RACIAL–ETHNIC INTOLERANCE AND SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISON*

This article tests cross-nationally the minority group threat thesis that public sentiments toward repressive crime-control policies reflect conflicted racial and ethnic relations. Using multiple data sets representing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, East and West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and Portugal, we examine whether racial and ethnic intolerance—animus, resentments, or negative sentiments toward minorities—predicts greater support for the death penalty. Our results reveal that the respondents were significantly more likely to express support for capital punishment if they were racially or ethnically intolerant while controlling for other covariates of public opinion. These findings indicate that the link between support for capital punishment and racial and ethnic animus may occur universally in countries with conflicted racial and ethnic relations.     

Identifying Welfare State Regimes: The Links Between Politics, Instruments and Outcomes

With new sources of cross-national data appearing on income distribution and the characteristics of redistributional policy instruments, it is now possible to take the comparative analysis of welfare states well beyond the conventional focus on government expenditures. This study of 18 OECD nations examines the linkages between various aspects of the income redistribution process, elaborates a typology of welfare state regimes and locates the political origins of each of these regimes.     

Is America Ready for a Post‐American World?

Globalization may not be coming apart at the seams—yet—but the seams are ever more apparent. Rising fuel prices challenge a model of global transportation based on cheap energy, reinforcing the possibility of decoupling through great regionaliza‐tion of trade. Already, 50 percent of trade among ASEAN plus China and Japan is among each other. The Wall Street meltdown has spread a lack of confidence in the American financial system and the model of deregulation which stimulated rapid globalization of capital flows. Along with other developments, all this raises the question of whether the United States is prepared to operate successfully in a world it no longer dominates. An anti‐globalization leader, a former US labor secretary, a top American intellectual and a Nobel laureate address these issues.     

CRIME IN THE IVORY TOWER: THE LEVEL AND SOURCES OF STUDENT VICTIMIZATION*

Contrary to the image of college campuses as “ivory towers,” the victimization of college students recently has been portrayed as a serious problem deserving policy intervention. Based on interviews designed after the National Crime Victimization Survey, which were conducted with 3,472 randomly selected students across 12 institutions, we examined both the level and sources of students'victimization. More than one-third of the sample reported being victims during the 1993–94 academic year. Informed by the lifestyle-routine activities approach, the analysis revealed that the risk of property victimization was increased by proximity to crime, target attractiveness, exposure, and lack of guardianship. The main predictor of violent victimization was a lifestyle that included high levels of partying on campus at night and the recreational use of drugs.     

The China Model

The return of the Middle Kingdom to the center stage of history is the most significant geo‐civilizaitonal development of the 21st Century. China's rise raises anew the great question, thought settled after the Cold War, of what system of governance will stand on the right or wrong side of history. In this section the leading ideologists of the China model and its “peaceful rise” appear alongside the fiercest critics of China's way.     

IMAGES OF GOD AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: DOES A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH A LOVING GOD MATTER?*

This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiveness as an appropriate response to human failings. Individuals who hold a loving God image are more likely to believe that God responds to those who have “failed” or “sinned” by demonstrating unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy. Accordingly, support for capital punishment is problematic because it contradicts the image of a merciful, forgiving deity; God's purpose—and admonition to believers—is to demonstrate compassion toward those who have trespassed against others. We test these possibilities using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). Controlling for a range of religious factors and other known predictors of death penalty attitudes, the results show that Americans with a personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support capital punishment for convicted murderers.