Rethinking Measures of Psychological Agency: A Study on the Urban Fringe of Bamako

Attempts to measure psychological agency have drawn on social psychology scholarship. Nonetheless, it is well documented that the Euro/American psychology paradigm is challenged by its tendency to universalise its theories. This raises a challenge for development scholars trying to measure the psychological domain; especially regarding understanding what the psychological domain may mean to people outside the Western liberal tradition. We examine the use of theoretical measures of psychological agency against local concepts of psychological agency from a neighbourhood on the urban fringe of Bamako. We conclude that there is no clear association between local and theoretical measures of psychological agency and therefore there is a need to include local and theoretical measures in the study of agency.     

Child Poverty,the Great Recession,and the Social Safety Net in the United States

In this paper, we comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to earnings and income. Using a state panel data model and data for 2000 to 2014, we estimate the relationship between the business cycle and child poverty, and we examine how and to what extent the safety net is providing protection to at‐risk children. We find compelling evidence that the safety net provides protection; that is, the cyclicality of after‐tax‐and‐transfer child poverty is significantly attenuated relative to the cyclicality of private income poverty. We also find that the protective effect of the safety net is not similar across demographic groups, and that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those living with Hispanic or single heads, or particularly those living with immigrant household heads—or immigrant spouses—experience larger poverty cyclicality than those living with non‐Hispanic white or married heads, or those living with native household heads with native spouses. Our findings hold across a host of choices for how to define poverty. These include measures based on absolute thresholds or more relative thresholds. They also hold for measures of resources that include not only cash and near‐cash transfers net of taxes but also several measures of the value of public medical benefits.     

The political roots of domestic environmental sabotage

In this paper, we demonstrate that when environmentalist niche parties compete in a given constituency over a number of elections, but continually fail to win seats, then environmental sabotage becomes more frequent in that constituency. When mainstream tactics fail, radical tactics are used more frequently. Using a new data-set on the success rates of all Green Party candidates in US states, we show that environmental sabotage occurs more often when Green Party candidates fail to win even minor offices. This is true even when we control for other political expressions of environmentalism, such as interest group activity, and when we define ‘success’ through votes not seats. We discuss the implications of this for environmental politics, for social movements and democracy, and for political violence in the US.     

Divergent Paths to Martyrdom and Significance Among Suicide Attackers

This research used open source information to investigate the motivational backgrounds of 219 suicide attackers from various regions of the world. We inquired as to whether the attackers exhibited evidence for significance quest as a motive for their actions, and whether the eradication of significance loss and/or the aspiration for significance gain systematically differed according to attackers’ demographics. It was found that the specific nature of the significance quest motive varied in accordance with attackers’ gender, age, and education. Whereas Arab-Palestinians, males, younger attackers, and more educated attackers seem to have been motivated primarily by the possibility of significance gain, women, older attackers, those with little education, and those hailing from other regions seem to have been motivated primarily by the eradication of significance loss. Analyses also suggested that the stronger an attacker’s significance quest motive, the greater the effectiveness of their attack, as measured by the number of casualties. Methodological limitations of the present study were discussed, and the possible directions for further research were indicated.     

The Italian General Elections: Something New or More of the Same Thing?

Since the Second World War, Italy has been ruled by shifting coalitions dominated by the Christian Democrat Party to the exclusion of the main opposition, the Communist Party. The continuity in power of the government coalitions and inter party/faction negotiations created the conditions for the abuses of state resources which came to light with the investigations of the Milan magistrates. Electoral reforms intended to break the stranglehold of the partyocracy by encouraging the formation of two main alternative political blocs have been implemented. However, the 1994 elections have returned a right wing coalition to power, and the opposition remains deeply divided.     

Extraction and amplification of authentic DNA from ancient human remains

A total of 36 ancient human remains from 12 individuals (three tooth/bone samples each) and one sample each of three individuals from the newest time was typed in a blind study using the amelogenin sex test. Prior to this molecular sex determination the sex of the individual was determined morphologically. The success rate of the amelogenin amplifications was >90%. For every individual an unambiguous molecular sex typing result was obtained. Furthermore, the morphological and molecular sex determinations were in accordance with each other, giving evidence for the authenticity and ancient origin of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifications.     

A field diagnostic test for the improvised explosive urea nitrate

A sensitive, specific and simple color test for the improvised explosive urea nitrate is described. It is based on the formation of a red pigment upon the reaction between urea nitrate and p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (p-DMAC) under neutral conditions. Urea itself, which is the starting material for urea nitrate, does not react with p-DMAC under the same conditions. Other potential sources of false positive response e.g., common fertilizers, medications containing the urea moiety and various amines, do not produce the red pigment with p-DMAC. Exhibits collected from 10 terrorist cases have been tested with p-DMAC. The results were in full agreement with those obtained by instrumental techniques including GC/MS, XRD and IR.