bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Council and the Commission on the Brink of Maastricht
Authors: WALLACE HELEN
Published: March 2007

This article surveys the roles of the Commission and the Council of the European Community (EC) in the period from early 1991 to spring 1993. It sets these in the context of the unusually crowded agenda of the EC and the debates around the drafting and signing of the Treaty on European Union. It argues that these two institutions that lie at the heart of decision making in the EC suffer from structural problems that remain to be addressed in future discussions of institutional reform.
Regional Economic Integration and Migration: The European Case
Authors: WERNER HEINZ
Published: March 2007

Since the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, economic and regional integration in Western Europe has been achieved. What consequences has this had for labor migration between the member states? What lessons are to be drawn from the EEC experience as to the effect of regional integration on unwanted migration? Would analogous results occur under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? The development of the European Communities (EC) shows that regional integration can attenuate socioeconomic disparities that induce people to migrate. Increased trade and welfare has had a leveling effect among EC states that has dampened migration. Trade exchanges and competition within the EC occurred more within industrial or product groups than between economic sectors. Thus adjustment to freer trade did not lead to the loss of whole industries and mass redundancies. But NAFTA differs from the EC in many respects. Although there are some similarities, the differences between NAFTA and the EC warn against the facile presumption that Mexico will go the way of Italy after ratification of NAFTA.
Firing Back: The Growing Threat of Workplace Homicide
Authors: FOX JAMES ALAN , LEVIN JACK
Published: March 2007

Homicides committed against supervisors and coworkers by disgruntled employees have grown at a disturbing rate in the American workplace. Increasingly, embittered employees and ex-employees are seeking revenge through violence and murder for alleged mistreatment on the job. This article examines patterns and trends in available data and presents a theoretical profile of those who kill at the work site. It suggests that the typical homicide of employers and coworkers is committed by a disgruntled, white, middle-aged male who faces termination or who has recently been fired. Recommendations are advanced for how employers might better respond to problem employees and to homicidal threats at the workplace. These include prevention strategies, such as giving higher priority to the role of human resources, affording employees due process protection against unfair terminations, and changing the importance attached to the meaning of work in people's lives.
From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana and Beyond
Authors: MARCHILDON GREGORY P.
Published: March 2007

Canada's increasingly diversified trade and investment pattern may eventually give the country more maneuverability in its foreign economic policy than it ever enjoyed during the eras of Pax Britannica and Pax Americana. From the conquest of New France until 1914, Canada's economy was firmly within the imperial orbit, dependent upon Britain as a source of capital and as the largest buyer of its exports. The interwar years saw Britain vying with the United States to be Canada's largest trading and investment partner. Although Canadian and imperial preferences attempted to give Britain the edge, the Canadian government shifted policy by entering trade agreements with the United States in 1935 and 1938. By 1939, Canada was clearly within Pax Americana, with the United States now the predominant foreign influence in the Canadian economy. Since the 1960s, however, new factors have emerged to moderate American economic influence in Canada, including the decline of the traditional branch plant; the rapid growth of Canadian exports abroad, including the sale of manufactured goods to the American market; and the rise of Canadian multinational enterprises with extensive influence in the United States.
State Disintegration and Ethnic Conflict: A Framework for Analysis
Authors: SHULTZ RICHARD H.
Published: March 2007

With the end of the Cold War, the growing challenges of regional conflict and instability are receiving significant international attention. Broadly, these regional clashes are taking place both between and within states. The former are concerned with regional competition and power distributions, while the latter are the result of animosities rooted in ethnic, religious, communal, secessionist, and irredentist contestations. This article proposes a framework for understanding and analyzing the dynamics and complexities of these post-Cold War internal conflicts taking place within an increasing number of states in various regions of the globe. To accomplish this, a review is undertaken of the causes and dimensions of this internal violence and the state disintegration it engenders, with particular attention to the impact of ethnicity, ethnonationalism, religion, and communalism. The framework developed for analyzing and understanding the complex developments that characterize these ethnic and religiously motivated internal conflicts and wars is employed to assess the strife in Somalia.
Performing Work without Doing Jobs
Authors: MARSCHALL DANIEL
Published: March 2007

