The Etiology of the Occurrence of En Banc Review in the U.S. Court of Appeals

The U.S. Courts of Appeals, working principally through three-judge panels, constitute important final arbiters of the meaning of the federal constitution, laws, and regulations and, hence, significant policymakers within the federal system. En banc rehearing—reconsideration of the decision of a three-judge panel by the full complement of judges appointed to the circuit—is an institutional device that ensures circuit decisions are in line with the established preferences of the circuit. The use of en banc varies in frequency across circuits and within circuits over time. Drawing on legal, attitudinal, and strategic perspectives of judicial behavior, we develop and test a set of integrated expectations regarding the causes of this variation. Our analysis finds support for the operation of all three models and suggests that the influence of ideology on the use of en banc in the recent era is not unique but part of a long-standing pattern .     

Adolescent and Young Adult Mothers’ Relationship Quality During the Transition to Parenthood: Associations with Father Involvement in Fragile Families

Data from the Fragile Families and Child-Well-being Study were used to examine predictors of involvement among fathers of young children (N=2,215) born to adolescent and young adult mothers (ages 14–25; N=2,850). Participants were interviewed immediately following their baby's birth and at 3-years postpartum regarding co-parental relationship quality, fathers’ caretaking behavior (“father involvement”), and fathers’ provision of material support for the child (“in-kind” support). Early postnatal and 3-year postpartum parental relationship quality and father-child cohabitation predicted 3-year father involvement while early father involvement did not. The race of fathers, specifically African American, was associated with lower levels of father involvement. For in-kind support, 3-year father-child cohabitation and 3-year relationship quality were both positively associated with provision of in-kind support. Father's income was not a significant predictor but mother's involvement with a new partner at the 3-year follow-up was marginally significant. Lastly, the race of fathers, specifically African American and Latino, was associated with provision of less in-kind support. Christina B. Gee, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Christina Gee's research interests include coparenting and father involvement during transition to parenthood among adolescent mothers and fathers, adolescent mothers’ psychological adjustment, and romantic relationships among at-risk couples. Christopher M. McNerney, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Christopher McNerney's research interests include marginalized couples, couples interventions, and family treatments to improve parenting outcomes. Michael J. Reiter, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Michael Reiter's research interests include interfaith and interracial romantic relationships within a family systems approach. Suzanne C. Leaman, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Suzanne Leaman's research interests include adolescents and young families, minority mental health, low-income communities, and the implications of dating violence for mental health.     

Casey: Four Decades in the Making of Australian Foreign Policy

Richard Casey was involved in shaping Australian foreign policy for over four decades. Casey's attitudes, ideas, policies and actions towards the rest of the world are therefore an important part of a Liberal tradition in Australian foreign policy. To examine Casey's place in the Liberal tradition this article explores Casey's positions on the great international issues of two periods: the 1930s and the 1950s. The conclusion of the article is that three key ideas shaped Casey's foreign policy, and therefore also lie at the centre of the Liberal tradition; firstly, a strong attachment to the idea of the English speaking alliance; secondly, a realist perspective on international affairs; and, thirdly, a consistent strand of anti-communism.     

Turnout in gubernatorial and senatorial primary and general elections in the South, 1922–90: A rational choice model of the effects of short-run and long-run electoral competition on relative turnout

Using data on non-presidential-year elections for governor and U.S. Senators in eight southern states over the period 1922– 1990, we provide a rational-choice-inspired model of the factors that should be expected to affect the relative levels of turnout in primaries as compared to general elections. Both V.O. Key and Anthony Downs have argued that voters will be more likely to participate in the elections in which they can most expect to be decisive. V.O. Key (1949) proposed that when general elections are usually lop-sided because of one-party dominance of a state's politics the primary of the dominant party of the state should have a higher turnout than the general election. Downs argued that turnout should be higher in competitive elections. Our modelling combines these ideas. We use as our dependent variable the ratio of primary to general election turnout in each year. We posit that this ratio will increase (1) the greater the degree of within-party competition in the primary (especially that within the dominant party of a state, if there is one), and (2) the weaker the degree of between party competition in the general election. In addition to election-specific effects, we also posit long-run effects, such that the ratio for the offices of governor and U.S. Senator will be affected not merely by the degrees of competition within and between parties specific to any given election, but also by the long-run trends in party competition. This hypothesis leads us to expect that, (3) in the South, with the rise of the Republican party, the ratio of primary to general election turnout should decline over time. All of our expectations about the links between turnout and competition are strongly supported. We argue that rational choice models of turnout perform quite well when we view them in a comparative statics perspective, rather than using them to make predictions about who will and who will not vote in any given election.     

