Silent citizenship among Asian Americans and Latinos: opting out or left out?

In his classic study, Who Governs?, Robert Dahl interpreted the patterns of political assimilation of ‘white ethnic’ immigrants and their children during the mid-twentieth century as a hopeful sign of the potential of democratic pluralism in the USA. While acknowledging that immigrant groups faced discrimination and structural barriers that might lead them to be silent, Dahl predicted that social mobility and assimilation would eventually erase these deficits in political participation among immigrants. Building from Dahl's analysis, we investigate the extent to which pluralism in the USA can and does work the same way for immigrants who are also racial minorities. We highlight factors that can lead these groups to become silent citizens, including lack of legal status, lower levels of political mobilization by institutions, and discrimination as structural impediments to minority participation. Our findings suggest that both resources as well as structural impediments structure the political behavior of Asian Americans and Latinos, determining whether they are vocal citizens or silent citizens.     

Bringing Peace Into the Room

What are the essential qualities a person needs to be an effective mediator? In addition to understanding conceptual frameworks and mastering fundamental skills of mediation, what role do the personal characteristics of the mediator play in the resolution of conflict? Bringing Peace Into the Room is a groundbreaking collection of essays addressing these questions. In a thoughtful and provocative way, the authors ask us to examine ourselves and our field. They invite us to consider the ways in which our own individual development as human beings impacts the parties and cases with whom we work. Ultimately, the book challenges us to re‐imagine our roles as mediators by asking us to internalize and to embody the highest principles of our profession.     

The Politics of Vulnerability: Constructing Local Performance Regimes for Homeland Security

Paradoxically, the greater the national security threats, the more important the role of local policy in the United States. In this article we examine homeland security initiatives—particularly the tension between risk and vulnerability—and the governance dilemmas they pose for local communities. In contrast to the usual emphasis on coordination and capacity, we argue for conceptualizing local imperatives attendant to homeland security as collective action problems requiring the construction of local performance regimes. Performance regimes must engage three challenges: (1) to enlist diverse stakeholders around a collective local security goal despite varying perceptions of its immediacy; (2) to persuade participants to sustain their involvement in the face of competing demands, and (3) to create a durable coalition around performance goals necessary for reducing local vulnerability. Using these analytic categories casts local homeland security issues in strategic terms; it also encourages comparisons of local governance arrangements to respond to risk and vulnerability.     

Cost and the calculus of voting

Downs's (1957) theory of voting maintains that individuals balance the costs of voting against anticipated benefits in deciding whether to vote. However, most empirical tests of his theory have concluded that costs play little role in individuals' decisions to vote or abstain, and that benefits are the determining factor. Unfortunately, the existing empirical tests of the theory have been inadequate, especially in regard to the measurement of the cost of voting. Using data from the Comparative State Elections Project, we develop an improved indicator of the cost of voting. When this measure of cost is used in a test of Down's theory, we find, contrary to most earlier research, that the cost of voting seems to be a more important determinant of participation than the factors associated with voting benefits in Downs's model.The authors shared equally in the research reported; the order in which they are listed was determined randomly.     

网络犯罪分析:用户及系统的多视图分析方法

近年来网络犯罪数量呈快速上升的势头,但是却缺乏一种有效的取证方法来处理这些案件.调查人员通常依靠调查大量繁琐的源代码来了解犯罪模型及提取证据,但这种方式需要很多的人力与时间,并可能导致人为错误.为了克服调查人员可能出现的这些潜在错误,我们在本文中提出了一种半自动的方法来解决这些问题.该方法集成了用户视图(基于取证调查人员的高级别研究)和系统视图(基于对源代码的自动分析),来帮助调查人员精确调查的范围.本文应用此方法分析了一个真实案件,证明了方法的可行性,同时帮助调查人员高效地确定了调查范围和犯罪模型.可见这种半自动方法可以对大量有多个来源的电子证据进行有效分析,提高了网络犯罪案件取证的效率和可靠性.     

