul D. Henze & J. F. Brown Boulder, Oxford, UK: Westview Press, A RAND Book, 1993, 197 pp, £10.50

Turkish Foreign Policy. New Prospects Clement H. Dodd (editor) Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire: The Eothen Press, 1992, 117 pp, £12.50 pb

Derwische. Gelebter Sufismus Jurgen Frembgen Koln, Germany: DuMont Buchverlag, 1993, 283 pp, illustrations

Die Gärten des Islam Hermann Forkl, Johannes Kalter, Thomas Leisten & Margaret Pavaloi (editors) Stuttgart/London: Hansjorg Mayer, 1993, 388 pp, illustrations, £30

Birth of a Tragedy. Kashmir 1947 Alastair Lamb Hertingfordbury: Roxford Books, 1994, 177 pp, £9 pb

The Afghan Syndrome. The Soviet Union's Vietnam Major‐General Oleg Sarin & Colonel Lev Dvoretsky London: Greenhill Books, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993, £22.50, 195 pp, appendices, index     

Book reviews

Svetlana Alexievich, Zinky Boys. Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992, 197 pp., £9.99 paperback.

Artyom Borovik, The Hidden War : a Russian Journalist's Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan. London: Faber and Faber, £14.99. 288 pp.

Gennady Bocharov. Russian Roulette. The Afghanistan War through Russian Eyes. London, Hamish Hamilton, £13.99, 187 pp.

William Fierman (Editor), Soviet Central Asia. The Failed Transformation. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1991, xx + 328 pp.

James Critchlow. Nationalism in Uzbekistan: a Soviet Republic's Road to Sovereignty. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1991. xviii + 231 pp., $32.95.