Rural Adjustment Schemes: Juggling Politics,Welfare and Markets

The Commonwealth government has offered support to farmers in the form of structural or business adjustment‐type schemes since the Loan (Farmers Debt Adjustment) Acts of 1935–1971. Since 1971, a series of more comprehensive rural reconstruction/adjustment schemes with a range of objectives from debt alleviation to encouraging some exits from agricultural industries, has been in place. While having little direct impact on the structure of these industries, the various schemes have been politically important and an indicator of how core values relating to agricultural production and rural life have changed. A review of the schemes shows an increasing focus on improving farm productivity and sustainability, accompanied by a discourse emphasising the need to promote the ‘farm business’, rather than to protect the ‘family farm’. On the other hand, governments have also used these schemes to deliver ‘welfare’ outputs.     

Beyond soft balancing: small states and coalition-building in the ICC and climate negotiations

The role of small states has been largely neglected in research on the process and outcome of multilateral negotiations. Even though these states may be active in the agenda-setting processes or display a specific engagement in certain thematic aspects of negotiations, in the end game the outcome of negotiations has been perceived to be dependent on the bargaining between major powers. However, small states also have strategies at their disposal to compensate for these weaknesses. Two principal ones come to mind, prioritization or niche diplomacy, and coalition-building to join forces with like-minded states in order to draw on their resources, expertise and manpower. In the article, we compare two cases of small state coalitions in multilateral negotiations, namely the Like Minded (LM) group in the negotiations that led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in United Nations climate negotiations. While the two coalitions resort to similar strategies, they have not been comparably successful. We will show that the ability to translate discursive power into measurable effects on outcomes ultimately depends on the institutional setting of the negotiations and the nature of the issue that coalitions are tackling.     

Do a Law’s Policy Implications Affect Beliefs About Its Constitutionality? An Experimental Test

Although a substantial empirical literature has found associations between judges' political orientation and their judicial decisions, the nature of the relationship between policy preferences and constitutional reasoning remains unclear. In this experimental study, law students were asked to determine the constitutionality of a hypothetical law, where the policy implications of the law were manipulated while holding all legal evidence constant. The data indicate that, even with an incentive to select the ruling best supported by the legal evidence, liberal participants were more likely to overturn laws that decreased taxes than laws that increased taxes. The opposite pattern held for conservatives. The experimental manipulation significantly affected even those participants who believed their policy preferences had no influence on their constitutional decisions.     

Photo‐ and Thermal‐Degradation Studies of Select Eccrine Fingerprint Constituents

Abstract: Photo‐ and thermal‐degradation studies on eccrine fingerprint components are presented herein. Dilute distinct solutions of urea, lactic acid, and seven amino acids were deposited on steel coupons and Teflon^® disks, exposed to artificial sunlight or heat, extracted, and analyzed. This aim of this study was to determine whether the investigated eccrine components, previously determined to be Raman active for a parallel study, experienced photo‐ or thermally induced degradation, and if so, to determine the rate and identify any detectable products. Neither the amino acids nor urea exhibited photo‐degradation; however, when heated for a period of three minutes, the onset of thermal‐degradation was initiated at 100°C for the amino acids and 100°C for urea. Lactic acid, the major polymerization initiator of superglue fuming, showed photochemical and thermal‐degradation. These results could be used for future development of new latent fingerprint visualization methods, especially when lactic acid is degraded.     

Engaging community residents to prevent violence

The Institute for Community Peace has conducted two demonstration projects to determine whether communities can be engaged to prevent violence as it is identified and defined locally and link primary prevention across multiple forms of violence. The projects present evidence that community engagement can effect primary violence prevention; the violence prevention field has much to learn about developing and sustaining strategies to address interrelated violence problems; and the violence prevention field and community residents are in vastly different places with respect to primary violence prevention.     

Issues related to defining and measuring violence against women: response to Kilpatrick

This paper asserts that although there is considerable agreement in the U.S. and internationally about the importance of uniform terminology and measurement related to violence against women, we need a strategy for choosing standardized definitions and measures. Responding to Kilpatrick's comments at the October 2003 national research conference on violence against women, the author stresses the importance of developing and using uniform terminology related to violence against women, and discusses the lack of a formal mechanism to achieve uniformity of definitions and measurement. Uncertainty about the impact of context on survey findings and the lack of agreement about the optimal scope of measurement are discussed. The author also comments on some difficulties associated with implementing Kilpatrick's proposed modifications to existing measures of rape and sexual assault.