bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Root Causes of Peacelessness and Approaches to Peace in Africa
Authors: Tandon Yash
Published: March 2003

Conflicts are endemic in society, but what is their specific nature in Africa, and why do they deteriorate into such intense violence as negates humanity itself? This article looks at the “mainstream” theorythat attempts to explain this, taking as example the UN secretary‐general's recent report on the subject. The report is both partial and ideological; it seeks to hide the systemic causes of poverty and conflict in Africa. The role of the peace activist is to understand conflict in Africa from a holistic and systemic perspective. He or she must work at various levels to alleviateconflict and prevent its degeneration into violence, based on the dual strategy of partially de‐linking Africa from the global system and developing tolerance towards interethnic and political differences. This approach requires a new kind of moral and political culture, and new structures of political decision‐making and accountability that are locally accountable and diversified.
Under the Palaver Tree: A Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation, andManufacturing of Light Weapons
Authors: Murray Andrew
Published: March 2003

Sixteen nations belonging to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have signed a declaration of moratorium for three years on the “importation, exportation and manufacture” of light weapons. It is a document that grows out of an extraordinary history of participation amongdiverse actors. The process has not only involved the states belonging to ECOWAS but also seen unique cooperation among UN agencies, civil society groups, and nongovernmental organizations. The development of the moratorium has been guided by a deep respect for traditional African methods of peacemaking: open debate, cooperation, decentralized leadership, and inclusion of participants from all levels of society. This article attempts to high‐light the more indigenous aspects of African conflict resolution and to make explicit the contribution ofthat tradition to the peace‐building process in West Africa.
Present at the Creation . . . and Other Myths: The Port HuronStatement and the Origins of the New Left
Authors: Smith Allen
Published: March 2003

The established historical narrative of the New Left, that oft‐told account of an Edenic early sixties was transformed into the beastly late sixties, is largely a mythic morality tale. The cornerstone of this ‘declension’ school, the conflation of the New Left's birth was the publication of the Port Huron Statement by the Students for a Democratic Society, obstructs thecreation of a more accurate history of the decade's complex, lively, actually existing radicalism.
Merle Curti and the Significance of Peace Research in American History
Authors: Howlett Charles F.
Published: March 2003

This article investigates Curti's long and distinguished professional interest in peace history. Relying on Lawrence Wittner's research note, “Merle Curti and the Development of Peace History,” which appeared in the January 1998 issue of Peace & Change, the author expands the discussion with extensive use of Curti's unpublished correspondence. The author critically analyzes Curti's publications in the field in the 1930s, his support for World War II, and his encouragement to younger scholars to continue researching and publishing in peace history as a means of advancing human civilization.
Coming to Terms with “Pacifism”: The French Case, 1901–1918
Authors: Clinton Michael
Published: March 2003

This article addresses the shifting meaning of “pacifism” in the idiom of French political culture from the time the word was first introduced until the end of the First World War. “Le pacifisme” was intended as a way to forge a common identity for the different groups that composed the growing international peace movement at the turn of the twentieth century. Particular circumstances in France during that time influenced how its meaning was appreciated by the French authorities and general public, including the French peace movement's own indeterminate organizational structure and the manipulative mode of discourse employed by French nationalists during a period of intense political polarization. The turmoil of the First World War ensured that the ambiguity that already characterized the use of the word “pacifism” emerged as a full‐blown transformation in the word's meaning within French political discourse.
An Experiment in Personalist Politics: The Catholic Worker Movement and Nonviolent Action
Authors: Coy Patrick G.
Published: March 2003

The Catholic Worker movement, co‐founded by Dorothy Day in 1933, is well known for its hospitality work with the urban poor. Less examined is the Worker movement's steadfast commitment to nonviolent action as its primary means of political engagement. How has the movement managed to sustain this often costly commitment for nearly seventy years? The answer lies in an analysis of five aspects of Catholic Worker life and thought: Biblical earnestness, personalism, solidarity with the poor through hospitality, living in community, and membership turnover.
Patricia Rife. Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
Authors: Goldstein Gary R.
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Patricia Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
The Two Faces of Deweyan Pragmatism: Inductionism versus Social Constructivism
Authors: Prawat Richard S.
Published: March 2003

