MEASURING LEVELS OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION DOES QUESTION ORDER MATTER?

This article examines whether asking the vote question beforeparty identification alters the strength of partisanship andits relationship to vote choice. It employs the 1992 BritishElection Survey, which included a random split half-sample experiment,and the 1992–93 American Election Study Panel, where thequestion order for party identification and the vote were changed.The results show that altering the question ordering had verylittle effect in Britain and no significant effect in the UnitedStates. These results are consistent with the notion that partyidentification is one of the more enduring and stable componentsof mass political behavior in both presidential and parliamentarysystems.     

An update on the Kevorkian-Reding 93 physician-assisted deaths in Michigan: is Kevorkian a savior,serial-killer or suicidal martyr?

This report presents an update of the Kevorkian-Reding physician-assisted (or physician-aided) deaths to include the ninety-three publicly acknowledged cases as of November 25, 1998. These deaths are divided into ten distinct time phases. The following trends emerge. Over two-thirds of the decedents are women, the ratio of females to males varying widely with phase. The proportion of women seems to be the highest when Kevorkian is free to act as he wants and lowest when he seems to be acting under legal or political restraints. Based on autopsy results, only 29.0 percent of the cases are terminal, this percentage being higher among men (37.9%) than among women (25.4%). However, 66.7% of the decedents were disabled, no significant difference emerging between men and women. Further, five out of the six decedents showing no apparent anatomical sign of disease at autopsy were women. Over 80 percent of the physician-assisted deaths are cremated, approximately twice as high a proportion as that emerging for suicides in Michigan and four times as high as cremations occurring with regard to overall deaths. Finally, death by carbon monoxide decreases dramatically with time phase while the use of the contraption dubbed the "suicide machine" increases, suggesting an increasing routinization over time. Finally, during the ninth and tenth phases, Kevorkian's aims and his own suicidality emerge more clearly involving 1) harvesting organs and 2) threat of starving himself in prison if he is convicted. Phase 10 can be seen as an escalation from assisted death to overt euthanasia, repeating the same need for a demonstration (Thomas Youk) that was first exhibited in Phase I (Janet Adkins).     

Father's Occupation and Son's Personality: Findings and Questions for the Emerging Linkage Hypothesis*

In the past decade an impressive body of research has accumulated on the association between social structure and personality. An important development in that literature has been the emergence of a linkage hypothesis relating the personality of the child to the characteristics of the father's occupation through the intervening linkages of father's personality and family socialization. This study uses survey data from senior males in twenty high schools to make a partial test of the occupational linkage hypothesis. We examine the relationship between the occupational complexity of the father's job and the son's achievement patterns and work orientations while controlling for the related variables of family income, father's education, and occupational status. The findings and interpretations raise questions for the occupational linkage hypothesis. When related extrinsic aspects of the father's occupation are controlled adequately, there are no direct relationships between the substantive complexity of the father's job and son's personality as measured in this study. Thus, we conclude that previous research findings on the occupational linkage hypothesis are open to alternative interpretations and that satisfactory evidence for the full, cross-generational linkage hypothesis does not yet exist.     

Present positions and future prospects in management science

This paper offers some thoughts on the present state of management science as a discipline and a profession, and considers possible developmental strategies. The growth of management science, and the optimism this engendered, was largely premised on the successful use of scientific methodology and quantitative techniques to solve a relatively narrow range of management problems. In the 1970s, however, this positivist/quantitative ‘traditional management science’ became subject to increasing critical assault from those who wanted to broaden the impact of the discipline. Alternative management science approaches were born—soft systems thinking, organisational cybernetics, critical management science—and succeeded in establishing themselves. The existence of these alternative strands of work, alongside traditional management science, raises important questions about the future development of the discipline and profession. In this paper four developmental possibilities are set down and examined to see what future prospects they hold out for management science. It is argued that three of these—the isolationist, imperialist and pragmatist strategies—would lead the discipline into a dead end. A pluralist option, however, offers excellent opportunities for successful, future development.     

The simulation of industrial robot systems

This paper describes the GRASP computer aided design system for modelling and evaluating industrial robot workplaces. GRASP satisfies a range of simulation needs within the context of designing, implementing and operating industrial robotic systems. The GRASP software may be used to investigate robots operating by themselves or, more likely, as part of an integrated cell. Facilities within GRASP assist workplace layout, position and velocity evaluations, clash detection and co-ordination between items. A robot library exists and is being extended, and an embryo off-line programming facility has been used under restricted conditions. GRASP has been used to help solve a wide range of practical industrial robot problems and has proved itself technically, and also as an educational tool, by showing how a proposed system would operate. The paper describes the facilities within GRASP.     

The future for wool

Single dimensional projections are inadequate to determine what the future holds. A wide variety of economic, technological and social changes will influence the future environment for wool and other fibres. In these circumstances, and bearing in mind that, for planning purposes, strategic assumptions are often markedly superior to firm predictions, a set of alternative scenarios is a useful instrument. Consideration of some brief scenarios leads to the conclusion that wool's future depends, in no small measure, upon the actions of the wool-growing industry and governments of wool exporting countries.     

Michigan versus Kevorkian

Our personal reflections on the Michigan versus Kevorkian trial highlight the following issues: 1) the switch from physician-assisted suicide to euthanasia, 2) the television showing of the death, 3) the dropping of the prosecution of the charge of physician-assisted suicide, 4) Kevorkian serving as his own defense attorney, trying to argue that ALS was a secondary cause of Thomas Youk's death, 5) Kevorkian's attempt to employ a logical syllogism to demonstrate that euthanasia need not be murder, 6) Kevorkian's initial reference to the civil rights tradition but sudden change to the medical analogy of Nazi medicine: a final solution, 7) the insistence of Kevorkian on "all or nothing" sentencing, 8) the irony of Kevorkian being finally convicted by a prosecutor who was elected on a platform of not prosecuting Kevorkian, 9) Kevorkian hiring a lawyer after the verdict is in, and 10) Kevorkian's threat to starve himself to death if sent to prison.     

Introduction to ‘Reclaiming democracy from below: from the contemporary state capitalist system to peoples’ sovereignty’

ABSTRACT

This Special Forum is based on a collective dialogue between place-based struggles to defend rights and territories and the dynamics of global trends. Behind apparently fragmented battles we see an emerging common vision, like a mosaic composed of separate tiles, building towards emancipation and justice. Based on discussions in a workshop in Siena in November 2018, the Forum assembles some pieces of the mosaic through five thematic articles crafted in exchanges between social movement, academic and civil society activists. In this Introduction we review other current convergence efforts looking at two related dimensions: sharing ideas and analysis in order to develop a common understanding of global evolutions, and bringing people together to take transformative action by building shared spaces, alliances, campaigns and solidarity. We then situate the Siena workshop and the People's Sovereignty process that has grown from it in this broader context. Finally, we introduce the five articles.