Plant closings and the widespread disappearance of industrial jobs have severely strained the American labor movement. To successfully recruit the millions of workers in service and other expanding occupations, some observers have proposed that unions adopt a form of occupational unionism that would seek to unite members around the sort of broadly conceived work that they do rather than the narrow job duties they perform at a specific work site. This article looks 10 years into the future. It presents an interview with a fictional labor leader who has embraced the model of occupational unionism, contributing to a dramatic revival of union size and influence. It is impressionistic and suggestive, not comprehensive. It is a blending of fact and fiction based on the author's projections of how advanced technology, skill-related initiatives, and research findings in cognitive science could contribute to a resurgent labor movement. The two government programs cited, skill standards and the school-to-work initiative, are real, in their early stages of evolution.
Government Risk Regulation
Authors: POLLAK ROBERT A.
Published: March 2007

This article argues that risk assessment, supposedly the scientific component of risk regulation (as opposed to risk management, the policy component), cannot be very scientific because too little is known. Without firm scientific knowledge, risk assessment must rely on conventions promulgated by bureaucrats or on the professional judgments of scientific experts; such conventions and judgments reflect not only scientific knowledge but also policy judgments and cultural values. The inadequacy of scientific knowledge, coupled with the lack of public trust in government and in experts, suggests that risk regulators should be concerned not only with creating institutional arrangements likely to foster trust but also with creating mechanisms for providing concerned individuals with credible reassurance. The article concludes by discussing divergences between public perceptions and expert perceptions of risks, and the weights that a democratic society should give to each in assessing and managing risks.
Rethinking Risk Management in the Federal Government
Authors: CANTOR ROBIN
Published: March 2007

This article examines recent debates about guiding principles and implementation of risk management in the federal government. Considering influences from both political and scientific arenas, the article will highlight how changing perspectives about science, regulatory objectives, and decision models are fostering significant innovations in the conduct of risk management by federal agencies. The first part of the article summarizes several explicit signals of rethinking the federal approach to risk management at the administrative and congressional levels. The second part considers particular intellectual shifts in our understanding of risk management that are fueling contemporary debates on the science, objectives, and process. Specific agency examples are used to illustrate recent suggestions for or experience with implementing innovations for federal risk management. The article concludes with some thoughts about the future of the federal role in risk management and risk policy more generally.
Law in Hong Kong and China: The Meshing of Systems
Authors: WESLEY-SMITH PETER
Published: March 2007

The constitutional arrangements for the post-1997 legal order in Hong Kong expressly contemplate some limited meshing of the Hong Kong and Chinese legal systems. Whether the meshing process goes so far and no further or ventures beyond what is now planned depends on the prospects of achieving the promised “high degree of autonomy” for Hong Kong and of maintaining the Basic Law as a meaningful constitution for the territory in the post-1997 period. Such prospects can be reviewed but not predicted. In this article, some of the various issues are surveyed, and it is concluded that, absent political catastrophe, the Basic Law can be made to work if the judges, to whom is guaranteed security of tenure, determine to defend it.
Promise and Peril in Combating Corruption: Hong Kong's ICAC
Authors: SKIDMORE MAX J.
Published: March 2007

Since its founding, Hong Kong had been troubled with corruption. Eventually, the corruption became so serious as to threaten some of the basic institutions of society. In response, the government attempted an approach different from its past efforts. It created an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which immediately began to have considerable success. ICAC not only eliminated much of the corruption, but it succeeded in changing public attitudes. Although its powers are enormous, ICAC by and large has operated within the restraints set for it. Nevertheless, its existence is a potential danger. Its powers could be abused even in a society characterized by moderation and the rule of law. In a society whose leaders are less restrained, no legal changes would be required to operate ICAC as the enforcement agency of a police state. Its vast authority therefore becomes a direct, not merely an implied, threat.
The Impact of the Holocaust
Authors: BAUER YEHUDA
Published: March 2007

The Holocaust has become a cultural code for the deadly combination of ideology with the technology, modernism, bureaucracy, and expertise to implement evil. The central role of Jews in Christianity turned the Holocaust into a virtual Christian suicide, and the Holocaust represents a global attack on Western civilization itself. The continuance of antisemitism and also the continuance of other forms of hatred leading, potentially, to genocide, often under the auspices of (semi-) governmental authority, underscore the centrality of genocide as a threat to civilization. The role of ideology is central in this threat, yet careful distinctions must be made: the destruction of Jews had a different ideological basis from that of the Nazi murders of other victims. Future prevention of genocide depends on careful analysis and on comparisons that are not hastily drawn. It is the responsibility of universities to provide an institutional framework for such analysis if the future prevention of genocide is to take root.
Is the ADA Successful? Indicators for Tracking Gains
Authors: COLLIGNON FREDERICK C.
Published: March 2007