Dewey is widely acknowledged as the intellectual force behind the progressive movement in the United States. With justification, he is viewed as a staunch advocate of what has been variously termed an activity-based, problem-centered, or hands-on approach to education. Recently, however, some scholars have pointed out that there is a discipline-centered, social constructivist side to Dewey—both as an educator and a philosopher. This paper deals with this divergence of views, building a case for the fact that Dewey underwent a major shift in thinking at mid-career. Around 1915, I demonstrate, Dewey finally and firmly rejected James's extreme subjectivism in favor of Peirce's brand of pragmatism, which Dewey recognized integrates the biological and sociological aspects of knowledge and mind in a way that is unique and powerful. The educational implications of Dewey's Peircean shift are discussed.
Motivating People from Privileged Groups to Support Social Justice
Authors: Goodman Diane J.
Published: March 2003

One of the more challenging aspects of multicultural education is engaging people from dominant social groups (e.g., men, whites, heterosexuals) in promoting equity. This article presents a theoretical perspective for understanding what may motivate people from privileged groups to support diversity and social justice. The three main sources of motivation discussed are empathy, moral and spiritual values, and self-interest. The complexities and limitations of each are considered. A model is also proposed that broadens the conception of self-interest. Educational strategies are suggested to address these different sources of motivation. By better understanding what motivates someone to support diversity and equity, educators can more intentionally choose approaches that will engage individuals, and thus more effectively promote personal and institutional change.
Academic-Occupational Integration as a Reform Strategy for the Community College: Classroom Perspectives
Authors: Perin Dolores
Published: March 2003

Community colleges play an important role in educating the nation's workforce, and many students go to these institutions for occupational instruction in order to enter or advance in the labor market. However, community college occupational programs have been criticized for being narrow and insufficiently concerned with literacy and critical thinking. At the same time, academic instruction has been characterized as being irrelevant and unmotivating to students preparing for careers. Integrating occupational and academic instruction may help overcome these problems. A case study examined curriculum and pedagogy in integrated classrooms in seven community colleges in several states. Interviews with faculty and administrators identified purposes, advantages, and disadvantages of this approach. Drawbacks such as the large amount of effort needed to integrate instruction appeared to be outweighed by increases in student learning and faculty motivation. Classroom observations indicated variation in strength of integration, extent of student-centeredness, and explicitness of teaching. Findings suggest that integrated instruction has potential as an educational reform in community colleges but needs to be systematically evaluated. Further, the purposes of academic-occupational integration appear to overlap with those of remediation, suggesting that integrated instruction may be a productive way of addressing literacy weaknesses that are ubiquitous in community colleges.
Building a Plane While Flying It: Early Lessons from Developing Charter Schools
Authors: Griffin Noelle C. , Wohlstetter Priscilla
Published: March 2003

There has been a rapid increase in past years in both the number of charter schools in the United States and the enthusiasm for the concept among legislators, educators, and the general public. Although high quality teaching and learning have always been key goals of those who have designed and supported charter schools, most research about charter schools has not addressed the instructional and organizational issues associated with creating high quality educational programs. For this article, the authors investigated 17 charter schools focusing on key instructional and organizational practices that charter schools established in their start-up years. The authors identified three major categories of issues the schools dealt with that cut across all sample charter schools: developing curricular and instructional programs, developing a meaningful accountability system, and developing management/leadership systems. In each of these areas, charter schools displayed both strengths that supported their development and challenges that seemed to impede their progress. The authors conclude with recommendations for further research.
Education after Foucault: The Question of Civility
Authors: Mourad Roger
Published: March 2003

It is commonly believed that mass public education is fundamentally concerned with the advancement of Western civilization and national strength through the dissemination of knowledge and skills. The ways that we think about and conduct educational practices are also related in no small way to basic rights such as individual freedom. Individual rights in the West are themselves grounded in beliefs about human nature, rationality, and behavior. This philosophical work identifies and critiques these beliefs as they were developed and established during the formative period of individual rights. It explores how these beliefs are embedded in educational practices, using some of Michel Foucault's ideas to provide a contemporary critical context. An alternative interpretation of these foundations is offered that challenges basic ideas about the purposes of education. A direction is provided for further work.
The Brain-Mind Cycle of Reflection
Authors: Iran-Nejad Asghar , Gregg Madeleine
Published: March 2003

Educational researchers and practitioners agree that schooling must push beyond memorization into the realm of critical reflection. A model that facilitates instruction beyond the didactic approach, the input-elaboration-output model of constructive memory, has been used by many to describe the process of critical reflection. However, the current hegemony of this model has dampened the exploration, slowed the development, and limited the adoption (or even the consideration) of other perspectives. This paper discusses a theory of thinking, learning, and schooling based on recent developments in biofunctional cognition. At the heart of the theory is the notion that the brain-awareness-mind cycle, not the input-elaboration-output sequence, directly represents the natural course of human reflection. It is argued that what makes this brain-mind cycle of reflection possible is intuitive self-awareness. According to this theory, learning is best viewed not as the internalization of external knowledge but as wholetheme reorganization of the learner's own intuitive knowledge base. The application of the theory is illustrated with data from an experimental teacher education program.
The Relevance of Culture for the Study of Political Psychology and Ethnic Conflict
Authors: Ross Marc Howard
Published: March 2003

