Property and Power: MPs' Assets and Support for Democratization in the 1867 Reform Act

Influential theories of democratization emphasize elites' fear of the redistributive consequences of democratic reform as an important limit on democratization. They also argue that landowners are more likely than capital owners to fear redistribution, as their assets are less mobile and thus more vulnerable to expropriation. To test these claims on the micro level, this article uses the 1867 U.K. Reform Act, which doubled the enfranchised population to include much of the urban working class, as a case study. Using an original dataset on the members of the 1865–68 House of Commons, this article finds that in fact, the most substantively important variable for votes on democratization was partisanship, which has been neglected by the distributional conflict literature. Material interests, particularly landowning, do matter, but they are crucially mediated by strategic partisan electoral concerns.     

Funding the Cause: How Public Interest Law Organizations Fund Their Activities and Why It Matters for Social Change

Most of the work of public interest law organizations does not make money. How do these organizations survive, given the economic realities of law practice? Drawing on survey data from a national random sample of public interest law firms, we investigate how funding models vary across public interest organizations and how funding sources affect these organizations’ activities. We find funding structures have, over time, shifted away from foundation support toward government grants. Compared to other organizations, however, conservative organizations draw significantly less of their budget from federal and state grants, and significantly more of their budget from private contributions. Conservative organizations are significantly less likely than other organizations to rely on funding that prohibits engaging in class actions, receiving attorney's fees, or lobbying. Respondents reported that funding restrictions hamper their ability to negotiate favorable settlements, bring about systemic change, and represent vulnerable client communities. We close with a comparative institutional analysis of different funding models.     

Superficial Survey Choice: An Experimental Test of a Potential Method for Increasing Response Rates and Response Quality in Correctional Surveys

Objectives

Drawing on prior theoretical and empirical work on survey participation, this study develops one potential method for increasing response rates and response quality in correctional surveys. Specifically, we hypothesize that providing inmates with a superficial survey choice (SSC)—that is, a choice between completing either of two voluntary surveys that are actually differently ordered versions of the same questionnaire—will increase their motivation both to participate in a given survey and to respond thoughtfully to the questions asked therein.

Methods

We test the effectiveness of this method by evaluating its impact on unit nonresponse, item nonresponse, and answer reliability. To do this, we analyze experimental data from a recent survey of male inmates incarcerated in a medium security, private prison.

Results

Findings indicate that the overall response rate is higher among inmates who are provided a survey choice. In addition, the evidence shows that the SSC method increases the percentage of individual items completed, the number of demanding questions completed, and the reliability of reported responses.

Conclusion

The results from the analyses are consistent with the hypotheses that motivated this study and suggest that the SSC method holds promise as a tool for correctional researchers.     

Resistance and the Radical Imagination: A Reflection on the Role of the Critical Criminologist in Social Movements

Critical Criminology - At times of global unrest and the emergence of a wide range of protest movements, recent intra-disciplinary criminological debates on the potentials and limits of resistance...     

Disagreeing in private or dissenting in public: an empirical exploration of possible motivations

European Journal of Law and Economics - There are different theories to explain judicial dissent in collegial courts or committees. In the Spanish Council of State (Consejo de Estado), councilors...     

Universities and start-up creation by Ph.D. graduates: the role of scientific and social capital of academic laboratories

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This paper investigates how the characteristics of university laboratories influence the propensity of Ph.D. students to entrepreneurship, and thus, contribute...     

Pat Cadigan's <Emphasis Type="Italic">Synners</Emphasis>: Refiguring Nature,Science and Technology

This article analyses an anti-essentialist SF novel, focusing on the extent to which A anti-foundationalism enables a more accurate as well as a more productive representation of postmodernity. My argument stresses the ways in which Pat Cadigan's novel Synners, mostly because of its remarkable narrative form, challenges some of the most dangerous norms and normativity of American thought and culture. I argue, that, in order to understand this complex novel correctly, we must approach technoscience and transnational capitalism as separate, interacting discourses and material practices. The representations of technoscience, in the novel, are definitely not ‘figures’ for late capitalism: they are representations of a discourse which interacts with capitalism in the fictional world as in the real world.Contrary to what has been suggested by a number of critics writing about Foucault, use of this notion of discourse does not preclude use of notions of agency. As the queer theorists who have drawn on Foucault's work show, agency can be theorized in terms compatible with the notions of discourses, material practices and technologies. My discussion of Synners thus focuses on questions of agency, showing how Cadigan uses a deconstruction of Judeo-Christian religious tropes to argue for a responsible, and knowledgable, ‘incurably informed’ approach to technology.     

Virtual Tool Mark Generation for Efficient Striation Analysis,

This study introduces a tool mark analysis approach based upon 3D scans of screwdriver tip and marked plate surfaces at the micrometer scale from an optical microscope. An open‐source 3D graphics software package is utilized to simulate the marking process as the projection of the tip's geometry in the direction of tool travel. The edge of this projection becomes a virtual tool mark that is compared to cross‐sections of the marked plate geometry using the statistical likelihood algorithm introduced by Chumbley et al. In a study with both sides of six screwdriver tips and 34 corresponding marks, the method distinguished known matches from known nonmatches with zero false‐positive matches and two false‐negative matches. For matches, it could predict the correct marking angle within ±5–10°. Individual comparisons could be made in seconds on a desktop computer, suggesting that the method could save time for examiners.     

A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis of Spatiotemporal Patterns of Terrorist Incidents in Iraq 2004–2009

As terrorism on all scales continues, it is necessary to improve understanding of terrorist and insurgent activities. This article takes a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach to advance the understanding of spatial, social, political, and cultural triggers that influence terrorism incidents. Spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal patterns of terrorist attacks are examined to improve knowledge about terrorist systems of training, planning, and actions. The results of this study aim to provide a foundation for understanding attack patterns and tactics in emerging havens as well as inform the creation and implementation of various counterterrorism measures.     

The organ and staff of the institute (1980)

The time is nigh for the EU to think more strategically about its global role. This is suggested by the confluence of changes in the international system itself and the internal changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. When approached via a geopolitical prism, the EU's main interests lie in its neighbourhood, to the east and south, central Asia and the Gulf. These are regions where the EU enjoys the most influence. The EU should therefore engage with other international actors, both traditional and emerging, in an intensified dialogue concentrating in particular on these areas. A Union with a clearer idea of what it is trying to accomplish on the world stage, backed by the means and determination to succeed, could herald a regional pax Europeana, while a continuation of the EU's current drift will condemn it to increasing irrelevance – a pox Europeana.