Fiscal Institutions,Credit Ratings,and Borrowing Costs

This paper investigates the impact of fiscal institutions on state government borrowing costs. We find that institutions have both a direct and indirect effect on interest costs paid by state governments. Revenue limits are associated directly with higher interest costs; expenditure limits, stricter balanced budget rules, and restrictions on state debt issuance are indirectly associated with lower interest costs because they lead to higher credit ratings. It appears that investors and bond raters incorporate information on fiscal institutions into their assessment of state government credit quality.     

Can Administrative Measures Resolve a Political Conflict?

The current controversy over the politicization of science by the Bush administration is, by definition, a political controversy. As such, it must be addressed by political measures as well as the administrative strategies that Dr. Lambright suggests. The administration's actions go beyond the bounds of "business as usual" and reflect the interests of its powerful constituencies, as well as the unease of many citizens with some scientific and technological advances. Scientists need to engage these citizens and take their concerns into account in order to build trust between the scientific community and the public, as well as to impede unscrupulous politicians from distorting scientific information to suit their purposes.     

Electronic Funds and Benefits Transfers,E‐Government,and the Winter Commission

This article examines how electronic funds transfers and electronic benefit transfers have become integral components of digital government. These technologies have forwarded many of the principles of the Winter Commission, including the development of lean, responsive government. The greater efficiency and cost savings for the federal and most state governments have not been achieved without encountering and dealing with serious matters related to customer service, contracting, collaboration, management, and implementation. These issues arise in the normal daily use of electronic payment technologies, but they are magnified in crisis situations, as demonstrated by disaster relief operations during Hurricane Katrina.     

Coerciveness and the selection of environmental policy instruments

Abstract: Degree of coerciveness is often used to categorize policy instruments. This article analyses the relative coerciveness associated with the instruments used by municipal, provincial and federal governments in Canada to address three major successive pollution threats ‐ sewage, industrial toxic waste, and greenhouse‐gas emissions ‐ that have appeared on the policy agenda over the course of the past century. During that time, there has been an overall trend of declining coerciveness, with one exception. In the case of toxic waste, established regulatory regimes were made more coercive some years after they were first put in place. These findings can best be explained by theories of instrument choice that look to interactions among relevant state and societal actors in the policy network. It is suggested that one aspect of that process in particular ‐ the balance of power between regulator and “regulatee” ‐is of importance in explaining relative coerciveness. We must first understand theability of the regulator to coerce before we can explain the selection of more or less coercive instruments. Sommaire: Le degré de coercition est un attribut souvent utilisé pour classer les politiques publiques. L'auteur de cet article analyse la coercition associée aux instruments politiques utilisés par les gouvemements fédéral, municipaux et provinciaux au Canada au cours du siècle demier. Les gouvernements en question tentent de s'attaquer à trois importantes menaces successives de pollution qui ont figuré au programme d'élaboration des politiques, à savoir les égouts, les déchets toxiques industriels et les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Pendant cette période, les politiques coercitives connaissaient un déclin, exception faite des déchets toxiques où des règlements établis sont devenus plus coercitifs quelques années après leur mise en place. Les théories du choix des instruments politiques qui étudient les interactions entre les acteurs gouvernementaux et sociaux en matiére d'élaboration des politiques expliquent mieux les résultats relevés. On pense qu'un aspect particulier de ce processus, à savoir l'équilibre du pouvoir entre l'autorité de réglementation et les réglementés, est important pour expliquer la coercition relative. Nous devons dans un premier temps comprendre lacnpacité de l'autorité de réglementation à contraindre avant de pouvoir expliquer le choix d'instruments plus ou moins coercitifs.     

An evolving policy network in action: The case of construction aggregate policy in Ontario

Abstract: The history of legislation to control aggregate mining reflects a power struggle between provincial and municipal interests. A content analysis of 140 Ontario Municipal Board (omb) hearings was assessed for a twenty‐five‐year period to evaluate the conflict between provincial and municipal governments and to document the role of legislation and policy in the resolution of the disputes. This article discusses the trend of successive Ontario governments to move the municipalities out of the core of the policy network dedicated to aggregate extraction. This is a result of the province's need to assure its greater autonomy in the industry in order to guarantee adequate stocks for future development. The province's autonomy allows a greater consideration to the industry and somewhat less consideration to the environmental impacts of aggregate mining. The article shows that there has been an evolution in the policy network from a “captured network” to a more “pluralist network.” Pushing the municipalities to the periphery through strong legislation has allowed the province to undermine the strength of the municipality to protect local interests primarily concerned with reducing the amount and impact of mining taking place near residential developments. Sommaire: L'histoire de l'élaboration de lois dans le but de contrôler l'extraction d'agrégats reflète une lutte de pouvoir entre les intérêts provinciaux et municipaux. Une analyse de 140 audiences de la Commission des affaires municipales de I'Ontario (camo) couvrant plus de vingt‐cinq ans a été réalisée afin d'évaluer le con‐flit survenu entre les gouvemements provincial et municipaux et de documenter le rô1e des lois et des politiques dans la résolution de conflits. Le présent article examine comment les gouvemements qui se sont succédés en Ontario ont eu tendance àéloigner les municipalités du ceur du réseau de politiques en matière d'extraction d'agrégats. Cela vient du fait que la province doive faire preuve d'une plus grande autonomie à 1'égard du rô1e de I'industrie afin que la province puisse garantir la disponibilité de stocks adéquats pour la mise en valeur future. L'autonomie de la province a permis d'accorder un plus grand rô1e à l'industrie et quelque peu moins d'importance aux incidences environnementales de l'exploitation des agrégats. Toutefois, l'article montre qu'il y a eu me évolution dans le réseau des responsables de politiques, celui‐ci étant passé d'un réseau de la capture à un réseau plus pluraliste. En repoussant les municipalités à la périphérie par le biais de lois puis‐santes, la province a pu réduire leur capacité de protéger les intérêts locaux qui visent principalement à réduire l'importance et l'incidence dc I'cxploitation minière a proximité des lotissements résidentiels.     

