(Mis)Measuring Value Change: A Brief Postscript

One aspect of the multifaceted controversy on value change in advanced industrial societies concerns the measurement of values. Analyses of 1976–86 Euro-Barometer data have indicated that responses to the four-item materialist-postmaterialist values index are very sensitive to current economic conditions, especially inflation and unemployment rates and, hence, much of the recorded increase in postmaterialism in eight Western European countries since the mid-1970s is artifactual. Although it has been claimed these findings disappear if more recent data are considered, time series analyses reveal that responses to the values measure are strongly affected by prevailing economic conditions throughout the entire 1976–92 period. These aggregate-level findings are buttressed by individual-level analyses of 1989 Euro-Barometer data.     

Abortion policy and medical practice

He is author of Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicineand editor of The Feeling Intellect: Selected Writings of Philip Rieff.He is presently at work on a study of the idea of vocation in three professions: ministering, doctoring, and teaching.     

The “Forest Jihad”

Recent Al Qaeda threats and related jihadi propaganda potentially herald a new weapon in the terrorist arsenal: the deliberate setting of forest fires and other conflagrations both to terrorize society and wreck untold economic damage. Beyond the immense, new burdens that would be placed on emergency response personnel, these fires could also create grave environmental crises causing severe pollution from gases escaping into the atmosphere. The strategy of “Forest Jihad,” now being championed by Al Qaeda strategists, is supported and justified theologically by radical Islamic scholars. With this new weapon, the terrorists believe, maximum physical and financial damage can be inflicted to targeted countries at comparatively little risk.     

Hurricane Damage and the Law

The New Zealand Supreme Court was established on 1 January 2004 and began sitting in the latter part of that year. It replaces the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the nation’s court of final appeal.     

The Rhetoric of Educational Reform

This article is an examination of the language of recent large-scale education reform in England, New Zealand, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba. In each jurisdiction, we review both the official documents and the parliamentary debate around a set of major educational reforms, looking at both the similarities and differences between jurisdictions and at the overall nature of official discourse. Although some similar rhetoric was used in all four settings, we conclude that the differences in justifications were more significant than the commonalities. Our analysis supports a view of official rhetoric as being primarily symbolic and intended to create or support particular definitions of problems and solutions, but also as shaped by the historical context, institutional structure, and political culture of each setting.