AN EXPLICIT TEST OF PLEA BARGAINING IN THE “SHADOW OF THE TRIAL”

Bargaining in the “shadow of the trial,” which hinges on the expectations of trial outcomes, is the primary theory used by noncriminologists to explain variation in the plea discount given to defendants who plead guilty. This study develops a formal mathematical representation of the theory and then presents an empirical test of the theory using an innovative online survey with responses to a hypothetical case from 1,585 prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. The key outcomes are the probability that the defendant will be convicted at trial, the sentence for the defendant if convicted, and the best plea that the respondent would accept or offer. Variation in the outcomes is created through experimental variation in the information presented to the respondents. Structural regression models are estimated to fit the formal theoretical models, and the instrumental variables method is used to correct for measurement error in the estimate for probability of conviction. The data support the basic shadow model, with minor modifications, for only prosecutors and defense attorneys. Controlling for the characteristics of the individual actors and their jurisdictions adds explanatory value to the model, although these control variables did not affect the key coefficients from the shadow model.     

Surveys,Experiments, and the Landscape of International Political Economy

The contributions to this issue show that surveys and experiments offer exciting new tools for doing empirical research in international political economy (IPE). This essay cautions that the utility of these tools is not self-evident: Neither appeals to microfoundations nor to methodological individualism in constructing explanations for social phenomena themselves recommend an embrace of surveys or experiments. The field of IPE should worry that the focus on surveys and experiments will constrain not just methodological choice but also theoretical breadth, limiting the field’s ability to conceive of what theories are admissible in learning about the global political economy.     

RESTRICTIVE DETERRENT EFFECTS OF A WARNING BANNER IN AN ATTACKED COMPUTER SYSTEM

System trespassing by computer intruders is a growing concern among millions of Internet users. However, little research has employed criminological insights to explore the effectiveness of security means to deter unauthorized access to computer systems. Drawing on the deterrence perspective, we employ a large set of target computers built for the sole purpose of being attacked and conduct two independent experiments to investigate the influence of a warning banner on the progression, frequency, and duration of system trespassing incidents. In both experiments, the target computers (86 computers in the first experiment and 502 computers in the second) were set either to display or not to display a warning banner once intruders had successfully infiltrated the systems; 1,058 trespassing incidents were observed in the first experiment and 3,768 incidents in the second. The findings reveal that although a warning banner does not lead to an immediate termination or a reduction in the frequency of trespassing incidents, it significantly reduces their duration. Moreover, we find that the effect of a warning message on the duration of repeated trespassing incidents is attenuated in computers with a large bandwidth capacity. These findings emphasize the relevance of restrictive deterrence constructs in the study of system trespassing.     

Experimentation,Behaviour Change and Public Policy

Citizens will need to change their behaviour in pro‐social ways if governments are to address current challenges in public policy. But how best to promote behaviour change? The argument in this article is that a decentralised rather than a top‐down approach is particularly suitable, which can encourage innovation in the public sector and involve citizens in the implementation of policies. As a method of evaluating interventions, randomised controlled trials have a unique role to play in improving the design of policies, particularly if carried out responsively and adaptively. A culture of experimentation would value curiosity, feedback and the continual testing of interventions. The article includes three examples of experimentation: young people's political attitudes, voter turnout and donations for charity. As the popularity of ‘nudge’ interventions grows—shown by the success of the UK government's Behavioural Insights Team—the practice of experimentation in the public sector could become the norm.     

Opiate levels in hair

By means of radioimmunoassay-technique, hair samples of users, drug related fatalities, carcinoma patients receiving morphine and of experimental guinea pigs receiving codeine were investigated for opiates. The RIA-investigations require a minimum of material; our routine procedures need only 50 mg of hair. No correlation existed between administered doses of opiates and their concentrations in hair of both human and experimental animals. By sectioning the hair, the approximate period of drug use in man could be detected. However, these findings could not be confirmed by the animal experiments. The growth rate of the hair, diffusion and adhesion processes may influence the transport of drugs along the hair. External contaminations and washing procedures were shown to increase or diminish the drug concentration of the samples.     

