CENTRAL EUROPE GOES POSTCOLONIAL: NEW APPROACHES TO THE HABSBURG EMPIRE AROUND 1900

This contribution gives a short outline of an international research project which started in Vienna in 2001, entitled ‘Power,Ethnicity and Literature in Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918’. This project is proposing a quasi-postcolonial view on the culture(s) of the late Habsburg monarchy and their identity construction/identity politics.     

A RESPONSE TO HEIM AND SNYDER

This article comments on a recent study by Heim and Snyder (1991) which explores the interaction between marital distress and spouses' attributions in predicting depression. We suggest taht the attributional theory model may set up a reductionistic research stance that potentially separates what depressed people think from their circumstances and history, thus implying a linear relationship between thinking, depression, and, in this case, marital distress. We also question whether the authors' focus on women's attributional processes, combined with their reliance on a potentially unidimensional model of depression, might inadvertently support preexisting power imbalances in the marital relationship. Finally, we address research design issues regarding measurement, sampling, and statistical concerns.     

A DIALECTICAL RESPONSE TO LEVINE'S FRENCH TRADITION

In this paper I examine and critique Donald Levine's treatment of the French Tradition' in sociological thought. After summarizing Levine's account of the development of the French tradition, I discuss the identification of the French tradition with the work of Durkheim, and discuss the reasons for the predominance of Durkheim's work over and above other plausible candidates for exemplars of the French tradition of sociology. I then use this discussion to problematize the identification of sociological theories with national traditions, and the idealist framework that Levine uses to discuss the development of sociological thought.     

KEEPING SYMBOLIC INTERACTION SAFE FROM SEMIOTICS: A RESPONSE TO HARMAN

This article provides a critique of the particular way in which Lesley D. Harman has proposed to accommodate Symbolic Interaction to semiotic theory and method. Harman's argument rests on a belief in the reality of the nature/culture dimension as prior to semiotic or sociological theory. According to Harman's view, nature is the realm of determinism, culture is the realm of freedom, and social theory ought to align itself with freedom and culture. A semiotic alternative based on Peirce's concept of the sign is suggested. The alternative socio-semiotic approach opens the possibility of studying both cultural determinism and creative processes in nature.     

DEADWEIGHT LOSSES AND THE SAVING RESPONSE TO A DEFICIT

Several recent empirical studies have challenged the conventional wisdom that deficits cause a higher interest rate. Many economists are, however, critical of the seemingly implied theoretical justification—that every individual fully recognizes the size of the deficit and the extent to which it increases future tax liabilities. This paper demonstrates that far weaker information assumptions are needed to obtain an aggregate savings response equal to the deficit: a reallocation of deadweight losses causes Ricardians to save more than their share of the deficit to keep consumption unaffected, allowing for a substantial fraction of Keynesians who save less than their share.     

ECONOMIC RESPONSE TO A CRIME DETERRENCE PROGRAM: MANDATORY SENTENCING FOR ROBBERY WITH A FIREARM

This paper reports the results of the application of intervention analysis, an interrupted times series methodology, to test the deterrent response of criminal offenders faced with changes in the penalty structure for the crime of robbery with a firearm. The results are consistent with the hypothesis of general deterrence as set out by Becker and extended theoretically and tested empirically by others. Offenders in Arizona metropolitan areas rapidly reduced the number of robberies with a firearm supplied as penalties for firearm use became more severe. This finding suggests legislation which punishes those who choose to use such weapons in illegal activities may be effective while leaving intact the rights of private citizens to own firearms. One disturbing finding was that a Portion of the deterrent effect of harsher mandatory sentencing for firearm use in robbery may have been offset by substitution of other types of robbery not covered by the new legislation.     

RESPONSE BIAS IN A POPULAR INDICATOR OF READING TO CHILDREN

This paper examines the hypothesis that parents exaggerate their reading with children aged 3 to 5 when asked typical single-item questions and that the extent of exaggeration is greater for better-educated parents. It examines differences in parental reporting of reading to children that may result from differences in response bias. It examines whether differences in reading with children by race/ethnicity, income, and family structure hold up after controlling for maternal education and other factors. Finally, it examines whether any bias we find affects the relationship between reading and achievement test scores. Data are from the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative sample of children and their parents who were asked detailed questions about their lives and activities in 1997.     

RESPONSE LATENCY AS A SIGNAL TO QUESTION PROBLEMS IN SURVEY RESEARCH

This research explores the potential utility of response latencyas an index of question problems in survey research. The timerespondents took to answer three types of bad questions wascompared to the time they took to answer the repaired versionsof the questions. Questions containing a superfluous negativeand double-barreled questions took longer to answer than nearlyidentical questions without these problems. Repaired versionsof questions soliciting frequency estimates, however, took longerto answer than their problematic counter parts. The resultsare discussed in the context of a model of question answering,and their implications for survey methodology are explored.     

EXPORT INSTABILITY AND LONG-TERM CAPITAL FLOWS: RESPONSE TO ASSET RISK IN A SMALL ECONOMY

An open capital account allows long-term capital flows to automatically mitigate adverse effects of export instability on domestic saving and investment. An application of portfolio management theory shows that risks that are systematic to the domestic market are diversified internationally. This may help explain why foreign investment finances many high-risk investments in export sectors of LDCs and why results of studies of the effects of export instability show inconsistent results. This theory is presented and tested empirically.     

PHYSICIAN RESPONSE TO A MAILED SURVEY AN EXPERIMENT IN TIMING OF PAYMENT

This article reports the results of an experiment in obtainingphysician response to a mailed questionnaire. Each physicianwas eligible for a payment of $20. A randomly selected halfreceived the payment with their initial questionnaire and coverletter; half were told they would receive their payment afterthey completed and returned the questionnaire. The same mailand telephone followup procedures were used for both groups.Overall, prepayment had significant positive effects on responserates. This paper examines these effects in terms of responserates for various specialties, field efficiencies, cost, andrepresentativeness of the sample.     

CINEMA 3: TOWARDS A 'MINOR HONG KONG CINEMA'

This article canvasses the way Hong Kong cinema became modern, at the moment and the place when/where it had to come up with new cinematic images in response to new geo-historical situations. I call it a ‘minor Hong Kong cinema’ in the sense that it is a cinema that deterritorializes within the heart of what is considered major. This minor cinema is not at all just a cinema at the margin. It is rather a strategy to conceptualize and develop certain suggestive examples in order to respond to specific geo-historical situations. While this minor cinema cannot represent the whole of Hong Kong cinema, it also highlights the potentialities of Hong Kong cinema that cannot be covered by dominant discourses on Hong Kong. This article focuses upon the films of Fruit Chan. In Fruit Chan's ‘Hong Kong 1997 Trilogy’, 1997 is neither the beginning of recollections nor the end of Hong Kong. These films dwell upon the failed, the vanished, and the underrepresented to make Hong Kong appear at the intriguing moment of 1997. They explore new perspectives for re-channelling Hong Kong and its histories.