Shi’i division over the Iraqi state: decentralization and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq

ABSTRACT

This article traces the evolving political platform of one of Iraq’s oldest and most powerful Shi’i political parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). Drawing on an analysis of 15 years of primary materials produced by ISCI, it focuses principally on their promotion of decentralization as a path towards peace and stability in Iraq. However, the article also traces the origins of a deep schism that emerged within ISCI between the movement’s old guard who were beholden to the Iranian regime and their model of vilāyat-i faqīh, and the youth-led Iraqi nationalist faction who wanted to see the instalment of a civil government without religious oversight. The article demonstrates that this division is indicative of a theological debate between Shi’i religious scholars over differing interpretations of the role of Shi’ism in politics. The article concludes by arguing that understanding the extent to which such esoteric religious debates manifest themselves politically is crucial to interpreting divisions within Shi’ism not just in Iraq, but across the broader Middle East.     

Quantitative models in crime control

In this study we propose several mathematical models for describing the behavior of crime-related systems. In the first part is presented a simple model for describing and measuring crime systems with recidivism. This model may be used in estimating the quantitative effects of alternative policies on crime rates. An important factor not recognized by the model is deterrence. One derivative of the mathematical analyses is a proposed method for measuring the relative severity of sentencing in a given system. The second part of the paper deals with the criminal population as a whole, trying to bring into account the non-stationary behavior of the system. This study should be regarded as a preliminary attempt to develop elementary mathematical models fitting crime systems. Some of the assumptions do not have substantial direct support by data.     

Relationships between Social Information Processing and Aggression among Adolescent Girls with and without ADHD

This study investigated the relationship between social information processing (SIP) and both relational and overt, physical aggression in a longitudinally-followed sample of 228 adolescent girls (ages 11–18; 140 with ADHD and 88 comparison girls). During childhood, girls participated in naturalistic summer camps where peer rejection, overt physical aggression, and relational aggression were assessed via multiple informants and methods. Approximately 4.5 years later, these girls participated in follow-up assessments during which they completed a commonly-used vignette procedure to assess SIP; overt and relational aggression were again assessed through multiple informants. Correlations between (a) overt and relational aggression and (b) maladaptive SIP were modest in this female adolescent sample. However, relationships between aggression and SIP were stronger for the comparison girls than for the girls with ADHD. The relevance of SIP models for adolescent girls and clinical implications of findings are discussed.

Unitary regulatory supervision or multi-entity supervision? A computational approach to a numbers problem in financial regulation

Policymakers globally have debated (and often implemented) the idea of consolidating numerous financial regulatory supervisory entities into one unitary entity. This article uses a computational model to explore the effect such a decision would have on supervisory performance. Using insights from organizational scholarship on consensus-making among individuals within organizations, the simulation suggests that under most conditions a unitary supervisory entity yields lower performance than smaller, numerous entities with unique mandates, keeping the number of regulatory inspectors constant. This result arises from the heterogeneity of perspectives being shared within the entity and the influence of precedent actions. The results also show a decreasing utility to disaggregation: performance decreases when too few inspectors share among themselves in building consensus. When insufficient heterogeneity within supervisors exists, unitary frameworks outperform multi-entity frameworks. These findings have implications on the design of supervisory frameworks and contribute to research on consensus-building, heterogeneous group membership, and computational modeling.