Indonesia's Accountability Trap: Party Cartels and Presidential Power after Democratic Transition

Page range: 61-92The fall of Indonesia’s New Order regime set the stage for more competitive elections, but not necessarily for more competitive elites. Party and military leaders have primarily responded to democratic transition by sharing power rather than competing for it, especially by ensuring that all major political groupings enjoy lucrative and powerful positions in the cabinet. The recent introduction of direct presidential elections has inadvertently threatened to unsettle this cozy and collusive elite arrangement—but only at the risk of restoring dangerous patterns of presidential domination

Cameras in the Courts: Can We Trust the Research?

In several recent court cases, television viewers throughout the nation were able to see excerpts of actual trial testimony on network newscasts. These opportunities for camera coverage have come about as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s 1981 decision in Chandler v. Florida. In that case the Court ruled that each state was free to determine whether to permit extended media coverage, including camera coverage, in its courts, and to set appropriate guidelines for such coverage. Before adopting permanent rules for camera coverage, most states have conducted one year tests — which they have called experiments — during which time camera coverage is permitted, monitored, and evaluated. But what do these experiments tell us? What kind of research has been conducted to evaluate the impact of cameras in the courts? We contend that the research conducted so far provides inadequate evidence on which to base permanent rulemaking

Plain Crazy: Lay Definitions of Legal Insanity

The 1982 Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) verdict in the trial of John Hinckley, Jr., would-be assassin of President Reagan, again has brought to the forefront long-standing public dissatisfaction in the United States with the insanity plea. In the wake of the Hinckley verdict, proposals for reform or abolition of the insanity defense have been submitted to both houses of the U.S. Congress and to state legislatures throughout the nation (Cunningham, 1983). Fueling this reform movement is apparent public dissatisfaction with the insanity plea as it is currently defined. In contrast to voluminous literature concerning legal and psychiatric perspectives on the insanity plea, very little has been written on the public’s perception of the defense. This is the case in spite of the public’s apparent role as impetus for recent legal changes. It is important to consider the public’s views because such views may affect the legitimacy of the defense as well as verdicts in specific insanity cases. As part of a larger study on reactions to the Hinckley trial (Hans & Slater, 1983), we asked a random sample of Delaware residents what they thought was the test of legal insanity. Only 1 of our 434 respondents gave a reasonably good approximation of the Model Penal Code definition of legal insanity which was used in the Hinckley trial and was employed in Delaware at the time of that trial. The obvious divergence of lay views of legal insanity from the actual legal definition in our sample directed us to explore the substance of lay perceptions. The purpose of the present paper is to report in detail the full range of our sample’s definitions of legal insanity and to examine demographic correlates of those definitions

Public Opinion of Forensic Psychiatry Following the Hinckley Verdict

The authors obtained opinions of forensic psychiatry in a community survey following the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict in the Hinckley trial. A majority of respondents expressed little or no confidence in the specific psychiatric testimony in the Hinckley trial and only modest faith in the general ability of psychiatrists to determine legal insanity. Respondents\u27 general and specific attitudes were strongly related. Younger people and women were more positive in their views of psychiatry in the courtroom

John Hinckley, Jr. and the Insanity Defense: The Public\u27s Verdict

Public furor over the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict in the trial of John Hinckley, Jr. already has stimulated legal changes in the insanity defense. This study documents more systematically the dimensions of negative public opinion concerning the Hinckley verdict. A survey of Delaware residents shortly after the trial\u27s conclusion indicated that the verdict was perceived as unfair, Hinckley was viewed as not insane, the psychiatrists\u27 testimony at the trial was not trusted, and the vast majority thought that the insanity defense was a loophole. However, survey respondents were unable to define the legal test for insanity and thought Hinckley would be confined only a short period of time, contrary to the estimates of experts. These findings, in conjunction with other research showing the public is not well informed about the insanity defense, underscore the importance of examining determinants of opinion about the insanity defense before additional reform is undertaken

