The Explosive Combination of Inefficient Local Bureaucracies and Mining Production: Evidence from Localized Societal Protests in Peru

Although numerous scholars have analyzed the effects of natural resource extraction at the national level, few have explored it systematically at the local level. Focusing on Peru, where both mining production and local social protests have greatly increased in recent years and where a new tax has required mining companies to transfer revenue to subnational governments, this study explores the resource curse at the local level. In particular, why do protests arise mostly in the areas of natural resource extraction? Employing subnational data for Peru for the period 2004–9 and LAPOP survey data from 2010, the research confirms previous findings that social conflict is provoked by both the negative externalities of mining and the revenues from the new tax. The article further demonstrates that local bureaucratic capacity is a significant independent variable. Greater subnational bureaucratic capacity can ameliorate the pernicious societal effects of a local resource curse.     

Lustration,Transitional Justice,and Social Trust in Post-Communist Countries. Repairing or Wresting the Ties that Bind?

Interpersonal trust in post-communist societies is particularly low, and is often cited as an impediment to democratic consolidation. One way in which countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have tried to build trust is through transitional justice measures, particularly lustration or vetting policies. There is a direct relationship postulated between lustration, transitional justice, and social trust building. This paper tests this assumption by examining the impact of both targeted lustration and broader transitional justice programmes on social trust. The study finds there is a divergent impact of lustration on trust, both building particularised trust in social institutions and undermining generalised interpersonal trust.     

Course and Severity of Maternal Depression: Associations with Family Functioning and Child Adjustment

Number of lifetime episodes, duration of current episode, and severity of maternal depression were investigated in relation to family functioning and child adjustment. Participants were the 151 mother–child pairs in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) child multi-site study. Mothers were diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder; children (80 males and 71 females) ranged in age from 7 to 17 years. Measures of child adjustment included psychiatric diagnoses, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and functional impairment. Measures of family functioning included family cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, organization, and household control; parenting measures assessed maternal acceptance and psychological control. Children of mothers with longer current depressive episodes were more likely to have internalizing and externalizing symptoms, with this association being moderated by child gender. Mothers with more lifetime depressive episodes were less likely to use appropriate control in their homes.

From Doom Town to Sin City: Chick Tracts and Anti-gay Political Rhetoric

The most popular and recognized of all Christian religious tracts are Chick Publications. The comic-book format tracts have been distributed since the 1960s and are now translated into over 100 languages. Some Christian Right opinion leaders regard the tracts with ambivalence, and many outside the Christian conservative community who comment on Chick's career believe that the tracts are no longer available through Christian retail outlets. Not only are the tracts still available, they represent an important form of conservative Christian political pedagogy. The tracts anticipated and continue to reflect Christian Right politics, including the centrality of same-sex sexuality to those politics. On the other hand, the tracts have come to conflict with key dimensions of Christian Right political strategy. This article traces the genealogy of the tracts, examines the anti-gay political rhetoric of Chick Publications and traces Christian Right ambivalence toward the tracts to the movement's efforts to “center” Christian Right politics for mainstream audiences.     

Establishment of state religion and requirements for public office

SUMMARY

There is a significant body of work on the broad question of the relationship between a positive affirmation of religion and the state. Scholars largely agree that a close relationship between religion and the state influences both political processes and state structures although the nature and extent of the impact and its direction remains an open question. While engaging this topic, the article deviates from the standard approach by looking not to the religious makeup of a country's citizens but to a country's constitution. The result is that countries fall into one of three categories based on a state's orientation toward state-established religion: first, countries that affirm establishment; second, countries that forbid establishment; and lastly, countries that are silent on the issue. Utilizing a dataset of all 186 of the world's written constitutions to analyze the variation in the requirements for office of each of these three groups, the following hypotheses are posed: First, constitutional requirements affirm political culture and as such, one can expect similar types of requirement use within each of the three populations above. Second, there should be variance in requirement use across the three populations. Lastly, the greater the difference between political cultures, the greater the difference between requirements used. Our findings largely affirm the hypotheses with some interesting nuances. For example, countries with state-established religions tend to require adherence to religious standards but have few additional requirements. Countries that forbid establishment use a set of requirements that serve to frustrate a government official's effort to consolidate political power. Tentatively, this suggests a relationship between the nature of requirements used for public office and authoritarian tendencies. This finding warrants further research.     

