bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Committees and the Norm of Specialization
Authors: Asher Herbert B.
Published: March 2007

The need for congressmen to specialize and acquire expertise in a limited number of policy areas is so universally conceded as to be labelled a norm of legislative behavior. Specialization is intimately tied to the ability of Congress to make informed voting decisions on a wide range of issues; congressmen often rely upon expert colleagues for information and advice on bills beyond their own expertise. More importantly, specialization, especially as facilitated by the committee system, is an adaptive response to the resource advantages possessed by the executive branch; specialization facilitates congressional performance of the oversight function. In order to determine why and in what areas a congressman will specialize, attention must be given to the member's goals, personal and professional background and electoral situation. Levels of specialization differ across the House and Senate, between national and state legislatures, across committees, and over time. Specialization, particularly as manifested through the committee and subcommittee systems, has both intended and unintended consequences. Foremost among the latter is the differential access to government specialization provides various groups. Finally, the extent of specialization will be affected by changes in the committee system.
House-Senate Relationships: Comity and Conflict
Authors: Oleszek Walter J.
Published: March 2007

Although equal in power, the national House and Senate differ in more ways than they are similar. They differ in size, rules and procedures, policy biases, customs and traditions, terms of office, constitutional responsibilities, constituencies and in numerous other ways. Moreover, each chamber is jealous of its powers and prerogatives and generally suspicious of the other body. Despite their differences, the two houses must still work together if policy recommendations are to be enacted into law. Two principal legislative devices serve to join senators and representatives together on matters of common concern: conference committees and joint committees. In this analysis, two important aspects of conference procedure are explored: the conferee selection process and the question of who wins in conference, the House or the Senate. Joint committees, although used since the First Congress, are viewed negatively by many members. Given both the variety and uses of joint committees, it is worth identifying some of the factors which facilitate their creation. Finally, two principal suggestions are offered to better facilitate interhouse cooperation—more contact between respective party leaders of each house and the development of parallel committee jurisdictions. Of course, the goal of interhouse cooperation needs to be balanced against the requirement that each house present and defend different and conflicting points of view on the issues of the day.
Planning: A Personal View and Some Practical Considerations
Authors: Matlins Stuart M.
Published: March 2007

ASTRACT: Because planning is often viewed as being external to the total management process, planning activities are often isolated from the management system within which they take place and which they are intended to serve. As a result, the use and utility of the planning product as a tool for management decision making and a more rational approach to the allocation of society's resources are sig nificantly diminished. To a large extent, the "drug crisis" and society's response to it has suffered from this isolation of planning activity from the management process. This article addresses the practical side of the process as it actually takes place and concentrates on the major factors that affect the ultimate use, or nonuse, of the product. More specifically, it describes the various purposes for research data in the area of drugs and social policy; defines and describes the different types of planning activities that may be used to obtain the data needed; describes the major approaches to planning as currently utilized; highlights some of the problems in current planning activities; and recommends some improvements that can be made in the planning process and in the use of its products.
The Concept of Prevention and Its Limitations
Authors: Brotman Richard , Suffet Frederic
Published: March 2007

The concept of prevention was first developed in the field of public health and epidemiology. Since the 1960s, it has been applied increasingly to illicit drug use, thus standing alongside law and treatment as a major form of social control over drugs. While a strict epidemiologic, or "contagion," model of drug use is held by some, we find this model to be of limited utility for discussing the broad range of efforts commonly defined in the field as preventive. An economic, or supply-demand, model is proposed instead. Under this model, prevention is defined as the attempt to reduce the demand for drugs. Four strategies for reducing demand are discussed: (1) coercion, or the threat of formal punitive sanctions; (2) persuasion, or education in the harmful consequences of drug use; (3) correction, or the eradication of the presumed causes of drug use; and (4) substitution, or the provision of alternatives to drug use. The limitations of each strategy are discussed, and because of the prevalence of recreational patterns of moderate drug use, it is concluded that the prevention of all illicit drug use is not an achievable goal.
Chapter 11
Authors: Johnston Denis F. , Carley Michael J.
Published: March 2007

