Reviews

John Miller, Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, xviii + 267 pp., £45.00 h/b, £13.99 p/b.

Geoffrey A. Hosking, Jonathan Aves & Peter J. S. Duncan, The Road to Post‐Communism. Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union, 1985–1991. London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1992 x + 236 pp., £37.50 h/b, £12.99 p/b.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, xx + 264 pp., $41.50 h/b, $13.95 p/b.

Ian Jeffries, Socialist Economies and the Transition to the Market: A Guide. London: Routledge, 1993. 562 pp., £70.00 h/b, £19.99 p/b.

William M. Reisinger, Energy and the Soviet Bloc: Alliance Politics after Stalin. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992, xiii + 184 pp., $37.95.

Joan DeBardeleben, ed., To Breathe Free: Eastern Europe's Environmental Crisis. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, xviii + 266 pp., £25.00 h/b, £9.50 p/b.

Donald D. Barry, ed., Toward the ‘Rule of Law’ in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992, 402 pp., $90.00.

Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992, xvi + 288 pp. £35.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

David Pike, The Politics of Culture In Soviet‐Occupied Germany 1945–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993, 691 pp., $ 55.00.

Alec Nove, ed., The Stalin Phenomenon. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1993, 216 pp., £25.00 h/b.

M. B. Broxup, ed., The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance Towards the Muslim World. London: Hurst, 1992, xxvii + 252 pp., £27.50.     

Toneline bite mark photography.

In bite mark analyses, the initial photograph is critical for the collection and presentation of evidence. A high-contrast film technique previously used primarily in the graphic arts field has been refined and applied to forensic odontology. The process, called toneline, reduces the interpretational bias of the investigator and yields a transparent overlay with a photographic outline of the bite mark which can be directly compared with models of the suspect's teeth.     

How Not to Enhance the Confidence—Accuracy Relation: The Detrimental Effects of Attention to the Identification Process

This study (N = 218) examines potential moderators of the confidence–accuracy (CA) relation in eyewitness identifications. The design included five experimental interventions (accountability, context reinstatement, retrospective narration, hypothesis disconfirmation, and hypothesis generation), as well as one trait measure (public self-consciousness). Although the interventions were hypothesized to enhance the CA relation relative to a control condition, they did not do so. In fact, quite contrary to our initial expectations, only participants in the control condition displayed unqualified insight into their identification accuracy. We conclude that attempts to enhance awareness of the thoughts and reasoning process involved in an identification decision may frequently have minimal, or even counterproductive, effects. Instead, results of decision process measures suggest that the CA relation might be more effectively enhanced by increasing the salience of relatively automatic decision criteria (e.g., “did his face 'pop out' at me?”) and decreasing the salience of algorithmic identification strategies (e.g., “was I thorough in making my decision?”).

     

Civic Hackathons: Innovation,Procurement, or Civic Engagement?

At all levels, governments around the world are moving toward the provision of open data, that is, the direct provision to citizens, the private sector, and other third parties, of raw government datasets, controlled by a relatively permissible license. In tandem with this distribution of open data is the promotion of civic hackathons, or “app contests” by government. The civic hackathon is designed to offer prize money to developers as a way to spur innovative use of open data, more specifically the creation of commercial software applications that deliver services to citizens. Within this context, we propose that the civic hackathon has the potential to act in multiple ways, possibly as a backdoor to the traditional government procurement process, and as a form of civic engagement. We move beyond much of the hype of civic hackathons, critically framing an approach to understanding civic hackathons through these two lenses. Key questions for future research emphasize the emerging, and important, nature of this research path.     

Incapacitation and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment

Law and Human Behavior - What motivates a person's desire to punish actors who commit intentional, counternormative harms? Two possible answers are a just deserts motive or a desire to...     

Leaders’ perspectives in the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) was created in 1993 to advance conservation in a 1.2 million km² portion of the North American Rocky Mountains. We assembled 21 people with influence over Y2Y in a workshop to elucidate perspectives on challenges and solutions for this organization at a key point in its evolution, and used Q method to define four perspectives on challenges and three on solutions. Participants were differentiated by four models for effecting change—vision-based advocacy, practice-based learning, political engagement, and scientific management—with emphasis on the first three. Those with authority in Y2Y aligned with vision-based advocacy and expressed ambivalence about practice-based adaptive learning and rigorous appraisals of existing strategies. Workshop results were consistent with an apparent trend toward organizational maturation focused on stabilizing revenues, developing formal organizational arrangements, and focusing strategies. Consolidation of power in Y2Y around a long-standing formula does not bode well for the effectiveness of Y2Y. We recommend that leaders in Y2Y and similar organizations focused on large-scale conservation to create and maintain an open system—philosophically and operationally—that capitalizes on the diverse perspectives and skills of individuals who are attracted to such efforts. We also recommend that the Y2Y initiative be followed closely to harvest additional lessons for potential application to large-scale conservation efforts elsewhere.     

EU update

This is the latest edition of Baker & McKenzie’s column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside web sites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.