Party identification and campaign dynamics

This paper considers the role of party identification in the 1988 Canadian General Election campaign, using data drawn mainly from a rolling cross section survey. Canadians exhibited party commitments remarkably like those we have come to expect for U.S. respondents. These commitments shaped respondents' reaction to the events of the campaign: Issue positions lined up with party identification, as did perceptions of the one leader rehabilitated by the campaign. But the campaign also cut through party groups. Such a mixture of reinforcement and displacement might well typify campaigns in Canada and elsewhere. The paper concludes by arguing that academic observers in the United States should take campaigns more seriously than they have to date and that they should consider adopting some of the measurement and analysis strategies of the 1988 Canadian study.Data in this paper are drawn from the 1988 Canadian Election Study, for which the author is the principal investigator. Coinvestigators are André Blais, Henry E. Brady, and Jean Crête. Support for the study was supplied by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Fieldwork was carried out by the Institute for Social Research, York University, under the direction of David Northrup. Henry Brady was, as usual, an invaluable sounding board and source of advice. None of these individuals or institutions can be held responsible for analyses or interpretations in this paper.     

OUTCOMES OF FAMILY COUNSELING INTERVENTIONS WITH CHILDREN WHO RESIST VISITATION: AN ADDENDUM TO FRIEDLANDER AND WALTERS (2010)

Preliminary findings on the outcomes of family-focused counseling interventions for alienated and estranged children are presented based upon data from a longitudinal study of children in chronic custody disputes who were interviewed as young adults and from the clinical records of long-term therapy with these children who were resisting visitation.     

Treating International Institutions as Social Environments

Socialization theory is a neglected source of explanations for cooperation in international relations. Neorealism treats socialization (or selection, more properly) as a process by which autistic non-balancers are weeded out of the anarchical international system. Contractual institutionalists ignore or downplay the possibilities of socialization in international institutions in part because of the difficulties in observing changes in interests and preferences. For constructivists socialization is a central concept. But to date it has been undertheorized, or more precisely, the microprocesses of socialization have been generally left unexamined. This article focuses on two basic microprocesses in socialization theory—persuasion and social influence—and develops propositions about the social conditions under which one might expect to observe cooperation in institutions. Socialization theories pose questions for both the structural-functional foundations of contractual institutionalist hypotheses about institutional design and cooperation, and notions of optimal group size for collective action.     

THE ALIENATED CHILD:A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome

In this article, controversies and problems with parental alienation syndrome are discussed. A reformulation focusing on the alienated child is proposed, and these children are clearly distinguished from other children who resist or refuse contact with a parent following separation or divorce for a variety of normal, expectable reasons, including estrangement. A systemic array of contributing factors are described that can create and/or consolidate alienation in children, including intense marital conflict, a humiliating separation, parental personalities and behaviors, protracted litigation, and professional mismanagement. These factors are understood in the context of the child's capacities and vulnerabilities.     

THERAPEUTIC WORK WITH ALIENATED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

This article describes goals and strategies for family-focused counseling and therapy when children are alienated from a parent after separation and divorce. The confidential intervention takes place within a legally defined contract and is based on a careful assessment of the dynamics of the multiple factors that contribute to the alienation and how the chilďs development is affected. Strategies for forming multiple therapeutic alliances with often reluctant, recalcitrant, and polarized parents are discussed together with ways of helping the child directly.     