Age estimation of individuals aged 5–23 years based on dental development of the Indonesian population

Dental development can be used to estimate age for forensic purposes. However, most of the currently available methods are less reliable for the Indonesian population due to population variability. This study presents a new method and evaluates other methods that utilize dental development to estimate the age of Indonesian people. Panoramic radiographs of 304 young Indonesian people aged 5–23 years old were analysed for deciduous tooth root resorption, permanent tooth calcification, and eruption. The extent of tooth root resorption was determined based on AlQahtani’s modified Moorrees et al. method. Tooth calcification was classified based on a modified Demirjian et al. method. Tooth eruption was evaluated based on AlQahtani’s modified Bengston system. The sequence of tooth root resorption, and permanent tooth calcification and eruption were grouped into 19 age categories (from 5–23 years old) in an atlas. The differences between males and females, between maxillary and mandibular teeth, and between right and left teeth were also analysed. There were minimal significant differences of tooth development between males and females, and between the right and left teeth (P > 0.05), while the maxillary and mandibular dental development was significantly different (P < 0.05). The newly developed atlas showed the development of the right side of maxillary and mandibular tooth of combined sex of Indonesian population. Another 34 panoramic radiographs of known-age and sex individuals from Indonesia were assessed using the newly developed Atlas of Dental Development in the Indonesian Population, Ubelaker’s Dental Development Chart, The London Atlas of Human Tooth Development and Eruption by AlQahtani, and the Age Estimation Guide-Modern Australia population by Blenkin-Taylor. Accuracy was assessed by comparing estimated age to actual chronological age using the Bland-Altmand test. Results show that the smallest range of error was found in the Atlas of Dental Development in the Indonesian Population (−0.969 to 1.210 years), followed by The London Atlas of Human Tooth Development and Eruption by AlQahtani (−2.013 to 1.990 years), the Age Estimation Guide-Modern Australia population by Blenkin-Taylor (−2.495 to 2.598 years), and the Dental Development Chart by Ubelaker (−2.960 to 3.289 years). These findings show that the Atlas of Dental Development constructed in this study performs better than the other three methods and presents greater accuracy of age estimation in the Indonesian population.

Key points

• Dental development such as deciduous tooth root resorption, permanent tooth calcification, and tooth eruption can be used to estimate age for forensic purposes.
• The development of the teeth are influenced by genetic, ethnicity, and sex, therefore an age estimation method must be constructed based on the same population.
• There were minimal significant differences in tooth development between male and female, and between right and left teeth, but there was significant difference between maxillary and mandibular teeth.
• The Atlas of Dental Development in the Indonesian Population constructed in this study allowed more accurate age estimation of the Indonesian sample than the other methods tested.

Supplemental data for this article are available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2021.1886648.     

Parenting Coordination and Confidentiality: A (Not‐so) Delicate Balance

This article describes the current state and range of information protection in the growing number of states and Canadian provinces that employ parenting coordination in an effort to reduce repeat custody litigation. The predominant approach—in which what is revealed during the process is not confidential—is analyzed in terms of its compatibility with the parenting coordinator's multiple tasks of educating parents, seeking to facilitate agreements, and, if necessary, providing the court with a report, a recommended decision, or an arbitrated result. Using a case scenario with multiple parts, the article then examines such confidentiality schemes in practice by providing an action‐oriented series of questions that illustrate how much of this topic must be resolved through a parenting coordinator's exercise of discretion in the absence of rule clarity. The article then raises a number of policy questions about whether current parenting coordination confidentiality norms strike the optimal or even the correct balance on information protection and concludes by identifying several policy options that might address these questions.     

Military Power and Food Security: A Cross-National Analysis of Less-Developed Countries, 1970–1990

Addressing the long-standing debate over the social impact of military power and recent discussions of military-induced famine, we conduct a panel analysis of aggregate food supply and child hunger rates in 75–79 less-developed countries (LDCs). Distinguishing between militarization , as the growth of military resources, and militarism , as the use of military force to handle political conflicts, we show that militarization is both beneficial and detrimental to food security, whereas militarism is consistently detrimental. Arms imports and associated increased military spending plus praetorianism and military repression reduce food security, whereas increased military participation and arms production boost food security. Increased food supply reduces child hunger and is largely confined to the more developed of the LDCs. These military power effects show net economic growth, which "trickles down" to improve food supply and reduce child hunger among the more developed LDCs, reflecting the growth of global economic inequality. Contrary to views that see militarization as a single unified process, use of armed force is not strongly rooted in either praetorianism or militarization.     

Political Consequences of the New Inequality

This article proposes agendas for teaching and research about shifting global patterns of equality and inequality, a very different agenda than was appropriate when the last undergraduate professor was president of ISA, almost forty years ago. Today, unlike in that Cold War world, formal democracy is flourishing, state power is diminishing, gender inequality has diminished, and income inequality has risen. Consequences of these new patterns that demand our attention as teachers and scholars include: (1) more frequent protracted social conflicts, (2) a newly politicized sphere of international public health, (3) the new global gender politics, (4) the new global politics of the super-rich, and (5) the new politics and ethics of the world's privileged, a group that includes most ISA members and most of our students. Our responsibilities as teachers have grown, in part, because popular media present a decreasingly coherent picture of each of these patterns; and that incoherence, itself, may help sustain global inequalities.