Some disability activists argue that little gain was made by people with disabilities in the twenty years following the controversial reforms of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This article argues that the same uncertainty cannot be tolerated for the even broader reforms of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Efforts are needed now to establish baseline data for key indicators and to track the indicators over time. The article evaluates indicators for each of the legislative goals in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nor should analysts ignore assessing the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. A comparison of national studies analyzing longitudinal earnings data collected for federal-state vocational rehabilitation program cohorts before and after full implementation of the Rehabilitation Act reveals that employment and earnings gains were realized by people with disabilities provided job training and placement in that program following the act's reforms.
Consolidating Democracy in the Americas
Authors: DIAMOND LARRY
Published: March 2007

Although democracy is generally considered to be thriving in the Americas, it is in reality shallow and less stable than is assumed. Most of the democratic regimes in Central and South America have yet to achieve the deep and widespread legitimation at the elite and mass levels, and the behavioral consensus on the rules and constraints of democracy, that denote democratic consolidation. This article elaborates the concept of democratic consolidation and explains why it is important for understanding—and improving—the prospects for democracy in the Americas. It identifies three dimensions of democratic consolidation: deepening democratic structures to make them more liberal, accessible, accountable, and representative; strengthening the formal institutions of democracy, including parties, legislatures, and the judicial system; and improving regime performance, both economically and politically (by maintaining order, safeguarding liberty, and combating corruption). Ten specific challenges for democratic consolidation are then analyzed, and the importance of the regional and international environment is emphasized in conclusion.
Shifting Terrains: Mapping Education within a Global Landscape
Authors: DIMITRIADIS GREG , KAMBERELIS GEORGE
Published: March 2007

In this article, the authors draw on critical social theory and educational theory and research to review and deconstruct educational discourses that have become common in this era of mass globalization. Key issues embedded within these discourses include addressing the educational needs of children from marginalized social and cultural groups, preparing students for the information-based jobs of the future, restructuring schools to fit with the reterritorialization of urban and suburban spaces, and gauging the effects of mass media on stereotypical notions of youths, schools, and schooling. The authors deploy Arjun Appadurai's model of ever shifting and interrelated global flows to bring into relief how various aspects of globalization both enable and constrain different kinds of social, spatial, and economic mobility for today's youths. They conclude by suggesting new ways to understand the complex and paradoxical effects of globalization on education and schooling.
Globalization and the Inner Periphery: A Mid-Bronx View
Authors: BROMLEY RAY
Published: March 2007

The globalization literature on New York and other metropolises has focused mainly on control centers of the world system, typically located in central business districts, edge cities, transportation hubs, technology parks, and exclusive residential areas. The remainder of the metropolis is often depicted as just a source of labor power and consumers. Taking the case of CB-Six, a bureaucratically defined locality and low-income residential area in the Bronx, this article reviews the global dimensions of local history in the outer boroughs of New York City. Local and global issues are tightly interwoven through the changing numbers and origins of immigrants and through the impact of world wars, economic crises, and restructuring. The locality affects the world through its real and fictional roles in popular entertainment and through the missions of Fordham University, the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Garden, and such bygone institutions as the Home for Incurables and the Starlight Amusement Park. Glory or notoriety could have resulted from silent movies, political assassination, soap opera, mass murder, or music and movie stars, but CB-Six never reached the Hall of Fame!
The Peace Process and Transition to Democratic Rule in the Republic of Georgia
Authors: MATCHAVARIANI IVANE
Published: March 2007

In this article, the author discusses the importance of developing cooperative conflict resolution skills and forums to facilitate the transition to democracy and the peace process in the Republic of Georgia. Third-party conflict intervention and resolution can help bridge the divisions in society and create viable options for peaceful change. The author focuses on building an indigenous capacity to resolve conflict in Georgia through the establishment of Partners-Georgia, a national center for conflict resolution. He further discusses the positive impact of cooperative skill training and intervention in conflict situations.
Reflections on Living Through the Changes in Eastern Europe
Authors: HERMOCHOVA SONA
Published: March 2007

In this article, the author reflects on the changes in the Czech Republic since 1989, including the subjective experiences of new-found freedom, the initial influx of foreign experts and visitors, and the unanticipated difficulties, such as rising crime rates, that have accompanied these changes. The article focuses on the social fragmentation, hardships, and disillusionment that have been part of the post-socialist experience. The author emphasizes the importance of research in better understanding the recent social changes in the Czech Republic and suggests that skill building in negotiation, communication, and problem solving is greatly needed to manage the impact of these changes.
Training in Skills for Coping with Democracy
Authors: BIANCHI GABRIEL
Published: March 2007

