Left Behind: Boris E. Skvirsky and the Chita Delegation at the Washington Conference, 1921–22

Although the story of the role of the Special Trade Delegation of the Russian short-lived Far Eastern Republic during the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament of 1921–22, seems to be well-known from its many Western accounts published since 1922, a recent search in the records of the Russian Communist Party has uncovered many hitherto unknown or obscure details that shed the light on the fascinating intelligence origins of the secret documentation, which the delegation made public during the conference. Particularly, the Russian records indicate the central role of one of the delegates, Boris Skvirsky, who would be left behind in the United States to become the Soviet unofficial representative and back channel during the years of non-recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States.     

The big,bad wolf and the rational market: portfolio insurance,the 1987 crash and the performativity of economics

This article distinguishes two meanings of the performativity of economics, a thesis advanced by Michel Callon: ‘generic’ performativity, according to which markets and other economic relations are not to be taken as given, but as performed by economic practices; and ‘Austinian’ performativity, in which economics brings into being the relationships it describes. The two versions of performativity are explored by means of an examination of the history of portfolio insurance (a financial-market technique based on the economics of option pricing), of the 1987 stock market crash, and of subsequent efforts to diagnose the causes of the crash and to redesign the market to avoid future catastrophe. The article emphasizes the extent to which the financial markets of high modernity are designed entities, and argues that the question of their design is always a political question, even if it is seldom recognized as such.     

The PLA and regionalism in Hong Kong

This article examines the linkages between changes in international capital movements and currency values on the one hand and Asian regionalism on the other. It argues that economic ties within Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s can be traced primarily to the increasing values of currencies in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Foreign-direct investments from companies in these countries increased throughout the Asian region. Intra-regional trade grew rapidly as well. Still, by the turn of the century, in contrast to regionalism in Europe, that in Asia remained deeply institutionalized and far less responsive to any central direction from potential leaders such as Japan.     

The resurgence of denial rates for home loans: an examination of disparate effects on groups of applicants in the upper Midwest

Mortgage application denial rates have increased since 2002, but it is unclear to what extent this increase in denials has differentially affected “non-traditional” mortgage applicants that do not resemble “traditional” white, non-Hispanic opposite-sex couple applicants. This article uses augmented Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data to investigate disparities in denial rates between traditional and non-traditional mortgage applicants between 2004 and 2008 in the Federal Reserve Bank's ninth district. We find evidence that lenders became more cautious in lending decisions between 2004 and 2008, treating applicants with the same incomes and requested loan amounts differently over time. After accounting for a variety of loan, applicant, lender, and environmental characteristics, we find that many “non-traditional” applicant groups across the ninth district experienced persistently higher mortgage application denial rates when compared to white, non-Hispanic opposite-sex couples. In some cases, the gap in the mortgage application denial rates between non-traditional and traditional applicants has actually increased over time.     

Irrigation and imperialism: The causes and consequences of a shift from subsistence to cash cropping

Dependency theorists and others have suggested that villagers in British India were compelled to grow cash crops under canal irrigation and this made them more vulnerable to famines. Evidence on cropping patterns in western India c. 1900 shows that cultivators had good technical reasons for not irrigating subsistence crops. In response to fiscal pressures and cultivators’ choices, the government turned from a policy favouring subsistence crop irrigation to one favouring sugarcane. Paradoxically, this new policy also stimulated foodgrain production, providing greater subsistence security for the region.     

A Set of Handwriting Features for Use in Automated Writer Identification,

A writer's biometric identity can be characterized through the distribution of physical feature measurements (“writer's profile”); a graph‐based system that facilitates the quantification of these features is described. To accomplish this quantification, handwriting is segmented into basic graphical forms (“graphemes”), which are “skeletonized” to yield the graphical topology of the handwritten segment. The graph‐based matching algorithm compares the graphemes first by their graphical topology and then by their geometric features. Graphs derived from known writers can be compared against graphs extracted from unknown writings. The process is computationally intensive and relies heavily upon statistical pattern recognition algorithms. This article focuses on the quantification of these physical features and the construction of the associated pattern recognition methods for using the features to discriminate among writers. The graph‐based system described in this article has been implemented in a highly accurate and approximately language‐independent biometric recognition system of writers of cursive documents.     

Who Fears the HPV Vaccine,Who Doesn’t,and Why? An Experimental Study of the Mechanisms of Cultural Cognition

The cultural cognition thesis holds that individuals form risk perceptions that reflect their commitments to contested views of the good society. We conducted a study that used the dispute over mandatory HPV vaccination to test the cultural cognition thesis. Although public health officials have recommended that all girls aged 11 or 12 be vaccinated for HPV—a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer—political controversy has blocked adoption of mandatory school-enrollment vaccination programs in all but one state. An experimental study of a large sample of American adults (N = 1,538) found that cultural cognition generates disagreement about the risks and benefits of the vaccine through two mechanisms: biased assimilation, and the credibility heuristic. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics of racial profiling change police behavior?*

Research Summary Scholarly research has documented repeatedly that minority citizens are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested relative to their baseline populations. In recent years, policymakers have brought increased attention to this issue as law‐enforcement agencies across the United States have faced allegations of racial profiling. In the 1990s, the politics generated by accounts of racially biased policing placed heightened pressure on law‐enforcement agencies. However, to date, few studies have explored whether the increased social and political scrutiny placed on police organizations influenced or changed their general pattern of enforcement among black and white citizens. Using data in the search and citation file from the North Carolina Highway Traffic Study, this research specifically examined whether the politics generated by the media coverage of racial profiling and racial profiling legislation in North Carolina influenced the search practices of officers of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's drug interdiction team. The findings suggest that media accounts and the passage of new legislation were particularly powerful influences, which thereby reduced racial disparity in searches. Declines in the use of consent searches and an increased probability of finding contraband also were influenced by the politics of racial profiling. Policy Implications The results of this study suggest several important policy recommendations. First, law‐enforcement agencies must monitor the policing practices of their officers because such supervision can influence officer compliance with fair and unbiased policing policies. Next, supervisors need to familiarize themselves with enforcement data to identify potential problem officers and organizational practices. By doing so, police organizations will not only increase officer accountability but also will potentially improve communication with their local communities. Such communication can empower community members to file charges against officers who violate their civil rights. Next, the media and political effects documented in this study suggest that external oversight can be particularly influential on police practices. Therefore, police agencies should consider developing a citizen complaint board, which is an external oversight board that would be responsible for investigating allegations against officers who engage in racial profiling or other racially biased enforcement practices. Such a board could assist police administrators in identifying problem officers as well as in making recommendations for corrective action. Finally, external social and political pressure must continually be placed on police forces to improve equity in police behavior. These external forces can assist in creating opportunities for police to increase the overall quality and efficacy of policing.