The “Middle Power” Concept in Australian Foreign Policy

During the early 1990s, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments promoted Australia's diplomatic credentials as an activist and independent middle power. Labor claimed that by acting as a middle power Australia was constructing a novel diplomatic response to the challenges of the post-Cold War world. But a closer reading of the official foreign policy record since 1945 reveals that previous conservative governments have also taken a similar view of Australia's place and position on the international stage. This essay traces the historical evolution of the middle power concept in Australian foreign policy and concludes with an assessment of the Howard government's more recent reluctance to use this label and its implications for Australia's future middle power credentials. Although its use has waxed and waned in official policy discourse and it is more commonly associated with Labor governments, the middle power concept itself and the general diplomatic style it conveys have been one of the most durable and consistent elements of Australia's diplomatic practice.     

Sentence dispositions accorded assault and burglary offenders: An exploratory study in twelve California counties

This study using offender-based transaction statistics (OBTS) examined sentence dispositions accorded assault and burglary offenders in selected California counties. The data cover a three-year period (1969 to 1971), and include a number of social and legal factors frequently thought likely to influence sentence disposition. The age, race, sex, and criminal histories of these offender groups are considered in light of incarceration dispositions occurring at both municipal and superior court levels. Using the method of predictive attribute analysis, this study assesses the importance of social and legal factors in the probability of receiving an incarceration disposition.     

A comparison of different delinquency measures derived from self-report data

The purpose of this research was to explore different ways of using self-report data to derive measures of juvenile delinquent behavior. The subjects were 161 public school children in the Omaha area, and 1,030 public school children and 665 adjudicated delinquents in the metropolitan areas of Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Phoenix. The Omaha youths responded to twenty-eight self-report items two times with an intervening period of three weeks and then rated the items for seriousness. Four measures of delinquency were derived from the data: frequency of activity, diversity of activity, seriousness of activity, and progression into delinquent behavior. The four measures were shown to be highly reliable and strongly intercorrelated; none was shown to be consistently better than the other three. Rated seriousness and reported frequency of behavior were highly negatively correlated, giving support to the use of frequency measures in building delinquency scales. All four scales showed differences within the Omaha sample as a function of sex, age, and birth order; but the differences were not always in the same directions when the four measures were used.     

Fatal bromethalin poisoning

Bromethalin is a neurotoxin found in some rodenticides. A delusional 21-year-old male presented to a hospital with altered mental status the day after ingesting a bromethalin-based rodenticide. He died 7 days after his self-reported exposure to c. 17 mg bromethalin (equivalent to 0.33 mg bromethalin/kg). His clinicopathologic course was characterized by altered mental status, obtundation, increased cerebrospinal fluid pressure, cerebral edema, death, and diffuse histologic vacuolization of the white matter in the central nervous system seen on microscopic examination at autopsy. The presence of a demethylated form of bromethalin in the patient's liver and brain was confirmed by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. Clinical signs and lesions observed in this patient are similar to those seen in animals poisoned with bromethalin. This case illustrates the potential for bromethalin ingestion to result in fatal human poisoning.     

The Pivot in Perspective: American Naval Power,Then and Now

The article examines the reorientation of the defense policy of the United States, initiated during the Bush and Obama Administrations, toward giving increased priority to the Asia Pacific region. It begins with the historical perspective of the development of American naval power in the twentieth century. The world wars, in which Europe represented the primary theater of conflict, had the effect of shifting a greater share of American military assets toward the Euro-Atlantic theatre, while the onset of the Cold War after 1945 required the United States to develop a navy of truly global strategic reach in which Atlantic and Pacific commitments were kept in balance. With the diminished concern for European security since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the People's Republic of China as a strategic competitor in the Asia Pacific region, the United States is required in an age of defense austerity to refocus attention again to the Pacific.     

Autonomy and distance from the centre as drivers of innovation in the public sector: Testing a positioning-based hypothesis

A generally accepted assumption is that innovation in the public sector is easier when managers have more autonomy. Previous research has revealed a paradox: the most innovative organizations are autonomous organizations, but also central agencies, more so than ministries. What has not been documented so far in Canada is the quality and nature or type of innovation by location. We developed a database of applications for IPAC's innovative management award with 1712 innovations in federal and provincial governments over the past 29 years. Using statistical analysis that takes into account the proximity of applicant organizations to political power, we provide a picture of innovation and institutional position in the public sector in Canada.