Japan,Korea, the Philippines,China: four syndromes of corruption

Both generalizations about “Asian corruption”, and claims about greater or lesser amounts of corruption, tend to overlook the many variations existing among and within Asian societies, and among the corruption problems they experience. I suggest that deeper influences in social, political and economic development, and contrasting institutional settings, create four distinctive syndromes of corruption, each with its own set of implications for relationships between wealth and power. Japan is an example of “influence markets” in which private interests buy or rent influence over relatively specific policy outcomes within a strong state. Korea is a case of “elite cartels”, in which collusion and corrupt incentives enable several kinds of elites to cooperate in governing, enriching themselves, and resisting rising political competition. The Philippines is marked by “oligarchs and clans”, with powerful families and their entourages plundering a weak state in a climate of uncertainty and insecurity. China experiences “official mogul” corruption, in which officials abuse state power with impunity, although that process is becoming increasingly fragmented. The four syndromes may help us understand why corruption and rapid growth have coexisted in some, but not all, Asian states for long periods of time, and may also help us understand why some of those states will adapt to new global realities only with some difficulty. They also show how “consensus”-driven reforms emanating from the west may not only be ineffective, but may actually make matters worse.     

Development of a Nomenclature System for a Canine STR Multiplex Reagent Kit*†

Abstract: Despite the popularity of dogs in US households, canine DNA evidence remains largely untapped in forensic investigations partially because of the absence of well‐defined forensic short tandem repeats (STRs), lack of standardized and validated PCR protocols, STR reagent kits, and poorly developed nomenclature. A nomenclature system was established based on internationally recognized recommendations for human forensic STRs for a recently developed canine STR reagent kit. Representative alleles were sequenced from each of the 18 STRs and the sex‐typing marker included in the kit. This study also reflects on the impact of point mutations, insertions, and deletions within and outside the STR core repeat structures. An understanding of the STRs’ sequence and repeat structures will enable development of a robust and reliable allele nomenclature and improve the accuracy and precision of allele fragment sizing in canine forensic profiling. The expected allele sizes have been calculated, and their repeat stuctures defined based on sequence information.     

Malingering and Pain: is this a Major Problem in the Medicolegal Setting?

The term malingering has a negative connotation, in that it is considered to intentionally project exaggerated physical and/or psychosocial symptoms for the purpose of gaining some external rewards/secondary gain. The present article will review a number of misconceptions about malingering, as well as the inherent problem in objectively measuring this construct. It will be suggested that a more comprehensive biopsychosocial approach should be used to evaluate potential barriers to recovery, as well as suboptimal performance that may delay, or prevent, recovery over an expected time period for musculoskeletal pain disorders. Such an approach will eliminate the common misuse and misdiagnosis of the construct of malingering.     

Life at the Bottom of the Fiscal Food Chain: Examining City and County Revenue Decisions

Any shifting of responsibilities from the state or federal governmentsto local governments would fall mostly on the shoulders of general-purposegovernments, namely, cities (municipalities) and counties. Thisstudy explores city and county revenue decisions associatedwith general funds—the governmental fund most likely tobe affected by state requirements for greater local financingresponsibility for new or devolved programs. The results suggestthat state control over local revenue authority affects decisionsregarding the imposition of financial burdens on residents,and that intergovernmental aid to cities and counties does notnecessarily mitigate those burdens. Despite evidence of healthyfinancial reserves, especially for cities, shifting responsibilitiesfrom the state to city or county governments could place citiesand counties in difficult fiscal positions. Given the importanceof own-source revenues to current budgets, and in view of thequestionable impact of intergovernmental aid on city and countyresidents' revenue burdens, questions persist about the abilityof city and county governments to maintain (and, if necessary,to expand) services during economic recession.     

The Challenges of Contracting and Accountability Across the Federal System: From Ambulances to Space Shuttles

This article focuses on two questions related lo governmentcontracting and accountability. How are key components of contractingsimilar or different for city, state, and federal governmentsin the United States? To what extent do the three levels ofgovernment share the widely recognized challenges of contractdesign and contract management? To address these questions,we compared and contrasted six contracting cases, two each forlocal, state, and the federal governments. We found that forall governments in the U.S. federal system, the public managementfunctions of contracting are remarkably similar, and that contractmanagement and the achievement of accountability are "weak links"in the contracting process. Our findings do not support thehypothesis that contract management is more effective in localgovernment relative to state and federal governments.