Law's Allure and an Interbranch Perspective on Law and Politics

This essay views Gordon Silverstein's book Law's Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics (2009) from the perspective of the burgeoning interbranch literature on law and courts, which seeks to place judicial decision making within the context of ongoing political and policy-making processes. It argues that Law's Allure reflects the strengths and weaknesses of this literature. On the plus side, it compellingly reinterprets the concept of legal precedent in political terms, showing how the content of judicial decisions serves as an iterative framing mechanism within and across various policy areas. On the downside, it struggles to provide a rigorous framework for analyzing the risks of the juridification of American politics. Despite any weaknesses, its attempt to map different pathways of legalistic court-based policy development in diverse settings represents a useful step for those interested in bringing the study of law and courts back into the core of analyzing American politics and policy making.     

Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers,in Karelia Russia

This article presents the multidisciplinary effort in trying to identify the skeletal remains of 100 Norwegian soldiers serving in the German army, killed in Karelia Russia in 1944, from the recovery of the remains through the final identification using DNA. Of the 150 bone samples sent for DNA testing, 93 DNA profiles were obtained relating to 57 unique individuals. The relatives could not be directly contacted as the soldiers were considered as traitors to Norway; therefore, only 45 reference samples, relating to 42 cases of the missing, were donated. DNA matches for 14 soldiers and 12 additional body part re‐associations for these individuals were found. Another 24 bone samples were re‐associated with 16 individuals, but no familial match was found. More than six decades after the end of WWII, DNA analysis can significantly contribute to the identification of the remains.     

Hormones, Risk Management, Precaution and Protectionism: An Analysis of the Dispute on Hormone-Treated Beef between the European Union and the United States

The first commercial dispute settled by the WTO under the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement concerned the disagreement between the European Communities and the United States over the European import ban on meat and meat products derived from cattle to which hormones have been administered for growth promotion purposes. The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, we analyse the WTO's approach to the notion of risk in the use of hormones and the role this played in reaching its decision to declare the EC ban on hormone-treated beef imports inconsistent with its obligations under the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement. Second, we discuss the way in which the precautionary principle has been dealt with in the settlement of this conflict. We then show how this dispute has paved the way to a debate on the concept of protectionism to be applied in this kind of dispute. The European Commission in a recent communication on the precautionary principle has launched this debate.     

Adolescent Health: Are We Willing to Pay the Price for Inaction?

Several years ago, a legislator spoke clearly of the wishful unawareness we often confront in public health. After a session of frank exchange in his committee about teen pregnancy in Arkansas, he said, "Dr. Elders, until you became the health department director, we didn't have this problem." The facts paint a startling scenario for such people. We have not provided an environment in which our children can flourish. Instead, we have allowed the number of children who are economically, educationally, and medically disadvantaged to grow. Called "at-risk," their existence is an affront to democratic ideals, especially the belief that all have an equal chance for prosperity. It is time for true reform, but before that can happen, we must face the state of our children's health. After this, we must set to work at effective strategies.     

Party identification and party closeness in comparative perspective

The present analysis uses data from 1974 and 1981 U. S. cross sections, which incorporate a panel, to compare the standard NES measure of party identification (ID) with a measure of partisanship derived from a party closeness question widely employed in cross-national research. Important features of the two scales are examined by transforming the closeness measure into a scale of very close, fairly close, not very close, and no preference corresponding to the seven-point ID scale. The scales are highly correlated and are similar in their reliability. More than 75% of the independents in the ID scale choose a party in the closeness version, and over half of these select the fairly close category. Respondents do not volunteer that they are independents when that alternative is not stated in the question.     

L'utilisation de la méthode des cas et des jeux de simulation dans l'enseignement de l'administration publique

Sommaire. La méthode des cas et les jeux de simulation ne sont pas utilisés sur une très grande échelle dans l'enseignement de l'administration publique. Le présent article décrit ces méthodes d'enseignement et fait le point sur le matériel pédagogique actuellement disponible. Il apparait que I'on dispose d'un nombre sans cesse grandissant de cas et de jeux conGus pour former les administrateurs publics et clue ces méthodes d'enseignement sont appelées à connaître un développement considérable dans l'avenir. Abstract. Case studies and simulation games are not used to a very great extent in the teaching of public administration. This article describes these teaching methods as well as the didactic material presentlv available. It would seem that there is an ever increasing number of cases and games directed towards the training of public administrators. It is evident that case studies and simulation games will become increasingly popular in the near future.