There is a powerful tension between the context‐specific analyses which figure prominently in the social sciences in recent years and the emphasis on universal human dynamics which characterizes cross‐cultural psychology. Using the example of ethnic conflict, I seek to bridge the two and suggest that underlying the thick description of single conflicts as the parties understand them is what an earlier generation of psychological anthropologists called “the psychic unity of mankind,” referring to deep structural similarities in all cultures, which make us human (Spiro, 1987). I propose that a cultural analysis of ethnic conflict can effectively build an explanation putting each conflict in a context which highlights what the parties believe is at stake; identifying both the concrete interests and threats to identity crucial to the disputants; linking interests and identities to psychocultural interpretations and the motives underlying them; and proposing that successful settlement of ethnic conflicts means that the parties themselves must actively work toward proposals which address both their competing interests and core identity needs.
Theoretical Conundrum: The Politics and Science of Theorizing Authoritarian Cognition
Authors: Durrheim Kevin
Published: March 2003

The historical development of the four main theories which have attempted to explain the relationship between cognitive style and ideological content—i.e., authoritarianism, extremism theory, context theory, and value pluralism theory—is analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. The discussion focuses on the manner in which the tensions between theoretical universalism and political critique have been “resolved” by theorists working in different historico‐political contexts. While both these scientific and political values have been of central concern in theorizing the link between cognitive style and content, they are deeply incompatible because it is not possible to establish a fixed relationship between a personality dimension and the changing beliefs associated with different ideologies across time and place. This has prompted theorists aiming for universalistic accounts to define ideological orientation in terms of psychological processes rather than content, which, in turn, has compromised the critical potential of their theory. The paper concludes that the historical development of the literature may be understood in terms of dilemmatic counter‐themes which, under different political circumstances, have been resolved in novel ways.
Trust, Mood, and Outcomes of Friendship Determine Preferences for Real Versus Ersatz Social Capital
Authors: Green Melanic C. , Brock Timothy C.
Published: March 2003

Societal‐level social capital ultimately rests upon individual attitudes and behaviors. This study investigated the determinants of individuals' preferences for real versus ersatz social activities. Ersatz social activities are substitutes for true social interaction; they involve interaction with media or media characters rather than other individuals. Undergraduates (N = 144) chose activities from pairs of social and ersatz exemplars. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. In two of these conditions, they wrote essays designed to create either a positive or negative mood; in the other two conditions, they read essays designed to highlight either the costs or benefits of friendship. Results indicated that individuals low in trust were susceptible to situational influences. Low‐trust individuals chose more real social activities when in a positive mood or when benefits of friendship were salient, whereas they chose ersatz social activities when in a bad mood or when costs of friendship were salient. High‐trust individuals showed relatively high preference for real social interactions regardless of mood or the salience of costs and benefits. These results suggest that appropriate interventions should overcome low trust to build social capital.
Practicing What We Preach? The Influence of a Societal Interest Value on Civic Engagement
Authors: Funk Carolyn L.
Published: March 2003

Recently, much attention has focused on declining levels of civic engagement as a symptom of a wide range of social ills. Some claim that Americans' tendency to endorse individualistic beliefs to the exclusion of a collective or societal interest value accounts for declining levels of civic engagement. This study investigated whether a value commitment to benefit the collective, called societal interest, helps to explain civic engagement. Data from the 1990–1992 National Election Studies panel study were used to evaluate whether a societal interest value helps to explain participation in community affairs and efforts to solve collective problems. The findings support the hypothesis that societal interest influences the likelihood of engaging in behavior to benefit the collective. These findings support the view that human behavior is influenced by multiple motives (including a desire to benefit the collective). Expressions of commitment to societal interest are more than mere lip service to noble ideals; they have real consequences for behavior.
Idealism or Pragmatism? An Operational Code Analysis of Yitzhak Rabin andShimon Peres
Authors: Crichlow Scott
Published: March 2003

