Militarisation of governance after conflict: beyond the rebel-to-ruler frame – the case of Rwanda

In this article, we develop and expand the rebel-to-ruler literature to go beyond ‘rebel transformations’, in order to examine the transformation and militarisation of the entire post-genocide society in Rwanda. Through a historical and socio-political analysis of the military’s influence in post-genocide Rwanda, we argue that the adoption of military norms and ethos, drawn from an idealised and reconstructed pre-colonial history rather than simply an insurgent past, motivates the military’s centrality and penetration of all society’s sectors, economically, politically and socially, with the ultimate aim of retaining power in the hands of the rebels turned rulers. As such, the case demonstrates the need for an expansion of the rebel-to-ruler literature (1) beyond its concern with parties and regime type to a broader palette of governance effects and (2) beyond its singular focus on insurgent past and towards a longue-durée understanding of complementary causes.     

Examining Adolescent Suicidal Behaviors in Relation to Gun Carrying and Bullying

Guided by the interpersonal theory of suicide, this study examines the associations between gun carrying, bullying, and suicidal behaviors among high school students. Arizona Youth Risk Behavior Surveys were completed by 2,677 students in 2011; 9.0% reported suicide attempt in the past year, 5.5% carried a gun in the past 30 days, 8.5% were involved in school bullying, and 3.9% in cyberbullying. After accounting for depressive symptoms and self-harm, multiple linear regression results demonstrate that youth who carried a gun in the past 30 days were 3.98 times more likely to attempt suicide. Bullying was not associated with suicide attempt; however, youth report being 1.55 times more likely to make a suicide plan if they were bullied in school, 1.89 times more likely if cyberbullied, and .48 less likely if a cyberbully/victim. Results support the interpersonal theory of suicide; implications for school policies on gun carrying and bullying are discussed.     

Individual level dynamics of PTV change across the electoral cycle

Propensity-to-vote (PTV) scores are ever more commonly used in electoral research as a measure of electoral utilities. Yet a growing literature employs them as dependent variable in the voting equation in place of the lower information granted by vote recall questions. However, this choice can be seen as problematic because of the very structure of election survey research. To the extent that voters' PTVs are measured in post-election surveys (as it is often the case) these are likely to result endogenously produced by actual voting behavior in the past election – thus partly undermining the validity of the PTV question which, ideally, should not be related to any specific election. In this paper, we try to disentangle the relationship between short-term political attitudes (leader evaluations, issue proximity, economic assessments) and voters' changing patterns of propensities to vote in both an electoral and a non-electoral context. The latter scenario serves as a means to rule out the potentially contaminating effect of voting choices on voters' PTVs. The data comes from two panel surveys of Italian voters conducted by ITANES in occasion of the 2006 general election, and in 2011 (that is, in a non-electoral year) respectively.