Which Electoral Formula Is the Most Proportional? A New Look with New Evidence

A ranking exists in electoral systems research of differentelectoral formulas—the mathematical functions governingthe conversion of votes into legislative seats—in termsof both proportionality of seats and votes and favorabilityto the largest party. I reexamine this issue with new methodsand new evidence, attempting to cross-validate previous rankingsusing a larger and more controlled data set and more preciseparametric methods than have been applied previously. The resultsby and large confirm previous knowledge but also illuminateseveral important new facets obscured in previous investigations.For example, at common ranges of district magnitude (from 5to 15 seats), it is shown that electoral formula may matterat least as much as district magnitude in shaping proportionality.     

The net effects of the Project NetWork return-to-work case management experiment on participant earnings, benefit receipt, and other outcomes

The Social Security Administration (SSA) initiated Project NetWork in 1991 to test case management as a means of promoting employment among persons with disabilities. The demonstration, which targeted Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applicants and recipients, offered intensive outreach, work-incentive waivers, and case management/referral services. Participation in Project NetWork was voluntary. Volunteers were randomly assigned to the "treatment" group or the "control" group. Those assigned to the treatment group met individually with a case or referral manager who arranged for rehabilitation and employment services, helped clients develop an individual employment plan, and provided direct employment counseling services. Volunteers assigned to the control group could not receive services from Project NetWork but remained eligible for any employment assistance already available in their communities. For both treatment and control groups, the demonstration waived specific DI and SSI program rules considered to be work disincentives. The experimental impact study thus measures the incremental effects of case and referral management services. The eight demonstration sites were successful in implementing the experimental design roughly as planned. Project NetWork staff were able to recruit large numbers of participants and to provide rehabilitation and employment services on a substantial scale. Most of the sites easily reached their enrollment targets and were able to attract volunteers with demographic characteristics similar to those of the entire SSI and DI caseload and a broad range of moderate and severe disabilities. However, by many measures, volunteers were generally more "work-ready" than project eligible in the demonstration areas who did not volunteer to receive NetWork services. Project NetWork case management increased average annual earnings by $220 per year over the first 2 years following random assignment. This statistically significant impact, an approximate 11-percent increase in earnings, is based on administrative data on earnings. For about 70 percent of sample members, a third year of followup data was available. For this limited sample, the estimated effect of Project NetWork on annual earnings declined to roughly zero in the third followup year. The findings suggest that the increase in earnings may have been short-lived and may have disappeared by the time Project NetWork services ended. Project NetWork did not reduce reliance on SSI or DI benefits by statistically significant amounts over the 30-42 month followup period. The services provided by Project NetWork thus did not reduce overall SSI and DI caseloads or benefits by substantial amounts, especially given that only about 5 percent of the eligible caseload volunteered to participate in Project NetWork. Project NetWork produced modest net benefits to persons with disabilities and net costs to taxpayers. Persons with disabilities gained mainly because the increases in their earnings easily outweighed the small (if any) reduction in average SSI and DI benefits. For SSA and the federal government as a whole, the costs of Project NetWork were not sufficiently offset by increases in tax receipts resulting from increased earnings or reductions in average SSI and DI benefits. The modest net benefits of Project NetWork to persons with disabilities are encouraging. How such benefits of an experimental intervention should be weighed against costs of taxpayers depends on value judgments of policymakers. Because different case management projects involve different kinds of services, these results cannot be directly generalized to other case management interventions. They are nevertheless instructive for planning new initiatives. Combining case and referral management services with various other interventions, such as longer term financial support for work or altered provider incentives, could produc     

Attrition in the new beneficiary survey and followup, and its correlates

Panel surveys interview the same individuals more than once over a period of time. Attrition from the survey occurs when those individuals die, refuse to be interviewed again, or, for some other reason, cannot be contacted. If the original sample was representative of a specific population, then survey analysis may provide misleading conclusions about changes in population characteristics over time if these individuals leave the sample in a nonrandom way. Therefore, it is important to identify the characteristics of individuals who leave the survey for various reasons. This article explores the extent of and reasons for attrition in the New Beneficiary Survey (NBS) between the first interview in 1982 and the followup interview in 1991. Presented is a comparison of the characteristics of survivors (the reinterviewed sample) with attriters (those in the sample not reinterviewed) from the retired-worker and disabled-worker samples. The article explores a variety of potential determinants of attrition to the probability of attrition. These determinants are examined alone and in a multivariate framework. The NBS sample population is drawn from and linked to Social Security Administrative records, which have exact matched data on mortality as a cause of attrition. These data do not depend on survey-reported reasons for attrition; hence, it allows the examination of the differences in the patterns and predictors of attrition due to death and due to other reasons, primarily, the refusal to be interviewed. Attrition due to death must be identified precisely because misidentification of death as refusal to be interviewed may lead researchers to infer more selective attrition than might be the case. Different patterns of attrition are evident in the comparison of attrition levels and the determinants of attrition for the retired and disabled samples, both composed of persons with relatively high mortality risk. In particular, individuals' health, health insurance coverage, and level of education have different impacts on their likelihood of attrition. In general, it appears that refusal to be interviewed is more evenly spread across populations and characteristics than is death. The analysis shows that attrition due to death and attrition due to refusal are quite different processes, even though health conditions play a role in both processes. The results suggest that because attrition patterns (including death) may be quite different across population samples, sample-specific attrition patterns must be analyzed over the lifetime of any panel study. Long-term studies of panel attrition are necessary to provide researchers analyzing the data with information on potential biases due to nonrandom attrition.     