This study quantitatively measured the operational codes of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres according to the Verbs in Context System (VICS) devised by Walker, Schafer, and Young (1998). Rabin's and Peres's basic propensities regarding the nature and conduct of foreign policy were then compared through analyses of variance, both to each other and across time. Three main trends were found in the results. First, both leaders' conception of their political environment changed over time, from basically conflictual in the 1970s to essentially neutral in the 1990s. Second, the remainder of Rabin's operational code, including a surprisingly strong predisposition to approach politics in a cooperative manner, was generally constant across time. Third, unlike Rabin, several other components of Peres's operational code underwent acute fluctuations, seemingly in response to the perceived different situational context. On the basis of these results and the operational code construct in general, a typology was created that classifies leaders according to their predisposition to pursue either cooperative or conflictual strategies and their level of responsiveness to their political environment.
The Perceptual Pathway: Tracing the Mechanisms of Political Value Transfer across Generations
Authors: Westholm Anders
Published: March 2003

The transfer of political values across generations is commonly understood as a two‐step process. First, the child perceives the characteristics of the parent, thereby creating an image of what the parent is like. Second, the child is persuaded to adapt his or her own views to that image. Despite its theoretical dominance, the details of this perceptual pathway of parentalsocialization have rarely been examined empirically. A major Swedish socialization study offers unusually good opportunities to investigate how it actually operates. The results indicate that the perceptual pathway as a whole is of great but not universal significance, that perception is more important than persuasion because of its greater variability, and that the conditions regulating the former are distinct from those regulating the latter. One implication of the results is that studies of interpersonal influence based on a single source (e.g., the child alone) are likely to yield a very lopsided view of the socialization process.
Culture Is More than a Static Residual: Introduction to the Special Section on Culture and Foreign Policy
Authors: Hudson Valerie M. , Sampson III Martin W.
Published: March 2003

The literature on international relations frequently refers to culture in broad, macro‐level ways to explain what cannot be explained by economic or military power. The assumptions that culture is simple, uniform and the opposite of power are, in the view of the authors, erroneous. Also, the authors note that there is a lack of scholarly interaction among psychologists interested in cross‐cultural phenomena and international relations specialists interested in questions of identity and foreign policy. As an introduction to a special section on culture and foreign policy, this article calls for more communication among these scholarly communities; provides a set of observations about foreign policy and culture understood as a complex, dynamic concept; and calls for specific kinds of studies to better understand foreign policy in the context of cultural complexity and richness.
Cultural Similarity, Foreign Policy Actions, and Regime Perception: An Experimental Study of International Cues and Democratic Peace
Authors: Geva Nehemia , Hanson D. Christopher
Published: March 2003

This study examines previous explanations of democratic peace in light of sociocultural factors and foreign policy actions that influence public perceptions of another country. Two experiments assessed the effects of relevant sociocultural and foreign policy action cues on perception of the regime type of a target nation and on public approval of the use of force. The findings suggest that sociocultural cues affect regime perception. Moreover, perceived similarity of a target nation and foreign policy actions are significant determinants of the public approval of the use of force in addition to perceptions of regime type.
Mass Response to the Lewinsky Scandal: Motivated Reasoning or BayesianUpdating?
Authors: Fischle Mark
Published: March 2003

This study attempts to account for the vastly different trajectories taken by mass andelite opinion in the wake of the Lewinsky affair. Data from a panel study, collected before andjust after the scandal broke, suggest that Clinton's prior popularity indelibly colored massresponse to the scandal, thereby constraining citizens' reactions. As would be predicted bytheories of “motivated reasoning,” the influence of various considerations (like thecredibility and importance of the allegations) on reactions to the scandal was conditional uponprior affect for the president. Such findings are difficult to accommodate within the more rational“Bayesian updating” perspective. These data shed light on mass response to theLewinsky scandal in particular and citizen reaction to presidential behavior more generally, aswell as on the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate motivated reasoning in candidate evaluation.
The Contributions of Political Life Events to Psychological Distress Among South African
Authors: Slone Michelle , Kaminer Debra , Durrheim Kevin
Published: March 2003

The psychological consequences of adverse political experiences among South African youth were studied in a sample of 540 black and white adolescents from two age groups, evenly divided by gender. Three questionnaires were administered, measuring exposure to political life events, the presence of symptoms of psychopathology, and stressful personal life events during the previous 5 years. The first hypothesis, predicting a substantial contribution of stressful political experiences to psychopathology, was strongly supported; when stressful personal life events were partialed out, a significant effect for political life events remained both on general distress and symptomatology indices. The second hypothesis of a linear relation between exposure to political life events and severity of distress was also confirmed. The findings underscore the enduring impact on children's mental health of past apartheid policies in South Africa specifically, and adverse political environments in general.
Issues in Assessing Psychological Characteristics at a Distance: An Introduction to the Symposium
Authors: Schafer Mark
Published: March 2003

