Operation Anaconda: Perception Meets Reality in the Hills of Afghanistan

The initial encounters between Al Qaeda and the U.S. military taught both a series of lessons that reverberate across the battlefields of Afghanistan today. Both sides entered the fray with preconceived ideas of their enemy—ideas that disappeared on the battlefields of the Shahi-Kot valley. The United States was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the siege of Tora Bora. Their battleplan called for a lightning fast operation using highly mobile U.S. and Afghan forces to envelop the enemy, but failures of intelligence and the fog of war transformed Anaconda into a long, slow struggle against an often invisible foe. Al Qaeda had all the advantages of terrain and defense but was unable to cause the massive casualties they thought would drive the American invaders from Afghanistan. Both sides left the battlefield with valuable lessons that have prevented any similar encounters since silence returned to the Shahi-Kot.     

Population Size,Age Structure,and Sex Composition Effects on Official Crime in Canada

Canada, along with most other Western, industrialized countries, has experienced a dramatic increase in both the overall volume and the rate of official crime, as well as significant increases in the amount of female crime since the mid-1950's. Several authors have suggested that much of this increase in official crime is related to major demographic fluctuations, such as the post-war “baby-boom.” Specifically, in this paper it is maintained that a large proportion of the increase in the overall amount of crime is due to both absolute as well as relative increases in those segments of the population which have high a priori crime rates.

Using 1957 as a base year, the volume of convictions for criminal offenders in Canada is standardized for population size, age structure, and sex composition effects. It was found that approximately one-half of the increase in volume of crime could be attributed to overall population growth. The impact of age structure and sex composition was not unambiguous, however, with the period 1958–1964 showing a greater sensitivity to these variables than the period 1965–1973.     

Coalition and Minority Government in Scotland: Lessons for the United Kingdom?

The United Kingdom general election result in 2010 produced a hung or balanced parliament for the first time in over three decades. Since the United Kingdom has limited postwar experience of this outcome, it is natural that commentators have begun to look elsewhere for lessons on the practicalities of minority and coalition government. This article considers the lessons we can learn from the Scottish parliamentary experience since 1999. It outlines two main points of comparison: strength and stability. One might assume that coalition provides more of both than minority government. Indeed, for that reason, it is rare for central or devolved governments in the United Kingdom to operate as minorities through choice. Yet, the Scottish experience shows that the differences between coalition and minority government are not completely straightforward. Much depends on the institutional context and, in many cases, idiosyncratic elements of particular systems. Consequently, one can identify a trade‐off in comparative analysis: as the identification of elements specific to one system increases, the ability to draw clear meaningful lessons decreases.     

El Templete and Cuban Neoclassicism: A Multivalent Signifier as Site of Memory

In this article I explore the production and reception of El Templete, a nineteenth‐century memorial erected to commemorate the founding of Havana. This symbolically rich monument participates in the aesthetic traditions of architecture, sculpture and painting, and is a paradigmatic example of the multivalence of public, monumental art in the late colonial classicism of Latin America and the Caribbean. Rather than representing strictly an aesthetic discourse of Spanish colonial power, El Templete underwent a process of local assimilation, whereby classical forms and academic aesthetics were adapted to the self‐representation of a heterogeneous colonial city.     

Political Marketing and Propaganda: Uses,Abuses, Misuses

Although previous issues of well-respected marketing journals (e.g., Revue Française du Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing) have focused on political marketing, and although there are now journals which regularly publish papers on political marketing including, of course, this one and the Journal of Public Affairs, none has focused exclusively on how the techniques developed for use in electoral and governmental campaigning, in lobbying and party fundraising campaigns, are now being used more generally in the military, in public diplomacy programs, and by companies, not-for-profit organizations, and even terrorist groups, with a focus on “winning hearts and minds.” The aim of this special issue is to seek to fill in this gap in our knowledge and encourage further research into the political marketing/propaganda interface. In this special issue, we seek to elucidate the meaning of propaganda and political marketing by exploring their parameters, both contemporary and traditional.     

LIFE SPAN OFFENDING TRAJECTORIES OF A DUTCH CONVICTION COHORT*

The aim of this paper is to describe the development of criminal behavior from early adolescence to late adulthood based on conviction data for a sample of Dutch offenders. Measuring over an age span of 12 to 72, we ask whether there is evidence for (1) criminal trajectories that are distinct in terms of time path, (2) a small group of persistent offenders, (3) criminal trajectories that are distinct in the mix of crimes committed, or, more specifically, persistent offenders disproportionately engaging in violent offences, and (4) different offender groups having different social profiles in life domains other than crime. The analysis is based on the conviction histories of the Dutch offenders in the Criminal Career and Life Course Study. Four trajectory groups were identified using a semi‐parametric, group‐based model: sporadic offenders, low‐rate desisters, moderate‐rate desisters and high‐rate persisters. Analyses show that high‐rate persisters engage in crime at a very substantial rate, even after age 50. Compared to other trajectory groups the high‐rate persistent trajectory group disproportionately engages in property crimes rather than violent crimes. Also, these distinct trajectories are found to be remarkably similar across age cohorts.     

EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.     

SOCIAL INTERACTION AND COMMUNITY CRIME: EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBOR NETWORKS

The social disorganization perspective assumes that social interaction among neighbors is a central element in the control of community crime. Moreover, social interaction among neighbors that occurs frequently, such as every day, is assumed to be most effective. This analysis tests that assumption by exploring the consequences of frequent and infrequent interaction. I construct 10 alternative measures of social interaction and separately examine the effect of each on the rates of three serious crimes across 60 urban neighborhoods. Findings suggest that type of interaction matters. Getting together once a year or more with neighbors has the most consistent and generally strongest effect on burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery. Further this form of interaction mediates a significant proportion of the effect of ecological characteristics on community crime. Implications for community crime research are discussed.