Power in Aggressor-Victim Relationships: Exploring Social,Physical, Gender- and Ethnicity-Based Power

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Theory highlights power in aggressor-victim relationships, yet empirical work assessing dyadic power is largely absent. Variability in power balance versus...     

Public Administration in the Twenty-First Century

Books reviewed in this article:
Donald F. Kettl, The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the Twenty-First Century America
Lester M. Salamon (ed.), The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance
H. George Frederickson and Kevin B. Smith, The Public Administration Theory Primer     

At the Movies: A Continuing Dialogue on the Challenges of Teaching with Film

As part of ISP's ongoing effort to provide a scholarly venue for the exchange of ideas on a variety of topics, this issue's ISP Forum presents one set of reactions to the February 2001 article by Lynn Kuzma and Patrick Haney titled "And Action . . . ! Using Film to Learn About Foreign Policy" (February 2001:33-50). Vincent Pollard's comments represent what we hope will be the first in a series of comments on teaching international studies with film. Profs. Kuzma and Haney in their rejoinder urge for an ongoing discussion of the topic, as they see the use of film growing in the field. More broadly, the Editors of ISP invite readers to submit their own comments and reactions on this and other pieces that appear within the pages of ISP. Please note that all submissions undergo a peer review process.     

Effects of jurors' identification with the victim depend on likelihood of victimization

Courtroom lore suggests that jurors identifying with rape victims will show antidefendant biases, but empirical findings do not unequivocally support this supposition. On theoretical bases, it was predicted that identification with the victim's gender would bias judgment against the defendant when the circumstances of the crime are likely to be encountered in the daily life of the juror or a related potential victim. Parents of female-only (PFs) or of male-only children (PMs) judged defendants in an alleged rape, occurring either in a library, where the victim had engaged in normal routine, or in a street, under unusual and risky conditions. PEs were more conviction-prone and punitive than PMs only for the library case. Findings support theories of defensive attribution (Shaver, 1970) and of attribution of actors and observers (Jones & Nisbett, 1972) but are inconsistent with a variant of defensive attribution (Walster, 1966) based on denial of chance occurrence of threatened harm. The systematic exclusion of jurors with certain characteristics from particular cases based on suppositional criteria is questioned, rigor of juror assessment notwithstanding. It is suggested that research concentrate on discovering the conditions under which biases are, or are not manifested, and on developing means of reducing bias effects in impaneled jurors.     

Of Possibilities,Probabilities and Political Geography

This article explores the nature of intellectual engagement between feminist and political geographies. This exploration is based on two sources of information. The first is a short survey of feminist geographers that asks about their perceptions of political geography, the extent to which they rely on scholarship within political geography and their sense of the openness of political geography to feminist theory and arguments. The second source of information is an analysis of the contents of reviews of political and feminist geography that have been published in recent journals and textbooks. Based on this information, it seems that there is little engagement between the two sub-fields, even though a sizeable body of literature that might be labelled 'feminist political geography' has developed. Reasons for this paradox are considered.     

Cross-sectional anthropometric study of the external ear

This cross-sectional anthropometric study was aimed at estimating expansion of the external ear during adult life, in order to evaluate the extent to which anatomical features appearing in earprints may vary with time. A review of the literature was provided. Data extracted from photographed ears of 1353 subjects were analyzed. The effect of age on auricle length, earlobe length, and auricle width was explored using univariate analyses of variance. The regression coefficients of age on these dimensions were, respectively, 0.178, 0.115, and 0.073 mm/yr for males, and 0.162, 0.100, and 0.073 mm/year for females (p=0.000). Regression coefficients of age corrected for stature were assumed to be less accurate. Anthelix prominence and helix width were analyzed using data of 175 subjects, and appeared unaffected by age. As lobe expansion appeared to exceed the estimated cartilage expansion, it was assumed that particularly the imprint of the lobe would be less stable with time.