Our ability to monitor social change and evaluate the condition of our society by means of social indicators depends on our ability to measure a wide variety of social phenomena with acceptable reliability and precision. Thus efforts to improve social measurement—both measurement techniques and data collection procedures—are central to the development of improved social indicators. But if these activities are closely linked, they remain separate in their ultimate objectives. The purpose of social measurement is to obtain reliable estimates of selected quantitative aspects of social phenomena that are of interest for a variety of reasons. Social indicators, in contrast, constitute a subset of social measurements and other forms of evidence that inform us about current conditions and emerging trends with respect to those aspects that relate to human well-being or to major areas of social concern. Three broad problem areas must be dealt with in developing social indicators. First, there are technical problems relating to social measurement per se; these include indicator specification and construction. Second, a variety of sociopolitical problems, such as possible ideological biases in problem definition, data presentation, and the interpretation of findings, may distort our efforts at societal assessment. Third, a number of communication problems impede the effective presentation of information in social indicators form to both policymakers and the general public. But there is also evidence of substantial progress in coping with these difficulties during the past decade.
Arms Control in the 1980s
Authors: Kincade William Hadley
Published: March 2007

Despite the reversal of detente, and perhaps even because of it, negotiated arms control agreements will continue in the 1980s to offer solutions to security and related problems that cannot be adequately managed in the absence of mutual restraint. To the existing motives for arms limitation—coping with the existential dilemma of nuclear weapons in a conflictual world and avoiding the worst costs of an unbridled strategic competition—will be added the requirement for greater predictability and calculability in the strategic environment than emerging weapons and surveillance technologies will provide. At the same time, the difficulties of conceiving, achieving, and sustaining support for arms limitation agreements will be greater than in the past, owing both to technological and political developments. Those who endorse arms control as an approach to security problems must find solutions to the many vexing problems this enterprise faces. There are, first, the technical challenges: innovation, verification, and the prevention of costly and provocative deployments. In addition, there are institutional and political challenges. Answers to some of these problems can be found by examining the record of negotiated security in the nuclear age and by making the lessons of this record available both to the policy makers and the public.
The Market for Know-How and the Efficient International Transfer of Technology
Authors: Teece David J.
Published: March 2007

This article explores the nature of international technology transfer and the operation of the market for know-how. It begins by examining the relationship between codification and transfer costs and then analyzes various imperfections in the market for know-how. The special properties of know-how are shown to confound various aspects of the exchange process when arms-length contracting is involved. The internalization of the exchange process within multinational firms serves to bypass many of these difficulties, and explains why the multinational firm is of such importance. Several forms of regulation of technology imports and exports are examined. It is discovered that the process is insufficiently well understood to permit the design of effective regulation that, moreover, appears unlikely to eliminate inefficiency. An efficiency focus is maintained throughout since I feel no qualification to pontificate on complex and confused distributional issues.
Transitions and Models of Intervention
Authors: SILVERMAN PHYLLIS R.
Published: March 2007

All transitions are associated with change. People, basically conservative by nature, tend to resist change. Any intervention needs to consider that reactions to a transition are affected by prior experience, by the way transitions are viewed in an individual's social network, and by what learning opportunities are available. Responses can be viewed as typical under the circumstances, with rites of passage and helpers available to guide people in coping; or they can be viewed as a result of deficits in the individual for which treatment is prescribed. To facilitate change, seen as an expected event, individuals need to be linked to resources and information. They need role models and legitimation of their feelings. Learning, at such times of stress, seems to be facilitated by the availability of a peer, in the sense that the helper has had a similar experience. This help is available in mutual help groups. However, many kinds of help need to be available. The goal of any help is to empower the individual to cope in ways that promote growth and change.
China Today
Authors: DINGYI HU
Published: March 2007

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country has made considerable strides forward. Recently its modernization program coupled with a series of reforms has registered success. The record of 1983 is a good illustration. A careful study of China's achievements and challenges shows that the country will move ahead in the years to come. The main points of China's foreign policy are to develop relations with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence; to strengthen solidarity with the other Third World countries and to promote friendship with the people of all countries; and to oppose hegemony and safeguard world peace. The steady and sustained development of friendly relations between China and the United States is not only in the interests of the two peoples, but also of great benefit to the maintenance of world peace and the promotion of human progress. The potential is great, but obstacles such as the Taiwan question need to be removed.
Prison Overcrowding: The Law's Dilemma
Authors: KENNEDY EDWARD M.
Published: March 2007

The author focuses on the importance of criminal sentencing policy to prison overcrowding and advocates comprehensive sentencing reform that emphasizes selective incapacitation of dangerous offenders as a sensible approach to conserving scarce prison resources. The author is the chief sponsor of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which was recently enacted as part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The Sentencing Reform Act, which embodies the most comprehensive reform of criminal sentencing ever undertaken by Congress, establishes an independent United States Sentencing Commission to establish a uniform sentencing policy and mandatory sentencing guidelines to be used by federal judges. The act abolishes early release on parole, cautions the Sentencing Commission to develop guidelines that minimize prison overcrowding, and emphasizes use of incarceration for dangerous, violent repeat offenders. The use of uniform sentences and selective incapacitation provided for in the new law offers a constructive approach to the intractable problem of prison overcrowding.
The Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet State
Authors: WALTERS PHILIP
Published: March 2007

