Reviews

Steven Fortescue, The Communist Party and Soviet Science. Macmillan, London/Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986, 234 pp. £27.50, $28–50.

Cameron Ross, Local Government in the Soviet Union: Problems of implementation and Control. London: Croom Helm, 1987, 229pp., £29.95.

Albert P. van Goudoever, The Limits of Destalinization in the Soviet Union. Translated by Frans Hijkoop. London: Croom Helm, 1986, viii + 276 pp., £25.00.

Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialization: the Formation of Modern Soviet Production Relations, 1928–1941, London: Pluto Press, 1986, vi + 338 pp., £25.00.

William Chase, Workers, Society, and the Soviet State. Labor and Life in Moscow, 1918–1929. Urbana, Il.: University of Illinois Press, 1987, xviii + 344 pp., $29.90.

Catherine Andreyev, Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Emigre Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xiv + 251 pp., h/b £25.00, $34.50.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe and Mark W. Janis, eds. Soviet Law and Economy. Law in Eastern Europe Series, no. 32. Dordrecht, Holland: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986, xii + 335 pp., £58.75.

A. Hewett, ed., Energy Economics and Foreign Policy in the Soviet Union. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984, xi + 228 pp., £12.85 p/b, £34–00 h/b.

George W. Hoffman (with contributions by Leslie Dienes), The European Energy Challenge: East and West. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985, xvi + 207 pp., £34.75.

Carl H. McMillan, Multinationals from the Second World. London: Macmillan, 1987, xvi + 220pp., £29.50.

Sergio Alessandrini and Bruno Dallago, eds., The Unofficial Economy: Consequences and Perspectives in Different Economic Systems. Aldershot: Gower, 1987, 345 pp., £22.50.

A. James McAdams, East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xi + 233 pp., £25.00, $34.00.

Karel Kaplan, The Short March, The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia 1945–1948. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1987. xvi + 207 pp., £16.50.

D. Turnock, The Romanian Economy in the Twentieth Century, Basingstoke, Kent: Croom Helm, 1986, xx + 296 pp., £27.95.

John Hiden, The Baltic states and Weimar Ostpolitik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xi + 276 pp., £25.00.

Jan F. Triska, ed., Dominant Powers and Subordinate States: the United States in Latin America and the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, Duke University Press, 1986, 504 pp. £48.90 h/b, £14.40 p/b.

Rasul B. Rais, The Indian Ocean and the Superpowers. Economic, Political and Strategic Perspectives, London: Croom Helm, 1986, 215 pp., £25.00.

Vera Broido, Lenin and the Mensheviks. The Persecution of Socialists Under Bolshevism, Hants: Gower/Maurice Temple Smith, 1987, 224 pp. £17.50.

J. P. Roos and Andrzej Sicinski. Ways of Life in Finland and Poland. Gower, Aldershot and Vermont: 1987, viii + 203 pp., £18.50.     

The sexuality of women in physically abusive marriages: A comparative study

This study compared 60 abused women with a demographically matched sample of nonabused women in distressed marriages to examine female sexuality in physically abusive marriages. The total study population consisted of 120 women aged 19-29 years. The sample of abused women was obtained from couples who were enrolled under the Domestic Conflict Containment Program, while the sample of nonabused women was selected from couples who were enrolled in marital group therapy to control for any confounding effects of marital discord and dissatisfaction. With the exception of religion, both groups were equally matched in numbers, but no significant differences were discovered between the two samples on any of the demographic variables. Results of the study showed that physically abused women expressed lower levels of intimacy (p 0.001) and compatibility (p = 0.034) in their marriages than did nonabused women. Lower degrees of sexual assertiveness (p 0.001), sexual arousal (p = 0.026), and a more traditional sex-role ideology (p 0.001) was reported by women in abusive relationships. In addition, abused women reported greater sexual dissatisfaction (p = 0.022), a more negative disposition regarding sex (p = 0.054), and a stronger tendency to avoid sexual activity (p 0.01). Despite these findings, abused women reported a higher frequency of sexual intercourse with their spouses (p 0.001) than women in nonviolent marriages.     

