Origins of Regime Change: “Ideapolitik” on the Long Road to Baghdad, 1993–2000

How was the ouster of Saddam Hussein defined as the solution to America's Iraq problem? Current scholarship on the U.S. invasion of Iraq tends to focus on the post-9/11 road to war, promoting models of policy capture, intelligence manipulation, threat-inflation, or rhetorical coercion of Bush administration opponents. In this essay, I trace the “Ideapolitik” of regime change in the 1990s and show that Bush's post-9/11 rhetoric was firmly embedded in a preexisting foreign policy consensus defining Saddam Hussein as the “problem” and his overthrow as its “solution.” Drawing upon recent research in international relations and public policy, I show how the idea of regime change prevailed in redefining American strategy for Iraq. While the September 11, 2001 attacks had important effects on the Bush administration's willingness to use force, the basic idea that ousting Saddam Hussein would solve the Iraq problem was already embedded in elite discourse. Saddam Hussein's ouster was not simply the result of idiosyncratic or nefarious decision-making processes within the Bush administration, but was instead the realization of a social choice made by U.S. foreign policy elites well before George W. Bush came to power.     

Of guns and geese: a meta-analytic review of the ‘weapon focus’ literature

Abstract

Weapon focus is frequently cited as a factor in eyewitness testimony, and is broadly defined as a weapon-related decrease in performance on subsequent tests of memory for those elements of an event or visual scene concurrent to the weapon. This effect has been attributed to either (a) physiological or emotional arousal that narrows the attentional beam (arousal/threat hypothesis), or (b) the cognitive demands inherent in processing an unusual object (e.g. weapon) that is incongruent with the schema representing the visual scene (unusual item hypothesis). Meta-analytical techniques were applied to test these theories as well as to evaluate the prospect of weapon focus in real-world criminal investigations. Our findings indicated an effect of weapon presence overall (g= 0.53) that was significantly influenced by retention interval, exposure duration, and threat but unaffected by whether the event occurred in a laboratory, simulation, or real-world environment.     

Book Reviews

The Emergence of the East European Parliaments: The First Steps by Attila Ágh. Budapest: Hungarian Centre of Democracy Studies, 1994. Pp.306; NP. ISBN 963 7415 96 3

Parliaments in the Modern World: Changing Institutions edited by Gary W. Copeland and Samuel C. Patterson. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Pp.xii + 180; £14.35 (paperback). ISBN 472 08255 8

The Evolving Role of Parliaments in Europe edited by Cees Flinterman, Aalt Willem Heringa and Lisa Waddington. Anterp: MAKLU Uitgevers. Pp.111; BF 975 (paperback). ISBN 90 6215 403 4

Democratic Legislative Institutions: A Comparative View by David M. Olson. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. Pp.xvi + 183. $47.50 (hardback); $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 56324 8 and 315 6

Parliaments in Transition: The New Legislative Politics in the Former USSR and Eastern Europe edited by Thomas F. Remington. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994. Pp.x + 246. $49.95 (hardback). ISBN 0 8133 8814 7

Westminster's World: Understanding Political Roles by Donald Searing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Pp.498. £34.95. ISBN 0 674 9507 2

Parliamentary Control in the Nordic Countries edited by Matti Wiberg. Helsinki: The Finnish Political Science Association, 1994. Pp.364; $30 (paperback). ISBN 951 96131 7 X     

Parties under stress: Realignment and dealignment in advanced industrial societies

The findings of a forthcoming study of electoral change in advanced industrial democracies are reviewed. These findings point to broad‐based processes of change that can be organised around two models ‐a social cleavage model of realignment and a functional model of dealignment. Both types of change are at work in most party systems. Surprisingly, their impact on future party system change is likely to be more reinforcing than contradictory in altering the context of party competition and moving parties further away from the responsible party model.     

