Public affairs and political strategy: theoretical foundations

During the past two decades there have been hundreds of articles published within the broad topic of business political strategy, many of them rigorous and innovative. This paper presents a review and assessment of the theoretical bases of extant research, focusing on three broad research questions: Why do firms participate in the political process? What strategies and tactics do firms employ? What are the limitations on firms' capacity for rational action in the political arena? Research in political strategy has been informed by interest group theory, collective action theory, public choice theory, transaction costs theory, game theory, resource dependence theory, institutional theory, agency theory, the behavioural theory of the firm, business strategy, and population ecology. The paper concludes with a plea to scholars to conduct research in this area which is explicitly and consistently grounded in broad theories of social science. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Cents and sensibility: A case study of corrections reform in Kansas and Michigan

The analytical framework developed by the “new penology” describes the content of corrections reform as relatively homogenous, largely driven by forces internal to corrections departments. This article examines the ongoing process of penal reform in the correctional systems of Kansas and Michigan over the last decade and argues that the new penology's analytical framework has the potential to obscure the relationship between penal practices and their immediate institutional environment. Using case studies of corrections reform in Kansas and Michigan, this article shows that the nature and scope of reforms in both states were determined not just by internal considerations and adaptations, but by a number of forces operating outside the penal bureaucracy including the interests of external actors, economic crises, and high profile events. These external forces both constrained and encouraged correctional reforms and led to evolving reform rationales that often conflicted with the practices of the new penology.     

Making monsters

His research centers on extreme techniques of influence and social control. He shared in a 1979 Pulitzer prize for an exposé of Synanon. Among his other books are Interpersonal Behavior in Small Groups;and Utility and Choice in Social Interaction.     

Part II: Sex differences in persons found not guilty by reason of insanity: analysis of data from the Connecticut NGRI Registry

Thirty-one female insanity acquittess from Connecticut were matched to a group of 31 male NGRIs. The samples were compared with regard to demographic, criminal, and clinical characteristics. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine predictors of criminal recidivism for the sample. Results indicated that women NGRIs were older, more likely to be married, less likely to be substance abusers, had less extensive criminal records, and were released from hospitals sooner than the men. A significant racial difference was noted: white women had less extensive criminal records and were hospitalized for shorter periods than minority women. Results of the logistic regression analyses showed that the strongest independent predictors of criminal recidivism were race and having a diagnosis other than psychosis (schizophrenia, affective or organic disorders). Findings support recent APA policy guidelines on the insanity defense.     

The Propaganda of the Deed: Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Mobilization

Many terrorist factions care about the level of popular support they enjoy within a population they claim to represent. Empirically, this level of support can either rise or fall in the aftermath of a campaign of terrorist violence. Under what circumstances is the use of terror an effective tactic for mobilizing political support for an extremist group? This article models a scenario in which an extremist faction considers attacking a government in the hopes of provoking a counterterror response that will radicalize the population, increasing the extremists' support at the expense of a more moderate faction. In our scenario, such radicalization can result either from the economic damage caused by counterterror operations or by the way in which such operations change the population's assessment of the government's motivations. We demonstrate that such attempts at mobilizing public support can be, but need not be, successful, discuss factors that make both the initiation of a terror campaign and successful mobilization more or less likely, and relate our results to several empirical cases.     

Taking sides: Gender and third‐party partisanship in disputes

We examine the role of a norm protecting women in understanding third‐party partisanship in verbal and violent disputes. Our analyses are based on reports provided by male inmates and men they know who have never been arrested. The results show that third parties are more likely to support female adversaries than male adversaries. The gender effect is stronger when we control for the relational distance between adversaries, which indicates that a privacy norm might inhibit this normative protection. The gender effect is somewhat weaker when we control for the relative physical size of the adversaries, which indicates that a general norm protecting vulnerable people partly explains the gender effect. The strong gender effect that remains, however, demonstrates the importance of the normative protection of women, regardless of relative size, during disputes. The results have implications for research on situational factors in violence and violence against women.     

Politics and the Death Penalty: 1930–2010

Recent theorists have argued that the use of the death penalty has been shaped by political considerations throughout history. However, empirical research has primarily examined this relationship in the last third of the twentieth century. In order to expand the temporal scope used to examine capital punishment practices, this study examines whether four post-Furman perspectives are able to account for the use of death sentences at the state level from 1930 to 2010. This study also examines whether the movement from the pre- to the post-Furman time period moderated the relationship between political factors and use of death sentences. The findings indicate that the size of religious fundamentalist populations, jurisdictional welfare expenditures, and surpluses in the labor force are significant predictors of death sentences across both eras. These results suggest that the predictive power of recent political theories is not restrained to the jurisdictional use of death sentences in the last third of the twentieth century.