Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

The two Koreas’ societies reflected in stamps

The stamp is “an arena for conveying every possible kind of message through pictures”. Since stamp motives are not chosen arbitrarily, this study considers what stamps issued by North and South Korea since their foundation in 1948 tell about these states. Firstly, the number of stamps made by each state from 1948 until 2002 is investigated. This time is divided into ten-year periods. Conclusions are drawn from the number of stamps made. Secondly, the motives are investigated in detail. Eight motives—commemoratives, history, famous persons, culture, politics, economics, nature and miscellaneous are identified. Quantitative data on the motives are presented in tables that are followed by facts about the issues. Thirdly, the main findings are presented on a general level and under the motives identified. Implications of the motives on North and South Korean stamps are discussed and similarities and differences are highlighted.     

Education and Political Participation: Exploring the Causal Link

One of the most consistently documented relationships in the field of political behavior is the close association between educational attainment and political participation. Although most research assumes that this association arises because education causes participation, it could also arise because education proxies for the factors that lead to political engagement: the kinds of people who participate in politics may be the kinds of people who tend to stay in school. To test for a causal effect of education, we exploit the rise in education levels among males induced by the Vietnam draft. We find little reliable evidence that education induced by the draft significantly increases participation rates.     

The Philippines: Another Vietnam?

Abstract

The historic relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines today gives an exceptional importance to the massive economic and strategic legacy of over 70 years of American domination of that nation. Apart from its prime significance to the future of American military power in Asia after the Indochina debacle, the Philippines is the most important example of a sustained U.S. effort to transform a Third World country in its own image. Now, with a martial-law regime's fate very much in doubt and the U.S.'s economic investments and military bases all hanging in the balance, the objective pressures for a potentially open-ended American commitment to preserve its interests and credibility in yet one more Asian nation are again re-emerging in a form substantially more compulsive than those in Indochina before 1965.     

Beyond Orthodoxy: Asserting Latin America's New Strategic Options Toward the United States

This essay explores the possibility that Latin America may deploy new strategic options in its relations with Washington at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. It starts by evaluating what have been the five major foreign policy models of the region with regard to Washington since the end of the Cold War. It proceeds by evaluating the recent dynamics of Latin American insertion into world affairs. Then it introduces three new alternatives for handling U.S. Latin American relations in the coming years. It concludes by pointing out the importance of understanding the scope of the hemispheric challenges for both the region and Washington.     

Gender Differences in Posttraumatic Stress and Related Symptoms Among Inner-City Minority Youth Exposed to Community Violence

This study examined gender differences in levels of violence exposure, and in levels of posttraumatic stress (PTS) and related symptomatology in a sample of inner-city predominantly African American youth. Because such youth are at risk for exposure to chronic community violence, they are likely to experience considerable distress and clinical or subclinical levels of posttraumatic stress and related symptoms. Previous research has found that although boys are exposed to violence more frequently than are girls, girls are more likely to express posttraumatic stress and related symptoms as a result of violence exposure. Thus, we examined gender as a moderator of the relation between violence exposure and symptoms. A stronger positive association of anxiety and depression symptoms with extent of community violence exposure for girls than boys was found. It was also found that while girls do not appear to differ in their responses to witnessing violence versus being a victim of violence, boys appear to be more distressed by being a victim of violence than by witnessing violence.