The Constitution of the USSR guarantees religious freedom, but the ruling Communist Party actively encourages the disappearance of religion. In the 1930s there was comprehensive religious persecution, but despite the virtual disappearance of the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution, the believing population did not give up its faith. During World War II, Stalin adopted a new policy. He granted the churches a limited institutional existence, and in return church leaders have been expected to speak favorably of Soviet political and social realities. Only a proportion of the clergy is, however, fully acceptable to the government, and a significant number tries to serve the religious needs of its flock the best it can. The ordinary believer is treated as a second-class citizen. Individuals who try to make the plight of Soviet Christians known in the world at large or to bear witness to their faith in public can expect reprisals from the authorities.
Coping with America: Refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in the 1970s and 1980s
Authors: KELLY GAIL P.
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on the refugees from former French Indochina—who they are, where they have resettled in the United States, and their integration into the American work force. Most of the data reported here are on the Vietnamese, who are by far the largest number of refugees from Indochina in the United States. Vietnamese entering the country were, for the most part, well educated, young, and accompanied by their families. Initially they were scattered through the country by U.S. voluntary agencies that took responsibility for resettlement. Since initial resettlement, there has been considerable secondary migration within the United States that has resulted in the formation of refugee communities. In the United States, Vietnamese have experienced considerable occupational and social downward mobility. They have entered the American work force at rates comparable to native-born Americans. However, they have taken jobs that pay at best the minimum wage, and, while employment rates are high, they remain dependent on the American welfare system for survival.
Language Teaching in the Federal Government: A Personal Perspective
Authors: CLIFFORD RAY T.
Published: March 2007

Historically, communication between foreign language schools in the federal government and academic foreign language programs has been extremely limited. Typical government and academic programs are compared on the 11 significant program characteristics of instructional goals, student characteristics, class size, curriculum, instructional staff, assessment criteria, program length, skill modalities emphasized, instructional methodology, results attained, and supporting empirical research. This series of comparisons reveals a striking contrast in instructional objectives and procedures that has served to reduce cooperation between government and academic foreign language programs. It is argued, however, that these significant differences should be viewed as complimentary, rather than divisive. The combined assets of both foreign language teaching communities provide heretofore untapped resources for empirical research into national foreign language issues. Options are then described for cooperative research ventures to address these issues.
Government Initiatives in the United Kingdom
Authors: TUCK MARY
Published: March 2007

The British Home Office has recognized for a number of years that crime prevention is centrally important and that criminal justice responses alone are insufficient as policy against crime. Although the level of crime in the United Kingdom is low compared to the United States and the British inner-city riots of the 1980s have been on a much smaller scale than the American riots of the 1960s, community organization is an initiative that both countries can use in reducing public disorder and more serious violence. At the same time, we cannot pretend that a few extra community workers will solve inner-city problems. More structural change is needed.
Lockstep Analysis and the Concept of Federalism
Authors: MALTZ EARL M.
Published: March 2007

Commentators on state constitutional law have been generally critical of those state courts that follow lockstep analysis. Often these criticisms have relied heavily on the concept of federalism. This reliance is misplaced; lockstep analysis is entirely consistent with basic notions of state autonomy. Instead, it is courts using other approaches that have at times ignored the basic theory of federalism.
Anti-Americanism in Western Europe
Authors: SPIRO HERBERT J.
Published: March 2007

Anti-Americanism consists not of opposition to particular policies but of “persistent patterns of gross criticism of the main values of the U.S. Constitution.” It is a historic attitude of the ruling classes in continental Europe, to whom every American success meant a failure of their own, of either prediction or achievement or both. Ordinary Europeans have generally admired the United States, to the point of migrating there. Americans have not reciprocated with anti-Europism, perhaps because of Europe's nonexistence as an entity and the waning weight of its components. Today, anti-Americanists damn the United States if it does and if it does not, for U.S. security, economic, and cultural policies. They resent the American conversion of the primacy of foreign policy into the primacy of domestic politics. Anti-Americanism will diminish, however, as the procedures of American domestic politics spread over the world.
Equal Opportunity and the Estranged Poor
Authors: HOCHSCHILD JENNIFER L.
Published: March 2007