This article provides an overview of the issues, methods, and constructs presented in the papers for the symposium Issues in Assessing Psychological Characteristics at a Distance. These papers share a substantive focus on the psychological characteristics of U.S. presidents and a common commitment to the use of ‘at‐a‐distance’ assessment techniques. In this context, at‐a distance measures raise several substantive and methodological issues, including the connections between leaders and advisors, the value of public versus private rhetoric, and differences between spontaneous and prepared source material. The authors of the papers use two psychological constructs, the operational code and conceptual complexity, to investigate these issues and to illustrate the utility of at‐a‐distance methods for assessing psychological characteristics.
Moral Reasoning Effects on Political Participation
Authors: Muhlberger Peter
Published: March 2003

In this study, respondents who agreed to participate in a computer‐administered interview were presented with information and questions about public interest groups, followed by the Defining Issues Test of moral reasoning (DIT). Respondents with high DIT scores stressed morally central over morally peripheral considerations in deciding whether to participate in public interest groups. Less sophisticated reasoners showed the opposite pattern. Morally central considerations also had a much greater impact on the probability that sophisticated respondents would attempt to participate in public interest groups after completing the interview. The analysis included controls for potential confounding variables such as cognitive ability, education, prior political participation, and gender. The findings imply motivational differences between advantaged and disadvantaged population groups. Such differences may help to account for the differing strategies and successes of political organizations mobilizing these groups.
The Silence of Psychologists
Authors: Bar‐On Dan
Published: March 2003

Unlike certain Israeli historians or sociologists who have developed a critical “post‐Zionist” approach, Israeli psychologists display few signs of this critical trend. This is especially disquieting in light of the latest back and forth movement between warfare to the peace process—a movement that created many new social and individual dilemmas that would benefit from an open debate within social and clinical psychology. This paper tries to account for this deficiency by looking at its possible historical, political, and cultural roots. The historical aspects relate to the influence of European and American psychological traditions. Two political aspects are presented: (1) Israeli psychologists, through their involvement in the military and their acceptance of the Zionist claim for security, tend to belong to the political mainstream (Gergen, 1973, 1989); and (2) a hyper‐political atmosphere scared Israeli psychologists into neutrality and objectivism. This provided a convenient rationale for apoliticism, especially when Israeli political polarization in the 1980s and 1990s was perceived as threatening psychologists' professional authority. Culturally, the psychologists, like the European social strata from which most of them originated, tended to adopt the American tradition of individualism as a reaction to the strong collectivist trend that dominated Israeli society during its early years. This may account for their weak and delayed social response of humanism, feminism, and constructivism. Exceptions to this general trend are highlighted, and the question of how Israeli psychology might become more politically sensitive and critical is explored. This discussion may have relevance for the development of political psychology in other societies, especially those going through transition of values or suffering from long, violent conflicts.
Political Psychology as Social Aesthetics
Authors: Christlieb Pablo Fernandez
Published: March 2003

Political psychology may be legitimately developed as a “social aesthetic.&;rdquo; Its activities generate social forms, much as in the arts. While logic works within the confines of society's language, aesthetic forms work with its sensibility, in the understanding that significance lies within the unitary wholes. In this sense, political psychology cannot be separated from psychology in general. In both cases we participate in the generation of form. However, because these forms enter society in significant ways, reflexive attention must be given to what it is we create. Mechanical forms, which are common to the field and to society generally, contribute to a condition of social alienation; in contrast, the form of a game is more closely related to the spontaneous creation of community.
A Social Psychological Approach to Enduring Rivalries
Authors: Thies Cameron G.
Published: March 2003

The recent scholarly work on the concept of enduring rivalries offers a promising way to examine strategic interaction among dyads of states over extended periods of time. A focus on rivalry, and on the mechanisms that provide for such interaction, may offer a way to bridge existing theories of international relations that rely exclusively on structure or process. Unfortunately, the potential for theory‐building has not been fully realized because research into rivalry has tended to be inductive. This paper seeks to rectify that problem by situating the rivalry concept within a social psychological approach to international relations. The rivalry concept is appropriately located in a theoretical approach that views the international system as a social system where actors are conditioned by mechanisms of competition and socialization.
Two Challenges for the New Century: Transforming Relationships in Whole Bodies Politic
Authors: Saunders Harold H.
Published: March 2003

Two challenges are posed for social scientists, one substantive and the other disciplinary. First, scholars and practitioners should together find ways to transform fragmented and conflictual relationships into relationships capable of building peaceful societies where human dignity is respected. Second, to achieve this goal, they should work to develop non‐disciplinary spaces where people from different disciplines can come together to create the requisite conceptual and methodological frameworks.
Seeds of promise: Developing a sustainable agricultural biotechnology industry in sub–Saharan Africa
Authors: Keese Paul , Galman–Omitogun Ofelia , Babafunso Sonaiya E.
Published: March 2003