This article presents experiences from projects aimed at training citizens (especially environmental leaders, local government officials, and mayors) in group decision processes, public participation procedures, conflict resolution, and mediation approaches. The general purpose of these activities has been to assist the development of democratic skills in citizens with decision-making power. Third-sector organizations (nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations) play a significant role in this process of challenging old values and introducing new ones through open communication. The author generalizes from his experience in conducting training over the last three years.
Women, Empowerment, and Economic Development
Authors: MEHRA REKHA
Published: March 2007

Development policies and programs tend not to view women as integral to the economic development process. This is reflected in the higher investments in women's reproductive rather than their productive roles, mainly in population programs. Yet women throughout the developing world engage in economically productive work and earn incomes. They work primarily in agriculture and in the informal sector and, increasingly, in formal wage employment. Their earnings, however, are generally low. Since the 1950s, development agencies have responded to the need for poor women to earn incomes by making relatively small investments in income-generating projects. Often such projects fail because they are motivated by welfare and not development concerns, offering women temporary and part-time employment in traditionally feminine skills such as knitting and sewing that have limited markets. By contrast, over the past twenty years, some nongovernmental organizations, such as the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, have been effective in improving women's economic status because they have started with the premise that women are fundamental to the process of economic development.
The New Premier-Parliamentary System in Israel
Authors: BRICHTA AVRAHAM
Published: March 2007

Until the 1980s, Israel had a rather stable and quite effective parliamentary system with a powerful executive, headed by a prime minister formally regarded as first among equals but actually enjoying a powerful position in leading the government. In the late 1980s, when the stalemate created by small and medium-sized parties led to a situation of immobilization, the proposal of direct election of the prime minister was adopted, out of many reforms proposed since the establishment of the state. In this article, the causes for the establishment of a premier-parliamentary system and its impact on the stability and effective functioning of the political system are discussed. An alternative model, based on the principles of the German Kanzler system, is proposed.
Microeconomics of College Choice, Careers, and Wages
Authors: BEHRMAN JERE , KLETZER LORI , McPHERSON MICHAEL , SCHAPIRO MORTON OWEN
Published: March 2007

Understanding the economic payoff to human capital investments is very important from the standpoint both of individuals and of society. However, this article argues that correctly estimating these impacts necessitates having a well-developed idea of the microeconomic determinants of human behavior. Without this, empirical analyses of such topics as career choice, college choice, or wage determination will be flawed. The authors begin the article with a discussion of why these choice models are important—using examples of similar attempts that do not capture sufficient information—and illustrate their usefulness in a variety of contexts. They also describe the results of their attempts to examine college choice using microeconomic models.
The Impact of Factual Versus Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes
Authors: MURPHY SHEILA T.
Published: March 2007

The present article explores how factual and fictional media portrayals may activate culturally shared racial and gender stereotypes and influence subsequent judgments involving members of stereotyped groups. In line with previous research (Power, Murphy, and Coover 1996), new data are presented that demonstrate that exposure to a stereotypic or counterstereotypic portrayal primes consistent interpretations of unrelated events (such as the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, the William Kennedy Smith-Patricia Bowman rape accusations, and spousal abuse). Both cognitive and motivational factors such as ingroup-outgroup bias appear to influence the relative weight given factual as opposed to fictional portrayals. For instance, men were equally harsh in the wake of a stereotypic female portrayal regardless of whether they believed it to be factual or fictitious. Moreover, men tended to discount a fictitious counterstereotypic portrayal of a female, whereas women were more likely to dismiss a fictitious stereotypic portrayal. Recommendations are offered suggesting how media portrayals might successfully reduce prejudice.
Understanding the Time-Squeeze
Authors: CLARKBERG MARIN , MOEN PHYLLIS
Published: March 2007

Many recent studies of the time-squeeze have used aggregate, trend data on work-hour behavior and inferred changing preferences among working men and women. This article begins with couple data and examines preferences as well as behavior in married-couple families. Work-hour behavior is conceptualized as an interaction between employee preferences, employer demands, and the institutional context. The article's analyses clearly indicate that there is a considerable disparity between couples' self-reports of preferences and their actual behavior. These results suggest that long work weeks generally do not reflect employee preferences but may result from constraints and demands imposed by the workplace. The rising sense of a time-squeeze in American society may stem from all-or-nothing assumptions about the nature and structure of work and the pressure to put in long hours to be seen as committed, productive, and having the potential for advancement.
The Birthpangs of a Textbook Symposium
Authors: Roucek Joseph S.
Published: March 2007

The "inveterate writer" (PROD I, no. 4) turns a humorous eye on the nerve-wracking process of editing symposia. The result is a unique guide to the peculiar traits of both garden and hothouse varieties of collaborators.
Societal Coordination by the Educated Minority
Authors: Prothro James W. , Grigg Charles M.
Published: March 2007

