Intervention unnecessary: bar associations taking sides in regulatory actions

Interest groups participate in the political process in a variety of ways. They can lobby the legislature, interact with elected and administrative executive officials, and participate in litigation either as a litigant or an amicus curiae. But the literature is scarce in exploring how interest groups behave when their stakeholders dissent. This study explores the actions by one interest group, the American Bar Association (ABA), in participating in “notice and comment” rulemaking by the Department of Labor where the ABA did not represent the legal profession. It finds that the ABA engaged in astroturfing, and that their efforts were ignored by the Department. This suggests that astroturfing may not be useful in the notice and comment rulemaking process, because the agency's unitary status allows them to discern the centralized origin of the comments. This finding is confirmed by comparing the ABA's influence on the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush, when it did represent the consensus of the legal profession.     

Enhancement of Latent Fingerprints on Fabric Using the Cyanoacrylate Fuming Method Followed by Infrared Spectral Mapping

A method has been developed for the visualization of latent fingerprints on fabrics, which is based upon cyanoacrylate (superglue) fuming followed by imaging using an infrared microscope. Results show that imaging on smooth, shiny fabrics such as polyester, silk, nylon, and acetate of different colors and patterns can give an improvement over existing enhancement methods. Results for cotton and polycotton were less successful and it is thought this may be due a combination of the presence of the carbonyl functional group in these fabrics as well as their absorbency to fingerprint sweat. The carbonyl peak (1700 cm^?1) provided the optimum spectroscopic feature to map and image a fingerprint. Comparisons between infrared mapping at a specific frequency range and principal component analysis showed that improved imaging was obtained with principal component analysis.     

Redefining Who’s ‘In’ and Who’s ‘Out’: Explaining Preferences for Redistribution in Bolivia

How does welfare state expansion reconfigure political coalitions? This paper challenges traditional accounts that pit social policy ‘insiders’, who univocally oppose policy expansion, against ‘outsiders’ who favour it. It argues that labour market vulnerability and partisan cues can play a critical role in shaping the preferences of both insiders and outsiders, and thus produce new pro-expansion coalitions. To test this claim, it employs historical analysis of key social insurance configurations in Bolivia over the last 30 years, as well as an original survey carried out in Bolivia following that nation’s 2007 extension of a noncontributory national minimum pension.