Witness testimony from the Church Committee hearings on covert action, 1975

One of the most controversial uses of intelligence by the United States is covert action – secret efforts to change the course of history by intervening secretly into the affairs of other nations or factions. In 1975, the Church Committee held hearings on this subject – a rarity – and four expert witnesses laid out for the panel their recommendations for changes in the conduct of covert action. This dip into the intelligence archives by Intelligence and National Security reveals that much has changed in the world of covert action since 1975, with some of the witness recommendations coming to fruition and others widely ignored.     

Challenges of strategic intelligence

Bruce D. Beikowitz and Allan E. Goodman, Strategic Intelligence for American National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Pp. xiii + 232. $19.95.

Rhodri Jeffreys‐Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1989). Pp. x + 338. $30.00.

Ephraim Kam, Surprise Attack: The Victim's Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). Pp. xv + 266. $19.95.     

JUDICIAL INFLUENCE IN CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD USE OF WORK RELEASE

Judges are under pressure both to combat crime with longer prison sentences and to increase the use of sentencing options which permit use of a graduated system of dispositions which can be used to rehabilitate offenders. The judges are faced with overcrowded prisons and a general lack of the community programs recommended by many professional organizations and scholars. It is recommended here that judges take an active role in encouraging the development of community-based alternatives such as local work release. This study found that a male judge is a more effective communicator than a bailiff and that he could cause a change in attitude toward work release in a sample of citizens. Thus, judges can anticipate some degree of success if they choose to participate in efforts to develop community support for sentencing alternatives.     

Meeting in the Middle: A Review of Joint JD/PhD Programs

In recent years there has been a vigorous debate in the discipline of criminology and criminal justice, concerning the role of faculty members in Criminology and Criminal Justice departments who hold a Juris Doctorate (JD), but lack a PhD. Some argue that faculty members with a JD possess sufficient credentials to be tenure-track faculty members within a department; however, others believe that a tenure-track faculty member within a department should hold a PhD. Two primary arguments in the debate concern the discrepancies in the hour requirements for degree certification, as well as the dissertation requirement for completion of a PhD. Although it seems both sides are entrenched in their respective beliefs, one plausible method of attempting to bridge this gap is to encourage interested students to enroll in joint JD/PhD programs. These programs are designed to overlap degree requirements and allow students to concurrently earn both degrees in a shorter period of time than if both degrees were earned separately. To analyze JD/PhD programs, a survey of the 201 American Bar Association (ABA) accredited law schools with joint degree programs within criminology and criminal justice (as well as other academic disciplines) was conducted. Of specific interest was the process of program integration and combined curriculum requirements.     

Book Reviews

Taylor C. Boas, Presidential Campaigns in Latin America: Electoral Strategies and Success Contagion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Figures, tables, appendixes, bibliography, index, 276 pp.; hardcover $99.99, ebook. John Gledhill, The New War on the Poor: The Production of Insecurity in Latin America. London: Zed Books, 2015. Map, bibliography, index, 256 pp.; paperback $29.95, ebook $23.96. Ezequiel A. González‐Ocantos, Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 342 pp.; hardcover $110, paperback $35.99, ebook $88. Merrilee S. Grindle and Erin E. Goodman, eds., Reflections on Memory and Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. Photograph, 274 pp.; paperback $24.95. David Pion‐Berlin, Military Missions in Democratic Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 231 pp.; hardcover $105, ebook $79.99. Robert Gay, Bruno: Conversations with a Brazilian Drug Dealer. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Illustrations, chronology, notes, bibliography, index, 232 pp.; hardcover $89.95, paperback $14.95. Georgina Waylen, ed., Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet's Chile. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Figure, tables, bibliographies, index, 259 pp.; hardcover $105, ebook $79.99. Dickie Davis, David Kilcullen, Greg Mills, and David Spencer, A Great Perhaps? Colombia: Conflict and Convergence. London: Hurst, 2015. Maps, figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 288 pp.; hardcover $39.40. Mary Helen Spooner and Steven Ullmann, Cuban Health Care: Utopian Dreams, Fragile Future. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014. Appendixes, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 152 pp.; hardcover $83, ebook $78.50. John M. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders: Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. Tables, bibliography, index, 376 pp.; hardcover $79.95. Christine J. Wade, Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016. Illustrations, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 304 pp.; hardcover $69.95, paperback $39.95, ebook.     

