Stay Out of Drug Areas: Drugs,Othering and Regulation of Public Space in Seattle,Washington

The drug user is a social scapegoat, often blamed for many social ills. This targeting and abjectification constitutes definitions of ‘the public’ by creating an Other against which the citizen is defined. Using the example of Seattle's Stay Out of Drug Areas ordinance as a case study, this article shows how the creation and enforcement of exclusionary anti-drug zones, produce an idealised notion of public space and its idealised inhabitant, the “citizen”. Modern citizenship pathologises those who are not considered citizens. Drug-using bodies are policed and segregated to reduce disorder in public space. This policing can lead to additional marginalisation of groups that are already marginalised. In this article, it is argued that discourses of abjection, citizenship and public space work together to form socio-spatial norms of appropriate bodies and actions in public space.     

The global rail revival

She is an analyst of urban transport and land use. She is co-author of five of the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World reports, and author of the reports Alternatives to the Automobile: Transport for Livable Cities;and Shaping Cities: The Environmental and Human Dimensions.     

Prevalence and patterns of substance use among early adolescents

Prevalence and patterns of substance use are described for a sample of 105 San Francisco East Bay adolescents (age 14). Data are compared with national statistics on substance use among high school seniors. While alcohol use appeared comparable to the national statistics, tobacco use was less prevalent among this younger western sample. Despite the differences in ages, use of marijuana, cocaine, and hallucinogens was similar to national high school prevalence; use of other harder drugs was more extensive among the older, national sample. Contrary to typical findings, males and females were not found to differ in frequency or extent of substance use; females appeared somewhat more involved in substance use at this early age. Initiation of substance use occurred at early grade levels, suggesting that intervention efforts should begin prior to junior high, perhaps as early as fourth or fifth grade.This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 16080 to Jack Block and Jeanne H. Block.Received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Main interest is cognitive development and development in adolescence.Received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Main interest is personality development.     

Lesson-Drawing in Family Policy: Media Reports and Empirical Evidence about European Developments

Since 1980, the U.S. press has painted a vivid picture of widespread welfare state dismantling in Europe. Yet our analysis of social expenditures in 14 European countries from 1980–1995 finds a pattern of resilience and, with respect to family benefits, a pattern of expansion. Our review of qualitative research on policy reforms upholds the expenditure-based findings. We conclude that U.S. media misrepresentation of social welfare developments in Europe is likely to impede lesson-drawing from abroad by U.S. policymakers. This constitutes a lost opportunity, as the U.S. is now engaged in social policy reformulation, especially with respect to programs for families.     

An Approach to Measuring the Affordability of State Debt

Affordability is one important and widely accepted element of state and local debt policy. However, there is no well-established measure of affordability and no clear standard for making normative judgments about what amount of debt is affordable for a specific jurisdiction. This article suggests a six-step method for measuring affordability of state debt that provides a useful guideline for determining when a state may be entering a "danger zone" by having debt that exceeds norms of affordability.     

The Military,the media and the invasion of Grenada

The article begins by discussing trends in official U.S. information policies before the invasion of Grenada (1983), describing the tendency towards secrecy and limited disclosure. The immediate political background to the invasion is outlined, including an examination of attempts to produce a plausible justification for military intervention. The management of the media both immediately before and after the invasion is detailed and the article concludes by assessing the lessons and aftermaths of the information war fought during the Grenada episode.The Grenada ban is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern ... (Time, 7 November 1983)     

Chinese university patents: quantity,quality, and the role of subsidy programs

Chinese university patenting has gained importance in recent years. Using a comprehensive dataset of university patents by 155 leading Chinese universities from 1991 to 2009, our study pursues two objectives: First, we analyze the quantity and quality of patents filed by leading Chinese universities. Second, we analyze the role of subsidy programs with regard to university patenting in China. With regard to the first objective, our results show that university patents witnessed rapid growth in terms of quantity while patent quality did not increase to a similar degree. Regarding the second objective, we find that a subsidy program to promote research excellence at selected universities is a significant driver of patent quantity and quality. In contrast, a subsidy program that decreases the costs of patent applications seems to enhance patent quantity but not patent quality. We conclude that innovation policies which aim to stimulate patents of higher quality should focus primarily on increasing university R&D, and to a lesser extent on decreasing the costs of university patenting.