Early Postoperative Outcomes and Medication Cost Savings after Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy in Morbidly Obese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Background. We investigated the effect of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) on morbidly obese diabetics and examined the short-term impact of LSG on diabetic medication cost. Methods. A prospective database of consecutive bariatric patients was reviewed. Morbidly obese patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent LSG were included in the study. Age, gender, body mass index (BMI), diabetic medication use, glucose, insulin, and HbA1c levels were documented preoperatively, and at 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months postoperatively. Insulin resistance was estimated using the homeostatic model assessment (HOMA). Use and cost of diabetic medications were followed. Results. Of 178 patients, 22 were diabetics who underwent LSG. Diabetes remission was observed in 62% of patients within 2 months and in 75% of patients within 12 months. HOMA-IR improved after only two weeks following surgery (16.5 versus 6.6, P < 0.001). Average number of diabetic medications decreased from 2.2 to <1, within 2 weeks after surgery; corresponding to a diabetes medication cost savings of 80%, 91%, 99%, and 99.7% after 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months, respectively. Conclusion. Morbidly obese patients with diabetes who undergo LSG have high rates of diabetes remission early after surgery. This translates to a significant medication cost savings

Ecohydrologically important subsurface structures in peatlands revealed by ground-penetrating radar and complex conductivity surveys.

The surface pattern of vegetation influences the composition and humification of peat laid down during the development of a bog, producing a subsurface hydrological structure that is expected to affect both the rate and pattern of water flow. Subsurface peat structures are routinely derived from the inspection of peat cores. However, logistical limits on the number of cores that can be collected means that the horizontal extent of these structures must be inferred. We consider whether subsurface patterns in peat physical properties can be mapped in detail over large areas with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and complex conductivity by comparing geophysical measurements with peat core data along a 36 m transect through different microhabitats at Caribou Bog, Maine. The geophysical methods show promise. Peat horizons produced radar reflections because of changes in the volumetric moisture content. Although these reflections could not be directly correlated with the peat core data, they were related to the depth-averaged peat properties which varied markedly between the microhabitats. Well-decomposed peat below a hollow was characterized by a discontinuous sequence of chaotic wavy reflections, while distinct layering of the peat below an area of hummocks coincided with a pattern of parallel planar reflections. The complex conductivity survey showed spatial variation in the real and imaginary conductivities which resulted from changes in the pore water conductivity; peat structures may also have influenced the spatial pattern in the complex conductivity. The GPR and complex conductivity surveys enabled the developmental history of the different microhabitats along the studied transect to be inferred

War makes the regime: regional rebellions and political militarization worldwide

War can make states, but can it also make regimes? This article brings the growing literatures on authoritarianism and coups into conversation with the older research tradition analyzing the interplay between war and state formation. The authors offer a global empirical test of the argument that regional rebellions are especially likely to give rise to militarized authoritarian regimes. While this argument was initially developed in the context of Southeast Asia, the article deepens the original theory by furnishing a deductively grounded framework embedded in rational actor approaches in the coup and civil-military literatures. In support of the argument, quantitative tests confirm that regional rebellions make political militarization more likely not simply in a single region, but more generally

Painlev\'e V and a Pollaczek-Jacobi type orthogonal polynomials

We study a sequence of polynomials orthogonal with respect to a one parameter family of weights w(x):=w(x,t)=\rex^{-t/x}\:x^{\al}(1-x)^{\bt},\quad t\geq 0, defined for $x\in[0,1].$ If $t=0,$ this reduces to a shifted Jacobi weight. Our ladder operator formalism and the associated compatibility conditions give an easy determination of the recurrence coefficients. For $t>0,$ the factor \rex^{-t/x} induces an infinitely strong zero at $x=0.$ With the aid of the compatibility conditions, the recurrence coefficients are expressed in terms of a set of auxiliary quantities that satisfy a system of difference equations. These, when suitably combined with a pair of Toda-like equations derived from the orthogonality principle, show that the auxiliary quantities are a particular Painlev\'e V and/or allied functions. It is also shown that the logarithmic derivative of the Hankel determinant, D_n(t):=\det(\int_{0}^{1} x^{i+j} \:\rex^{-t/x}\:x^{\al}(1-x)^{\bt}dx)_{i,j=0}^{n-1}, satisfies the Jimbo-Miwa-Okamoto $\sigma-$form of the Painlev\'e V and that the same quantity satisfies a second order non-linear difference equation which we believe to be new.Comment: 23 pages, typos corrected, references adde

Three and four current reversals versus temperature in correlation ratchets with a simple sawtooh potential

Transport of Brownian particles on a simple sawtooth potential subjected to both unbiased thermal and nonequilibrium symmetric three-level Markovian noise is considered. The new effects of three and four current reversals as a function of temperature are established in such correlation ratchets. The parameter space coordinates of the fixed points associated with these current reversals and the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the novel current reversals are found.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; some changes introduced; accepted for publication in Physical Review