When Voters Pull the Trigger: Can Direct Democracy Restrain Legislative Excesses?

Direct democracy is sometimes described as a “gun behind the door,” but how do legislators react when voters pull the trigger? Leveraging the high‐profile referendum defeat of a controversial law passed by the Ohio legislature, I examine how legislators respond to voter disaffection. Using interest groups to “bridge” votes before and after the election, I show that the measure's defeat induced moderation on the part of the Republican legislative majority, while leaving the behavior of opposition Democrats largely unchanged. The results suggest that direct democracy has the potential to restrain legislative excesses and alleviate polarization in state legislatures.     

Mao,Stalin, and Kim il sung: An interpretive essay

To secure Soviet interests in Manchuria after the Yalta agreement on the Far East had been invalidated by the Kuomintang’s defeat, Stalin was forced to welcome the PRC into the “socialist camp.” In attempting to eliminate Mao’s foreign policy alternatives, he was assisted by an unwitting United States, where Truman was under fire for “losing” China. Data which has recently become available shows that Stalin cemented his accord with Mao by urging him to lead revolution in Asia. Mao’s heroic self-image and need to prove to Stalin that he was not “another Tito,” caused him to overrule his Politburo and plunge China into the Korean War, thereby assuring its isolation and lasting dependence on the Soviets. The author has long been a student of relations among socialist states; a few interviews in Beijing with Mao Zedong’s personal interpreters and a multitude of newly declassified documents have inspired him to reconstruct the Stalin-Mao-Kim relationship during the formative years of the PRC.     

The Content Analysis of the Russian Federal and Regional Basic Legislation on the Cultural Policy

The content-analysis of the Russian federal and regional basic legislation on the cultural policy has indicated a need in a deep revision of all existing regulatory legal acts, which support the state cultural policy implementation towards building a universal terminology and vesting the functions on the cultural policy implementation in the government as opposed to the statement of the departmental specific approach to the culture.     

Gender-related differences in the pharmacokinetics of opiates

Previous studies have documented gender-related differences in a number of aspects of the pharmacology of opiates, including their analgesic activity, stimulative properties and generation of physical dependence. The current experiments were carried out with the aim to examine whether male–female differences exist in the blood and brain levels of opiates attained after their intraperitoneal injection to male and female Wistar rats. The tests were performed 5, 15, 45 and 120 min after the animal treatment with seized heroin. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) method was developed to quantitatively determine opiate alkaloids in blood and brain regions (known for their high concentration of μ-opiate receptors): cortex, brainstem, amygdala and basal ganglia. Maximal contents of opiates in blood of animals of both genders were found in the second measurement time (15 min), the values measured in the males being significantly higher, which suggests a faster passage of the opiates from blood to brain tissue in female animals. The highest content of opiates in the brain tissue of female animals was measured 15 min and with male animals 45 min after the treatment, which also indicates faster distribution of opiates from blood to brain in the female compared to male rats. The highest proportion of opiates was found in the basal ganglia of the animals of both genders. The obtained results offer the possibility of selecting this part of the brain tissue of both males and females as a representative sample for identifying and assessing contents of opiates.     

The legacy of compliant activism in autocracies: post-Communist experience

Compliant activism – that is, political activity of the population, either fully supporting the regime, or merely criticizing individual shortcomings of its policies – strengthens authoritarian rule. However, compliant activism can over time turn into non-compliant one. Hence, the regimes need to ensure that the norms of compliant activism are internalized by the society and become self-enforcing. We use the case of the Communist legacies in Russia to show that compliant activism can, indeed, become highly persistent and outlive the regime, where it emerged. Using cross-regional variation in the levels of compliant activism in the contemporary Russia, we demonstrate that it is strongly affected by the variation in the membership share of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The results have broader implications beyond the Russian case and provide relevant insights for studying political activism in autocracies.     

Perceptions of foreign threats to the regime: From Lenin to Putin

During his second term, Putin's foreign policy was strongly influenced by the belief that the West's hostility could help the opposition change the current regime, as the West had done in Ukraine and Georgia. A regime change would deprive the ruling elite, mostly people from the security police and army, of their power and illegally acquired wealth. Moscow restored, in early 2000, the ideology of Russia's “encirclement” from the 1920s, which suggested that the country was surrounded by enemies in order to legitimize the regime. At the same time, as in the past, Moscow tried to punish the Western governments for their disrespect for the regime with an aggressive and uncooperative foreign policy.     

Dynamic anarchy: the evolution and economics of the beguny sect in eighteenth-twentieth century Russia

Public Choice - The paper investigates the possibility of evolution in superstitions that support self-governance arrangements. To show that superstitions may adapt to changes in economic...     

Suicidal single gunshot injury to the head: differences in site of entrance wound and direction of the bullet path between right- and left-handed--an autopsy study

The aim of this study was to determine the differences in the anatomical site of a gunshot entrance wound and the direction of the bullet path between right- and left-handed subjects who committed a suicide by a single gunshot injury to the head. The retrospective autopsy study was performed for a 10-year period, and it included selected cases of single suicidal gunshot head injury, committed by handguns. We considered only contact or near-contact wounds. The sample included 479 deceased, with average age 47.1 ± 19.1 years (range, 12-89 years): 432 males and 47 females, with 317 right-handed, 25 left-handed, and 137 subjects with unknown dominant hand. In our observed sample, most cases involved the right temple as the site of entrance gunshot wound (about 67%), followed by the mouth (16%), forehead (7%), left temple (6%), submental (2%), and parietal region (1%). The left temple, right temple, and forehead were the sites of the gunshot entrance wounds, which were the best predictors of the handedness of the deceased (Spearman ρ = 0.149, P = 0.006). Our study showed that the direction of the bullet intracranial path in cases of suicide was even a more potent predictor of the handedness of the deceased (Spearman ρ = 0.263, P = 0.000; Wald = 149.503, P = 0.000).     

Fatal subarachnoid hemorrhage during sexual anal self-stimulation in a female: a case report

Sudden death after sexual activity is a well-known entity, but it is rare in females. Herein we present a case of fatal, massive subarachnoid hemorrhage from a ruptured berry-shaped aneurysm, during sexual anal self-stimulation. A 39-year-old woman was found dead on a couch, with the wooden handle of a spring twirl whisk inserted inside her anus and rectum as a dildo-like object. External examination was unremarkable with no signs of injuries. Intracranial examination showed a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage, up to 6 mm in thickness, especially around the brainstem and the inferior side of the brain. After removing the blood clots, the saccular aneurysm was found at the site of the bifurcation of the left internal carotid. In this case study, we underline the utility of forensic autopsy, as well as death scene investigation, in reconstructing the mechanism of death, as well as the dynamics of the event.