This article is concerned with people who so lack marketable skills and material resources that they are excluded from mainstream society, and who lack faith that they can succeed through conventional means. They are usually poor, but they are a small subset of the poor and are not necessarily poor throughout their lives. Most are excluded because the American rhetoric of equal opportunity for all is belied by political choices that deny to some any chance of success. Programs to enable the estranged poor to enter mainstream society must provide skills, a starting place, and faith in the possibility of achievement. Such programs are long-lasting, intensive, and comprehensive—thus costly. To ensure that estrangement is not reproduced in the next generation, programs to aid the poor must, furthermore, eliminate gender biases in their prescriptions and must change the structural conditions that create the gap between the promise and practice of equal opportunity. These programs should not necessarily be targeted on minorities or the poor, but should build on Americans' support for social policies that give everyone a chance for at least some success.
Shaping and Sharing Pacific Dynamism
Authors: INOGUCHI TAKASHI
Published: March 2007

This article attempts to elucidate the underlying considerations and calculations of one of the major actors of the Pacific region, Japan, in shaping and sharing the much vaunted Pacific dynamism. Keeping in mind the enormous economic vigor accompanied by a measure of uncertainty in Pacific international relations, the article attempts to analyze from a Japanese perspective the current configuration of ideas and practices unfolding in the region. First, the major features of Pacific dynamism are delineated. Second, the superpowers' preoccupation with domestic difficulties are touched on as one of the major triggering mechanisms encouraging more regionalist forces throughout the world. Third, Japanese calculations surrounding Pacific dynamism are delineated, with major counteractions to Pacific dynamism by other major actors also taken into account.
Human Rights in the Reagan Era: Acceptance in Principle
Authors: NEIER ARYEH
Published: March 2007

Over eight years, the Reagan administration's policy on human rights shifted dramatically. At the outset, some in the administration repudiated promoting human rights internationally as a foreign policy goal of the United States; others argued that the United States should condemn abuses by hostile totalitarian governments but not by friendly authoritarian governments. By the time the Reagan administration left office, it accepted that promoting human rights was a major goal and that the United States should be evenhanded in condemning abuses. Despite the seeming headway, much remains to be done. The Reagan administration equated elections and democracy with human rights and failed to condemn abuses by ostensible democracies such as the Philippines and Guatemala; it promoted human rights in high-profile countries such as Chile while ignoring abuses in obscure countries such as Somalia; and it failed to condemn abuses by Communist governments, such as Yugoslavia and China, that had broken with the Soviet Union. In the Bush years, the task of the human rights movement is to secure implementation of principles that are now accepted.
Economic Reform of Socialism: The Soviet Record
Authors: SCHROEDER GERTRUDE E.
Published: March 2007

For more than three decades, the Soviet Union has been engaged in an almost continuous process of reforming the centrally planned economy inherited from Stalin. The objective of the reform programs of all Soviet leaders from Khrushchev to Gorbachev has been to make the economy more efficient and responsive to consumer wants, while retaining its socialist character. The reforms made by Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to naught, because they left the essential features of the Stalinist economic system in place. Although Gorbachev's reforms enlarge the scope for the private sector, they, too, leave much of the old system in place. Far more radical moves toward privatization and marketization will be required to achieve the goal of creating a socialist regulated market economy that can satisfy consumers and keep up with the West.
Historical Legacies: 1840-1920
Authors: PERLMANN JOEL
Published: March 2007

This article first describes the historical record on the use of immigrant languages in American schools, concentrating on the important nineteenth-century experience with German but touching also on other groups, the 1880-1920 period, and parochial schools. The article then turns to the issue of school achievement by immigrants circa 1910, when public school policy did not provide for the use of immigrant languages to support that achievement.
Opening the Third Century of American Federalism: Issues and Prospects
Authors: ELAZAR DANIEL J.
Published: March 2007

Strong forces for centralization continue to operate in the American federal system; however, especially since the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, countervailing forces have worked to promote decentralization and even restore noncentralization in the federal system. Furthermore, the states have reasserted themselves as polities, becoming stronger and more vigorous than ever. The potential for greater noncentralization is being reinforced by changing socioeconomic conditions that place a greater emphasis on networks of relationships rather than on traditional hierarchies. The condition of American federalism today, therefore, is ambiguous but promising.
Cultural and Social Factors Influencing Mortality Levels in Developing Countries
Authors: CALDWELL JOHN C.
Published: March 2007