The authors have performed field research on some of the problems of societal consensus posed by Louis Kriesberg in PROD III (September, 1959). They find that a high degree of consensus does not exist except on the most abstract principles concerning society and government, and this primarily among the highly educated. They suggest that apathy may be a functional adaptation of modern society to the absence of extended consensus, and that further research may indicate which groups among the educated minority are responsible for the coordination of society.
A Respect for Facts
Authors: Fabricant Solomon
Published: March 2007

Simultaneous views of the status of economic studies and of the methods and operations of the famed National Bureau of Economic Research are afforded by Dr. Fabricant, who is the Bureau's Director of Research. The Bureau undertakes projects that are factually objective, but furnish the grounds for determinations of public policy. A longer version of this article, which is published with the consent of the Bureau, was part of the author's report to his Board of Directors, the Fortieth Annual Report.
Psycho-; Linguistic; Semantic; Phenomenological; Daseins-; Existential (Onto-); etc.*†
Authors: Nelson Benjamin
Published: March 2007

The Editor of Psychoanalysis and The Psychoanalytic Review, who also heads the Department of Sociology-Anthropology at the Long Island Center of The State University of New York, dissects the sources of conflict between philosophy and psychiatry and describes the several contending schools of analysis of the day.
The Conflict Between Productivity and Creativity in Modern Day Physics
Authors: Schwartz Melvin
Published: March 2007

Professor Schwartz, with two associates at Columbia University, recently proved the existence of the second neutrino, a discovery of major significance to physics. In this article he discusses factors inhibiting creativity in physics, using for illus tration a case analogous to the actual historical sequence in research on the second neutrino. He emphasizes the dangers of "production line research".
The Nation's Health Insurance aud Health Services Policies
Authors: Burns Eveline M.
Published: March 2007

The people need a substantially larger volume of scientific medical service than they now receive... There is need for a geographical distribution of practitioners and agencies which more closely approximates the medical requirements of the people.... There needs to be better control over the quality of medical service.... The prevailing methods of purchasing medical care have unsatisfactory consequences. They lead to unwise and undirected expenditures, to unequal and unpredictable financial burdens for the indi vidual and the family, to neglect of health and of illness, to inadequate expenditures for medical care and often to unequal remuneration of practi tioners. There needs to be some plan whereby the unequal and sometimes crushing burden of medical expenses can be distributed... Physical facilities are duplicated between the hospitals and the offices of practitioners and are insufficiently utilized in both.... Misdirected expenditures, competition and excessive specialization among practitioners and the absence o f commun ity planning and of integration of services and facilities contribute to exten sive waste [Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, 1932: 32-34].
Seekers and Saucers
Authors: Balch Robert W. , Taylor David
Published: March 2007

This UFO cult has been much in the news of late. Of special note in this paper is the very positive redefinition of the role of seeker. Also, the puzzling finding that affective ties between converts and group members seem unnecessary for conversion to occur is discussed, along with the similarly disconcerting idea that the group lacks ritual behavior.
Defining a Role for States in a Federal Health Care System
Authors: HANSON RUSSELL L.
Published: March 2007

While Congress debates a national health policy, states are experimenting with programs to expand access to health care and contain its rising costs. Many hope that state innovations will point the way for Congress, producing agreement on a new policy. However, innovations may also diffuse support for change across a wide variety of state models. That would delay action by Congress until a compromise forms around legislation that permits interstate variations in health care delivery. A patchwork of programs would result, generating questions of equity in future debates about health care reform.
Some Reasoned Utopian Proposals for National Health System Reform in the United States
Authors: ROSENAU PAULINE VAILLANCOURT
Published: March 2007

The health system in the United States today is in need of serious reform. Several suggestions offered are utopian, not in the sense that they are wildly unrealistic, impossible to implement, or exorbitantly expensive but, rather, in that they envision restructuring the health system on the basis of reason and rationality without regard to what is already in place. Most of these proposals have already been attempted in other countries or have been employed at the state level in the United States. This article suggests that if the federal government were to play a greater role, health care costs might be contained and access might be broadened. Coordination of care and patient participation could improve health system performance. The United States might learn something from the single payer system and global hospital budgets. It may be necessary to increase the proportion of general practitioners, require local cooperation between hospitals, restructure the legal system relating to malpractice claims, and adopt a long-term accounting focus for health economics. As cost-containment features are developed, quality of care needs to be maintained and enhanced simultaneously. Evidence from the Canadian case is offered throughout.
Creative and Critical Thinking Through Academic Controversy
Authors: JOHNSON DAVID W. , JOHNSON ROGER T.
Published: March 2007