In a continent ravaged by poverty, disease and malnutrition, agricultural practices have changed little over millennia. Of all the new technologies recently arisen, molecular biotechnology is one of the few that could signi ficantly improve the livelihoods of the large numbers of people in sub–Saharan Africa. Its impact could exceed that in the developed world, where a multi–billion dollar a year agricultural biotechnology industry has emerged, secured on the back of a highly skilled research and educational sector, extensive biosafety measures, and a strong corporate sector. For much of sub–Saharan Africa, the absence of these foundations constitutes a substantial hurdle to the development of a sustainable biotechnology industry. A critical element is the development of an indigenous and innovative agricultural biotechnology community — one that is responsive to African crops, farming practices and economic imperatives, yet sensitive to local concerns and biosafety issues surrounding use of the controversial GM technology.
Risk and Uncertainty Analysis in Government Safety Decisions
Authors: Paté‐Cornell Elisabeth
Published: March 2003

Probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) can be an effective tool to assess risks and uncertainties and to set priorities among safety policy options. Based on systems analysis and Bayesian probability, PRA has been applied to a wide range of cases, three of which are briefly presented here: the maintenance of the tiles of the space shuttle, the management of patient risk in anesthesia, and the choice of seismic provisions of building codes for the San Francisco Bay Area. In the quantification of a risk, a number of problems arise in the public sector where multiple stakeholders are involved. In this article, I describe different approaches to the treatments of uncertainties in risk analysis, their implications for risk ranking, and the role of risk analysis results in the context of a safety decision process. I also discuss the implications of adopting conservative hypotheses before proceeding to what is, in essence, a conditional uncertainty analysis, and I explore some implications of different levels of ``conservatism'' for the ranking of risk mitigation measures.
Risk Analysis and Risk Management in an Uncertain World1
Authors: Kunreuther Howard
Published: March 2003

The tragic attacks of September 11 and the bioterrorist threats with respect to anthrax that followed have raised a set of issues regarding how we deal with events where there is considerable ambiguity and uncertainty about the likelihood of their occurrence and their potential consequences. This paper discusses how one can link the tools of risk assessment and our knowledge of risk perception to develop risk management options for dealing with extreme events. In particular, it suggests ways that the members of the Society for Risk Analysis can apply their expertise and talent to the risks associated with terrorism and discusses the changing roles of the public and private sectors in dealing with extreme events.
Constructing Scientific Authorities: Issue Framing of Chlorinated Disinfection Byproducts in Public Health
Authors: Driedger S. Michelle , Eyles John , Elliott Susan D. , Cole Donald C.
Published: March 2003

The practice of chlorine disinfection of drinking water to reduce microbial risks provides substantial benefits to public health. However, increasing concern around potential risks of cancer associated with exposure to chlorinated disinfection byproducts confuses this issue. This article examines the science agenda regarding chlorinated disinfection byproducts (CDBP) and cancer in Canada and the United States, focusing on the social construction of scientific knowledge claims and evidence. Data for this analysis were obtained from published documents as well as from in‐depth interviews with epidemiologists and toxicologists centrally involved with the issue in both countries. Results of the analysis suggest that toxicological scientists want to close the door on the “chloroform issue” due to increasing evidence that chloroform is safe at low doses, because epidemiological scientists can no longer move forward the cancer science until significant improvements can be made in assessing human exposures, and because the scientific foci of research on DBP have shifted accordingly. Further, a distinction emerges in terms of how scientific uncertainties are interpreted when they cross‐cut disciplines in the context of human health risk assessment. We suggest this tension reflects a balance of how uncertainty and authorities are managed in a mandated science‐policy domain. Sufficient evidence was provided to keep the DBP issue on the regulatory agenda and to generate additional research, yet authorities and concomitant interpretations of uncertainty were contested. Such science generation and contestation inevitably influences complex risk assessment processes with respect to what water‐related health risks are addressed and how.
Risk/Risk Trade‐offs in Pesticide Regulation: An Exploratory Analysis of the Public Health Effects of a Ban on Organophosphate and Carbamate Pesticides
Authors: Gray George M. , Hammitt James K.
Published: March 2003