Childhood Exposure to Aggression and Adult Relationship Functioning: Depression and Antisocial Behavior as Mediators

Childhood exposure to family aggression is associated with various harmful outcomes, including poor adult relationship functioning (i.e., greater relationship dissatisfaction and partner aggression). The mechanisms by which this transmission occurs, however, are less well understood. In this study, the mediating effects of adult depression and childhood antisocial behavior on the link between childhood exposure to family aggression and adult relationship functioning were investigated using a community sample of 98 couples expecting their first child. Childhood exposure to aggression was linked to greater relationship dissatisfaction and higher rates of partner aggression perpetration for both men and women. For men, symptoms of depression partially mediated the association between aggression exposure and relationship satisfaction. For women, childhood antisocial behavior fully mediated the link between aggression exposure and both indices of poor relationship functioning (dissatisfaction and aggression). These gender-specific results have implications for improving relationship functioning and breaking the intergenerational transmission of relationship dysfunction.     

The oil lobby and the energy crisis

Abstract. The energy crisis has produced a confrontation between the federal government and the Canadian oil industry which has significantly reduced the latter's autonomy. This article postulates three hypotheses, which are then explored in the context of the energy crisis: that pressure group influence declines during a crisis situation; that if the crisis necessitates federal-provincial negotiation this tendency is accentuated; and that when facing a serious threat from government action the group under attack will seek to exert its influence as widely as possible. The article goes on to examine the oil industry's various channels of influence — the Senate, the Alberta Conservative caucus, the Alberta Liberal party, informal contacts with Alberta politicians, the Technical Advisory Committee on Petroleum Supply and Demand, and others and concludes that these were inadequate for serving the industry's objectives during the crisis. The speed at which events unfolded during the crisis and the consumer concern that arose led the federal government to respond rapidly, with little advance consultation with the industry or the producing provinces. In the federal-provincial Confrontation that ensued, the industry was excluded from a significant decision-making role. It will now seek to exert more public pressure on the federal government, but it must do so within a new set of rules under which the various levels of government will be more intimately involved in its activities. Sommaire. La crise de l'éergie a produit, entre le gouvernement fédéral et l'industrie canadienne du pétrole, une confrontation qui a réduit considérablement l'autonomie de cette dernière. L'auteur de cet exposé propose trois hypothèses qu'il examine ensuite dans le contexte de la crise de l'énergie, à savoir:que l'influence des groupes de pression diminue dans une situation de crise; que cette tendance s'accentue si la wise oblige à des nègociations fédéralesprovinciales et que, face à une menace sérieuse d'intervention gouvernementale, le groupe attaqué. cherche à exercer une influence aussi large que possible. II examine ensuite les différentes voies d'influence de l'industrie du pétrole:le sénat, le caucus conservateur de I'Alberta, le parti libéral de l'Alberta, les contacts officieux avec des liommes politiques de l'Alberta, le comité technique qui s'occupe de l'offre et de la demande de pétrole et d'autres, pour conclure qu'elles étaient insuffisantes pour permettre à l'industrie d'atteindre ses objectifs durant la crise. La rapidité avec laquelle les événements se sont déroulés pendant la crise et la manifestation des craintes des consommateurs entraînérent une réaction rapide de la part du gouvernement fédéral, sans grande consultation préalable avec l'industrie ou les provinces productrices. Dans la confrontation fédéraleprovinciale qui a suivi, l'industrie a été exclue de toute prise de décision importante. Elle va chercher maintenant à exercer des ressions publiques accrues sur le gouvernement fédéral, mais elle doit se confonner aux nouvelles régles du jeu qui impliquent une plus grande ingérence des différents niveaux de gouvernement dans ses activités.     

The Relationship of Reflective Functioning to Parent Child Interactions in a Sample of Fathers with Concurrent Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration and Substance Abuse Problems

This study is the first to examine reflective functioning (RF) and direct parent–child interactions of fathers with concurrent intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and substance abuse (SA) problems. Twenty-four fathers, with children between the age of one and seven, completed a structured interview to assess RF, self-report measures of hostile-aggressive parenting behaviors, IPV perpetration severity, SA severity, and a coded play session with their children. Results of three simultaneous multiple regressions revealed that RF in fathers was not associated significantly with observed parenting behaviors. However, fathers’ SA severity emerged as a significant predictor for child avoidant behavior and dyadic tension, and fathers’ IPV perpetration severity contributed unique variance to child avoidant behavior and dyadic constriction. These results suggest that fathers’ SA severity and IPV perpetration behaviors may be more salient factors in predicting their father-child interactions than paternal RF.