Democracy's Effect on Terrorist Organizations: Regime Type and Armed Group Behavior in Chile

How does democracy influence terrorism? The regime-responsive school argues that lack of representation in autocracies motivates violence; the regime-permissive school posits that individual liberty in democracies allows it. The schools thus disagree about the democratic feature to which violence responds—representation or individual liberty. These arguments are problematic in two ways. First, neither accounts for the potentially competing effects of different democratic features. Second, treating terrorism as a set response to operating context ignores the operational processes behind violence, described in organizational theories of terrorism. This article develops a bridge between the regime-responsive and regime-permissive schools by applying organizational theories of terrorism to their key arguments. I argue that representation and individual liberty have independent, and sometimes competing, effects on armed groups' missions, hierarchies, and membership—collectively organizational capacity, the ability to survive and influence the environment. This explains the mixed effects of democracy on terrorism: both high-functioning democracy and repressive autocracy weaken organizational capacity, but decreased representation in a democracy or higher individual liberty in an autocracy removes organizational stresses. New research on Chile between 1965 and 1995—representing five government periods, with four armed groups operating—acts as an initial test of these relationships.     

Using a Five-Stage Model to Evaluate Workplace Discrimination Injuries

Psychological assessment for workplace discrimination injuries is often complex, as each complainant has a particular personal history and context, including different coping skills, psychopathologies and unique life circumstances. A five-stage model based on best practice guidelines can assist forensic assessment practitioners in determining compensatory damages for psychological or psychiatric injuries and in formulating defensible, evidence-based reports that meet legal standards. The model incorporates legally relevant theories of causation to guide the evaluating psychologist to discern the nature and extent of any injury, and whether discrimination was the likely proximate cause. The focus is not on diagnosis but on functional performance (cognitive, affective, interpersonal and physical) in four key contexts: activities of daily living, relationships, the workplace and hedonic pursuits. This assessment method compares functioning in the complainant’s life until the “day before” the alleged discrimination event with the complainant’s condition at the time of the alleged discrimination, and any symptoms or reactions experienced subsequently. The five-stage model provides a systematic method to examine compensatory damages claims and increase the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the forensic evaluation.     

Quality of work environment (QWE): Effects on office workers

Abstract

This article focuses on the physical environment of work as an important, and overlooked, component of working conditions. Quality of Work Environment (QWE) is viewed as one facet of the Quality of Worklife (QWL) movement. Attention is thus paid not only to direct health effects of adverse environmental conditions, but also to how the physical conditions of work contribute to a sense of competence and to job satisfaction and performance. Based on empirical research and theory, a set of general criteria for improving the quality of the work environment are proposed.     

The Effects of California's Paid Family Leave Program on Mothers’ Leave‐Taking and Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes

This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences‐in‐differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave‐taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers—with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1‐ to 3‐year‐old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.     

Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues

Abstract

This paper considers China's state capacity and changing governance as revealed through its policies to tackle unemployment. Despite high levels of growth, economic restructuring has resulted in rising unemployment over the last decade. The Chinese state has been able to manage job losses from state enterprises, demonstrating some state capacity in relation to this sector and some persistent command economy governance mechanisms. However both design and implementation of policies to compensate and assist particular groups among the unemployed have been shaped by weak state capacity in several other areas. First, capacity to gather accurate employment data is limited, meaning local and central governments do not have a good understanding of the extent and nature of unemployment. Second, the sustainability of supposedly mandatory unemployment insurance schemes is threatened by poor capacity to enforce participation. Third, poor central state capacity to ensure local governments implement policies effectively leads to poor unemployment insurance fund capacity, resulting in provision for only a narrow segment of the unemployed and low quality employment services. Although the adoption of unemployment insurance (and its extension to employers and employees in the private sector), the introduction of a Labour Contract Law in 2007, and the delivery of employment services by private businesses indicate a shift towards the use of new governance mechanisms based on entitlement, contract and private sector delivery of public-sector goods, that shift is undermined by poor state capacity in relation to some of these new mechanisms.     

