Super Tuesday 1988: Regional Results and National Implications

Fourteen southern and border states established a same-day presidentialprimary on 8 March 1988. This analysis shows that this SuperTuesday, in several senses, was less than super. The resultsturned out to be less satisfying than its Democratic founderspreferred but less upsetting than its critics anticipated. DespiteSuper Tuesday, Iowa and New Hampshire remained dominant in the1988 presidential primaries. Although voter turnout increasedslightly over 1984 and the results contributed mightily towardsettling the nomination in the Republican party, Super Tuesdayneither settled the Democratic nomination nor gave meaningfulmomentum to the more moderate Democratic candidates.     

On universal relevance in legal reasoning

The purpose of this essay is to defend a claim that a certain consideration, which I call unworkability, is universally and necessarily relevant to legal reasoning. By that I mean that it is a consideration that must carry legal weight in the justification of some judicial decisions in every legal system in which (1) all disputed matters of law can be adjudicated, and (2) all judicial decisions are to be legally justified. Unworkability's necessary relevance has important implications for a theory of relevance presented by Rolf Sartorius. On this theory, nearly all considerations that are relevant to a judicial decision are supplied by legal principles embedded in the legal rules and decisions, or by extralegal principles dependent, in some way, on the legal principles. (The exceptions to the embedding thesis that Sartorius would, no doubt, recognize are elaborated in the text but can be set aside here.) But there are possible legal systems which do not contain an embedded legal principle concerning unworkability; and nonetheless, unworkability is relevant to judicial reasoning in those systems. Hence, a theory of relevance that relies on principles embedded in the content of rules is too simplistic. Some substantive considerations are relevant for other reasons.     

PRIME MINISTERS AND THE COMMONS: PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOUR, 1868 TO 1987

Since 1868 nineteen Prime Ministers have answered parliamentary questions, made statements, given major speeches, and intervened in debates in the House of Commons. This article presents a comparative and quantitative analysis of PMS' behaviour patterns on these four dimensions. Key findings include: the importance of 1940 as the critical break between a traditional and a modem form of parliamentary activity, in which Prime Ministers make fewer contributions to Commons proceedings altogether, fewer speeches and far fewer interventions in debates than in the pre-1940 period, but more statements; the emergence of question time as the absolutely dominant form of prime ministerial activity in the Commons, especially from the mid-1970s onwards; and the distinctiveness of Thatcher's minimalist Commons activity, when set against other post-1940 PMs.     

Introduction of a standardized "paternity index" for the statistical evaluation of blood group findings in paternity testing

The introduction of a standardized paternity index (PI) for the statistical evaluation of blood group findings in cases of disputed paternity is proposed and explained. By using the PI $\text{X}\text{Y}$ as parameter, it is not necessary to give the information of the probability of paternity in percent. The PI includes the full information of the blood group findings. In addition to that, by using the suggested standardization based on the probabilities of error according to Schulte Mönting and Walter the test volume is also taken into account. The interpretation of the mathematical result is given by verbal predicates, the limitations of which are orientated by the verbal predicates for the probabilities of error according to Schulte Mönting and Walter, published by us elsewhere. Besides the essential fact that the test volume is taken into account, the most important advantage of this procedure is that the mathematical result is involved in the court decision only by the PI (which is free of any valuation) and its verbal predicate and not by sometimes relatively high percentages, which may be misunderstood by laymen.     

Lessons from Germany: some reflections occasioned by Schulenburg's "report"

Germany created the first national health insurance scheme, and its turbulent history has carried many lessons for all other countries. Health care financing--like all social security financing--redistributes wealth and inevitably is caught up in class politics. Cost-sharing by patients is not a neutral device in social engineering to improve efficiency, but it is a gambit in distributive politics. Health care involves the wealth and power of the doctors, and they become militant and successful forces in social politics. The forces for higher spending are stronger than the forces for restraint. Only exceptional political will be government can control costs.     

Fear of crime: Who is most vulnerable?

This study investigates the relationship of demographic, psychosocial, and crime-related factors to fear of crime. Data were collected from 1,499 respondents to a national public opinion survey. A discriminant analysis was used to determine those factors which contribute most to respondents' fear of crime. Overall, 12 variables were found to explain 45.7 percent of the variance in fear of crime. Demographic variables such as sex, the size of the place where the respondent lives, age, marital status, and the number of persons living with the respondent were the most important variables discriminating between fearful and nonfearful respondents. Psychosocial and crime-related variables were found to be less important than demographic variables in discriminating between fearful and nonfearful respondents.