Does Mother Know Best? Adolescent and Mother Reports of Impulsivity and Subsequent Delinquency

Although impulsivity is one of the strongest psychological predictors of crime, it is unclear how well impulsivity, measured at a specific moment in adolescence, predicts criminal behavior months or years into the future. The present study investigated how far into the future self-reports and parents’ reports of a youth’s impulsivity predicted whether he engaged in illegal behavior, whether one reporter’s assessment was more predictive than the other’s, and whether there is value in obtaining multiple reports. Data were obtained from a 6-year longitudinal study of adjudicated juvenile offenders (n = 701 mother-son dyads). Youth (m = 15.93 years old; sd = 1.14) and their mothers independently reported on adolescents’ impulsivity at the initial assessment. We examined the prospective correlation of these measures with illegal behavior, assessed by official records of arrests and youths’ self-reports of offending across the 72-month study period. Youths’ and mothers’ reports of the adolescents’ impulsivity were weakly, but significantly, correlated with one another. Furthermore, mothers’ ratings of their sons’ impulsivity predicted arrest up to 6 years into the future, whereas youths’ reports did not significantly predict arrest beyond 30 months. With respect to youths’ self-reports of offending, mothers’ ratings of impulsivity again predicted farther into the future (as late as 6 years later) than did youths’ self-reports of impulsivity, which were not predictive beyond 4 years. However, across the first 4 years, youths’ self-reports of impulsivity explained more variance in self-reported offending than did mothers’ ratings. The results underscore the endurance of the predictive utility of an assessment of impulsivity and the importance (and accuracy) of parents’ reports of developmental constructs, even when their children are adolescents.     

The Pivot in Perspective: American Naval Power,Then and Now

The article examines the reorientation of the defense policy of the United States, initiated during the Bush and Obama Administrations, toward giving increased priority to the Asia Pacific region. It begins with the historical perspective of the development of American naval power in the twentieth century. The world wars, in which Europe represented the primary theater of conflict, had the effect of shifting a greater share of American military assets toward the Euro-Atlantic theatre, while the onset of the Cold War after 1945 required the United States to develop a navy of truly global strategic reach in which Atlantic and Pacific commitments were kept in balance. With the diminished concern for European security since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the People's Republic of China as a strategic competitor in the Asia Pacific region, the United States is required in an age of defense austerity to refocus attention again to the Pacific.     

The Anatomy of Multi-Commodity Trading Conglomerates: A Case Study

This article attempts to go beyond the “mode of production” debate to examine many of the theoretical and empirical controversies in terms of defining and situating the socio-economic dynamic of pre-colonial India. It tries to explore some broad patterns of production and exchange evolving between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and compares them to corresponding structures of “proto-industrialisation” that have been suggested as being relevant to European development. It argues that the evidence of persistent pressures for goods and services (made necessary by the rapid expansion of both internal and external demand), the extension and consolidation of markets, the critical role of the merchant entrepreneurs in the structures and strategies of the process, and the gradual shifts in the relations of production, were all suggestive of a similar process of capitalist transformation demonstrated in Europe.     

Book reviews

Lena Jonson, The Tajik War: A Challenge to Russian Policy (Discussion Paper No. 74) London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998. Pp.54, no index. NP. ISBN 1‐ 86203–061–8.

Charles‐Philippe David and Jacques Lévesque (eds.), The Future of NATO: Enlargement, Russia and European Security. Montreal: McGill‐Queen ‘s University Press, 1999. Pp.xii + 261, incl. notes, no index. Cdn $65 (cloth); Cdn $22.95 (paper). ISBN 0–7735–1850–9 and 1872‐X (paper).

Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xiii + 462, index. $69.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0–521–63953–0 and ‐63051–7.

A.S. Panarin, Global'noe politicheskoe prognozirovanie v usloviyakh strategicheskoy nestabil'nosti [A Global Political Forecast under Conditions of Strategic Instability]. Moscow: Editorial URSS, 1999, Pp.277. NP. ISBN 5–8360–0027–1.

Nikolai Bindyukov and Petr Lopata, Osobaya tret'ya sila: Novyy politicheskiy fenomen [The Special Third Force: A New Political Phenomenon]. Moscow: ITRK, 1999. Pp.321. NP. ISBN 5–88010–066–9.

A. Podberezkin and V. Makarov, Stategiya dlya budushchego prezidenta Rossii: Russkiy put’ [A Strategy for the Future President of Russia: The Russian Path]. Moscow: Dukhovnoe Nasledie, 2000. Pp.168. 21 Rubles. ISBN 5–86014–106–8.

Nash put’: Strategicheskie perspektivy razvitiya Rossii v XXI veke: Tezisy kontspetual'nogo proekta [Our Path: Strategic Perspectives on the Development of Russia in the 21st Century: The Theses of a Conceptual Project], Moscow: ZAO ‘Russkoe Zoloto (A. P. Tarantsev), 1999. Pp.143. 49 Rubles. ISBN 5–8186–0002–5.     

The federal republic and the future of Europe: A reassessment

Speculation concerning a dominant or hegemonic role to be played by a unified Germany in a post‐cold war Europe is misplaced. The extent to which the Federal Republic of 1949–89 has been caricatured as an economic giant but a political dwarf has undermined an appreciation of the manner in which successive Bonn governments have used multilateralism in foreign policy to further Germany's political influence in Europe long before national reunification. At the same time, it is unlikely that reunification will bring a dramatic change in German foreign policy. The nature of the Federal Republic's domestic politics, as well as the relationship with the European Community, apply substantial constraints on the ability, or the desire, to bring about a radical reorientation. The principal architect of change in Germany's relationship with its neighbours will be the country's expansive corporate sector. The gap between the restrained nature of Germany's diplomacy and the extrovert dynamism of its industry, furthermore, promises to make the Federal Republic's adjustment to a new international role awkward.     

Book review

Sten Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine: Presidents and Military Power in Fifth Republic France, 1958–2000, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Pp.xxviii + 219, figures, tables, abbreviations, acronyms, biblio., index. $62.95 (hardcover). ISBN 0–275–97286–0.