Making civic engagement go viral: Applying social epidemiology principles to civic education

This paper explores the connections between education for youth civic engagement and theories and strategies from public health (specifically, epidemiology). We illustrate this with four applications of epidemiologic theory to youth civic engagement: social determinants and fundamental causes, vulnerable populations and cumulative disadvantage, positive spillover, and herd immunity and critical mass. Formalizing concepts of current civics, in schools and the public, as a civic epidemic, we present a case for individual‐ and group‐level interventions based around targeted, school‐based, effective civic education initiatives. Grounded in epidemiological theory, such approaches call attention to the simultaneous need to improve broad civics education and ensure that particular populations receive necessary attentions.     

Governing Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction: The Case of Pennsylvania

Over the past decade, directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing enabled an unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) boom in many regions of the United States, including parts of Pennsylvania. This revolution has created serious concerns about the capability of existing institutions to govern important societal outcomes associated with UOGE. We present a conceptual framework for assessing key societal outcomes influenced by UOGE governance. In applying this framework to Pennsylvania, we discern certain institutional strengths that have allowed the Commonwealth to reap appreciable short‐term economic growth from rich resource endowments. We also find, however, that several institutional weaknesses have allowed costs externalized to the environment, public health, and community integrity to offset some proportion of those economic benefits. Likewise, we find that governance of UOGE in Pennsylvania has contributed to a bifurcated sociopolitical landscape wherein adversarial coalitions dispute the legitimacy of the industry and its governance.     

Does Perceived Injury Explain the Effects of Gender on Attributions of Blame for Intimate Partner Violence? A Factorial Vignette Analysis

Perpetrator and victim gender influence how blame is assigned in intimate partner violence (IPV) scenarios. Although men’s differential capacity to inflict and sustain harm is posited as the reason male perpetrators and victims receive more blame for IPV, it is possible that other aspects of the construct of gender, such as gender role beliefs, underscore these effects. Using a sample of 323 college students and a factorial vignette design that varied body sizes and genders of victims and perpetrators, we examined the extent to which perceptions of physical injury accounted for the effects of perpetrator and victim gender on blame attributions, and whether adherence to traditional gender roles moderated any influences of gender unassociated with perceived injury. For female perpetrators, participants estimated lower levels of perceived injury and greater victim blame, with the former effect predominantly accounting for the latter. Male victims were viewed as less injured and more blameworthy, but the latter finding was not predominantly driven by injury perceptions. Perceived physical injury also did not account for why females perpetrating against males were blamed least. Controlling for differences in perceived injury, those holding more traditional gender views blamed victims of female violence more than victims of male-perpetrated violence. Notably, variations in body physical size were not associated with injury perceptions or blame attributions. These findings overall suggest that gender does influence blame attributions by way of perceived physical injury, but other aspects of the construct of gender are also relevant to these evaluations.

     

Books Received

Criminal Law Forum -     

North Korea’s Shadow Economy: A Force for Authoritarian Resilience or Corrosion?

An unofficial or ‘shadow’ economy like that in contemporary North Korea generates countervailing pressures for a socialist regime. It can buttress the regime by facilitating the cynical use of anti-market laws, alleviating shortages, helping the official economy to function, and creating vested interests in the status quo. On the other hand, the shadow economy can corrode the regime’s power by diminishing its control over society, encouraging scepticism about collective ideologies, and providing networks and material that can be used for opposition to the state. This article analyses these tensions in the DPRK, by drawing on 35 semi-structured interviews with North Korean defectors.