Values,Frames, and Persuasion in Presidential Nomination Campaigns

This paper examines the persuasability of rhetorical value framing within a presidential nominating campaign, in an effort to understand how values and value-laden language may provide useful signals in electoral contexts where partisan cues are absent. Relying on a survey-experiment conducted during the 2000 Republican nomination campaign, I evaluate the relative persuasiveness of arguments framed in either individualistic or egalitarian terms. Drawing upon an “active-receiver” model of framing effects, I posit that Republican primary voters respond more readily to candidates when they use individualistic frames than when they use egalitarian frames, because individualism is a more “chronically accessible” value construct for Republicans. Furthermore, I hypothesize that this dynamic is particularly pronounced among more educated respondents, who have been trained to recognize abstract value cues and automatically apply them to applied political contexts. The experimental findings support these hypotheses.     

Lessons from Philosophy? Interdisciplinary Justice Research and Two Classes of Justice Judgments

More and more scholars of social justice have been calling for a closer collaboration between empirical and normative disciplines. Psychological and sociological research, as well as philosophical theories can, so they claim, learn from one another and work should be based on results obtained in the other fields of research. Some political philosophers do not share this view. They argue that, since most empirical research does not capture people's moral views on justice, its results cannot be of any value to their theories. Based on this critique I suggest in the first part of this paper that empirical research should distinguish between two classes of justice judgments: First, justice judgments in a narrow sense, which are made under conditions of impartiality and grounded in moral principles, and second, justice attitudes, which differ from other types of social attitudes only in their attitude objects. In the second part I present a quasi-experimental study that aimed at testing the two different classes of justice judgments empirically. The results show that justice judgments in the narrow sense can be obtained even under conditions in which complex experimental manipulations cannot be employed. In the third part of this paper I hypothesize that justice judgments which are based on the two formal criteria provided by political philosophy (impartiality and reference to moral principles) may serve as important intervening variables when trying to explain the impact of justice beliefs on different patterns of human behavior.     

Governance reforms and public acceptance of regulatory decisions: Cross-national evidence from linked survey experiments on pesticides authorization in the European Union

Do governance reforms affect public acceptance of regulatory decisions, and if so, how? We tackled this critical but under-studied question through a pair of linked survey experiments on public attitudes toward the reform of European Union (EU) pesticides regulation among a representative sample of the adult population in six EU member states. We tested the expectation that citizens are more likely to accept a regulatory decision that runs counter to their prior policy preferences if it is taken under a procedure they support. We first conducted a conjoint experiment to study whether the specific design of decision-making procedures impacts public support for EU pesticide regulation. In a second linked experiment, we asked respondents whether farmers should be allowed to use glyphosate, the best known and most controversial pesticide. We then asked respondents if they would accept an authorization decision on glyphosate contrary to their prior expressed preference if it were taken under a decision-making procedure they supported. The results demonstrate that a regulatory decision-making procedure respondents support increases their willingness to accept a hypothetical authorization decision contrary to their prior expressed preference. Contrary to the findings of previous research, our study thus provides strong evidence that governance reforms supported by citizens can enhance acceptance of controversial regulatory decisions, even on politicized issues such as pesticides authorization.     

Identifying Media Effects Through Low-Cost,Multiwave Field Experiments

Field experiments are notoriously difficult to implement when studying media effects. They are often prohibitively expensive, require the cooperation of a nonacademic entity, and measure effects some time after exposure to treatment. In this article, we outline a design for low-cost, multiwave field experiments of media effects. Researchers can implement this design on their own and can control the timing of when they measure effects. We demonstrate the feasibility of the design with an application to the study of presidential debates.     

Tools of single party hegemony in Tanzania: evidence from surveys and survey experiments

Political systems dominated by a single party are common in the developing world, including in countries that hold regular elections. Yet we lack knowledge about the strategies by which these regimes maintain political dominance. This article presents evidence from Tanzania, a paradigmatic dominant party regime, to demonstrate how party institutions are used instrumentally to ensure the regime's sustained control. First, I show that the ruling party maintains a large infrastructure of neighbourhood representatives, and that in the presence of these agents, citizens self-censor about their political views. Second, I provide estimates of the frequency with which politicians give goods to voters around elections, demonstrating that such gifts are more common in Tanzania than previous surveys suggest. Third, I use a survey experiment to test respondents’ reaction to information about corruption. Few voters change their preferences upon receipt of this information. Taken together, this article provides a detailed picture of ruling party activities at the micro-level in Tanzania. Citizens conceal opposition sympathies from ten cell leaders, either because they fear punishment or seek benefits. These party agents can monitor citizens’ political views, facilitating clientelist exchange. Finally, citizens’ relative insensitivity to clientelism helps explain why politicians are not punished for these strategies.