Reactions to collective stress: Correlates of active citizen participation at love canal

Abstract

Events at Love Canal, beginning in the spring of 1978, are described as an environmental crisis leading to acute collective stress. As the crisis unfolded, Love Canal residents’ perceptions of the situation, and the actions they took, were monitored through interviews with a sample of 58 families in fall, 1978. Of these, 39 were reinterviewed in spring, 1979. Among interviewed families, 24 (41%) had at least one “activist” member, someone who became personally involved in a community organization formed to help resolve the crisis. This study compares the social characteristics of “activist families” with “non‐activist families,” their Love Canal‐related problems, sources of help, and general views of the impacts on their personal lives, and on interpersonal relations. Activists relied on government and crisis‐related organizations for help, while non‐activists had more family support. Neither group utilized the mental health services provided by the community's “crisis center.” Activists felt better about themselves, and had a stronger feeling of personal efficacy in affecting government decisions. They perceived that the crisis had brought about positive personal changes, and changes in relations with others. The major implication for intervention is that several different approaches to assisting members of a community in crisis must be undertaken.     

Improving Legitimacy in Nanotechnology Policy Development Through Stakeholder and Community Engagement: Forging New Pathways

This paper reports on a multistakeholder engagement process conducted in an Australian policy setting that led to a new community engagement framework: Science and Technology Engagement Pathways (STEP). I describe the process in the context of a lack of awareness, experience, and culture of deliberative public engagement in Australia, particularly in relation to decision making concerning science, technology, and innovation. Increasing cautiousness in government and industry approaches to nanotechnology development, in Australia and elsewhere, creates an imperative and an opening for improved stakeholder and community engagement to improve the legitimacy and sustainability of decisions. In this context, STEP may stimulate movement toward deliberative engagement by raising awareness and commitment from diverse stakeholders and providing a structure for developments in engagement and public dialog. STEP potentially provides “rules of engagement” and “intervention pathways” for ongoing public engagement with science and technology developments and for critical “science in society” perspectives to inform policy.     

Virtual forensic anthropology: Novel applications of anthropometry and technology in a child death case

Full-body 3D virtual reconstructions were generated using 3D technology and anthropometry following the death of a young girl, allegedly from severe malnutrition as a result of abuse and neglect. Close range laser scanning, in conjunction with full colour digital texture photography, was used to document the child's condition shortly after death in order to demonstrate the number and pattern of injuries and to be able to demonstrate her condition forensically. Full-body digital reconstructions were undertaken to illustrate the extent of the malnutrition by comparing the processed post mortem scans with reconstructed images at normal weight for height and age. This is the first known instance of such an investigative tool.     

"No compensation" or "pro compensation": Moore v. Regents and default rules for human tissue donations

The much studied case of Moore v. Regents of the University of California is often considered important in property law for denying property rights in human tissue. This widespread misunderstanding of Moore has not only misplaced the legal emphasis of human tissue donations on property law instead of contract law, but has also hindered the creation of a much-needed default rule governing the issue of compensation for donated tissue. While it is possible that the majority of donors rarely consider compensation as an incentive to donate, without a legally recognized default rule the law remains blurred as to what contractual provisions apply to the exchange between donor and researcher. This Article argues that the solution is a weak default rule of no compensation that may be overridden by evidence that the parties intended otherwise.     

A Political Theory of Blackmail: A Reply to Professor Dripps

This essay was originally presented at the Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy as part of the Symposium on The Evolution of Criminal Law Theory. It is a Reply to Professor Donald Dripps’ politically-based justification for blackmail’s prohibition. Under Dripps’ account, by exacting payment from the victim blackmail is an impermissible form of private punishment that usurps the state’s public monopoly on law enforcement. This essay demonstrates that Dripps’ account is either under-inclusive or over-inclusive or both. Dripps’ account is applied to a number of the standard blackmail scenarios by which theories of blackmail are typically assessed. Dripps’ account is under-inclusive by failing to treat as blackmail Victim-Welcomed Blackmail, Non-Monetary Blackmail, Rebuffed Blackmail, and Non-Informational Blackmail which the law considers as blackmail. And it is over-inclusive by treating as blackmail Victim-Initiated Exchange and Unconditional Disclosure which the law does not recognize as blackmail.