Efforts to reduce pesticide‐related risks to consumers and farmworkers often neglect the possibility that measures to reduce the target risk may introduce or enhance countervailing risks. These may arise from substitute pesticides or pest‐control practices, from increased levels of pests or pest‐related hazards, from increased levels of toxic natural pesticides in plants, from increased costs and decreased consumption of health‐enhancing fruits and vegetables, or from direct income effects on consumers and farmers. The effect of the countervailing risks may partially or completely offset the reduction in the target risk. A risk‐trade‐off analysis was conducted of a potential ban on the use of organophosphate and carbamate (OP/Carbamate) insecticides in U.S. agriculture. Although this scenario is extreme, it has the analytic virtue of dispensing with the infinite number of “next‐best” OP/Carbamates that might be substituted for specific combinations of crops and pests should only selected uses be banned. The analysis relies on detailed descriptions of the alternative pesticides and pest‐control measures that would be used for each of 14 major crops. The effects of pest‐control cost changes on prices and consumption and effects on consumer and producer incomes are projected using a general‐equilibrium economic model. Several countervailing risks that may be significant were found, including acute toxicity to farmworkers from substitute pesticides, cancer and noncancer risks from substitute pesticides, and mortality induced by changes in disposable income. Other countervailing risks are more difficult to estimate or weigh. Potential increases in natural plant pesticides following an OP/Carbamate ban are discussed but data are lacking to quantify the effects. Changes in diet following the ban have both positive and negative effects, and the ultimate change is difficult to estimate. Although a net risk cannot be estimated, several approaches were illustrated that would be useful in risk‐trade‐off analyses. Key factors complicating comprehensive analysis of risk/risk trade‐offs for pesticides were also identified, including data gaps and shortcomings of current risk assessment methods.
A Weighted Composite Dose – Response Model For Human Salmonellosis
Authors: Latimer Heejeong K. , Jaykus Lee‐Ann , Morales Roberta A. , Cowen Peter , Crawford‐Brown Douglas
Published: March 2003

This article describes the development of a weighted composite dose – response model for human salmonellosis. Data from previously reported human challenge studies were categorized into two different groups representing low and moderately virulent/pathogenic Salmonella strains based on a disease end point. Because epidemiological data indicate that some Salmonella strains are particularly pathogenic, and in the absence of human feeding study data for such strains, Shigella dysenteriae was used as a proxy for highly virulent strains. Three single‐hit dose – response models were applied to the human feeding study data and evaluated for best fit using maximum likelihood estimation: (1) the exponential (E‐1pop), (2) the two‐subpopulation exponential (E‐2pop), and (3) the Beta‐Poisson (BP). Based on the goodness‐of‐fit test, the E‐1pop and BP were the best‐fit models for low and moderately virulent/pathogenic Salmonella strains, and the E‐2pop and BP models were better for highly virulent/pathogenic strains. Epistemic analysis was conducted by determining the degree of confidence associated with the selected models, which was found to be 50%/50% (E‐1pop/BP) for low and moderately pathogenic Salmonella strains, and 9.8%/90.2% (E‐2pop/BP) for highly virulent strains. The degree of confidence for each component model and variations in the proportion of strains within each virulence/pathogenicity category were incorporated into the overall composite model. This study describes the influence of variation in strain virulence and host susceptibility on the shape of the population dose – response relationship.
Analytical Paradigms: The Epistemological Distances between Scientists, Policy Makers, and the Public
Authors: Garvin Theresa
Published: March 2003

The effective use of evidence and its resultant knowledge is increasingly recognized as critical in risk analysis. This, in turn, has led to a growing concern over issues of epistemology in risk communication, and, in particular, interest in how knowledge is constructed and employed by the key players in risk—scientists, policy makers, and the public. This article uses a critical theoretical approach to explore how evidence is recognized and validated, and how limits are placed on knowledge by scientists, policy makers, and the public. It brings together developments in the sociology of science, policy and policy development, public understandings of science, and risk communication and analysis to explicate the differing forms of rationality employed by each group. The work concludes that each group employs different, although equally legitimate, forms of rationality when evaluating evidence and generating knowledge around risky environment and health issues. Scientists, policy makers, and the public employ scientific, political, and social rationality, respectively. These differing forms of rationality reflect underlying epistemological distances from which can develop considerable misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
The Chemical Accident Risk Assessment Thesaurus: A Tool for Analyzing and Comparing Diverse Risk Assessment Processes and Definitions
Authors: Ignatowski A. J. , Rosenthal I.
Published: March 2003