Kyrgyz “revolutions” in 2005 and 2010: comparative analysis of mass mobilization

This article compares causes and mechanisms of the mass mobilizations which took place in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and 2010. The upheavals of 2005, the so called “Tulip Revolution,” led to the ousting of President Akaev who was replaced by Kurmanbek Bakiev. In 2010, Bakiev himself had to flee the country after violent social upheavals. As this analysis shows, the causes for both series of events were similar: neopatrimonial rule and the elite's control of resources together with oppressive tactics stirred up discontent among wide parts of the population and instigated violent protest. The mechanisms of mass mobilization, however, differed considerably. While the revolution of 2005 was carried out as the concerted action of varied political forces and NGOs, which, supported by patronage networks and traditional institutions, offered material and solidary incentives for the crowds, the great mass of people who took part in the 2010 protests were spontaneously mobilized through purposive incentives when news of the killings spread through the media.     

The Significance of Adrenal Hemorrhage: Undiagnosed Waterhouse‐Friderichsen Syndrome,A Case Series

A retrospective series of five cases of nontraumatic gross adrenal hemorrhage were identified in 800 consecutive forensic autopsies. All patients were males, of different ethnicities and with ages ranging from 2 to 48 years. All patients had a clinical history and autopsy findings suggestive of sepsis. Pre‐ or postmortem microbiological cultures were variably positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The fifth case was positive for yeast and a coagulase negative staphylococcus; contamination of this culture medium cannot be excluded. No cases had a culture positive for Neisseria meningitidis. We find that the reviewed patients with grossly or microscopically identifiable adrenal hemorrhage were otherwise healthy individuals who died suddenly as a consequence of bacterial infection. In each case, signs and symptoms compatible with premortem adrenal insufficiency were reported; in no instance was the adrenal hemorrhage clinically identified.     

Examining the scope of questionable diagnostic reliability in Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) evaluations

Research has suggested questionable reliability of diagnosing mental abnormality during Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) evaluations, despite this being a necessary requirement for SVP commitment. Findings have been inconsistent across studies, and little is known about the extent of such trends across diagnoses and clinicians. The current study includes data from 375 sex offenders referred for evaluation for SVP commitment in New Jersey. Clinicians (n = 128) rendered a variety of diagnoses, most commonly Pedophilia. Results suggested questionable agreement across paraphilic and non-paraphilic diagnoses, although agreement was fair for diagnoses of Pedophilia. Further analyses of cases (n = 49) involving clinicians receiving a large number of referrals (n = 14) were generally consistent with these findings, with no outlier effect apparent. Findings suggest questionable diagnostic reliability to be a widespread issue in SVP evaluations, present across a variety of diagnoses and across the general body of clinicians involved in evaluations.     

Enactment and Implementation of the National Security Personnel System: Policy Made and Policy Unmade

This case study reviews the enactment and implementation of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) in the U.S. Department of Defense. Proponents of reform seized the opportunity to enact reform in the aftermath of 9/11, basing their arguments on national security concerns. However, the policy‐making process did not produce a consensus for reform among key stakeholders in the personnel management policy community. Instead, the NSPS angered and alienated the Office of Personnel Management, the public employee unions, and a number of congressional Democrats. Implementation of the NSPS became problematic as Defense Department officials attempted to move quickly and independently to get the new system online, eventually forcing the department to put the system on hold. In the end, Congress imposed limits on its implementation, advocates for the system disappeared, and a new president supported the repeal of NSPS. This case provides useful insights into the formulation of future strategies for personnel management reform.