Expert Interpretation of Bitemark Injuries—A Contemporary Qualitative Study

This study attempts to characterize the nature of disagreement among odontologists in determining the fundamental properties of suspected bitemark injuries. Fifteen odontologists were asked to freely comment on six images of supposed bitemarks. Qualitative analysis using a grounded theory approach revealed that practitioner agreement was at best fair, with wide‐ranging opinions on the origin, circumstance, and characteristics of the wound given for all six images. More experienced practitioners (>10 years) tended to agree with each other less than those who had 10 years or less experience in forensic odontology. The differences in opinions can be at least partly accounted for by the inconsistent nature of approaches used by different practitioners in assessing bitemark evidence. The results of this study indicate that more definitive guidelines as to the assessment of bitemarks as patterned injuries should be developed to ensure the highest possible level of practitioner agreement.     

Disordered personalities at work

Current categorical classification systems of personality disorders (PDs) remain widely used amid growing evidence that argues against the conceptualisation of PDs as independent, discrete entities. Adopting the dimensional perspective of Morey et al. (Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 245–251, 1985), this study compared PD traits across forensic, psychiatric and “normal” senior business manager samples. There was particular interest in the relative representations of elements of PD closely associated with psychopathic PD because of research suggesting that some “psychopaths” operate within mainstream society, and links that have been made between elements of these so-called “successful” psychopaths, and characteristics associated with success in senior business management roles. The dimensional Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Scales for DSM III Personality Disorders (MMPI-PD) were shown to be internally consistent for the “normal” sample. Evidence for the qualitative equivalence of the four PD profiles emerged. The PD profile of the senior business manager sample was found to contain significant elements of PD, particularly those that have been referred to as the “emotional components” of psychopathic PD. The findings provide strong support for the continuous distribution of personality disordered traits.     

Experiences of engaging in psychotherapeutic interventions for sexual offending behaviours: A meta-synthesis

Abstract

This meta-synthesis explores individuals' experiences of engaging in psychotherapeutic interventions for sexual offending. The findings of ten qualitative studies were integrated and five over-arching concepts emerged: (1) incentives and inhibitions: to engage or not to engage?; (2) help or hindrance: the impact of others in therapy; (3) the abused and the abuser: perspectives for transformation; (4) struggling and striving: dealing with distress and difficulties and (5) what works: inside and outside. A line of argument derived from these concepts is proposed as a framework for understanding sex offenders' experiences of therapy and highlights aspects of treatment programmes that need further exploration or emphasis. Using qualitative accounts can improve the responsiveness of treatment programmes, but such research is currently limited. Future qualitative studies and reviews could help further improve the effectiveness of treatment programmes, and thereby reduce the rate of sexual reoffending.     

Book Reviews

Taylor C. Boas, Presidential Campaigns in Latin America: Electoral Strategies and Success Contagion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Figures, tables, appendixes, bibliography, index, 276 pp.; hardcover $99.99, ebook. John Gledhill, The New War on the Poor: The Production of Insecurity in Latin America. London: Zed Books, 2015. Map, bibliography, index, 256 pp.; paperback $29.95, ebook $23.96. Ezequiel A. González‐Ocantos, Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 342 pp.; hardcover $110, paperback $35.99, ebook $88. Merrilee S. Grindle and Erin E. Goodman, eds., Reflections on Memory and Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. Photograph, 274 pp.; paperback $24.95. David Pion‐Berlin, Military Missions in Democratic Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 231 pp.; hardcover $105, ebook $79.99. Robert Gay, Bruno: Conversations with a Brazilian Drug Dealer. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Illustrations, chronology, notes, bibliography, index, 232 pp.; hardcover $89.95, paperback $14.95. Georgina Waylen, ed., Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet's Chile. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Figure, tables, bibliographies, index, 259 pp.; hardcover $105, ebook $79.99. Dickie Davis, David Kilcullen, Greg Mills, and David Spencer, A Great Perhaps? Colombia: Conflict and Convergence. London: Hurst, 2015. Maps, figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 288 pp.; hardcover $39.40. Mary Helen Spooner and Steven Ullmann, Cuban Health Care: Utopian Dreams, Fragile Future. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014. Appendixes, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 152 pp.; hardcover $83, ebook $78.50. John M. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders: Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. Tables, bibliography, index, 376 pp.; hardcover $79.95. Christine J. Wade, Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016. Illustrations, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 304 pp.; hardcover $69.95, paperback $39.95, ebook.