The Chemical Accident Risk Assessment Thesaurus (CARAT) is a database of the laws, regulations, guidance documents, and definitions of terms related to the risk assessment of accidental releases of chemicals from fixed installations. The database also contains information on the application of risk assessment methodologies to specific examples of potential chemical releases. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development urged the development of the Thesaurus to improve the communication among the member countries about the risk assessment of hazardous installations. The difficulty of communication is based in large part on the fact that certain “terms of art” have different meanings in different countries and cultures, or that different terms of art are used to address the same concept. The CARAT is designed to circumvent these difficulties, and is especially useful as a tool to analyze the definitions of terms related to risk assessment. Entries into the CARAT contain information from various international, national, and regional agencies that relate to risk assessment processes and definitions focused on accidental chemical releases. The entire system is accessible via the Internet. Retrieval of information from the CARAT is facilitated by five different searching tools: two of them are designed to search the CARAT for its entries. One facility is designed to search for laws and regulations, specific risk assessment cases (SRA), and risk assessment guidance documents (RAG) related to chemical accidents. The second search facility deals with entries of definitions. The design of the CARAT is ideally suited to capture the sense of definitions that are expressed as either a procedural definition (an “operation on a concept”) or a conceptual definitions (just the “concept”). A powerful third query tool is the “Comparison” facility. This query tool allows the user to compare the details CARAT entries of laws and regulations, SRA, RAG, or definitions, in any combination. The remaining two tools can perform searches by identifying entries that contain either certain combinations of hierarchical or descriptor details. Both types can be conducted in Boolean “and/or” mode.
Ethnic Differences in Risk from Mercury among Savannah River Fishermen
Authors: Burger Joanna , Gaines Karen F. , Gochfeld Michael
Published: March 2003

Fishing plays an important role in people's lives and contaminant levels in fish are a public health concern. Many states have issued consumption advisories; South Carolina and Georgia have issued them for the Savannah River based on mercury and radionuclide levels. This study examined ethnic differences in risk from mercury exposure among people consuming fish from the Savannah River, based on site‐specific consumption patterns and analysis of mercury in fish. Among fish, there were significant interspecies differences in mercury levels, and there were ethnic differences in consumption patterns. Two methods of examining risk are presented: (1) Hazard Index (HI), and (2) estimates of how much and how often people of different body mass can consume different species of fish. Blacks consumed more fish and had higher HIs than Whites. Even at the median consumption, the HI for Blacks exceeded 1.0 for bass and bowfin, and, at the 75th percentile of consumption, the HI exceeded 1.0 for almost all species. At the White male median consumption, noHI exceeded 1, but for the 95th percentile consumer, the HI exceeded 1.0 almost regardless of which species were eaten. Although females consumed about two thirds the quantity of males, HIs exceeded 1 for most Black females and for White females at or above the 75th percentile of consumption. Thus, close to half of the Black fishermen were eating enough Savannah River fish to exceed HI = 1. Caution must be used in evaluating an HI because the RfDs were developed to protect the most vulnerable individuals. The percentage of each fish species tested that exceeded the maximum permitted limits of mercury in fish was also examined. Over 80% of bowfin, 38% of bass, and 21% of pickerel sampled exceeded 0.5 ppm. The risk methodology is applicable anywhere that comparable data can be obtained. The risk estimates are representative for fishermen along the Savannah River, and are not necessarily for the general populations.
An Exploratory Study of Variations in Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the United States
Authors: Subramaniam Ravi P. , Turim Jay , Golden Steven L. , Kral Preeti , Anderson Elizabeth L.
Published: March 2003

There is considerable interest in assessing exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and in understanding the factors that affect exposure at various venues. The impact of these complex factors can be researched only if monitoring studies are carefully designed. Prior work by Jenkins et al. gathered personal monitor and diary data from 1,564 nonsmokers in 16 metropolitan areas of the United States and compared workplace exposures to ETS with exposures away from work. In this study, these data were probed further to examine (1) the correspondence between work and away‐from‐work exposure concentrations of ETS; (2) the variability in exposure concentration levels across cities; and (3) the association of ETS exposure concentrations with select socioeconomic, occupation, and lifestyle variables. The results indicate (1) at the population level, there was a positive association between ETS concentrations at the work and away‐from‐work environments; (2) exposure concentration levels across the 16 cities under consideration were highly variable; and (3) exposure concentration levels were significantly associated with occupation, education, household income, age, and dietary factors. Workplace smoking restrictions were associated with low ETS concentration levels at work as well as away from work. Generally, the same cities that exhibited either lower or higher away‐from‐work exposure concentration levels also showed lower or higher work exposure concentration levels. The observations suggest that similar avoidance characteristics as well as socioeconomic and other lifestyle factors that affect exposure to ETS may have been in operation in both away‐from‐work and work settings.