Recent analyses of Third World data, both at the level of national or other large aggregates and at that of individuals studied in sample surveys, have revealed the surprising fact that social characteristics, such as the level of schooling or fertility control, or cultural characteristics, such as ethnic group, are usually more influential in determining mortality levels than is access to medical services, income, or nutritional levels. Evidence from the United States at the beginning of the century suggests that this was not the case earlier in the West. This article examines the evidence, shows why developing countries are currently in an unusual situation, and presents anthropoligical evidence on how cultural, social, and behavioral factors achieve their impact. An attempt is made to begin the construction of a more general theory of mortality transition.
Socialism and Fertility in China
Authors: GREENHALGH SUSAN
Published: March 2007

Current figures indicate that China's 1990 population is in the area of 1.1 billion, 200 million less than the 1.3 billion predicted in the early 1970s. What will happen to fertility in China in the 1990s? To answer this question this article looks closely at the forces underlying the fertility decline of the 1970s and early 1980s. It argues that the success of the later-longer-fewer policy of the 1970s and of the one-child policy of the 1980s can only be explained by reference to the larger socioeconomic and sociopolitical context in which the policies were carried out. The construction of a socialist society in the first decade of Communist rule restructured social institutions and state-society relations in ways that fundamentally altered both the economics of childbearing, reducing the attractiveness of children to parents, and the politics of fertility decision making, giving parents little choice but to comply with restrictive fertility policies after they were introduced. The direction of fertility change in the 1990s is likely to hinge on developments in rural economic policies, whose future, the past has taught, is hazardous to predict.
The Soviet Union and Northern Europe: New Thinking and Old Security Constraints
Authors: JANES ROBERT W.
Published: March 2007

This article argues that the interdependence and traditional stability of Northern Europe make it an excellent arena for the Soviet foreign policy of New Thinking. For most of the postwar period, the situation in the Nordic region, according to the Soviet perspective, has been satisfactory if not ideal. In the 1980s, the U.S. naval response to the Soviet strategic buildup on the Kola Peninsula brought increasing instability to the region, a major challenge to Soviet foreign policy. New Thinking attempts to manage current problems through a comprehensive set of security, economic, and environmental initiatives. The article concludes that New Thinking was probably oversold, as Soviet foreign policy has had little success with the intractable security issues in the region. Soviet diplomacy in Northern Europe presents insights into Gorbachev's policy of a common European home, however.
Emerging Technologies: Impacts on Distance Learning
Authors: DEDE CHRISTOPHER J.
Published: March 2007

In the next decade, our society may change from its present extensive use of technology as a mediator of human experience to a reliance on technology-permeated experience as a primary form of personal consciousness. In response, our paradigm for distance learning must evolve so that we can replicate the workplaces and communities of the future in schools today. This will aid students in filtering and interpreting the complex, pervasive informational environment that sophisticated media are creating in society. This article presents a scenario crafted to suggest the capabilities of advanced technology for making distance-learning environments more effective. Policies should be developed so that the benefits of these innovations for distance learning are realized as rapidly as possible, but we must ensure that these powerful new media do not shape the instructional message in unwanted ways.
The Gender Gap and Women's Political Influence
Authors: MUELLER CAROL
Published: March 2007

A gender gap of six to eight percentage points differentiated the vote of women from that of men throughout the presidential elections of the 1980s. Women's greater preference for Democratic candidates, coupled with an increased rate of voting relative to men, has increased women's influence on electoral politics for the first time since the suffrage period. Despite the fact that women's voting behavior does not correspond to many criteria of group politics, the large numbers of women voters are beginning to have an impact on the nature of campaign discourse and election issues. These changes were particularly apparent in the 1988 Republican campaign to win the undecided women voters.
The Emerging Global Security Environment
Authors: PFALTZGRAFF ROBERT L.
Published: March 2007

The global security environment of the 1990s is far more complex than in any previous era. Before the end of the decade, several additional states will have acquired formidable military arsenals containing weapons of increasing range, accuracy, and destructiveness for the conduct of high-intensity conflict, with other actors able to project military power within and even beyond their immediate region. At the same time, numerous conflict issues within and between existing states, some based on the revival of historical animosities and others of more recent origin, will fuel the potential for instability, including the possibility of civil war fought even with nuclear weapons. Therefore, the United States will face a continuing need to develop doctrines, technologies, and force structures for an unfolding security environment characterized by dramatic change and instability as well as multipolarity as we move toward and into the twenty-first century.
Theater Missile Threats and Defensive Options in the 1990s
Authors: PERRY CHARLES M.
Published: March 2007

