The Illusion of the China-US-Europe Strategic Triangle: Reactions from Germany and the UK

Journal of Chinese Political Science - The dawn of the Sino-US peer competition has broken, denoting a new status quo of instability as Beijing and Washington vie for influence. As leader of the...     

Unfinished business: Aboriginal reconciliation and restorative justice in Australia

In this paper we report on general findings and observations in Australia and from two days of the Deliberative Poll on Reconciliation in Canberra. With hundreds of representative Australians participating, and plenary sessions broadcast nationally, it appeared that Australia was progressing on its long journey toward aboriginal reconciliation. In this paper, we apply a theoretical analysis from criminology--restorative justice--to examine the means by and the extent to which the national community conference was a restorative event. Of particular interest to this analysis are the unintended restorative outcomes, the voices heard, the dialogues on apologies, regrets and the past, future possibilities, and responsibility. Some preliminary thoughts on the future of reconciliation will be offered and a few skeptical comments made.     

STRENGTHENING THE REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY DESIGN USING ADDITIONAL DESIGN ELEMENTS: A WITHIN‐STUDY COMPARISON

The sharp regression discontinuity design (RDD) has three key weaknesses compared to the randomized clinical trial (RCT). It has lower statistical power, it is more dependent on statistical modeling assumptions, and its treatment effect estimates are limited to the narrow subpopulation of cases immediately around the cutoff, which is rarely of direct scientific or policy interest. This paper examines how adding an untreated comparison to the basic RDD structure can mitigate these three problems. In the example we present, pretest observations on the posttest outcome measure are used to form a comparison RDD function. To assess its performance as a supplement to the basic RDD, we designed a within‐study comparison that compares causal estimates and their standard errors for (1) the basic posttest‐only RDD, (2) a pretest‐supplemented RDD, and (3) an RCT chosen to serve as the causal benchmark. The two RDD designs are constructed from the RCT, and all analyses are replicated with three different assignment cutoffs in three American states. The results show that adding the pretest makes functional form assumptions more transparent. It also produces causal estimates that are more precise than in the posttest‐only RDD, but that are nonetheless larger than in the RCT. Neither RDD version shows much bias at the cutoff, and the pretest‐supplemented RDD produces causal effects in the region beyond the cutoff that are very similar to the RCT estimates for that same region. Thus, the pretest‐supplemented RDD improves on the standard RDD in multiple ways that bring causal estimates and their standard errors closer to those of an RCT, not just at the cutoff, but also away from it.     

On Understanding the Increase in U.S. Patent Litigation

Patent litigation in the United States has increased dramaticallyin the last 20 years. Understanding this increase, and the concomitantincrease in patent grants, can help us to better understandthe sources of technological innovation and productivity. Theapproach described here provides a means to simultaneously examineboth the "friendly court" hypothesis and the hypothesis of anincrease in research productivity associated with the informationage. The results support the notion that both hypothesized factors,changes in court outcomes and increased research productivityand the associated increase in patenting activity, have playeda role in the growth of patent litigation.     

Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences,Engineering, and Medicine

This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

     

The Role of Budget and Financial Reform in Making Government Work Better and Cost Less

Budgeting and Financial Management play a crucial role in organizing and disciplining the federal management culture. Consequently, addressing improvements in their practice is essential in the National Performance Review's examination of government-wide management systems. This article briefly describes the recommendations and anticipated implementing actions relating to budgeting and financial management within the context of the National Performance Review's themes of cutting red tape, putting customers first, empowering employees to get results, and cutting back to basics. External factors, such as innovations in private sector management practices, rapid changes in information technology, and statutory reforms such as the Government Performance and Results Act, also influence needed changes in budgetary and financial management practices.