Correction to: Age Patterns in Risk Taking Across the World

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - In the original publication, the legends for Figs 4 and 5 were incorrect, such that each regression line was mislabeled with the incorrect country. Below are the...     

Constructing Population Control: Social and Material Factors in Norm Emergence and Diffusion

To demonstrate that norms have independent causal power, constructivists de-emphasise material factors related to state interests and highlight social factors. Similarly, they conceptualise international organisations as autonomous from state influence, and focus on cases featuring non-state actors that stimulate a “tipping point” of norm diffusion among states in advance of state sponsorship. By contrast, this article utilises an historical materialist approach that admits both social and material data to examine the contrasting case of population control. It finds that US corporate foundations, eugenist demographers, feminist birth control activists and related NGOs conceptualised and promoted population control in the United States, at the United Nations, and across developing countries. However, the tipping point of norm diffusion occurred only after the United States publicly advocated population control. Indeed, material and social factors were inextricably bound together.     

Moral Rights,Judicial Review,and Democracy: A Response to Horacio Spector

Law and Philosophy -     

The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America's small-scale producers

Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America's coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade's economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years' research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.     

Traffic accidents and drivers suspected for drug influence

All records from the Danish Medicolegal Council concerning drivers suspected for drug influences were examined for the 5 year period 1981-1985. 461 records were included, 62 women and 399 men. In 250 cases drugs from more than one of ten groups had been taken thus making 786 combinations of drug/driving. The major drug group was benzodiazepines, accounting for 65% of all drug intake. Opioids also contributed substantially, found in 38% of the cases. A traffic accident had occurred in 180 (39%) of the records. Drivers who had been taking antidepressives were involved in an accident in 67%, significantly above the mean. For benzodiazepines, the corresponding percentage was 43%, while for opioids it was only 23%, significantly below the mean. This striking difference has been demonstrated in most of the studies concerning drugs in traffic. It may support the hypothesis that opioids do not necessarily make driving dangerous, as do antidepressives, barbiturates and especially benzodiazepines.     

Custody decisions in Alabama before and after the abolition of the tender years doctrine

This study investigated the impact of the abolition of the tender years doctrine on custody decisions in divorce cases. This doctrine supported the presumption that the mother is the more suitable parent for young children. In March of 1981, the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama found this doctrine to be unconstitutional. To assess the hypothesis that this ruling had a significant effect on custodyrelated decisions, a sample of court records for divorce cases in an Alabama county was examined as representative of the state on a number of key variables. Overall, no significant differences were found on indicator variables for the comparisons before and after the ruling. There was neither an increase in custody grants to fathers nor an increase in custody requests by fathers.