However qualified, the success of the Patriot antimissile system in the 1991 Persian Gulf war placed the need for improved theater missile defenses high on the procurement agendas of the United States and its major allies. The requirement for more effective follow-ons to existing Patriot systems, moreover, will be rendered all the more compelling by expected advances in the quality and quantity of theater missile forces fielded by regional powers—such as Syria, Iran, India, and North Korea—in the 1990s and beyond. Unlike the Iraqi Scuds fired in Desert Storm, next-generation theater missiles—armed with improved guidance and more lethal warheads—will present a credible threat to vital military assets as well as population centers. Hence new technologies for active missile defense—including more advanced interceptors capable of direct hits at higher altitudes—will become increasingly important to the effective protection of U.S. allies and forward-deployed forces.
U.S. Defense Policy Options: The 1990s and Beyond
Authors: LEHMAN JOHN
Published: March 2007

The sudden collapse of the Warsaw Pact and of communism has thrust the United States into an entirely new era without the comforts of a neat bipolar balance of power. Just as the debate got under way on the shape of the new world structure, the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and the resulting war demonstrated that the post-Cold War world will be not very different from the pre-Cold War world. American national security strategy needs major overhaul, with substantial reduction in numbers of strategic and theater nuclear weapons. The force structure needs reconfiguration away from heavy positional forces for the garrisoning of NATO and toward more flexible and deployable forces. Manning of the new force structure should be shifted substantially to a higher percentage of reserve manning, with both active and reserve depending entirely on voluntary enlistment. Emphasis should remain on using high-technology and high-quality people to substitute for high numbers. The bloated Pentagon bureaucracy, last holdout of Stanlinist organization, will continue to be a major obstacle to rational national security policy in the 1990s.
Steps versus Solutions in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Authors: ZVIAGELSKAIA IRINA D.
Published: March 2007

Partial solutions can present way stations en route to complete resolution of regional conflicts, or they can actually hinder those resolutions by providing comfortable resting places with no incentives to move on. The step-by-step peace process in the Middle East took account of local and global realities, but it left the conflict stuck in its progress after the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. Saddam Hussein erred in seeing in the end of the Cold War an opportunity to carry out aggression with impunity, but there will be other Saddam Husseins as long as a general settlement is not produced in the region. What is needed is joint U.S.-Soviet action and a balanced formula that provides for the return of a few Palestinians to Israel in exchange for the maintenance of some Israeli settlements on the West Bank, sealed by an international conference.
Affirmative Action in the Labor Market
Authors: O'NEILL DAVE M. , O'NEILL JUNE
Published: March 2007

One of the most controversial tools of federal antidiscrimination policy in the employment area is the affirmative action program conducted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). The OFCCP requires firms holding federal government contracts to set numerical hiring goals for minorities and women. Firms that fail to meet their targets face the threat of contract cancellation. The setting of hiring goals requires estimation of available pools of qualified minorities and women, which in practice cannot be done with any precision. Studies show no clear positive link between gains in minority earnings and the affirmative action efforts of the OFCCP. Current earnings differentials between blacks and whites appear to be more closely tied to differences in work-related skills than to labor market discrimination. The growing premium on skill in our economy underscores the need for improvement in the schooling of blacks and other minorities suffering educational deficiencies.
White-Collar Crime and the Study of Embezzlement
Authors: GREEN GARY S.
Published: March 2007

The term “white-collar crime” has come to mean many things since Edwin Sutherland coined it more than fifty years ago. Many scholars, including Sutherland himself, referred to embezzlement as a white-collar crime. Upon close examination, however, this theft-after-trust offense is probably not a white-collar one in the original sense of the term. This article addresses the problems of data interpretation and behavioral explanation in the study of trust violation, especially in light of scholars' focus on it as a white-collar offense.
Crimes Against the Environment: Superfund Enforcement at Last
Authors: BARNETT HAROLD C.
Published: March 2007

The success of the Superfund program rests substantially on the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to induce major corporations to share in the cost of a multibillion-dollar hazardous waste site cleanup effort. Over the past decade, EPA enforcement strategy has evolved from highly accommodative to much more enforcement oriented. Reports also indicate a substantial increase in application of Superfund's most powerful enforcement tools. Industrial targets of EPA enforcement are attempting to shift partial liability and transaction costs onto third parties. Viewed against the economic and political evolution of EPA strategy, a continuation of the enforcement-first approach depends on the willingness of society to accept the costs of sanctioning the powerful.
Social Movements and the Policy Process
Authors: ROCHON THOMAS R. , MAZMANIAN DANIEL A.
Published: March 2007