The Politics of Caste in India’s New Land Wars

ABSTRACT

In this article we introduce the special issue through framing the debate on the role of caste in India’s current land wars. We draw attention to how caste consistently mediates land transfers in present day India by pre-empting, undermining, or fuelling processes of social contestation, as well as the ways in which land claims in turn shape realigned or reimagined caste identities. Based on this, we make three main arguments. The first and most obvious one is that in contemporary conflicts over land, caste matters in evolving ways that deserve attention. Second, we argue that caste and land are recursively linked categories that are produced and reproduced in continuous interaction, even as multi-scalar political economies (re)shape them. And third, that different registers of caste are articulated by different social groups in more or less overt ways as they stake often competing claims to land.     

The Political Economy of Border Checkpoints in Shadow Exchanges

ABSTRACT

This introductory article revisits cross-border shadow exchanges in a comparative perspective and reflects on their theoretical implications. It explores the diversities and complexities of shadow operations and critically examines the concept of informality that is commonly used to describe such non-state-sanctioned practices. It further underlines the key role played by checkpoint politics in border governance. Border checkpoints serve both as a state institution in regulating border crossings as well as a political site where material and power exchanges among state and non-state actors are negotiated. Such negotiation of selective passage through state-controlled gateways is often predicated upon the skilful manipulation of time and space by experienced traders and brokers.     

Gunshot injury caused by a training bullet]

In the course of a scuffle a 50-year old man has been shot by a revolver. The culprit and witnesses state, there has been only one shot, whereas the victim declared having been shot twice. The medico-legal investigation revealed a gunshot wound that passed through the left thigh, a grazing shot of the right hand and a superficial lesion of the skin at the forehead with sprinkled gunshot residue in the epidermis. The investigation confirmed the statement of the victim: the first shot to the forehead was caused by a plastic training cartridge, the second to the right hand and thigh by a cartridge loaded with an ordinary bullet.     

A new individualization marker of semen: deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) polymorphism.

We describe a method for obtaining specific and reproducible deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) typing from liquid semen. Isoelectric focusing of the enzymes on polyacrylamide gel (IEF-PAGE, pH 3.5-5) was accomplished using a 0.5-mm thick gel. The separated isozymes were visualized by a new activity staining method, dried agarose film-overlay (DAFO). Pretreatment of semen samples with neuraminidase markedly enhanced the isozyme-band resolution and sensitivity. The method was simple and reliable, with high resolution and sensitivity. The DNase I types in semen samples were correlated with the types found in corresponding blood and urine samples. DNase I typing could therefore provide an additional discriminant characteristic in the forensic examination of semen.     

Drinking and driving in Singapore, 1987 to 1989.

Between 1987 and 1989 there were approximately 5,000 cases of fatal and injury-sustained road traffic accidents, of which 2.3-3.0% were alcohol related (blood alcohol levels greater than the legal limit of 80 mg% ethanol). The offenders of alcohol-related accidents are mostly Chinese (> 79%), male (> 98%), and more often 30-40 years old. The majority of the alcohol-related accidents (> 74%) took place between 8 P.M. and 4 A.M. in fine weather and light traffic. Rear-end, head-on, and side-on collisions comprised > 60% of all the alcohol-related accidents, and losing control of vehicles approximately 30%. Drunken driving cases for the same period that were not accidents showed a number of characteristics similar to those for accidents. In Singapore, motorcycle riders and pedestrians are more prone to road fatality than other road-user groups. International comparisons of road fatalities per 100,000 population gave Singapore one of the lowest accident rates (8.1-8.4) as compared with countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan.     

Fire and suicide: a three-year study of self-immolation deaths.

Thirty-two self-immolation deaths by fire, representing about 1% of suicides, occurred in the province of Ontario (population 9 million), Canada, from 1986 through 1988. The victims, mostly male (male/female ratio, 26:6), were between 21 and 71 years old (mean age, 38 years). Although the scene of self-immolation was usually familiar to the deceased, some chose remote locations. Eleven were found dead in motor vehicles. An accelerant, usually gasoline, was used in most cases. Many of these individuals had, at some time, indicated their intent to commit suicide, a few by self-immolation, but only about half had a diagnosed psychiatric illness. Most of the victims had a reason to kill themselves, but the factors that motivated them to chose self-immolation by fire were uncertain. Fourteen individuals died in hospitals from severe burn complications. The remainder were found dead at the scene. The postmortem findings of soot in the airway and elevated carbon monoxide in the blood of most of these victims [the carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) concentration was in one case less than 10%, in ten cases greater than or equal to 10 to 50%, and in seven cases greater than 50%] were helpful in determining that the individuals were not only alive at the time of the fire but also that a significant number died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. The highest levels of carbon monoxide were observed in victims discovered in motor vehicles.