Different Timelines for Different Technologies

Case studies of the first completed Advanced Technology Program (ATP) projects have shown considerable variation in commercialization patterns of ATP-funded technologies. These variations were apparent in the timing of initial revenues, commercialization in more mature and multiple applications, and diffusion of ATP technologies relative to the period of ATP funding of R&D. This study analyzes differences in commercialization patterns for different ATP-funded technologies in a systematic way.     

Competition policy for elections: Do campaign contribution limits matter?

This paper examines whether campaign contribution restrictions have consequences for election outcomes. States are a natural laboratory to examine this issue. We analyze elections to Assemblies from 1980 to 2001 and determine whether candidates' vote shares are altered by changes in state campaign contribution restrictions. We find that limits on giving narrow the margin of victory of the winning candidate. Limits lead to closer elections for future incumbents, but have less effect on the margin of victory of incumbents who passed the campaign finance legislation. We also find some evidence that contribution limits increase the number of candidates in the race.     

Mexican Democracy and Its Discontents

This article describes the first stage of a major research project on public opinion and democratic consolidation in Mexico. That project, the Mexico 2006 Panel Study, comprises approximately 7,000 in‐depth interviews with ordinary Mexicans over the course of the upcoming presidential campaign. Its purpose is two‐fold: (1) to assess the degree to which Mexican political attitudes are supportive of democratic governance, and (2) to understand the role played by voters, politicians, party leaders, and the mass media in shaping Mexico's political agenda. Ultimately, the project aims to assess how faithfully Mexico's new political system can be expected to respond to the desires and beliefs of ordinary citizens.     

Requirements Engineering Technology Transfer: An Experience Report

This paper is an experience report on an initiative to incorporate requirements engineering practices into the development process of two large corporations. The project was framed by a government program to foster collaboration between academia, industry, and government agencies. Its expected result—proposals for cooperative work—is in itself a major challenge, since it was not decided from the beginning what aspect of requirements engineering would be covered by the proposals.We describe the cooperation process followed by the project partners, three universities, and two companies, the difficulties found therein, and compare our experience with other reports on the issue of adoption of requirements engineering into the mainstream practice.     

Cocaine and homicide in Memphis and Shelby county: an epidemic of violence

In Memphis and the surrounding county, there were a record number of homicides (179) in 1986. During the same year, there was a marked increase in medical examiner cases where tests were positive for cocaine or its metabolites. Review of medical examiner and toxicology records from 1980 to 1986 found 87 cocaine related deaths; 46 of these were homicides. In 1986 alone, there were 53 cocaine related deaths, all manners, and 31 cocaine related homicides. In this year, 17.3% of the homicides were positive for cocaine or metabolite. The cocaine related homicides were similar to other homicides in terms of age, race, sex, blood ethanol concentration, and cause of death being due most often to firearms. In homicide cases in which an abuse drug was detected, cocaine accounted for the entire increase in 1986. Police records indicated that cocaine directly contributed to the homicide in 39% of the cases in which the drug was found. In other cases, we speculate that cocaine altered behavior may have contributed to the victim's being murdered either during the drug "high" or during the posteuphoric depression or withdrawal phase.     

Reviews

Thomas Remington (ed.), Parliaments in Transition. The New Legislative Politics in the Former USSR and Eastern Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, vii + 246pp.

Carlos Taibo, La disolución de la URSS. Barcelona: Ronsel, 1994, xii + 376 pp., 1900 pesetas.

Miroslav Shkandrij, Modernists, Marxists and the Nation. The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta, 1992, xii + 265 pp.

Don C. Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xvi + 286 pp., £40.00 h/b, £19.95 p/b.

Mary Schaeffer Conroy, In Health and in Sickness: Pharmacy, Pharmacists and the Pharmaceutical Industry in Late Imperial, Early Soviet Russia. New York: East European Monographs, Boulder, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1994, viii + 703 pp., h/b, No price.

William Millinship, Frontline: Women of the New Russia. London: Methuen, 1993, xxi + 297 pp., £9.99 p/b.

Sebastian Siebel‐Achenbach, Lower Silesia from Nazi Germany to Communist Poland, 1942–1949. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1994, vii + 381 pp., £47.50.

John Erickson & David Dilks (eds), Barbarossa. The Axis and the Allies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994, xii + 287 pp., £25.00

Yuri Pavlov, Soviet‐Cuban Alliance; 1959–1991. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1994, iv + 272 pp., $18.95.

Joshua Fogel, The Cultural Dimension of Sino‐Japanese Relations: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995, 216 pp., £40.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b     

Regulatory Competition: A Private International Law Approach

This article analyzes the regulatory competition model (RCM) from a private international law perspective. This perspective helps us identify and resolve two gaps in the standard explanation of the RCM. According to the standard explanation, two conditions must be fulfilled for the market of legal products to function well: (1) free movement of resources (persons, capital, and goods); (2) the absences of cross-border externalities. In relation to this second condition, the standard model argues that a uniform material rule is necessary to overcome cross-border externalities. The main thesis of this article is that a private international law approach can complete this model by adding two ideas. First, a smooth functioning of the market-of-legal products requires, not only the free movement of resources, but also a uniform private international law system which guarantees the autonomy of the parties (free choice of law) and the procedural implementation of this autonomy (free choice of forum and free movement of judgments). And second, a uniform material law, which wipes out the regulatory market, is not essential to deal with the externality problem; rather a uniform conflict-of-laws rule, which leads to the internalization of cross-border externalities by states, can correct at least some of the externalities problem and also maintains the regulatory market.     

The Impact of Mixed‐member Districts on Legislators' Behavior: The Case of Bolivia

Many studies suggest that mixed‐member electoral systems produce different attitudes and behaviors among representatives. This article assesses how this type of electoral system shapes Bolivian legislators' perceptions of their roles as representatives, their district activities, and their relationships with their political parties. It examines these dimensions using elite survey data and interviews with legislators and their personal assistants. The results show that the electoral system does not produce a uniform impact. It shapes how legislators perceive their role as representatives and the nature of the relationship they build with their political parties, but it does not produce differences in the kinds of activities that both types of legislators carry out in their districts.     

Social Trust, Social Capital and Perceptions of Immigration

Analyses of social capital and immigration have stressed the negative impact that culturally diverse societies have for the development of social trust. Ethnic heterogeneity, according to these studies, is associated with lower levels of social trust. However, social trust has not been studied as an independent variable in order to explain attitudes towards immigration. This article argues that societies with high levels of social capital facilitate the integration of immigrants because those members with high levels of social trust will tend to have more positive attitudes towards immigration. This hypothesis is empirically tested in a cross-country multi-level empirical analysis for sixteen European countries, drawing on the 2002–3 European Social Survey. This analysis shows that, regardless of the impact of other individual-level variables and contextual variables such as levels of unemployment or percentage of foreign population, those with high social capital do exhibit more positive attitudes towards immigration than the rest of the population.