Social movements frequently fail to achieve the policy changes they seek, despite impressive demonstrations of widespread support. Yet movement participation has become increasingly popular as a form of political action. The authors seek to resolve this dilemma by distinguishing between three arenas of movement success: changing policy, gaining participation in the policy process, and changing social values. It is suggested that gaining access to the policy process is the most effective path for movement organizations to have an impact on policy outcomes, because authorities are often more willing to offer inclusion in the process than they are to accept movement demands for policy change. The authors' hypotheses are examined in light of the experience of the nuclear freeze movement, which sought and failed to achieve policy change, and the movement to control hazardous wastes, in which environmentalists are having an impact on policy by gaining participation in regulatory and implementation decisions.
Citizens' Groups and Political Parties in the United States
Authors: HERSHEY MARJORIE RANDON
Published: March 2007

The relationship between political parties and citizens' groups in the United States contains elements of both competition and cooperation. Citizens' groups have the potential to compete with parties for individuals' loyalty, time, and money; for influence on the media's agenda; and for candidates' attention. In fact, voter attachment to the major parties began to decline just at the time that the number of citizens' groups was increasing, during the 1960s and 1970s. But other aspects of the parties either held their own or strengthened during this time. During the Reagan era, the increasingly ideological tone of national politics polarized both groups and parties and stimulated greater efforts at collaboration between them. Substantial conflict between groups and party leaders remains in the presidential nominating process, however, as can be seen in a case study of the 1992 Republican platform.
Rural Diversity: An American Asset
Authors: CASTLE EMERY N.
Published: March 2007

Rural America is an exceedingly diverse place, and this diversity constitutes a national asset. Diversity can be documented by an examination of any social or economic attribute one wishes to choose—educational attainment, per capita income, occupation, and ethnic background provide examples. This diversity shapes both the public policies applicable to the countryside and the opportunities of rural communities and rural people. Highly centralized public programs and policies, unless they provide for local adaptation, are unlikely to be successful. Many existing federal programs have outlived their usefulness. Federal entitlement programs continue to be enormously important to rural people and can be made even far more effective by recognizing rural differences. Not all rural areas will flourish in the future; the supply of rural places that would like to attract economic activity far exceeds the demand for such places. Exogenous forces that will improve the prospects for some rural areas include an increase in the number of people of retirement age and with a retirement income as well as growth of outdoor recreation and tourism activities. Entrepreneurship will continue to be of great importance as diverse rural places discover ways they can serve an increasingly urban and global society. The cost of distance and the benefits of space are key parameters in establishing the economic framework within which economic development will occur.
Living Proof: Is Hawaii the Answer?
Authors: GRANT GLEN , OGAWA DENNIS M.
Published: March 2007

Hawaii has often been heralded for its relatively harmonious race relations, which encompass a great diversity of Asian and Pacific cultures. As the national concern with respect to multi-culturalism escalates into a debate over the merits of ethnicity versus amalgamation into the American melting pot, an understanding of Hawaii's social and racial systems may demand greater scrutiny. The living proof that the islands' people offer is not racial bliss or perfect equality but an example of how the perpetuation of ethnic identities can actually enhance race relations within the limits of a social setting marked by (1) the historical development of diverse ethnic groups without the presence of a racial or cultural majority; (2) the adherence to the values of tolerance represented in the Polynesian concept of aloha kanaka, an open love for human beings; and (3) the integration of Pacific, Asian, European, and Anglo-American groups into a new local culture.
The Empirical Evidence of Foreign Language Study
Authors: ADELMAN CLIFFORD
Published: March 2007

This article examines national transcript samples that were set up at different times with different samples and different rules. College transcript samples covering the period 1972-86 show a flat participation rate in foreign language study but increases occurred among business majors and at nonselective institutions. Trends across five high school transcript samples (from 1969 to 1990), on the other hand, leave too much to speculation. Data from the 1991 National Household Education Survey are used to conclude that foreign language study in adulthood is largely a matter of personal interest, not economic interest, and that participation rates are very low. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 allow us to examine the long-term relationships between foreign language study and adult life. Findings indicate that those who studied foreign language in college were more likely to be working in human service occupations at age 32 or 33 than those who studied no foreign language and that, in terms of earnings and unemployment, the benefits of foreign language study are negligible.
Some Issues in Language Policy for Higher Education
Authors: LAMBERT RICHARD D.
Published: March 2007

