IDENTIFYING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS THAT MEDIATE THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PARENTING PRACTICES AND DELINQUENCY*

Past research has largely ignored the developmental changes within the child that account for the association between parenting and risk for delinquency. We used structural equation modeling and data from a longitudinal study of several hundred African‐American families to test the contentions of various theories regarding the sociocognitive and emotional factors that mediate the impact of parental behavior on a youth's risk for delinquency. Our findings largely supported the theories. The impact of monitoring/discipline was indirect through low self‐control and acceptance of deviant norms, whereas the effect of hostility/ rejection was indirect through low self‐control, hostile view of relationships, and acceptance of deviant norms. These two dimensions of parenting were no longer related either to affiliation with deviant peers or to conduct problems once the effects of these psychological characteristics were taken into account; the impact of these parenting practices was completely mediated by these four cognitive/affective variables. Contrary to expectation, however, these psychological factors did not mediate any of the relationship between caretaker involvement in antisocial behavior and child conduct problems.     

COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY,MINORITY THREAT,AND POLICE BRUTALITY: AN EXAMINATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS*

A growing body of evidence shows that minorities are disproportionately the targets of police brutality, but important theoretical questions about the causes of that inequity remain unanswered. One promising line of research involves structural‐level analyses of the incidence of police brutality complaints; however, existing studies do not incorporate variables from alternative theoretical explanations. Drawing on the community accountability hypothesis and the threat hypothesis, we tested the predictions of two prominent structural‐level explanations of police brutality in a study of civil rights criminal complaints. The study included cities of 150,000+ population (n = 114). The findings reveal that two community accountability variables—ratio percent Hispanic citizens to percent Hispanic police officers and the presence of citizen review—were related positively to police brutality complaints, partially supporting that perspective. Two threat hypothesis measures of threatening people—percent black and percent Hispanic (in the Southwest)—were related positively to complaints, as predicted. The relative degree of support for the two hypotheses is assessed.     

Judicial Procedures as Instruments of Political Control: Congress's Strategic Use of Citizen Suits

Citizen suit provisions, which give proregulatory interests access to the federal courts, can be used by Congress to increase the courts' role in regulatory policy. I analyze 284 environmental regulation bills reported favorably out of committee and show that committee support for citizen suits is a function of the committee's policy goals and the political context in which the bills are generated. These findings indicate that Congress deliberately uses judicial procedures as instruments of political control and that scholars examining judicial policymaking must include legislative goals in the list of explanatory factors.     

Canada and the Honduran Coup

The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.     

Chinese Oppression in Xinjiang,Middle Eastern Conflicts and Global Islamic Solidarities among the Uyghurs

Individuals in Xinjiang are not merely passive recipients of state representations and policies; they are also agents capable of finding subtle means of self-representation. These symbolic oppositions are necessarily fluid: they emerge, adapt and disappear in response to the changing political environment. Currently, some individuals are demonstrating symbolic resistance to the state through the vehicle of Islam itself: a return to the mosque and orthodox religious practice. This article explores the nature and source of the current Islamic renewal in Xinjiang, conceived (though not exclusively) as a vehicle of symbolic opposition to perceived Muslim oppression at national and global levels. In discussing the international dimension, I explore the role played by imported Islamic materials, pilgrimage, study abroad, and, above all, the national and global mass media.     

Books: International Relations

D. Allen and A. Pijpers (eds), European Foreign Policy-Making and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1984)
Sydney D. Bailey (ed.), The Making of Resolution 242 (Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1985
David Howard Bain, Sitting in Darkness, Americans in the Philippines (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984
C. Coker, The Future of the Atlantic Alliance (London, Macmillan, with the Royal United Services Institute, 1985)
C. Rose, Campaigns Against Western Defence (London, Macmillan, with the Royal United Services Institute, 1985)
G. R. Berridge and A. Jennings (eds), Diplomacy at the UN (London, Macmillan, 1958)
John Burton, Global Conflict: The Domestic Sources of International Crisis (Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books for The Center for International Development, University of Maryland, 1984)
B. J. C. Kercher and D. J. Moss (eds), Shadow and Substance in British Foreign Policy 1895–1939 (Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 1984)
D. Holloway and J. M. 0. Sharp (eds), The Warsaw Pact (London, Macmillan, 1984)
W. R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, The United States, and Postwar Imperialism (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984)
Brian Murphy, The World Wired Up: Unscrambling the New Communications Puzzle (London, Comedia, 1983)
Steve Smith (ed.), International Relations: British and American Perspectives (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, in association with the British International Studies Association, 1985)
I. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World Economy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984)     

Some Varieties of Linguistic Argumentation

The maxim to understand the law literally (Montesquieu, Voltaire) resembles Holmes' Plain Meaning Approach. But these approaches should not be considered as the expression of a naïve legal epistemology. They rather stress that the law ought to be interpreted as it is understood by the prudent citizen. In this way, the ideal of the rule of law is best guaranteed.