Strategische Umweltprüfung für die Offshore-Windenergienutzung – Großräumige Wirkungen und Monitoring – Tagung an der Universität Lüneburg, Professur für Öffentliches Recht, 20.4.2006

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Joseph’s Squinting Eye: Race and Individualism in Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country

Peter Matthiessen’s novel Shadow Country offers a fictionalized account of the life of real-life character Edgar Watson. Matthiessen’s portrayal illustrates Jack Turner’s argument in Awakening to Race that atomistic individualism both justifies an individual’s success as a product of that person’s hard work and masks the racial inequality on which that success is actually predicated. Turner advocates an “awakening to race” as an important step toward replacing atomistic individualism with democratic individualism in American society. Matthiessen’s work deepens Turner’s analysis by showing that the whiteness of Watson’s atomistic individualism is inflected by masculinity. Further, Matthiessen depicts the difficulty of awakening to race for many white Americans. The Edgar Watson narrative serves to show that while closing one’s eyes to race may appear to be an advantage for most white people, not awakening to race actually exacts a devastating psychological tax. That kind of insight, which approaching political theory through literature affords, may help white Americans circumvent psychological mechanisms of denial and acknowledge the difficult history of their country.     

The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm

Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for ‘regime bias’. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.     

Gender differences in risk for intimate partner violence among South African adults

Despite a high prevalence of intimate partner violence in South Africa, few epidemiological studies have assessed individual risk factors and differential vulnerability by gender. This study seeks to analyze gender differences in risk for intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration according to childhood and adult risk factors in a national sample of South African men and women. Using data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative South Africa Stress and Health Study, the authors examine data from 1,715 currently married or cohabiting adults on reporting of intimate partner violence. Our analysis include (a) demographic factors, (b) early life risk factors (including exposure to childhood physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, parental closeness, and early onset DSM-IV disorders), and (c) adult risk factors (including experiencing the death of a child and episodes of DSM-IV disorders after age 20). Although prevalence rates of intimate partner violence are high among both genders, women are significantly more likely than men to report being victimized (29.3% vs. 20.9%). Rates of perpetrating violence are similar for women and men (25.2% and 26.5%, respectively). Men are more likely to report predictive factors for perpetration, whereas women are more likely to report predictors for victimization. Common risk factors among men and women reporting perpetration include exposure to childhood physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and adult onset alcohol abuse/dependence. However, risk factors in male perpetrators are more likely to include cohabitation, low income, and early and adult-onset mood disorders, whereas risk factors in female perpetrators include low educational attainment and early onset alcohol abuse/dependence. The single common risk factor for male and female victims of partner violence is witnessing parental violence. Additional risk factors for male victims are low income and lack of closeness to a primary female caregiver, whereas additional risk factors for female victims are low educational attainment, childhood physical abuse, and adult onset alcohol abuse/dependence and intermittent explosive disorder. Intimate partner violence is a significant public health issue in South Africa, strongly linked to intergenerational cycling of violence and risk exposure across the life course. These findings indicate that gender differences in risk and common predictive factors, such as alcohol abuse and exposure to childhood violence, should inform the design of future violence-prevention programs and policies.     

Back to the forest: exploring forest transitions in Candelaria Loxicha, Mexico

Declining profitability of agriculture and/or higher prices of forest products and services typically drive an increase in forest cover. This article examines changes in forest cover in Candelaria Loxicha, Mexico. Forest cover increased in the area as a result of coffee cultivation in coffee forest-garden systems. Dependence on forest products and services, and not prices of forest products, drive the process in our study site. Low international coffee prices and high labor demand outside the community might pull farmers out of agriculture, but they do not completely abandon the lands. A diversification in income sources prevents land abandonment and contributes to maintaining rural populations and coffee forest gardens.     

Factor structure and reliability of the childhood trauma questionnaire and prevalence estimates of trauma for male and female street youth

This study examines the psychometric properties of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire short form (CTQ-SF) with street youth who have run away or been expelled from their homes (N = 397). Internal reliability coefficients for the five clinical scales ranged from .65 to .95. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test the five-factor structure of the scales yielding acceptable fit for the total sample. Additional multigroup analyses were performed to consider items by gender. Results provided only evidence of weak factorial invariance. Constrained models showed invariance in configuration, factor loadings, and factor covariances but failed for equality of intercepts. Mean trauma scores for street youth tended to fall in the moderate to severe range on all abuse/neglect clinical scales. Females reported higher levels of abuse and neglect. Prevalence of child maltreatment of individual forms was very high with 98% of street youth reporting one or more forms; 27.4% of males and 48.9% of females reported all five forms. Results of this study support the viability of the CTQ-SF for screening maltreatment in a highly vulnerable street population. Caution is recommended when comparing prevalence estimates for male and female street youth given the failure of the strong factorial multigroup model.     

Germany's Constitution and participation in international peacekeeping operations

In this article, Torsten Stein, Professor of Constitutional, European and Public International Law and Director of the Institute of European Studies at the University of Saarland, Saarbrücken, traces the constitutional development that has enabled Germany to take part in a meaningful way in United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKO). As in Japan, Germany's post-war Constitution (Basic Law) was held to prohibit such participation. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, however, has found an interpretation of the Constitution that - without amending the Constitution or any other pertinent legislation - allows a "German solution" which reconciles the putative post-war prohibitions with Germany's obligations as a member of the United Nations. Stein, who is also a Colonel in the German Air Force Reserve, warns that the "five conditions" contained in Japan's 1992 Peacekeeping Operations Law are unrealistic in view of present day PKO, but envisages an interpretation of the Japanese Constitution that might follow the German example.