Latin America’s think tanks: The roots of nonprofit privatization

Conventional development models refer to two sectors, public and for-profit private. Massive growth of nonprofit private activity undermines that picture. Latin American tyink tanks exemplify a nonprofit privatization that has an enormous impact on development and remolds inter-sectoral relationships overall. Four major dynamics account for the spectacular growth of the region’s nonprofit think tanks. Three push factors are state repression, state weakness, and public university problems, and, as epitomized by financial supply, a pull factor is also crucial to attract nonprofit growth. To conceptualize its findings, this article considers public failure theory. Unhelpful regarding the pull factor, the theory otherwise works reasonably well, especially where there is visible movement from the public to the nonprofit sector. Beyond that, the evidence suggests ways to broaden the theory. Even a broadened formulation cannot fully capture the remarkable diversity and vitality of the growth in Latin America’s think tanks. But we are able to identify and analyze the key growth factors that blend together to produce particular institutional and national configurations. Daniel C. Levy is a professor at SUNY-Albany. After earning his Ph.D. in political science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he was research associate for five years at Yale University. He has published five books and roughly seventy articles on politics and higher education, especially on Latin America, and on Mexican politics. Levy has done field research in most Latin American countries and has presented lectures and been published on five continents.     

Do prosocial motives have any business in business

Challenging the assumption that the only motive in business is egoism (self-interest), four distinct potential prosocial motives are identified: egoism, collectivism, altruism, and principlism. It is suggested that each of these motives may, under certain nonextraordinary conditions, operate in business settings. None is a sure-fire source of ethical business practices, however. Each may at times lead to action that makes more people better off and fewer people worse off; each may also lead to action that does the opposite.I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.—Adam Smith,The Wealthe of Nations (1776/1976), I., p. 478.     

Investigations into the analysis of the rate of decay of the compound action potentials recorded from the rat sciatic nerve after death: significance for the prediction of the post-mortem period

There have been a number of papers that have reported the investigations of electrical stimulation of muscle groups in order to determine the post-mortem period. To the authors knowledge, no techniques have been described that analyse the compound action potentials (CAP) of various nerve fibre groups after death. This paper reports the monitoring of both the amplitude and latency changes of the CAP recorded from a stimulated rat sciatic nerve after death. Initial results suggest that the method my be useful in determining the early post-mortem period within 1 or 2 h after death. It may also be of use in measuring nerve conduction delay in various pathological conditions that can affect the neural network; for example diabetes.     

Postpartum psychosis,infanticide and the law

In the past few years postpartum phychosis has been offered as a legal defense in a small number of deeply disturbing infanticide cases in several American jurisdictions. These cases have attracted a great deal of media attention, and fueled public discussion about the mental health of mothers who kill their own babies. From the perspective of the criminologist these cases present an extraordinary pattern of criminal behavior. Not merely a few isolated incidents, but a recurring pattern of the destruction of planned-for, wanted children by their own mothers with no apparent motive and under circumstances that suggest transitory postpartum phychoses. This article presents a detailed examination of specific cases aimed at exploration of the following issues: Are these women insane at the time of the act? Is their behavior the product of a diseased state of mind, or is it premeditated and willful? These issues lie at the core of the concept of criminal responsibility.     

Homeless mentally disordered offenders and violent crimes

This study examines the prevalence of homelessness in a cross-sectional sample of 150 patients retained in a maximum-security hospital for mentally disordered offenders in New York City. The homeless mentally ill comprise only 2% of the city's mentally ill population, yet they account for 50% of the admissions to this forensic facility from the community. Compared to population base rate estimates, forensic patients are homeless at 25 times the rate found in the rest of the city's mentally disordered population and are 50 times more likely to be homeless than the general population. Further, there is a significant association between homelessness at the time of the instant offense and charges for violent crimes, after controlling for age, sex, race, and diagnosis. These data suggest that homelessness greatly increases the risk that mentally disordered persons will be forensically hospitalized and is closely associated with indictments for violent criminal behavior. Alternative explanations for these findings are discussed, emphasizing risk, vulnerability, and criminalization perspectives.Some of the data reported in this article were presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, February 24, 1990, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thanks to Joel Dvoskin, John Monahan, Edward Mulvey, Charles D. H. Parry, Nancy Pruett, Henry Steadman, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.