Although creative controversy often occurs naturally within cooperative learning groups, it may be considerably enhanced when teachers structure academic controversies. This involves dividing a cooperative group into two pairs and assigning them opposing positions. The pairs then develop their position, present it to the other pair, listen to the opposing position, engage in a discussion in which they attempt to refute the other side and rebut attacks on their position, reverse perspectives and present the other position, and then drop all advocacy and seek a synthesis that takes both perspectives and positions into account. It is vital for citizens to seek reasoned judgment on the complex problems facing our society. Especially important is educating individuals to solve problems for which different points of view can plausibly be developed. To do so individuals must enter empathetically into the arguments of both sides of the issue and ensure that the strongest possible case is made for each side, and arrive at a synthesis based on rational thought. From units on the relative merits of coal or nuclear power in elementary classrooms to units on hazardous waste management within high school and college classes, individuals are learning how to use structured controversy to address the great questions of our (and previous) times and ensure that high quality solutions are found to complex problems.
The Context for Leadership in 21st-Century Organizations
Authors: NOVELLI LUKE , TAYLOR SYLVESTER
Published: March 2007

“Environmental turbulence” and high degrees of interdependence create dilemmas and paradoxes for organizations. Because critical thinking is a primary tool for dealing with dilemmas and paradoxes, the support and encouragement of critical thinking is a key characteristic of effective leadership processes. The context of current and future leadership challenges is described. The process approach to leadership is discussed and critical thinking is related to leadership. Ideas about developing leadership for the future context and current examples of such efforts are provided.
Introduction
Authors: BLUNDEN MARGARET , DANDO MALCOLM
Published: March 2007

Having reached my own centenary, I can only say that I wish Geoffrey could be reaching his in 1994, instead of having left us in 1982 at the age of 87. His wisdom and foresight are sadly needed in today's world, whose problems he clearly predicted. His proposals for dealing with those problems, and for avoiding them where possible, are as valid today as when he made them. One can only hope that his books, with their clear signposts for the future, will reach and enrich present and future generations in the same way they have enlightened those of the past.

—Adolph Lowe, 1993
The Gap Between Science and Policy in The Bell Curve
Authors: AIZAWA KENNETH
Published: March 2007

In The Bell Curve, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray sketch various social policy reforms that they take to be suggested or implied by their purported scientific findings concerning IQ, race, class, and social structure. By and large, scientists have done a fine job of drawing attention to the many empirical inadequacies and flaws in The Bell Curve. This, of course, significantly undermines the case for many of Hernnstein and Murray's social policy recommendations. Yet there is another obvious strategy for resisting many of the astonishing recommendations. One might concede, just for the sake of argument, all the major empirical assumptions that Herrnstein and Murray wish to make concerning IQ and its causal role in social behavior, then examine what policy recommendations are then entailed. By adopting this strategy, one sees that even under very generous empirical assumptions, Herrnstein and Murray are a long way from having a solid case for their social policy recommendations. In other words, there remains a substantial gap between their putative scientific findings and their proffered policy recommendations.
Public Opinion, Criminal Record, and the Sentencing Process
Authors: ROBERTS JULIAN V.
Published: March 2007

An offender's criminal record is a powerful determinant of sentence severity in almost all criminal justice systems. State and federal sentencing guidelines accord a central role to criminal record, which is the second most important factor after crime seriousness. As well, most states have recidivist statutes such as “three strikes and you're out,” which prescribe swinging penalties for recidivist offenders. Although a great deal of research has examined public perceptions of sentencing and crime seriousness, little work has addressed the question of public support for criminal record as an aggravating factor in the sentencing process. This article reviews the limited research on this question. It would appear that the public supports a limited use of criminal history information, although there is little public enthusiasm for statutes or guidelines that impose sentences the severity of which clearly violates principles of desert.
HIV/AIDS as a Chronic Disease
Authors: BEAUDIN CHRISTY L. , CHAMBRÉ SUSAN M.
Published: March 2007

The reframing of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) from an acute to a chronic disease brought about a different focus for public policy. Now viewed as the end stage of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), AIDS has emerged from the plague model. Many biological and social forces affected this change, including an increased understanding of HIV and its associated disease processes, radical shifts in the composition and needs of those affected by HIV, advances in biomedical technology, and the expansion of health and social services. This article offers an overview of institutional and social responses to the epidemic and discusses the changing social construction of HIV/AIDS as a chronic illness in a historical model. Psychosocial and health care issues within a continuum of care framework are reviewed and implications for future HIV/AIDS care are considered.
Prosaic Organizational Failure
Authors: CLARKE LEE , PERROW CHARLES
Published: March 2007