Ego Strength Development of Adolescents Involved in Adult-Sponsored Structured Activities

A psychosocial conception of ego strengths is presented in relation to adolescent involvement in adult-sponsored structured youth activities. Five-hundred and seventeen high school students completed measures on their involvement in structured activities and on 8 ego strengths. Gender, age, and SES were controlled in a MANCOVA procedure and it was found that extracurricular activities of sports, student government, and belonging to an issues group, as well as engagement in volunteerism were related to several of the ego strengths. Religious attendance was not related to the ego strengths. In longitudinal analysis, it was shown that ego strength at Time 1 predicted involvement in structured activities at Time 2 (8 months later), but structured activities at Time 1 did not predict ego strength at Time 2. The findings are discussed relative to theory and research findings on the topic.Carol A. Markstrom is a Professor in Family and Consumer Sciences, West Virginia University. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology in 1988 from Utah State University. Her research interests include adolescent identity formation, positive youth development, American Indian adolescents, and indigenous models of human development.Xaioming Li is a Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Wayne State University. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in 1992 from the University of Minnesota. Research interests (in general) include child development, adolescent health risk prevention and intervention, research methodology, and biostatistics.Shana L. Blackshire is a M. S. Instructor, Child Development and Family Studies, Division of Family and Consumer Sciences, West Virginia University.Juanita J. Wilfong is a graduate student, Elementary Education, West Virginia University.     

The Clash between Security and Liberty in the U.S. Response to Terror

This study examines U.S. public opinion on civil liberties and security in response to the politically pivotal events of September 11, 2001—what shape it is in, what shapes it, and what it shapes. Public opinion is a critical restraint on political and administrative action today because so many regulators, rule makers, and law enforcers are making decisions or advocating policies that directly affect the balance between liberty and security. The general importance that is popularly attributed to terrorism is gauged by its ranking among the most important problems. The ostensibly contradictory public attitudes toward civil liberties are analyzed, as is the supposed inconsistency between perceived personal impact and the general significance attributed to the attacks. The data rebut the allegation that the public is readily disposed to restrict civil liberties as the price of security. Findings show the public does not perceive a personal or immediate threat to civil liberties. The implications for further research and good governance are laid out.     

Developing and Testing a Composite Model to Predict Local Fiscal Distress

One of the thorniest issues of intergovernmental fiscal relations is state oversight of local fiscal affairs. States have oversight responsibility and must take action when local governments run afoul of responsible fiscal behavior. Less accepted is how states can detect local financial difficulties before they become emergencies that require state takeover. Research in the 1970s provided some assistance to states wishing to recognize local financial emergencies. But the time has come to look at this issue anew, particularly with an eye toward predicting local financial problems before they become serious. This article describes a 10-point scale that predicts these problems and tests the scale to predict local fiscal stress in a sample of Michigan local governments.     

The State of U.S. Federalism: 1998-1999

In 1998–1999, changing federalism in the United Statesmeant that states have greater discretion in some areas of socialpolicy while Congress has asserted greater influence over issuesof culture and crime. Despite the rhetoric about decisions beingbest made by states and localities, Congress continues to takeon new areas, such as health privacy. In the meantime, the U.S.Supreme Court's sustained focus on issues of federalism intensified,with states' rights continuing to receive emphasis, even thoughthe Court upheld federal power in selected cases and refusedto sanction state actions in others.     

The use of client surveys to gauge the threat of contamination in welfare reform experiments

This paper examines the type of evidence policy analysts have used to identify the presence and magnitude of contamination in welfare reform experiments. Peter Rossi's critique of the New Jersey Family Development Program evaluation motivates the following discussion. In this critique Rossi and others contend that client misperception about experimental control‐group assignment resulted in contamination that negates reported treatment effectiveness. By applying the framework of the Rubin Causal Model (RCM) to isolate “pure” and “impure” experimental and control cases, the actual group assignment and not self‐reported membership is shown to be a more accurate gauge of treatment level and effect. The analysis reveals that the form of contamination Rossi detected leads to underestimates of treatment effects, not their evaporation. While contamination is a legitimate threat in any research design its identification must be based on empirical measures. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.