Partisanship,Sophistication, and Public Attitudes about Majority Rule and Minority Rights in Congress

The balance between majority rule and minority rights is a central issue in the design and operation of democratic institutions and remains a contested issue in debates of policy‐making processes. Remarkably, public attitudes about this balance are not subjected to scholarly investigation. In this article, we report the findings of the first survey experiment in which the American public's attitudes about majority rule and minority rights in legislative bodies are explored. We find robust support for both majority rule and minority rights, discover that only a few Americans distinguish between the US House of Representatives and Senate in the application of these principles, and demonstrate that views of majority rule and minority rights can be moved once we introduce respondents to the partisan implications of procedural rules. Moreover, with conflicting theoretical expectations about the effect of political sophistication on attitudes about majority rule and minority rights, we find that higher levels of political sophistication are associated with stronger partisan effects on attitudes about the balance between majority rule and minority rights in Congress.     

Determination of Nicotine,Cotinine and Trans‐3′‐Hydroxycotinine using LC/MS/MS in Forensic Samples of a Nicotine Fatal Case by Oral Ingestion of e‐cigarette Liquid,

Nicotine is a potent neurotoxin alkaloid and is used in e‐cigarette liquid. The LC/MS/MS method was linear over 0.01–1.0 mg/L (r² = 0.992–0.995). Limit of detection and limit of quantitation were 0.001 mg/L (S/N = 3) and 0.003 (S/N = 10). The inaccuracy and imprecision were <13.2%. The recoveries were >99.3%. A 39‐year‐old dentist was found dead lying on the floor under the couch in his dental clinic. The concentration of nicotine, cotinine, and trans‐3′‐hydroxycotinine (heart blood/peripheral blood) was analyzed as follows: 87.2/85.2 mg/L (ratio 1.0), 1.4/1.1 mg/L (ratio 1.3), and 0.012/0.0089 mg/L (ratio 1.3), respectively. The concentration of nicotine was determined to be 6734.8 mg/kg in gastric contents and 7262.0 mg/L in remaining e‐liquid. Only, high concentration of nicotine was detected in the gastric contents as well as the two pieces of evidence collected from the death scene. This fatal case resulted from oral ingestion of e‐cigarette liquid. It is estimated that at least 714 mg of nicotine was orally ingested.     

“I didn't Know You were Fighting So Hard for me”: Attorneys' Perceptions of Youth Participation in Child Dependency Proceedings

This study examined attorneys' perceptions of youth participation in child dependency proceedings. Surveys and semi‐structured interviews were conducted with attorneys who represent adolescents in child dependency proceedings. Three dimensions of participation were identified: receiving information, providing information, and self‐advocacy. Barriers to youth participation included individual‐level factors, such as the youth or the attorney not wanting the youth to attend, and system‐level factors, such as the scheduling of court hearings, large caseloads, long waits, and cases being adjourned multiple times. Recommendations for enhancing youth participation in child dependency proceedings are presented.     

Mr Cameron's New Language Initiative for Muslim Women: Lessons in Policy Implementation

As the government announces a programme to teach Muslim women to speak English, this article examines how such a policy can be implemented successfully, arguing that lessons can be drawn from both academic research, especially that carried out with Muslim women themselves, and previous successful policy application. It focuses on two projects carried out in the recent past for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Jobcentre Plus, and outlines the key factors that led to their success. The LSC project involved one of the largest in‐depth surveys of Muslim women's attitudes towards work, and their views on life in Britain, that has ever been undertaken. The Jobcentre Plus project was a highly successful and innovative employment training initiative for ethnic minority women piloted in Sheffield, the very kind of ‘targeted’ approach that Mr Cameron has claimed his government's new language initiative will be.     

Media in the Policy Process: Using Framing and Narratives to Understand Policy Influences

Policy scholarship has long sought to understand the role of knowledge and information in the policy process. Of the actors, institutions, and resources involved in shaping policy processes and outcomes, media and narratives have been incorporated into empirical policy scholarship and theories with varying success. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is a framework through which scholars can bring analysis of narratives into studies of policy making. The NPF moves the field forward in understanding the role of narratives, communication, and stakeholder beliefs in the policy process, while at the same time striving for theoretical rigor. We embed the discussion of frames and narratives in the NPF to provide an empirical and theoretical cohesion to our understanding of media and public policy and then provide a brief empirical example of how such an integration may prove fruitful for policy scholars.     

Drivers of Policy Instrument Selection for Environmental Management by Local Governments

Local governments commonly pursue environmental objectives that exceed state and federal minimum requirements. Although research informs our understanding of factors that lead cities to adopt such policy goals, the underlying mechanisms employed to achieve them are not well understood. This article examines factors that drive the choice of policy instruments that cities use to pursue local environmental objectives. The literature links the structure of the local governing body, characteristics of the community and target populations, and the nature of the policy problem to instrument selection. Building on this, the authors model the dynamics shaping cities' use of regulations, financial incentives, or combination thereof, to pursue a variety of different environmental objectives. Results indicate that community racial composition and political leaning influence instrument choice when policy targets the public at large. Alternatively, when policy targets particular stakeholder groups, such as developers, the characteristics of the local governing body are of greater importance.     

Administrative reorganization as a signal: Bounded rationality,agency merger,and salience of policy issues

Although administrative reorganization has been a major political instrument in many democracies, there has been limited research on its effects. Aiming to address this gap, this study examines the reorganization of Korean government ministries, specifically, the impact of reorganization in the form of a merger of ministries performing interrelated but dissimilar functions. Examining the salience of policy issues expressed in official government press releases during the 12‐year period from 2001 to 2012, we found that administrative reorganization in the form of a merger has a significant impact on the relative salience of government policy agendas. Specifically, the interrupted time series estimates indicate that the salience of science and technology policy issues (in relation to education policy issues) decreased by approximately 12% to 17% following the dissolution of the Ministry of Science and Technology. We explain this finding based on the bounded rationality view of bureaucratic information processing.     

The “first match” between high-tech entrepreneurial ventures and universities: the role of founders’ social ties

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This paper studies the collaborations between entrepreneurial ventures and universities by investigating the “first match”, namely, the probability...     

Police Implementation of the Partial Sex Purchase Ban in England and Wales

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research - A main point of contention in the policy areas of prostitution and sex trafficking is whether the purchase of sex should be criminalised, whether...     

Parent-Adolescent Vocational Aspiration Congruence and its Relations with Academic Adjustment

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescents’ own vocational aspirations and those of parents for their adolescent children play significant roles in adolescents’ development. The...