We use the case of the now-dead Shoreham Nuclear Power Station to pose some questions, and a few answers, about organizational failure. The analysis centers on the symbolism of organizational plans, specifically how organizations use plans to justify increasingly complex systems to themselves and to others. That such plans are based on sparse or nonexistent experience, and that they are often wildly unrealistic, suggests some reasons why high-technology, high-risk systems do not foster organizational learning.
Mental Models and Deduction
Authors: ARONSON JERROLD L.
Published: March 2007

In Deduction, Johnson-Laird and Byrne have made an extremely important contribution to the study of cognition by providing a unified theory of all types of deduction, including modal inferences. Their theory is that, contrary to the traditional view, deduction is not rule-based but model-based reasoning, and the central cognitive process involves a model-based search for counterexamples to conclusions. Although the author believes that Johnson-Laird and Byrne are right about the significance of mental models when it comes to certain types of deduction, their quest for a single cognitive process underlying all types of deductive inference has forced them to adopt the logician's notion of a model rather than a more psychological one. As a result, they are open to criticism. In this article, the author shows how mental models actually work in the case of deduction. However, the mental models discussed are a far cry from the mental models found in Deduction.
Political Debate
Authors: HART RODERICK P. , JARVIS SHARON E.
Published: March 2007

Although presidential debates have been studied extensively, few truly basic, generic questions have been raised. The following study does so by asking (a) What textual features distinguish debates from other types of campaign messages? (b) How have such factors as time, format, party, and incumbency affected political debates? and (c) How did the 1996 debates relate to such trends? In answering these questions the authors present findings from the Campaign Mapping Project, a research endeavor funded by the Ford and Carnegie Foundations and devoted to examining campaign behavior from 1948 to the present. The study suggests that debates add sobriety to campaigns, ground political discourse, make candidates introspective, and restrain political overstatements. Moreover, the generic regularities of presidential debates provide an equal footing to incumbents and challengers, Democrats and Republicans, as well as former and recent presidential campaigners. In essence, debate encourages all politicians to speak a common language.
Psychology and the Good Marriage
Authors: FOWERS BLAINE J.
Published: March 2007

The traditional social science separation of the objective and subjective, of fact and value, is increasingly untenable. Social scientists have concerned themselves with crucial matters that cannot be neatly partitioned into neutral facts and personal investments. The deep concerns among scientists, therapists, and the public about the fragility of marriage is one prominent example. There is a remarkable consensus among professionals and the public that the key to marital stability is maintaining marital satisfaction, which is dependent on good communication. Therefore, researchers study communication and therapists teach couples communication skills as a means to enhance marriage. Although these interventions are presented as simple behavioral skills to be learned and practiced, the author argues that these skills cannot be successfully carried out in the absence of crucial character virtues such as self-restraint, courage, and friendship. Unmasking the reduction of the good in marriage to technical considerations shows that virtue is an unacknowledged but central presupposition of these professionals' efforts. The author concludes by suggesting some promising directions for a richer account of marriage that will allow researchers to address the incoherent and self-defeating understandings and practices that constitute contemporary marriage.
How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management
Authors: KELLY ERIN , DOBBIN FRANK
Published: March 2007

How did corporate affirmative action programs become diversity programs? During the 1970s, active federal enforcement of equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action (AA) law, coupled with ambiguity about the terms of compliance, stimulated employers to hire antidiscrimination specialists to fashion EEO/AA programs. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration curtailed enforcement, but as Philip Selznick's band of early institutionalists might have predicted, EEO/AA program practices had developed an organizational constituency in EEO/AA specialists and thus survived Reagan's enforcement cutbacks. As John Meyer's band of neoinstitutionalists might have predicted, that constituency collectively retheorized antidiscrimination practices through professional returns in terms of efficiency, using the rhetoric of diversity management..
Acceptability of the Female Condom Among Women at Risk for HIV Infection
Authors: SURRATT HILARY L. , WECHSBERG WENDEE M. , COTTLER LINDA B. , LEUKEFELD CARL G. , KLEIN HUGH , DESMOND DAVID P.
Published: March 2007

