Political Parties and Intergovernmental Relations in 1984: The Consequences of Party Renewal for Territorial Constituencies

Democratic and Republican efforts at party renewal have differedin approach, but both can be recognized as intergovernmentalphenomena having significant implications for American federalism.The Democratic Party's national charter and delegate selectionrules, for instance, have federalized the governing structureof the party. The national Republican Party organization hasdeveloped such a large base of financial resources andcampaignservices that state Republican parties and candidate committeeshave begun to accept national party authority along with itsmoney. Moreover, as national, state, and local parties and candidatesincreasingly coordinate their delegate selection, finance, andother campaigh activities, they may transform the decentralizedparty system that has been a protector of state and local influencewithin the federal government. National ideological constituencieswithin both party organizations may rival territorial and functionalconstituencies for the attention of federal elected officials.     

Governmental corruption in Africa: Sierra Leone as a case study

This paper examines the definition and context of official corruption in the emerging African nation of Sierra Leone. Historical, legal and sociological studies of the development of Sierra Leone and corruption within that nation are reviewed, as well as the content of official ljudicial inquiries into administrative corruption. These investigations and studies are supplemented with data from the primary author's experiences as a prosecutor and judge in Sierra Leone. Predisposing factors which facilitate corruption are identified and a variety of policies aimed at reform are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

When scientists are adversaries,do participants lose?

In considering questions of the confidentiality of data, courts have focused their inquiry on the interests of litigants and the public, but they have neglected the fundamental privacy interests of participants. Because participants divulge their most private thoughts and experiences in research, involuntary breaches of their confidentiality should be barred. Congress has recongnized this principle in the provision of certificates of confidentiality for mental health research, but ambiguity in the relevant section of the Public Health Service Act renders such protection less strict than Congress intended. Protection of confidentiality should extend beyond litigation to secondary data analysis, when there is a significant risk that participants' identity will be divulged.     

Fiscal Planning, Budgeting, and Rebudgeting Using Revenue Semaphores

Revenue forecasts play an important role in the state government budget and policy process. These forecasts are generally reported to executive and legislative leaders as point estimates, with no acknowledgment of their corresponding risk and uncertainty. The revenue semaphores proposed in this article outline procedures by which revenue uncertainty directly influences the planning process. The goal is not to make forecasts more accurate, but to make discussions of budget and revenue alternatives more comprehensive. Explicitly incorporating risk and uncertainty measures into the budgeting process increases the degree of real-time budgeting and reduces some adverse effects of budget revisions after the fiscal year begins. The discussion occurs in the context of budget control, management, and policy making.     

Expressive Voting and Government Redistribution: Testing Tullock's `Charity of the Uncharitable'

Models of expressive voting postulate that voters will`consume' ideological stances on issues by voting for them,even when they are against the voter's own narrow selfinterest, if the probability of being a decisive voter is low.When a voter is unlikely to sway the outcome, the odds that avoter will incur any real personal cost (a higher tax burden,for example) from her own expressive vote is small. We testand find support for Tullock's straightforward empiricalimplication of this model, that government welfare (transfer)payments are inversely related to the probability of being thedecisive voter.