The American educational system is unusual in that a substantial portion of basic foreign language instruction takes place in higher education. This requires that foreign language policy planning deal with that level; however, pan-institutional planning in higher education is especially difficult. A foreign language agenda devised by a set of college administrators is presented in this article. A number of more fundamental architectural topics are also discussed. These include the lack of articulation between the various levels of the system leading up to collegiate foreign language instruction; the heavy emphasis on low-level courses and the lack of a carefully developed system of upper-level skill instruction; the need to orient foreign language instruction to eventual adult use; and the importance of rationalizing overseas language study, particularly for the acquisition and utilization of advanced language skills. An agenda for action growing out of these conditions is proposed.
From the Campaign against Illegal Migration to the Campaign against Illegal Work
Authors: MARIE CLAUDE-VALENTIN
Published: March 2007

The French effort to curb illegal immigration, which began in earnest in the mid-1970s, had become increasingly subsumed under a broader campaign to prevent and punish illegal employment by the early 1990s. Illegal alien employment remains a significant concern, but most illegal work involves French citizens. Over the past two decades, France has fine-tuned and reinforced a panoply of laws punishing illegal employment, but socioeconomic trends have tended to exacerbate it. Nonetheless, the government's ability to punish and deter illegal work, including illegal alien employment, is more considerable and credible today than it was two decades ago.
The Projected Economic Impact of the Model Employment Termination Act
Authors: MALTBY LEWIS L.
Published: March 2007

In this article, an attempt is made to compare the economic cost of adopting the Model Employment Termination Act with the economic cost of retaining the existing system. Under the existing common law system, it is estimated that employees bring 10,000 wrongful discharge cases per year. Employees prevail at trial in 340 of these, at an average cost to the employer of $366,000. The average award for the cases is $98,000. Attorney's fees average $124,000 per case, adding another $1.24 billion in costs. Thus the total payments by employers under the current system is approximately $2.2 billion. If the new model act were adopted, we estimate that the total number of wrongful-discharge cases would increase to 126,000 per year. Employees would prevail in 83,000 of these. The average award, however, would decrease to $16,000. Attorney's fees would decrease to $3000 per case. Total payments by employers would be $1.89 billion. Thus the cost to employers under the new act would be less than at present.
Canada, Asia, and the Pacific Century
Authors: McMILLAN CHARLES J.
Published: March 2007

By geography, population, and public policy, Canada is a Pacific Rim country. Despite grandiose plans and rhetoric, however, Canada's economy is in retreat, dominated by the southern direction of investment and trade ties with the United States and reinforced by the huge levels of foreign investment that are increasingly rationalized along North American triad lines. The western Canadian provinces are the most Asian oriented, but Canada's business elites, scoring ever lower on measures of international competitiveness, are withdrawing to a regional base. Canada's capacity to diversify the industrial base and build new trade alliances is deeply constrained by the country's deficit and debt problems, as well as business and political elites who remain wedded to an Atlantic Rim focus.
Flexibility in Conflict Episodes
Authors: PRUITT DEAN G.
Published: March 2007

Negotiation is usually an outgrowth of a broader conflict episode in which one party, the claimant, is trying to persuade another party, the respondent, to take an action it does not wish to take. Claimants typically employ a script-driven sequence of tactics, changing their approach until the conflict is resolved or they give up. If negotiation is part of this sequence, it ordinarily comes after moderate escalation. Six of the most common tactics in conflict episodes are forms of firm flexibility: concede but only to a point, hold firm on one's position while seeking a way to compensate the other, hold firm on more important issues while conceding on less important issues, hold firm on one's interests while seeking novel ways to achieve these interests, hold firm on more important interests while abandoning less important interests, and hold firm if one's interests seem stronger than those of the other party and yield if the other's interests seem stronger. The last of these tactics leads to high joint benefit in continuing relationships. If continuing relationships are fragile, there is a tendency to emphasize flexibility over firmness. By contrast, in conflict episodes involving organizations, firmness tends to be emphasized over flexibility. Several remedies are suggested for the latter problem.
News Frames, Political Cynicism, and Media Cynicism
Authors: CAPPELLA JOSEPH N. , JAMIESON KATHLEEN HALL
Published: March 2007

Public confidence in Congress, the government, and social institutions has reached new lows. Healthy skepticism may have given way to corrosive cynicism. Some media watchers and critics blame the media for their preoccupation with the game and strategy of politics rather than social problems and their solution. Others deny that changes in news have affected the quality of democracy or the depth of political alienation. Studies that we have conducted over the past four years show that subtle changes in the way news stories are framed can affect consumers' responses, activating their cynicism when strategic or conflict-oriented frames are used. The studies directly implicate media framing of political news in activating, if not creating, cynicism about campaigns, policy, and governance and imply that cynicism about the news media may be an indirect consequence.