System management and compensatory parenting: Educational involvement after maternal incarceration

Research has demonstrated that paternal incarceration is associated with lower levels of educational involvement among fathers and primary caregivers, but little is known regarding caregiver educational involvement when mothers have been incarcerated. In this study, we present the first analysis of variation in school- and home-based educational involvement by maternal incarceration history, pairing survey and interview data to connect macro-level group differences with micro-level narratives of mothers’ involvement in their children's education. Our survey data demonstrate that children of ever-incarcerated mothers experience increased school-based educational involvement by their primary caregivers, regardless of whether the caregiver is the mother herself. Our interview data point to compensatory parenting as a key motivating factor in educational involvement, wherein a caregiver endeavors to “make up for” the child's history of maternal incarceration. Findings add to the literature demonstrating maternal incarceration as a distinct experience from both paternal incarceration and material disadvantage alone, and they suggest the need to explore the role of schools as potential points of productive institutional involvement for mothers with an incarceration history.     

Tutors and Pupils: International Organizations, Central European Elites, and Western Models

In the past decade, political elites in Central and Eastern Europe have often sought to imitate Western organizational and institutional models, while organizations like the EU and NATO have often acted as “institutional tutors” in the region. Using evidence from Hungary and the Czech Republic, this paper demonstrates why imitating Western structures has been both administratively expedient and useful in building political coalitions. It also stresses that the short‐term benefits of doing so are followed by longer‐term costs. The paper answers four questions: How have certain models been held up to CEE elites? Why might some such models be targets for elites to imitate? How does such imitation occur? And what results from imitation? Contrary to expectations that institutional modeling would be merely technocratic and used only yearly in the transformation, the paper's threefold heuristic of templates, thresholds, and adjustments shows that the process is both politically contentious and sustained.     

Litigating the science of breast cancer treatment

Beginning in the late 1980s, many health insurers refused to cover high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplant (HDC/ABMT) for high-risk and metastatic breast cancer patients. Insurers denied coverage because there was no persuasive evidence of clinical effectiveness. In response, many women sued to compel coverage. After years of litigation and the expenditure of approximately $3 billion, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) showed that the procedure was no more effective and possibly more harmful than conventional therapy. To understand whether and how litigation contributed to the diffusion of the procedure, we conducted a series of case studies that examine the litigation tactics and strategies used by defense and plaintiffs' counsel. Despite the fact that HDC/ABMT lacked proven scientific effectiveness, insurance defense attorneys were unable to stop the procedure's diffusion. Plaintiffs' attorneys had a much easier and more sympathetic story to tell and were able to exploit vulnerabilities facing the defense.     

Smaller State Perspectives on the Future of Space Governance

Current debates over impending developments in military and civilian uses of space raise deeper questions of how the expanding human presence in space over the next century might unfold. Appreciating the full range of challenges and opportunities posed by this uncertain future requires exploring all scenarios and perspectives comprehensively. As a contribution to such analysis, this article draws insights from the outlooks of smaller states toward national and global space priorities. The first two sections summarize and contrast United States and Canadian policy trajectories and dispositions in their respective space programs. The third section assesses how differences in smaller state perspectives can contribute to developing an analytically rigorous concept of space power. The fourth section then examines how juxtaposing alternative scenarios for the long-term development of human space presence, consistent with power-based theory, offers a stronger foundation for explaining and assessing current conditions than does making limiting assumptions of inevitable future trajectories. The article concludes that more inclusive analysis of serious future possibilities also enables more complete assessment of current space security challenges.     

Impact of Cash Transfer Programmes on School Attendance and Child Poverty: An Ex Ante Simulation for Sri Lanka

For countries assessing whether to implement a cash transfer programme, an ex-ante evaluation is vital to assess its potential impacts. This study simulates the impact of alternative cash transfer programmes on school attendance and poverty among Sri Lankan children. We find that cash transfer programmes targeting poor children would be the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty and encourage school attendance. If means-testing is not feasible, then programmes targeting the children in households with at least three school-age children would provide a suitable second-best solution. Our findings suggest that even a limited programme budget can provide significant impacts.     

Italian politics and political change: ‘Eppur si muove’. But where to?

Democracy, Italian Style. By Joseph LaPalombara. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Pp.308.

Stato e regolazione sociale. Nuove prospettive sul caso italiano. Edited by Peter Lange and Marino Regini. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987. Pp.337.

Il Mercato elettorale. Identikit dell’ elettore italiano. By Renato Mann‐heimer and Giacomo Sani. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987. Pp. 185.

Italian Communism in Transition. The Rise and Fall of the Historical Compromise in Turin, 1975–1980. By Stephen Hellman. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp.223.     

Radicalisation in the Philippines: The Cotabato Cell of the “East Asia Wilayah”

ABSTRACT

The backgrounds of seven suspects arrested in connection with a September 2016 bombing in Davao, Philippines provide clues to how extremist ideology and support for ISIS took root in a middle-class urban environment. The seven men, part of the coalition that eventually took over Marawi in 2017, were drawn in by the idea of a caliphate, propaganda videos that became discussion material for charismatic young religious scholars, and the pull of friends and family. They represented overlapping networks of neighbours, business partners, and students. Their interwoven journeys to violent extremism provide a glimpse into how ISIS managed to transcend traditional clan and regional loyalties in the Philippines, but much more research is needed among pro-ISIS detainees to understand the phenomenon and take measures to address it.     

Appeasement: Before and After Revisionism

Few of the enduring ‘lessons of history' have had greater staying power than the legacy of appeasement. Decision-makers have used the crises of the 1930s to eschew and condemn appeasement. However, historians have not been so single minded in their analyses or applications. An historiographical survey of ‘appeasement studies’ then posits that a linear projection from orthodoxy, to revisionism, to counter- or post-revisionism’ is not accurate. As to why recourse to the appeasement analogy is so prevalent is linked to the engagement, or lack thereof, between historians and public history and the decision-making process.