Invisible Populations and the #MeToo Movement

The #MeToo movement has done a great deal to address sexual abuse and violence. There is no doubt that justice may occur when the right person speaks out. However, what happens when the wrong people—that is, people of color, the working class women, and transgender people— speak out on the same issue? When these “wrong people” do speak out, they are discredited, marginalized, and silenced by being ignored. This Viewpoint essay addresses two populations that have been overlooked by the #MeToo movement: women of color and transgender people. The essay concludes with recommendations for how the movement can move forward given the criticisms around the absence of diversity and transparency.     

Multi- and interdisciplinary research—Problems of initiation,control, integration and reward

This paper reviews some of the difficulties of initiating and completing interdisciplinary research involving both bio-physical and social systems. Drawing on the author's experience as project director of a large interdisciplinary project concerned with man's effects on Lake Tahoe, it includes a structural analysis of the organization of universities which has the effect of inhibiting interdisciplinary research. Specific suggestions for the conduct and design of such projects are made. The political implications of recent changes in national science policy are also reviewed.The author wishes to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Prof. Robert Johnston, Division of Environmental Studies, U. C. Davis.     

The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market

We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left‐of‐center (right‐of‐center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues.     

Value of stealing bases in Major League Baseball

This paper asks whether stealing bases contributes to scoring runs and winning games in Major League Baseball. A successful attempt advances the runner to the next base, which raises his chances of scoring a run; being caught stealing results in an out. Exploiting a dataset that includes all professional MLB teams and 15 regular seasons of play (1990–2004), the empirical results suggest that players attempting to steal bases are successful two out of three times. On the average and other things being the same, a one-standard deviation increase in the number of stolen base attempts results in 3.65 more games won per season.     

Public Eyewitness Confidence Can Be Influenced by the Presence of Other Witnesses

Four experiments were conducted to examine whether witnesses' public confidence ratings differ from their private ratings when there are social pressures to use confidence as an impression-management tool. In all four experiments, participants answered questions about a source event (a series of faces in the first three experiments and a simulated crime scene in the fourth). Half of the responses and confidence ratings were given privately and anonymously, and half were given publicly in front of one or more mock jurors. Two central findings emerged from the results. First, public confidence differed from private confidence only when there was more than one witness; when there were no other witnesses, public and private confidence were the same. Second, the direction of the change in public confidence in the multiple-witness settings was influenced by whether or not there was a possibility of being contradicted by the other witnesses. When there was no chance that the participants' responses could be contradicted, they raised their confidence ratings in public; when there was a chance that the other witnesses might contradict them, the participants lowered their public confidence ratings. The results are discussed in terms of self-presentation theory and implications for the legal system.     

Book Reviews

Comparative Civil (Private) Law. G. Eoersi. Budapest. 1979. Akademiai Kiado 651 pp. 850 ft.

Recherches sur l'Histoire des Institutions et du Droit. Ed. late G. Herlea. Association d'Histoire Comparative des Institutions et du Droit de la République Socialiste de Roumanie. Bucharest, vol. II (1978) 195 pp, vol. III (1979) 207 pp.

Manual of Law French J. H. Baker. Amersham; Avebury Publishing Co. 1979,207 pp. £7.50.     

Terrorists,Insurgents, and Criminals—Growing Nexus?

Using Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies, this article explores several critical questions. First, what is the scope of the relationship among criminal organizations, terrorists, and insurgents? The analysis is drawn from theoretical approaches but also relies on government studies and open source reports. Second, how has the transitional period between post-conflict and reconstruction/nation-building created fertile ground for strengthening the criminal–terrorist–insurgent continuum? This is a particularly important issue as the Bush administration engages international organizations. Lastly, what can the United States and its Coalition allies do to mitigate the security challenges presented by the criminal–terrorist–insurgent problem in the these two countries?     

A Routine Activities Analysis of White‐Collar Crime in Carbon Markets

Scholars recently called for increased analysis of opportunity structures that produce white‐collar crimes in legitimate business systems. In the current research, we use mental models, a tool from cognitive psychology, to describe opportunity structures for white‐collar crime in the European Emissions Trading System, the largest carbon market in the world. Specifically, we use routine activities theory to describe the convergence of motivated offenders and suitable targets in the absence of capable guardians in different parts of the system. Implications for utilizing routine activities theory to understand and address crime in carbon markets are discussed.