The War on Violence: Improving the Response to Domestic Violence in the Military

The Department of Defense has taken steps in recent years to improve outcomes for victims of domestic violence who reside on military installations. In 2000, the Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence was established, a military‐civilian group of experts charged with improving the military's effectiveness in addressing domestic violence in the Armed Forces in a variety of areas including offender accountability, coordination between military and civilian communities, and changing the military climate around domestic violence. This article will provide an overview of the Task Force, its work during the past three years, and its recommendations.     

Ideology and party support in comparative perspective

Abstract. From the original Downs (1957) conceptualization to the Enelow and Hinich (1984) reformulation, ideology has been the key organizing dimension for electoral competition in the spatial model. The unidimensional spatial model is best suited to responsible multiparty systems where left-right position is known to be an important determinant of individual political behaviour. We contrast the traditional spatial model with the directional model recently proposed by Rabinowitz and Macdonald (1989) and test the models using data from six northern European democracies. Based on 57 different parties, the results suggest that even in this unidimensional ideological context the cleavage-oriented directional model provides a better explanation of mass attachments to political parties.     

Malaria Control for Rural Populations

This article forms the concluding part of a lecture by the Directorof the Ross Institute of Tropical Hygiene, on the 24th July.Dr.Macdonald opened with a discussion on the present state ofmalaria research, details of which may be found in the Bibliography.His discussion mainly turned on the point whether children whoare particularly susceptible should be allowed, by repeatedinfection to develop immunity in adult life. He himself wasopposed to this method— in an investigation in SierraLeone, he had discovered that 42 per cent of school childrenhad a pathological temperature. On the other hand, Dr. Wilson,in Tanganyika, came to a diametrically opposite conclusion,and this view holds the field in East and Central Africa to-day,especially in rural areas. Dr. Worthington, in Science in Africa,has stressed the need for research; but, quoting evidence fromSierra Leone, Tanganyika, and Nyasaland, Dr. Macdonald is ofthe opinion that prima facie evidence shows that malaria doescause ill-effects on a large scale, malaria causes large childmortality, and in adult life, it causes varying degrees of instability.     

China’s 13th Five-Year Plan: Sustainability that Brings Opportunities for China and the World

THE eyes of the world were transfixed on China last March,and the discussions and reviews there of the omprehensive draft of the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan.Its landmark proposals,which the Communist Party     

Referendums on Independence, 1860–2011

There have been more than 50 independence referendums since the middle of the 19th Century when Texas, Virginia and Tennessee—albeit unsuccessfully—voted to leave the USA. A handful of plebiscites were held in each decade after 1945, but most independence referendums were held after the break‐down of communism. Most have resulted in majorities for independence. However, such plebiscites have been rare in countries with established systems of democratic government and the results may not be a fair reflection of the views of the voters. When referendums have been held in democratic countries, they have often resulted in a no‐vote (though Montenegro is an exception to the rule). Referendums have on a few occasions resulted in the exacerbation of ethnic conflict, such as in Bosnia‐Herzegovina and in East Timor. But generally speaking referendums are not correlated with civil war; indeed, war resulted in only 13 percent of the cases.     

Comparing blunders in government

Much attention has been paid to government ‘blunders’ and ‘policy disasters’. National political and administrative systems have been frequently blamed for being disproportionately prone to generating mishaps. However, little systematic evidence exists on the record of failures of policies and major public projects in other political systems. Based on a comparative perspective on blunders in government, this article suggests that constitutional features do not play a prominent role. In order to establish this finding, this article (a) develops theory‐driven expectations as to the factors that are said to encourage blunders, (b) devises a systematic framework for the assessment of policy processes and outcomes, and (c) uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to identify sets of causal conditions associated with particular outcomes (i.e., blunders). The article applies this novel approach to a set of particular policy domains, finding that constitutional features are not a contributory factor to blunders in contrast to instrument choice, administrative capacity and hyper‐excited politics.