Japan’s Growing Hard Hedge Against China

As China accumulates more power, Japan is often overlooked as being capable of affecting China’s continued trajectory because of material differences and narratives of Japan being a reactive state. Yet, Beijing’s strategic planning cannot ignore Tokyo because Japan has the ability to affect the region’s security environment. Feeling its presence and influence becoming relatively smaller, Tokyo has been increasingly proactive in its effort to expand its strategic space and shape the regional environment in ways conducive to its interests. A review of Japan’s approach to China since 1972 reveals that it has shifted away from its traditional engagement policy toward first a soft hedge, followed by a harder hedge that continues to this day. Today’s mix of partnerships and capabilities enable Japan to complicate China’s freedom of action and frustrate its continued rise.     

The Value of Vagueness: Delegation, Defiance, and Judicial Opinions

An established line of research demonstrates that vague judicial opinions are less likely to be implemented than clear opinions. Vague opinions thus present a puzzle. Why would judges craft opinions that risk noncompliance? We argue that the relationships between judges and other policy makers in separation‐of‐powers systems are central to understanding this puzzle. Opinion vagueness can reflect efforts to resolve core tradeoffs associated with judicial policymaking that bear some resemblance to standard accounts of political delegation. Vagueness offers judges the ability to manage their uncertainty over policy outcomes and to hide likely defiance from public view. At the same time, vagueness removes a central source of pressure for compliance that judges can place on other policy makers. Using a game‐theoretic model, we identify conditions under which judges use vagueness precisely as legislatures use statutory discretion. We also demonstrate conditions under which judges use vagueness in ways unanticipated by standard delegation accounts.     

The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression

The cause of mental disorders such as depression remains unknown. However, the idea that neurotransmitter imbalances cause depression is vigorously promoted by pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession at large. We examine media reports referring to this chemical imbalance theory and ask reporters for evidence supporting their claims. We then report and critique the scientific papers and other confirming evidence offered in response to our questions. Responses were received from multiple sources, including practicing psychiatrists, clients, and a major pharmaceutical company. The evidence offered was not compelling, and several of the cited sources flatly stated that the proposed theory of serotonin imbalance was known to be incorrect. The media can play a positive role in mental health reporting by ensuring that the information reported is congruent with the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

“Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics”: A Response to Heydemann

Applications of institutional analysis to the explanation of economic performance come in many flavors. Some economists have made use of an economics-oriented flavor in treating culture as one component of that analysis. Steven Heydemann uses a more political flavor of institutional analysis to argue that two of these economists, Douglass North and Avner Greif, have overly simplified and homogenized the concept of culture and the way in which it affects economic performance. He goes on to identify several instances in both the economic history and contemporary experience of the Middle East where he claims that such over-simplification has led to shortcomings in the analysis. This paper suggests that while some of Heydemann’s claims have merit, several others are exaggerated.

The Disruptive and Transformative Potential of Hypertext in the Classroom: Implications for Active Learning

This article describes a further extension of a strategy to move from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning environment through the use of 'collaborative hypertext.' Students were trained in the use of MidasWeb, a Web-based environment for the organization, storage, and retrieval of hypertext documents and images. Over the course of the term students worked in teams to construct their MidasWeb sites by developing the underlying conceptual frameworks for their subject areas and uploading documents. The results of questionnaire surveys of the students suggest that the MidasWeb exercise did achieve our objective of disrupting the traditional relationship between teacher and student to create a more student-centered environment. The more students became involved in the exercise the more they felt empowered with respect to the subject matter of the course and took responsibility for deriving meaning from the information they had obtained. In addition, the experience encouraged them to think about the subject matter across interdisciplinary lines. Because the MidasWeb exercise was structured as a group activity, the effectiveness of the team coordinators had an impact on the success of the teams as well as the nature of the learning experience of the individuals involved. Although the MidasWeb exercise was a successful application of digital technology to classroom learning, it was not a resounding success, because the impact on the students in the course was not uniform. While a substantial majority of them found MidasWeb to be very involving and moved toward student-centered learning, approximately one third of them, especially students who were uncomfortable with computer technology, did not benefit fully from the exercise. This suggests that in the future more time should be spent on training, and that MidasWeb needs to be made more user friendly for unsophisticated users.     

Rebels-Turned-Narcos? The FARC-EP’s Political Involvement in Colombia’s Cocaine Economy

Abstract

According to the ‘rebels-turned-narcos’ premise, increasing involvement in the illicit drug industry causes insurgent groups to lose sight of their political aims, as they shift their focus to profit-making. The (former) Colombian rebel group, the FARC-EP, became a paragon for this idea. Drawing on primary research, we argue that the FARC-EP’s involvement in the illicit drug economy was itself political. Their involvement included governance activities, which are by their very nature political. Furthermore, these activities formed part of the FARC-EP’s political project, aimed at ensuring the reproduction of the peasant smallholder economy. Our argument challenges the rebels-turned-narcos premise more broadly by showing why involvement in the illicit drug economy, on its own, is insufficient evidence to posit the depoliticization of an insurgent group.     

Hong-Kong-style community policing: a study of the Yau Ma Tei fruit market

This paper explores the policing of a traditional wholesale fruit market located in a densely populated neighborhood of urban Hong Kong. Based on ethnographic and historical research, we outline the political arrangements that govern the discretionary arrangements of police power at the market. A historically developed system maintains an informal status quo against various pressures to change. We identify crucial features in the contemporary policing system that emerge from a fusion between the democratic ethos of community policing ideals and non-democratic aspects of local administration in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. These features of this historically developed mode of order-maintenance, we suggest, might be seen as broadly characteristic of a “Hong Kong style” community policing.