Eyewitness identification

In a simulated crime stituation, 3 groups of eyewitnesses viewed 2 target persons through a one-way mirror and were tested for accuracy of identification after dealy periods of 2, 21, or 56 days. Subjects made identifications from either a live “show-up” or by looking at photographs. In both methods of testing only 1 of the 2 targets was actually present in the 5-man array. Results indicated that delay affects number of false alarms, test method affects number of hits. Photographs produced less accurate performance than live show-up. More than 60% of the subjects erroneously selected one of the 4 distractor persons, a finding relevant to the use of eyewitness identification in criminal investigations. Only 28% of the subjects made no errors of identification.     

Plessy as "Passing": Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v. Ferguson

The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) is infamous for its doctrine of "separate but equal," which gave constitutional legitimacy to Jim Crow segregation laws. What is less-known about the case is that the appellant Homer Plessy was, by all appearances, a white man. In the language of the Court, his "one-eighth African blood" was "not discernible in him." This article analyzes Plessy as a story of racial "passing." The existence of growing interracial populations in the nineteenth century created difficulties for legislation designed to enforce the separation of the races. Courts were increasingly called upon to determine the racial identity of particular individuals. Seen as a judicial response to racial ambiguity, Plessy demonstrates the law's role not only in the treatment of racial groups, but also in the construction and maintenance of racial categories.     

Assessing the rise of issue voting in British elections since 1964

Measuring the extent to which issues determine electoral choice requires a suitable causal model that takes into account the tact that party identification may colour issue perceptions as well as being partially determined by them. In this paper several possible models are evaluated before settling on one considered to be plausible. This one shows issue-based voting choice to have increased in recent British elections, more or less in step with the decline of class voting documented in previous research. The possibility that this rise in issue voting might be a spurious concomitant of increasing milieu influences is considered and rejected. It is tentatively concluded that the rise of issue voting was due to a decline in the class structuring of British electoral choice.     

After pension reform: Navigating the “Third Rail” in China

Studies of pension reform in developing and transition economies tend to take for granted the capacity of states to implement ambitious and complicated new schemes for the provision of old-age income to pensioners. This article explains the fragmented, decentralized pattern of pension administration in China as an unintended consequence of pension reform. Policy legacies from the command-economy period, principal-agent problems in the reform period, and the threat of pension protests left urban governments largely in control of pension administration. The central government thus succeeded in its policy goals of pension reform but failed to gain administrative control over pension funds. Mark W. Frazier is assistant professor of political science and the Luce Assistant Professor of East Asian Political Economy at Lawrence University. He is the author ofThe Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace: State, Revolution, and Labor Management (Cambridge University Press, 2002). His current research focuses on how central and local governments in China compete over pension reform. The author gratefully acknowledges helpful comments from Mary E. Gallagher, William Hurst, Dorothy Solinger, Jaeyoun Won, and two anonymous reviewers fromStudies in Comparative International Development. Funds for this research were provided by the Luce Foundation, the University of Louisville, and Lawrence University.     

‘Every Hungarian of any value to intelligence’: Tibor Eckhardt,John Grombach,and the Pond

Abstract

Tibor Eckhardt, a Hungarian émigré, was a key player in American intelligence operations regarding Hungary during World War II and the early Cold War. He worked closely with a secretive American intelligence organization headed by John Grombach, an American intelligence officer who was a vehement opponent of the CIA. Though Eckhardt and Grombach shared concerns about the CIA, they were also forced to cooperate with it. Eckhardt’s endeavors and those of the many Hungarians whose intelligence work he coordinated were ultimately futile. Hence, they were representative of the efforts of freedom-loving Hungarians to liberate their country during the Cold War.     

Do Industrial Tax Abatements Spur Property Value Growth?

Despite ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of tax abatements, Michigan's Industrial Facilities Tax (IFT) abatement program has been widely and extensively used to boost local economic development. In this article, we estimate the effects of industrial property tax abatements on industrial, residential, and commercial property value growth in the context of regional competition for a panel of 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit from 1983 through 2002. We find that: (1) offering tax abatements yields statistically significant positive impacts on industrial property value growth; (2) the impacts are larger in high tax than in low tax communities; (3) there are positive spillover effects of industrial tax abatements on residential and commercial property value growth; (4) tax abatements offered in competitor communities do not appear to influence own industrial property value growth; and (5) changes in the own as well as competitor property tax rates are important determinants of industrial property value growth. However, the fiscal benefits of tax abatements are quite small as compared with the costs of offering abatements even when spillover benefits to residential and commercial properties are considered.