Local Context and Democratization in Mexico

While democratization is often seen as a national-level process, we argue that there is important scope for local effects. Through analysis of Mexican public opinion data collected on the eve of that country's historic 2000 elections, we demonstrate that local context greatly affects evaluations of the legitimacy of the system, and these evaluations, in turn, help to shape the willingness of citizens to engage with the system. Citizens are more willing to participate in politics if they think the process is fair, and direct evidence of the fairness of the system is provided by the local political context. This local connection, then, becomes critical in the process of individuals becoming, in Almond and Verba's classic term, "participatory" citizens (1963).     

Leader Influence and Reputation Formation in World Politics

The study of reputation is one of the foundational topics of modern international relations. However, fundamental questions remain, including the question of to whom reputations adhere: states, leaders, or both? We offer a theory of influence‐specific reputations (ISR) that unifies competing accounts of reputation formation. We theorize that reputations will adhere more to actors who are more influential in the relevant decision‐making process. We employ two survey experiments, one abstract and one richly detailed involving a U.S.‐Iran conflict, to evaluate ISR. We find evidence of large country‐specific reputations and moderately sized leader‐specific reputations. Consistent with the theory of influence‐specific reputations, leader‐specific reputations are more important when leaders are more influential.     

The politics of judicial discretion: Rethinking the interaction between national courts and the Eurpean court of justice

The recognition that courts play a significant role in the process of European integration has focused attention on the interaction between national judges and the European Court of Justice. The prevailing theoretical model of this interaction holds that a variety of incentives impel national judges to co‐operate with the ECJ by providing it with frequent preliminary references. This article tests the ability of the model to account for the behaviour of national courts during the period 1972–94. In assessing the utility of the model two central claims are made. First, that the model as currently constructed is incapable of explaining the patterns of references originating from various member states, particularly the consistent lack of references from British courts. Second, that the level of British references, and patterns of judicial co‐operation in general, can be better understood by questioning the model's core assumption ‐ that national judges face powerful incentives to refer to the ECJ. As a first step in this direction, the article examines how the discretion to make or withhold references bestows on national judges the power to hasten or retard the pace of integration as well as to influence specific policy outcomes.     

The Fate of an Orphan: The Hawley Board and the Debates over the Postwar Organization of Medical Intelligence

The US Army's medical intelligence program developed during World War II to meet the requirements for information on the medical threat facing soldiers deployed in the first truly global military conflict. The war served as a proving ground for the application of medical intelligence on a strategic, operational and tactical level. However, hasty postwar demobilization decimated many wartime intelligence programs, including medical intelligence. The US intelligence community recognized the utility of medical intelligence as part of the overall strategic scientific and technical intelligence program and sought ways to rebuild the program. During the post-World War II debates over the unification of the military services and the responsibilities of the nascent CIA, the ‘Hawley Board’ was one of several committees which studied the problems facing the medical intelligence program. Although there was broad consensus on the need for better coordination of medical intelligence, the intelligence community ultimately failed to adopt the recommendations of the Hawley Board. The principal reasons behind the failure of the Hawley plan were the re-emergence of prewar interservice rivalries, the dominant role of the Army medical intelligence program, and the lack of a joint military–CIA vision of a centralized medical intelligence service.