The Guardian State: A Comparative Analysis of Interest Group Regulation

This article discusses the regulation of interest groups by the state in four democracies: two liberal, namely Australia and Canada, and two nonliberal, namely Israel and Turkey. The analysis centers on five questions: the scope of regulation, its causes, public reaction to regulation, implementation of regulation, and its impact on state and society. The article suggests that the type of regime does make a difference regarding all parameters of regulation. Liberal democracies tend to regulate strategy of interest groups; regulation is caused by fear of undue associational pressure exerted on decision-makers. The public tends to be hostile to regulation; implementation is strict, but impact on both interest groups and society is modest. Nonliberal democracies tend to regulate interest groups' structure. Regulation is caused by fear of subversion and threats to the state's survival. The public is compliant disregarding regulation. Implementation is lax and impact may be potentially substantial. These hypotheses were largely confirmed in the four cases under consideration.     

A field diagnostic test for the improvised explosive urea nitrate

A sensitive, specific and simple color test for the improvised explosive urea nitrate is described. It is based on the formation of a red pigment upon the reaction between urea nitrate and p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (p-DMAC) under neutral conditions. Urea itself, which is the starting material for urea nitrate, does not react with p-DMAC under the same conditions. Other potential sources of false positive response e.g., common fertilizers, medications containing the urea moiety and various amines, do not produce the red pigment with p-DMAC. Exhibits collected from 10 terrorist cases have been tested with p-DMAC. The results were in full agreement with those obtained by instrumental techniques including GC/MS, XRD and IR.     

Adulthood animal abuse among women court-referred to batterer intervention programs

The substantial increase in the enrollment of women in batterer intervention programs (BIPs) over the past 30 years has greatly outpaced research on women who perpetrate intimate partner violence (IPV). As a result, it is unknown whether existing programs, which were originally designed to treat male perpetrators, are effective at preventing recidivism among women. Recent research shows that men who perpetrate IPV may also aggress against nonintimate partners, children, and animals, and that the reach of their aggressive tendencies has implications for treatment. Conducting similar investigations on women who perpetrate IPV may help to inform treatment delivery in BIPs. This study examined the prevalence of adulthood animal abuse perpetration and its association with psychological and physical IPV perpetration in a sample of women arrested for domestic violence (N = 87). Seventeen percent (n = 15) of the women committed at least one act of animal abuse since the age of 18, in contrast to the 0.28% prevalence rate reported in the general population. The overrepresentation of animal abuse in this sample was consistent with that of men arrested for domestic violence. Furthermore, women who reported committing animal abuse as an adult showed moderately higher rates of psychological aggression and physical assault perpetration against their partners, relative to women who did not report animal abuse. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Participation in welfare legislation—A poverty-aware paradigm

Public participation, responsive regulation, and other policy formulations are intended to draw governments down from their ivory towers and into engagement with the people. However, they paint at best, a hazy picture of who “the people” are. This superficial representation is felt, among other collectives, by people living in poverty, who not only face hunger, often accompanied by poorer health and lower life expectancy, but whose social exclusion typically goes unrecognized by the authorities. The legal framing of poverty—and, as a result, states' policy approaches to its alleviation—focuses on the material core, representing a very thin conceptualization that fails to address the social dimension. Furthermore, practical avenues for incorporating citizens' views into lawmaking—which might enrich understanding—are lacking when it comes to people in poverty. Combined with a blatantly hegemonic stance, the resulting ignorance around poverty and “the poor” generates welfare laws that are woefully out of touch with reality, and legislative thinking that perpetuates, rather than alleviates, poverty. This paper seeks to make a twofold contribution: (i) to demonstrate this situation with a deep empirical inquiry into the legislative process of one legal provision within the Israeli welfare law regime, juxtaposed against qualitative field-research findings and (ii) to introduce the inventive and groundbreaking “poverty-aware” paradigm, constructed in social-work discourse, to illuminate and explain the empirical findings and point to potential procedural–institutional reform, to pave the way for poverty-aware legislation.     

Israeli State Violence during the Second Intifada: Combining New Institutionalist and Rational Choice Approaches

In attempting to explain Israel's retaliatory policies toward Palestinian violence, new institutionalist and rational choice theories vie for dominance. This article argues that both approaches can contribute to understanding the severity of Israel's response if they are viewed as nested explanations appropriate to different threat levels. The article makes its case using data from 74 interviews with senior Israeli counterterrorist experts (2006–07), counts of Israeli and Palestinian fatalities due to state and collective violence (1987–2007), and a database of collective violence events during the Second Intifada (2000–05). Institutional effects are evident at low threat levels, as new institutionalists predict, but these effects are overwhelmed at high threat levels, as rational choice theorists assert.     

‘Where am I in this story?’ – listening to activist women writers*

This study discusses the dynamic roles of activist women in militarized societies. It offers an analysis of the perspectives of Israeli activist women regarding their roles as women activists and writers. In their non-fiction writings, these activist women voice their resistance and document both their everyday lives and political perspectives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their socio-political activism and resistance to the Israeli occupation. These women were interviewed regarding their perspectives and struggles. The interviews were analysed by applying narrative analysis – the ‘Listening Guide’ methodology – to explore their various voices and narratives. By using this methodology, this study sought to uncover additional knowledge regarding women’s forms of resistance in militarized societies. We emphasize the importance of women citizens’ voices, narratives and points of view by presenting activist women’s critical insights on activism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and literature. Their curiosity, agency, critical perspectives, and resistance can be viewed as counter-narratives that de-centre Israeli hegemonic masculinity and demand a critique of the national and militarized ideology. Our article seeks to demonstrate the importance of women’s perspectives, everyday life experiences, dilemmas and struggles in a reality of conflict and war.     

Policy attribute framing: A comparison between three policy instruments for personal emissions reduction

A comparative experiment in the UK examined people's willingness to change energy consumption behavior under three different policy framings: energy tax, carbon tax, and personal carbon allowances (PCA). PCA is a downstream cap‐and‐trade policy proposed in the UK, in which emission rights are allocated to individuals. We hypothesized that due to economic, pro‐environmental and mental accounting drivers PCA would have greater potential to deliver emissions reduction than taxation. Participants (n = 1,096) received one version of a survey with the same energy‐behavior–related questions and identical incurred costs under one of the following framings: energy tax (where carbon was not mentioned), carbon tax, and PCA. Results suggest that policies that draw people's attention to carbon (PCA and carbon taxation) could have greater impact on their stated willingness to reduce energy consumption, and on the reduction amounts prompted, than would a non‐overt price signal (energy tax). There is mixed evidence, however, as to whether PCA or carbon taxation would produce the largest energy demand reductions. Some indication was found for a spillover toward wider carbon conservation under the PCA framing. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.