Overcoming the weight of history: 'Getting to yes' in the Peru-Ecuador border dispute

This article presents and analyzes the elements of the Western Hemisphere's longest standing boundary dispute and the crucial role of the region's oldest multilateral conflict resolution mechanism in working out an historic agreement in October 1998. Other factors in combination were also critical for success: an existing international legal framework, multilevel bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, decisive leadership and statecraft, and public diplomacy. The analysis suggests that the final settlement is a significant milestone in international diplomacy, demonstrating that even the most deeply ingrained differences between states can be resolved by the patient and persistent efforts of all parties involved.     

Polarization and Issue Consistency Over Time

The polarization of the political and social environment over the past four decades has provided citizens with clearer cues about how their core political predispositions (e.g., group interests, core values, and party identification) relate to their issue opinions. A robust and ongoing scholarly debate has involved the different ways in which the more polarized environment affects mass opinion. Using heteroskedastic regression, this paper examines the effect of the increasingly polarized environment on the variability of citizens’ policy opinions. We find that citizens today base their policy preferences more closely upon their core political predispositions than in the past. In addition, the predicted error variances also allow us to directly compare two types of mass polarization—issue distance versus issue consistency—to determine the independent effects each has on changes in the distribution of mass opinion.     

Nineteenth‐Century rural England: A case for ‘peasant studies'?

Small‐scale family‐based agricultural production was a common feature of rural England before the First World War. These producers were distinct from capitalist farmers in that labour was not normally employed, and surplus value was therefore not appropriated by the farmer. These people have been largely ignored by historians of rural England on the assumption that they were either numerically insignificant or were unimportant. The first of these assumptions is unsustainable and the second is unsubstantiated. In order to examine these people within a developed capitalist economy, concepts developed by students of the peasantry are likely to be of value, and a plea is made for studies of rural England based on class analyses, and including all of the various groups in the English countryside.     

Hyaluronidase as a liquefying agent for chemical analysis of vitreous fluid

Vitreous humor is a suitable specimen for postmortem clinical chemistry because the analytes remain relatively stable after death and they closely reflect blood levels immediately prior to death. The viscous nature of vitreous fluid, however, presents analytical problems including imprecision and inaccuracy. Various preanalytical treatments, such as boiling, high speed centrifugation, microfiltration and dilution have been used. These techniques are labor intensive and add to imprecision and inaccuracy. Because glycosaminoglycans contribute significantly to the viscosity of vitreous humor, we used hyaluronidase as a liquefying agent. We compared the results of analyses in 33 vitreous humor specimens after hyaluronidase treatment with the results after either no treatment or specimen dilution. Seventeen of the 33 specimens could not be analyzed without dilution. Even after dilution, several analytes still could not be measured. Hyaluronidase treatment negated the need for sample dilution and had no significant effect on the analyses.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: the Case of Papuan Asylum‐Seekers

It is perilous to look to history to provide guidance for the present. Nonetheless the political controversy surrounding the granting of temporary protection to forty‐two asylum‐seekers from West Papua in March 2006 needs to be understood in its wider, historical context. Papua has been a pebble in the region's political shoe since 1949. And national considerations are not new in shaping Australian policy toward asylum‐seekers. Certainly in the 1960s and 1970s Australia played a tactical, often tough game with Papuan asylum‐seekers in order to contain tensions with Indonesia. This article analyses the history of Australia's foreign and immigration policies towards Papuan asylum‐seekers and describes the delicate balancing act that successive Australian governments have needed to perform in handling this issue.