Testing the Demirjian and the international Demirjian dental aging methods on a mixed ancestry urban American subadult sample from Detroit, MI

This paper tests the Demirjian and international Demirjian dental aging methods for forensic use when ancestry and ethnicity are unknown. A radiographic sample of 187 boys and girls was collected from the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Detroit Mercy and aged using both methods. The total sample and the sample by age categories (young, middle, and old) were analyzed using t-tests. The Demirjian method was found to better estimate age to a statistically significant degree for the total sample, as well as the middle and old age categories. The young category was aged better using the international Demirjian method. The results indicate that while the Demirjian method accurately estimates age, caution must be used with the method. Further research is needed to determine whether the international Demirjian method can be used for forensics in the U.S.     

Polarizing cues

People categorize themselves and others, creating ingroup and outgroup distinctions. In American politics, parties constitute the in- and outgroups, and party leaders hold sway in articulating party positions. A party leader's endorsement of a policy can be persuasive, inducing co-partisans to take the same position. In contrast, a party leader's endorsement may polarize opinion, inducing out-party identifiers to take a contrary position. Using survey experiments from the 2008 presidential election, I examine whether in- and out-party candidate cues—John McCain and Barack Obama—affected partisan opinion. The results indicate that in-party leader cues do not persuade but that out-party leader cues polarize. This finding holds in an experiment featuring President Bush in which his endorsement did not persuade Republicans but it polarized Democrats. Lastly, I compare the effect of party leader cues to party label cues. The results suggest that politicians, not parties, function as polarizing cues.     

Germany and the UK from convention to the IGC

The UK and Germany approached the Convention with rather closer positions on many key issues than popular image would have it, developed further common aims during the Convention, and both ended up relatively satisfied with the outcomes. Based on close observation of the Convention proceedings, this article explores this pattern of convergence, commencing with a discussion of the ‘visions’ that Joschka Fischer for Germany and Tony Blair for the UK brought to the debate, and developing the discussion through an analysis of how each government ‘played’ the Convention. Perhaps surprisingly the UK government was more adept at alliance-building, with the lead German representative, Fischer, seen as aloof and outflanked by Franco-German initiatives agreed by the respective heads of government.     

Local governments' monopoly power and local tax reform: Theory and evidence from the U.K.

Public Choice - The paper briefly reviews recent research that adapts and extends the Tiebout model of residential choice, paying special attention to those studies which utilize Hirschman's...     

Decade differences in rural adolescents' views of life possibilities

In a small-town high school ninth-graders were administered the same research instrument in 1967 and 1979. They listed events they thought would happen to them in the future, occupations, free-time activities, and people known, and answered questions related to perceptions of autonomy and family decision making. Except for the time span of future events, which remained between four and five years ahead, the later group showed many significant increases in cognitive possibilities, especially for occupations and free-time activities. Boys in 1979 perceived less family cohesiveness and girls more autonomy than their 1967 counterparts. Content analyses showed expansion of the girls' possibilities into formerly male-stereotyped occupations and an increase in perceptions of sexual and possibly antisocial activities, particularly among boys.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Main research interests are cross-cultural psychology, personality assessment, and community psychology.Main interest is the development of theory and research about human possibility and choice. Received her Ph.D. from University of Minnesota.Research interests are developmental and cross-cultural psychology. Received her Ph.D. from Latrobe University.     

Beyond competition: the normative implications of consumer-driven health plans

The Federal Trade Commission/Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition appeals to efficiency arguments in promoting a wide range of health care market reforms. But the market-based reforms discussed in Improving Health Care are not simply neutral with regard to equity in access to services; they are likely to have substantial and inequitable distributional effects. We use the case of consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), the pillar of the Bush administration's private-sector health reform efforts, to illustrate the limitations of viewing health policy reform through the lens of Improving Health Care. We conclude that the speculative efficiency gains from CDHPs need to be balanced against well-documented equity concerns within a normative framework. Moreover, other important ethical issues arise with regard to the risks imposed on the population by the introduction of policies that are based on a faith in markets rather than empirical evidence.     

Earthquakes and Aftershocks: Race, Direct Democracy, and Partisan Change

Although dramatic partisan change among the electorate is infrequent, the issue agendas of parties may produce large shifts. A major cause of such change is the politics of race. In a political environment charged with racially oriented issues, racial groups often align themselves with different parties (as witnessed most recently in the American South). Yet, if racial appeals violate norms of equality, these appeals may rebound on the party using them. Consequently, members of the (white) racial majority and racially targeted minority may both move away from the offending party. Using data from the California Field Poll, we find that racially charged ballot propositions sponsored by the Republican party during the 1990s in California reversed the trend among Latinos and Anglos toward identifying as Republican, ceteris paribus, by shifting party attachments toward the Democratic party. Our results raise serious questions about the long-term efficacy of racially divisive strategies for electoral gain.