Reliability and validity of the original and revised legal attitudes questionnaire

The Legal Attitudes Questionnaire (LAQ) predicts juror bias, but there is little evidence concerning its reliability and construct validity. Two studies provide such evidence for two versions of the LAQ. In Study 1 a questionnaire containing both versions of the LAQ, measures of related and unrelated constructs, and demographic questions was completed by 294 undergraduates. In Study 2 a shortened questionnaire was completed by 102 jury-eligible adults. In both studies, the revised version of the LAQ was superior to the original LAQ in terms of missing data, internal reliability, and construct validity. A refined version of the revised scale is presented, evaluated, and recommended for future use.This article is an expanded version of a poster presented at the meeting of the American Psychology and Law Society in March, 1992. We are grateful to Barbara Martin and Ray Wolfe for their comments on a previous version of this article. We would like to thank Sean Henriques, Tracy Chavez, Jennifer Devenport, Alex Milov, and Cathy Mucha for their assistance in data acquisition, entry, and verification. Finally, we thank the Miami Beach Kiwanis for participating in this study.     

LETTERS

Dear Editor: Your article entitled "In Reverence of Life" (page 42, May 2006 issue) was of interest to me. I would like to suggest other ways of enhancing life and preventing suicide. Years ago (I'm now 88) when I was program chairperson for The Colorado League for Nursing, the University of Colo. School of Medicine asked the League to co-sponsor a program on bio-feedback. The League was willing to do so, which, in turn, enabled me to ask Elmer Green Ph.D. and his wife Alyce     

Contextualising emergency responses to famine among Turkana pastoralists in Kenya

The pastoralism of the Turkana has persisted in the challenging environment of northwestern Kenya for some 200 years. Yet many pastoralists find that they increasingly rely on food relief during droughts and famines. This article contextualises emergency responses to famine among Turkana pastoralists by considering their encounters with colonialism, development, and humanitarian interventions. It uses key informant interviews, participant observation, and content analysis, to analyse the benefits and challenges of a small-scale food relief programme. The article argues that such programmes can weaken the viability of pastoralism, and concludes with considerations for future policy and programming.     

The Liberal Democrats and the Coalition: Driven to the Edge of Europe

When the Liberal Democrats joined the Coalition government in May 2010, there was an expectation that they would have a restraining effect on the Conservatives, particularly in the area of European politics. But after almost five years as the junior party in the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats struggle to demonstrate their influence over the government's approach to Europe. Not only did they let the Conservatives lead the Coalition's European agenda, but they will be forever associated with the government that brought the UK closer to the exit door of the European Union. The article argues that this outcome is the result of a series of avoidable if surprising mistakes, such as the choice of ministerial portfolios and the party's attitude to the Coalition's monitoring mechanisms, as well as some unavoidable mistakes that could have not been foreseen when the Coalition was formed.     

System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu

This paper presents “strategic hedging” as a way to conceptualize much of the strategic behavior currently employed by second-tier states like China, Russia, Brazil, and France. Hedging is an alternative to strategies like balancing, bandwagoning, and buck-passing. Like those other strategies, hedging is driven by structural incentives associated with the current polarity of the international system and power concentration trends within it. Hedging will be most prevalent in international systems that are defined by a leading state that, while in a position of power preponderance, is also in the process of relative decline. Strategic hedging behavior is effective for second-tier states in such deconcentrating unipolar systems because it avoids outright confrontation with the system leader in the short term, while still increasing the hedging state's ability to survive such a direct military confrontation should it occur in the long run. Strategic hedging behavior can also be used to insure the hedging state against security threats that might result from the loss of public goods or subsidies that are currently being provided by the system leader. In this article, I define strategic hedging behavior, present a mechanism for identifying empirical evidence of strategic hedging, and apply that mechanism to three case studies: the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, Brazil's approach to regional leadership, and French opposition to the 2003 us invasion of Iraq.