The struggle for nature: Replies

Social Justice, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1996:

Andre E. Guilerme: The Age of Water: the Urban Environ‐ment in the North of France, A.D. 300–1800. College Station: Texas A &; M University Press, 1988.     

Regional legislatures and national lawmaking

Recent work has noted the supposedly ‘exceptional’ constitutional authority of sub-national legislatures in Mexico to introduce legislative initiatives into the national congress. Rather than a mechanism unique to Mexico, however, this debate article notes other states’ constitutions with similar provisions, drawing on data from the Comparative Constitutions Project, as well as a new dataset on lawmaking in the Russian Federation. The article calls for a new collaborative research agenda to explore the involvement of sub-national legislatures in national-level lawmaking.     

Export Controls and United States Space Power

This article assesses the impact of export policy on 21st century United States space power. The efficacy of current export controls in preventing the proliferation of space technologies and maintaining United States advantage is evaluated. The study finds that space launch technology has been and remains highly globalized; the United States has lost significant international communications satellite market share, but it maintains a tangible lead in position, navigation, and timing systems; and the recent growth in foreign imaging systems, both radar and optical, have eroded any advantage the United States once enjoyed. Furthermore, export controls have not appreciably slowed the internationalization of space and breaking dependency on the United States is a common underlying theme. The paper goes on to highlight the unintended consequences stemming from current policy, including limiting access to advanced technology of foreign origin, limiting access to foreign-born expertise, and adding “fog” and “friction” to the execution of programs that include foreign content. This paper finds current export control policy is incongruent with 21st century space power programs and initiatives, such as Operationally Responsive Space, Coalition Space, and “Soft” Space Power. Export control reform is suggested herein on the basis of developing a trusted community of trading partners.     

Use of Forensic DNA Evidence in Prosecutors''Offices

This article reports on a survey of DNA-related practices and procedures within District Attorneys' offices to obtain preliminary information about actual prosecutorial practices. The data obtained is preliminary but supportive of further study of areas targeted by the survey.     

"Not the Normal Mode of Maintenance": Bureaucratic Resistance to the Claims of Lone Women in the Postwar British Welfare State

Because of the expansion of the postwar welfare state and its rhetoric of inclusion, the British National Assistance Board (NAB), which provided means-tested relief, faced a dramatic increase in the number of lone women with children claiming assistance in the 1950s and 1960s. In trying to restrict the state's role in social provision, the NAB relied on and tried to extend familial obligations for women's support that had been institutionalized in family law and in the poor law. The largely unsuccessful efforts of the NAB to prevent such women from turning to the welfare state included various forms of persuasion, coercion, and intimidation. Scholars of social policy in the postwar period have called attention to later efforts to discourage applications by lone women between the late 1960s and the 1990s. But the defensive posture against such women was adopted much earlier, in a relatively unexamined portion of the NAB's history. In its early, formative years, the NAB devised new strategies based on the rationales of female dependence that had long been entrenched in family law and the poor law. These methods and rationales became fixed in the postwar bureaucratic repertoire and were later available to bolster gendered attacks on the welfare state itself, particularly those made so aggressively under Thatcherism.     

Assessment Procedures for Skills‐Based MBA Courses Adapted from the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps Leadership Development Program

Measuring student progress toward the achievement of learning outcomes in negotiation skills courses is a difficult task. Measuring the effectiveness of the delivery of course instruction can be equally challenging. This article proposes some answers to these questions: How can student performance in skills such as negotiation, leadership, and teamwork (sometimes referred to as “soft skills”) be effectively measured and accurately evaluated? What standards can be used to determine whether student performance is superior, adequate, or inferior? How can teaching effectiveness be evaluated to determine whether students are receiving the instruction necessary to achieve the course learning objectives? This article describes how the authors collaborated on an adaptation of the assessment processes used in the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadet Leadership Development Program for use in an MBA course on negotiation skills. We report on a pilot effort that has demonstrated that the ROTC‐style leadership assessment process can be successfully adapted for use in a graduate course on negotiation and that it provides useful means for evaluating both individual student performance and overall course effectiveness. While our work involved a negotiation course, we suggest that the process could be adapted for use in other skills‐oriented courses such as leadership.