Rethinking Representation from a Communal Perspective

Most foundational theories of congressional representation were developed during an era of less polarized and less partisan politics. These theories viewed the incumbency advantage as buttressed by the fact that some constituents were willing to support legislators from the opposite party because of their “home styles.” But in an era of policy immoderation in Congress, this perspective leads to an assumption that citizens evaluate their members of Congress based on what those legislators do for them individually, rather than what they do for their districts more broadly. In this paper, we ask whether citizens take the interests of their fellow constituents into account when evaluating their members of Congress. Using both survey data and an experiment, we uncover support for the notion that citizens take a more communal view of representation as at least part of their evaluations of their representatives. This suggests individuals may have a more nuanced understanding of representation than purely self-interested approaches tend to assume.     

Accountability: Is Westminster the Problem?

The outcome of the Symposium reported in AJPA 58(1) is said by the convenors to be that there are many different kinds of accountability and that there may be clashes between them. This paper suggests one possible reason is that the Westminster label hides the potential tensions between the increasing demands for accountability, more responsiveness and responsibility, the new public management and the institutional framework. Everyone wishes to cover perceived unmet demands and expectations, providing we remain with basic Westminster as our starting point. The paper suggests that commitment to what we call Westminster is the problem. It restricts understanding of the reality of Australian governance because it is not an uncontested term. Westminster is made to mean whatever the normative stance of the commentator requires. The paper argues that it is an opportune time to answer some basic questions about responsible parliamentary democracy in Australia.     

Leader Effects and Voting for the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe

Charismatic leaders are often assumed to drive the electoral success of populist radical right parties. Yet, little attention is given to how voter evaluations of leaders influence individual voting behavior. To our knowledge, no systematic and comparative tests of this empirical question exist. In this paper, we test to what extent voters’ support for populist radical right parties is fueled by leaders' appreciation. In order to examine leader effects on the populist radical right vote, we rely on an original dataset pooling 29 National Election Studies from ten established West European parliamentary democracies (1985‐2018). Our analysis finds that: (1) voters’ evaluation of party leaders is significantly associated with voting for populist radical right parties; (2) leader evaluations are more important than left‐right self‐placement when it comes to voting for the populist radical right, and (3) leader effects are more important for populist radical right voters than for other voters.     

Artifacts Caused by Leaf-Cutting Ants of the Genus Atta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Postmortem Bite Injuries and the Tearing of Clothes

Ants are one of the first insects to find an exposed cadaver and can be present during all stages of decomposition. Although these organisms are not commonly used in postmortem interval estimates, they are to be taken into account on criminal investigations involving human corpses, since they can leave bite marks that can be mistaken for antemortem or perimortem injuries, which could be misleading when ascertaining the occurrence of abuse or physical altercation during a crime. A few studies report the action of ants on human cadavers and even though leaf-cutting ants of the genus Atta are frequently encountered in succession studies that use animal carcasses, there are no records of these fungus-growing species on human corpses. Atta is a genus restricted to the New World, ranging from northern Argentina to southern United States and acts as one of the most conspicuous neotropical herbivores. In this study, we report three cases of violent death that illustrate the impact of ants, especially those of the genus Atta, in a forensic setting. We compare the patterns displayed by postmortem bite injuries caused by leaf-cutter ants and other common species with less robust mandibles. We also present the capability of Atta ants to create artifacts by cutting victim’s clothes in a crime scene, contributing to the knowledge of ant-mediated confounding factors in crime scene investigation.     

Population data for Y-chromosome haplotypes defined by 17 STRs (AmpFlSTR YFiler) in Central Portugal

The 17 Y-chromosome STR loci (DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS456, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393 and DYS385 a/b, DYS458, DYS439, DYS635, GATA H4.1, DYS437, DYS438 and DYS448) were determined for 100 unrelated males, living in Central Portugal, using the AmpFlSTR YFiler PCR Amplification kit (Applied Biosystems).A total of 99 different haplotypes were found, with only two individuals sharing the same haplotype. The overall haplotype diversity (HD) was determined as 0.9998, a value similar to other Y Filer data sets.Y-STR polymorphisms in Central Portugal population, using YFiler, provide a powerful discrimination tool for routine forensic applications.     

The Bush Administration's 'Alliance-Based' East Asia Policy

The US will face major foreign policy challenges in East Asia in the twenty-first century. In this article, Ralph A. Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, Honolulu, examines the Bush administration's policy towards East Asia which he argues continues to be alliance-based. The principal issues include: the precarious situation on the Korean Peninsula; China's potential emergence as a regional power and the sensitive topic of the Taiwan Strait, Japan's struggle with economic and constitutional reform and an unstable Indonesia. The administration's stated commitment to missile defense has been well publicized and the security implications of this for the region are also examined by Cossa. Although a ''Vision statement'' on the Asia-Pacific is still lacking and needed, he argues that the basic components of the Bush administration's Asia strategy appear to be well-formed.     

Personnel Management: Politics, Administration, and a Passion for Anonymity

Personnel management is vitally important to the maintenance and preservation of the administrative state and its democratic institutions. This reaction critically examines the personnel recommendations made by Floyd W. Reeves and Paul T. David in their study Personnel Administration in the Federal Service. It questions the degree to which there is a coherent set of political and constitutional expectations marking the progress of personnel policy that might enable us to forecast the future, both theoretically and practically. The authors highlight how and why the field should pay greater attention to the political ends that our personnel theories serve.