Few HIV/AIDS educational programs have been tailored specifically for women, and most have promoted methods requiring the full participation and cooperation of male partners. This study introduced drug-involved women to the female condom—a female-controlled method of protection from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The primary aim was to assess the acceptability of this new device among high-risk women in St. Louis, San Antonio, and Rio de Janeiro. All respondents participated in a female condom education program, were asked to try the condom, and to report their experiences at two points of contact. Outcome data indicated that a sizable proportion of the women followed up used the female condom during vaginal sex on one or more occasions. In addition, many women also preferred the female condom to the male condom in terms of overall satisfaction, suggesting that there is a viable role for this device in the HIV prevention field.
The Future as a Sociocultural Problem
Authors: RINER REED D.
Published: March 2007

A review of personal experiences in futures research and education projects provides grounded answers to questions about the theory, method, content, and application of futures in academic and practitioner realms. Case studies including the journal Cultural Futures Research, the annual CONTACT conferences, the Flagstaff Tomorrow research project, the Northern Arizona University (NAU) Solar System Simulation, and the representational device of time lines illustrate the emergence and development of a self-correcting, systematic, and replicable body of knowledge and practice in the study of the future.
Changing Institutional Rules
Authors: Sharfman Mark
Published: March 2007

Corporate philanthropy is considered to be an integral part of corporate social performance; however, this was not always the case. At one time, the use of corporate funds for philanthropy was illegal. This article uses institutional theory to examine the evolution of corporate philanthropy from its illegal status to the time when it became both legal and expected behavior on the part of business firms. Because institutional rules rarely change as dramatically as did those governing corporate philanthropy, an examination of these changes provides a unique opportunity to begin development of more generalized theory concerning change in the institutional structure of business.
Managing the Interface between the Corporation and Society
Authors: Lenn D. Jeffrey
Published: March 2007

The work of Lee Preston and James Post helped to lay the foundation for one career in the field of business and public policy. They provided a theoretical framework for a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship of the corporation and society and those who are charged with its management.
Constructing an Ethic for Business Practice
Authors: Liedtka Jeanne
Published: March 2007

This article argues for a new direction in business ethics research. A number of widely discussed concepts popular in the business world today appear to converge around a set of practices that imply a new ethic capable of linking the competitively effective with the morally good. Seizing this opportunity requires that ethicists redirect their attention away from a traditional focus on applying existing moral theories to business practice and adopt instead a "constructivist" focus that works backward from these best practices to construct a new ethic that supports them.
Relativism, Feminism, and Theology
Authors: Frederick William C.
Published: March 2007

This article argues that the normative issues that arise (a) from business operations in other cultures, (b) from the normative outcomes of early value inculcation by parents, and (c) from a quest for transcendent meaning within the workplace can be understood best when seen within a naturalist framework. Cultural relativist, feminist morality, and theological views can only be enriched, not diminished, by tracing their kinship with nature.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Authors: Carroll Archie B.
Published: March 2007

There is an impressive history associated with the evolution of the concept and definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, the author traces the evolution of the CSR construct beginning in the 1950s, which marks the modern era of CSR. Definitions expanded during the 1960s and proliferated during the 1970s. In the 1980s, there were fewer new definitions, more empirical research, and alternative themes began to mature. These alternative themes included corporate social performance (CSP), stakeholder theory, and business ethics theory. In the 1990s, CSR continues to serve as a core construct but yields to or is transformed into alternative thematic frameworks.
A Reappraisal of the State Sovereignty Debate
Authors: GUIRAUDON VIRGINIE , LAHAV GALLYA
Published: March 2007

The ability of European nation-states to control migration has been at the forefront of the immigration debate. Some scholars have argued that international human rights and the freedom of circulation required by a global economy and regional markets are the two sides of a liberal regime that undermine the sovereignty of nation-states. Others have gone even further and declared the double closure of territorial sovereignty and national citizenship to be outmoded concepts. This article inscribes itself in that debate by answering the following questions: (a) To what extent do international legal instruments constrain the actions of national policy makers? and (b) How have nation-states reacted to international constraints and problems of policy implementation? Focusing on Council of Europe's jurisprudence, the authors assess the extent to which national courts have incorporated European norms and governments take them into account. The article examines ways that national policy makers have responded by shifting the institutional locations of policy making. In evaluating state responses, the article identifies the devolution of decision making upward to intergovernmental fora, downward to local authorities, and outward to nonstate actors.
Direct Democracy and Institutional Change
Authors: SCARROW SUSAN E.
Published: March 2007

Is direct democracy on the rise around the world? Previous efforts to answer this question have investigated patterns of referendum usage and have found only small and isolated increases. In contrast, the current study focuses on patterns of institutional change and finds a broad movement to redesign institutions in ways that give citizens more opportunities to exercise direct control over political decision making.