Jettisoning Illusions About the Median Mandate

We endorse G. Bingham Powell's cautionary corrective to challenge Paul Warwick's conclusions that the median mandate thesis needs to be jettisoned because there is not a close match between median voter and government left‐right positions. More to the point, however, we go beyond Powell's mild caution to challenge Warwick's rejection more assertively and thoroughly. We show his rejection mistakes responsiveness for congruence, misapprehends how and why the median mandate thesis distinguishes between those two concepts, and fails to take account of a measurement artifact associated with his survey data.     

Autonomous peasant struggles and left arts of government

I argue that self-organisation cannot account for how grassroots struggles can pursue transnational political change. I develop an account of some ‘left arts of government’ through which resistance is facilitated and organised without reintroducing oppressive and hierarchical forms of rule. I do so by focusing on the practices of autonomous peasant mobilisations. Land occupation movements facilitate the ability of people to engage in ongoing resistance on their own behalf. They organise resistance through horizontal communication and through transnational networks involving representative structures. Finally, peasant mobilisations engage with states and international institutions to solidify gains made.     

Book reviews

Global Security: North American, European and Japanese Interdependence in the 1990s Eric Grove (Ed.). Brassey's (London) 1991.109 pp. £7.50, $13.50 (PBk) ISBN 0–0804–0988–1.

Revolution and Political Change in the Third World Edited by Barry M. Schutz and Robert O. Slater. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1991. 260 pp. £28.50 (HBk). ISBN 0–7449–0025–5.

British Security Policy; The Thatcher Years and the End of the Cold War Stuart Croft (Ed.). Harper Collins, 1991. 231 pp. £10.95 (PBk) ISBN 0–04–445819–3.

The Near East Since the First World War By M.E. Yapp. Longman: 1991. 526 pp. £24.95. ISBN 0582–09499–0.

Crimes of Obedience: Towards a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility By Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton. Yale 1990. 382 pp. £10.95 (PBk)

Palestinians Between Israel and Jordan By Raphael Israeli. Praeger. 1991. 206 pp. £35.95 (HBk) ISBN 0–275–93938–3.

Review of Edwina Mountbatten: A Life of her Own By Janet Morgan. Harper Collins. London. 1991. £20.

Politics and Government in the Middle East and North Africa By Tariq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael. Florida International University Press. Miami. 1991. 570 pp. £31.95 (HBk). ISBN 0–8130–1043–8.

Soviet Military Art in a Time of Change. Command and Control of the Future Battlefield By Robert Hall London: Brassey's. 1991. 203pp. £22.50 (HBk) ISBN 008–0413218.

Europe in Turmoil ‐ The Struggle for Pluralism. European Defence and Strategic Studies Annual 1990–91. Edited by Gerald Frost. Adamantine Press Ltd. 1991. 377pp. £32.50 (PBk) ISBN 0–7449–0029–8.     

Detecting Lies in Children and Adults

In this study, observers' abilities to detect lies in children and adults were examined. Adult participants observed videotaped interviews of both children and adults either lying or telling the truth about having been touched by a male research assistant. As hypothesized, observers detected children's lies more accurately than adults' lies; however, adults' truthful statements were detected more accurately than were children's. Further analyses revealed that observers were biased toward judging adults' but not children's statements as truthful. Finally, consistent with the notion that there are stable individual differences in the ability to detect lies, observers who were highly accurate in detecting children's lies were similarly accurate in detecting adults' lies. Implications of these findings for understanding lie-detection accuracy are discussed, as are potential applications to the forensic context.