Ethics and Foreign Policy: Structured Debates for the International Studies Classroom

Debates about humanitarian intervention, foreign and defense policy priorities, and the ethics of the use of force have become highly politicized in the post-Cold War era. This article explores the value of structured classroom debates on ethical dimensions of international relations as active teaching and learning tools for introductory and advanced international studies courses. Specifically, this article presents design information for structured debates on the ethics of the use of military force, humanitarian interventions, and U.S. foreign policy toward international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC). Building on the literature on active teaching and learning, the article describes the development of these exercises and assesses their effectiveness through ten years of classroom application.     

Priorities for Preventive Action: Explaining Americans’ Divergent Reactions to 100 Public Risks

Why do Americans’ priorities for combating risks like terrorism, climate change, and violent crime often seem so uncorrelated with the dangers that those risks objectively present? Many scholars believe the answer to this question is that heuristics, biases, and ignorance cause voters to misperceive risk magnitudes. By contrast, this article argues that Americans’ risk priorities primarily reflect judgments about the extent to which some victims deserve more protection than others and the degree to which it is appropriate for government to intervene in different areas of social life. The article supports this argument with evidence drawn from a survey with 3,000 respondents, using pairwise comparisons to elicit novel measures of how respondents perceive nine dimensions of 100 life‐threatening risks. Respondents were well informed about these risks’ relative magnitudes—the correlation between perceived and actual mortality was .82—but those perceptions explained relatively little variation in policy preferences relative to judgments about the status of victims and the appropriate role of government. These findings hold regardless of political party, education, and other demographics. The article thus argues that the key to understanding Americans’ divergent reactions to risk lies more with their values than with their grasp of factual information.     

Ideas and Influence: Scholarship as a Harbinger of Counterterrorism Institutions,Policies, and Laws in the People's Republic of China

This article demonstrates how scholarship on terrorism in China has provided the intellectual backdrop against which China's leadership has developed the country's counterterrorism institutions, policies, and laws. Building on the linkages between scholarship and policy-making, the article suggests potential avenues for policy reform in China's current counterterrorism architecture.     

A Validation Study of Bullet and Cartridge Case Comparisons Using Samples Representative of Actual Casework

The foundation of firearm and tool mark identification is that no two tools should produce the same microscopic marks on two separate objects that they would be inaccurately or wrongly identified. Studies addressing the validity of identification infrequently employ tests that mirror realistic casework scenarios. This study attempted to do so using a double‐blind process, reducing test‐taking bias. Test kits including bullets and cartridge cases but not the associated firearms were completed by 31 analysts from 22 agencies. Analysis of the results demonstrated an overall error rate of 0.303%, sensitivity of 85.2%, and specificity of 86.8%. Variability in performance across examiners is addressed, and the effect of examiners’ years of experience on identification accuracy is explored. Finally, the article discusses the importance of studies using realistic case work scenarios when validating the field's performance and in providing courts with usable indicators of the accuracy of firearm and tool mark identification.     

Convict Criminology and the Struggle for Inclusion

Convict Criminology (CC) began in the early 1990s as a reaction to the then current state of academic criminology that did not adequately reflect the voices of convicted felons. Since its beginnings, CC has attempted to draw attention to a range of problems created by the criminal justice apparatus and defenders of the status quo. Dr. Joanne Belknap’s 2014 ASC presidential address and subsequent article presented an argument that stressed the importance of activism to be considered as part of criminological research. In the process, she reviewed her career and then criticized the field of Critical Criminology, in particular Convict Criminology. The article, however, ignored the numerous efforts that CC has engaged in to build an inclusive group school, movement, organization and network that includes the diverse voices of Ph.D. educated convicts and excons, and overall reflected a superficial understanding of the history and intent of Convict Criminology. This article attempts to explain the shortcomings of Belknap’s article and clarifies misunderstandings.     

African American Child Discipline: Differences Between Mothers and Fathers

Child rearing methods used in African American homes have been the subject of much commentary among social scientists, child welfare, and legal personnel. Much of the deliberation has centered on firm disciplinary techniques used by African American mothers. However, few studies have included the perspectives of African American fathers. This study investigated the differences between African American mothers' and fathers' responses in relation to child misbehavior. Several significant differences were found with mothers utilizing more intense disciplinary methods than African American fathers. Results of this investigation underscored the importance of obtaining the viewpoints of African American fathers as well as mothers in understanding parenting in African American homes.