A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Swabbing and Flossing as a Means of Recovering Spermatozoa from the Oral Cavity

This study examined whether flossing the teeth is a more effective collection method in recovering spermatozoa than conventional swabbing techniques. It was hypothesized that inclusion of flossing as a collection method would extend the recovery of spermatozoa to longer postcoital intervals (PCIs). Eighteen individuals provided 174 oral cavity samples. Successful recovery of spermatozoa was assessed with respect to the collection method and reported activity in the oral cavity during the PCI. Samples were subjected to a differential extraction procedure prior to microscopic evaluation of the extracted pellet. The results indicate that swabbing is more effective than flossing when the PCI falls within 1.5–12 h. However, spermatozoa were recovered from seven floss samples where the corresponding swabs gave negative results. When combining the results from the two collection methods, the percentage of subjects from whom spermatozoa are recovered increases for each PCI beyond the 0‐h interval.     

Ethnic Politics and Women's Empowerment in Africa: Ministerial Appointments to Executive Cabinets

Under what conditions do women participate in executive power in multiethnic societies? Previous research has examined how political institutions, socioeconomic factors, and cultural norms affect the appointment of women as cabinet ministers. However, no study has assessed the extent to which the politicization of ethnicity—a cleavage that shapes political life in many countries—affects women's cabinet appointments. Focusing on sub‐Saharan Africa, we argue that women are less likely to become cabinet ministers where incumbents use such appointments to build patronage‐based alliances with politicians who act as advocates for ethnic constituencies. Using an original dataset on the composition of cabinets in 34 African countries from 1980 to 2005, we show that women's share of cabinet appointments is significantly lower in countries where leaders must accommodate a larger number of politicized ethnic groups, but it rises with higher levels of democracy and greater representation of women in parliament.     

Guilt by association: The link between states�� influence and the legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations

Unfavorable views toward a particular state will result in skepticism about the legitimacy of IGOs in which that state possesses influence. The more extensive the avenues of influence, the stronger this “guilt by association.” The rationale is two-fold. First, a state that possesses institutionalized influence (e.g., a veto) within an intergovernmental organization faces substantial difficulties in credibly committing to non-interference with organizational activities. Second, even if a state somehow could commit to abstention from overt interference, it may exert covert ideational influence if it already has embedded its values into an IGO. Elites and laypeople alike recognize the avenues of influence that fuel guilt-by-association. With statistical analyses of public opinion data from 35,397 people in 23 countries, I provide the first systematic evidence that guilt-by-association exists: for the United States, Russia, Japan, and Pakistan, vis-à-vis the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. The evidence is robust to numerous alternative specifications. The findings contribute to international relations scholarship by enhancing our understanding of threats to IGO legitimacy and by providing concrete evidence for a mechanism by which antipathy toward powerful states matters in the international realm.     

Dynamics of Polarizing Rhetoric in Congressional Tweets

Affective polarization is pervasive in modern US politics, and can be intensified by strategic messaging from members of Congress. But there are gaps in our knowledge of the dynamics of polarizing appeals from elected representatives on social media. We explore the usage of polarizing rhetoric by members of Congress on Twitter using the 4.9 million tweets sent by members of Congress from 2009 to 2020, coded for the presence of polarizing rhetoric via a novel and highly accurate application of supervised machine learning methods. Fitting with our expectations, we find that more ideologically extreme members, those from safer districts, and those who are not in the president’s party are more likely to send polarizing tweets, and that polarizing tweets garner more engagement, increasing campaign funding for more polarizing members.