A latent variable model of the Family-of-Origin Scale for adolescents

The Family-of-Origin Scale (FOS) is a recently developed 40-item instrument originally designed to assess adults' perceptions of the family in which they were raised. A modified version of the FOS has shown promise for assessing adolescents' perceptions of the extent to which their family fosters autonomy and intimacy. The current study involved administration of the FOS to a large sample of adolescents currently residing with their family of origin. Confirmatory factor analysis supports the scale's original 13 theoretical constructs and establishes factorial validity. Follow-up hierarchical tests indicate the current confirmatory model provides a significant refinement over other plausible models proposed by several different authors finding a similar unitary factor employing exploratory factor analyses.     

B. Reviews: general

i. ISLAM IN THE WORLD. By Malise Ruthven. London, Penguin Books, 1984. pp.400. £3.95.

ii. ISLAM IN FOREIGN POLICY. Edited by Adeed Dawisha, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press in Association with Chatham House, 1983. pp.181 and index. £17.50.

iii. BAHA'U'LLAH: THE KING OF GLORY. By Hasan Balyuzi. Oxford, George Ronald, 1980. pp.539 with photographs and 1 colour plate. £9.00.

iv. THE GREAT ANATOLIAN REBELLION, 1000/1591–1611. By William J. Griswold. (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen Vol.83). Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983. pp.xxiv, 333, 12 maps.

v. CONSTRUCTION WORK IN OTTOMAN CAIRO. By Nelly Hanna. Supplement aux Annales Islamologiques, Cahier No.4). Cairo, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1985.

vi. REGIONALE REFORMEN IN OSMANISCHEN REICH AM VORABEND DER TANZIMAT. By Michael Ursinus. (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Bd.73), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1982. pp.vii, 327.

vii. NORTH AFRICA, 1800–1900: A SURVEY FROM THE NILE VALLEY TO THE ATLANTIC. By Magali Morsy, London & New York, Longman, 1984. pp.356 with maps, tables and figures.

viii. LETTERS FROM EGYPT. By Lucie Duff Gordon. London, Virago, 1983. pp.xxiv, 383. £4.95.

ix. BRIDE OF THE RED SEA. A 10th/16th CENTURY ACCOUNT OF JEDDAH. (AL SILAH WA‐'L ‘UDDAH FI TARIKH BANDAR JUDDAH). Arabic text edited, translated and annotated by G.Rex Smith and ‘Umar Al‐Zayla'I. (Occasional Papers Series, No.22). Durham, University of Durham. Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1984. pp.vi., 153, 4 plates.

x. ARAB HISTORIANS OF THE CRUSADES: Selected and translated from the Arabic sources by Francesco Gabrieli; translated from the Italian by E.J.Costello. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, reprinted 1984. pp.xxxvi, 362. £6.95.

xi. INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND THE MIDDLE EAST: OLD RULES, DANGEROUS GAME. By L.Carl Brown. London, I.B.Tauris, 1984, pp.xii, 363. Casebound £29.50., Paper £9.50.

xii. RELIGION AND POLITICS IN IRAN. Edited by Nikki R. Keddie. New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1983. pp.x, 258. 1 map. £20.00.

xiii. THE STATE AND REVOLUTION IN IRAN, 1962–1982. By Hossein Bashiriyeh. London, Croom Helm, 1984. pp.202. £16.95.

xiv. THE ARABIAN PENINSULA: ZONE OF FERMENT. Edited by Robert W. Stookey. (Hoover International Studies Series). Stanford, Stanford University, 1984. pp.xxxiii, 151, 4 maps. Casebound £20.80, Paper £9.40.

xv. THE PLO: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION. By Jillian Becker. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984. pp.x, 303, maps.

xvi. SUDAN AT THE CROSSROADS. By Charles Gurdon. London, Menas Press, 1984. pp.vii, 128, 1 map. £6.25.

xvii. THE STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH YEMEN. By Joseph Kostiner. London, Croom Helm, 1984. pp.194, map. £14.95.     

The Wrong Mental Image of Settlement

Negotiation participants usually think of settlement as the official end of a conflict; the author points out that this mental image is inaccuratein many situations, where a settlement is followed by additional eruptionsof conflict. He uses the recent Good Friday peace accord in NorthernIreland as an example of the continuing nature of many conflicts; theorizesas to why we have this incorrect mental image in general; and suggestsways we can present a more accurate representation of a conflict'slife cycle.