Democracy in Latin America: Problems and prospects

This essay examines, by way of a series of brief country sketches, the current state of democratization in Latin America. It argues that in the formal sense progress has been significant but that only in a handful of countries has the economic development which democracy requires taken place. Many serious impediments (corruption, party weaknesses, public alienation, and poor policy implementation among them) remain. It will be decades before a definitive judgement can be reached.     

The Democratic Peace is Not Democratic: On Behalf of Rawls' Decent Societies

In The Law of Peoples , John Rawls defends the claim that 'decent' societies (non-liberal, non-democratic constitutional republics) deserve full and good standing in the international community. His defense of decent societies consists of two main arguments. First, he argues that the basic human right to political participation does not imply a right to democratic political institutions. This argument has been thoroughly discussed by commentators. Second, he argues that decent societies, if admitted to the international community, would pose no special threat to the stability of that community. This argument has largely been ignored. My aim in this article is to analyze this second argument, which I call the 'peace argument'.     

A model for disaggregating political change

We present a model for identifying the components of aggregate change in an electorate between two points in time. When the electorate is constant in size, change in the mean opinion disaggregates into two components: conversion among those who continue to participate in the electorate (Stayers), and replacement of those who drop out of the electorate at Time₁ (Dropouts) by Newcomers to the electorate at Time₂. We add to this simple formulation the possibility of variation in the size of the electorate. When an electorate expands, the model includes a mobilization term to accommodate the fact that there are more Newcomers at Time₂ than Dropouts at Time₁. When an electorate shrinks in size, the demobilization term reflects the fact that Newcomers as a group are smaller than Dropouts. The model includes appropriate weights for each component so that the change in opinion (or any other aggregate characteristic in the electorate) can be allocated across the three components. We apply the model to Iowa caucus attenders in both parties between 1984 and 1988, and we suggest that the model can be also productively applied to a variety of contexts besides nomination politics, where fluctuations in the size of electorates are significant.Ronald B. Rapoport. College of William and Mary.     

From Clean Air to Climate Policy in the Netherlands and Switzerland: How Two Small States Deal with a Global Problem

Guided by the question "Who can learn from whom?" the author compares how domestic actors in the Netherlands and Switzerland tackle global problems involving scarce natural resources. Variables such as storylines, policy instruments, and actor networks are framed by political traditions and the general "philosophy" behind each country's policy. Both countries pursue their own strategy, and give environmental policy high priority in their political agendas. But Dutch policy is shaped by a specific tradition of negotiation and "voluntary" agreements between ministries and polluter groups. Swiss policy emphasizes binding legislation. Empirical observations are embedded in political theories dealing with potential shifts from sectoral thinking towards ecological modernization, sustainable principles, and network management. It is argued that the real challenge for politics and science is to include normative debate in open policy‐making systems. However, it is suggested that there is not much time left to experiment with new policy styles.     

The distribution of shotgun pellets after ricochet from an intermediate target surface

This paper presents a geometrical model for the ricochet of shotgun pellets from an intermediate target surface. The model predicts that after ricochet the shotgun pellet pattern will be elongated in the direction parallel to the intermediate target surface, as has been found in empirical studies. This paper also shows that the angle of impact theta of a mass of shotgun pellets with a target surface can be calculated without significant error from the width W and the length L of the pellet pattern using the formula: sin theta= W/L.