Dynamic transparency: An audit of Mexico's Freedom of Information Act

Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) aim to provide a channelled exchange between citizens and public officials that, irrespective of the citizen's identity, results in the provision of timely, relevant, and often new information about policy. We evaluated Mexico's FOIA by submitting 307 information requests on behalf of an average male citizen to government entities in the years 2007, 2013, and 2015. In 2007, we also submitted the same requests to 87 comparable entities on behalf of a male citizen who signalled economic and political clout. Encouragingly, entities do not discriminate between regular and seemingly influential citizens. Entities also answer more frequently and provide more information in 2015 compared to earlier years, but they are taking longer to answer, frequently charging fees, and often failing to provide quality information to questions they are legally bound to answer. Mexico's FOIA is a functional system demanding significant improvements.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization Mediates the Relationship between Maternal and Adolescent Negative Emotionality

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parents and children with high negative emotionality may be more likely to provide and receive non-supportive contingencies, respectively. However, no study has...     

Austerity,rationing and inequity: trends in children’s and young peoples’ services expenditure in England between 2010 and 2015

This article investigates local authority (LA) trends in expenditure on Children’s and Young Peoples’ services in England between 2010 and 2015, a period of government characterised by measures of fiscal austerity. We draw on a rationing framework to contextualise the levels and trends in expenditure under observation. The article analyses trends in various groupings of expenditure, using a latent growth modelling approach to identify significant trajectories in spending across LAs with different deprivation tertile membership. We find that although some kinds of children’s and young peoples’ services expenditure have been largely maintained during this period, preventive family support and early intervention services (such as Sure Start Children’s centres) have seen substantial reductions in expenditure, in contrast to the dominant narrative that children’s services have been protected. LAs in the most deprived tertile have faced the greatest cuts, mirroring other research findings on the distribution of austerity measures.     

The Historical Rarity of Foreign-Deployed Nuclear Weapon Crises

What are the strategic costs of foreign-deployed nuclear weapons? Thus far, scholars have focused primarily on the possible benefits: deterring adversaries and reassuring allies. There is little scholarship on the costs side of the cost–benefit equation. This article evaluates one potential cost: that deployments generate crises. I argue that such deployments have, historically, rarely resulted in crises because few deployments generate the level of threat necessary for the target of the deployment to forcefully act. Crises are likely only in the rare situations when the deployment is to an area that the rival views as vital and the deployment threatens to embolden the deploying or host state. I examine all foreign nuclear deployments to support these claims. The results have implications for ongoing debates on the effects of nuclear weapons and US nuclear deployments abroad today.     

A Prospective,Longitudinal Examination of the Influence of Childhood Home and School Contexts on Psychopathic Characteristics in Adolescence

Much of the existing research examining etiological contributors to psychopathic characteristics considers only biological and physiological deficits, with little consideration given to contextual factors that may play a role in their development. This prospective, longitudinal study examined the influence of childhood home and school environments on adolescent psychopathic characteristics among 390 youth (50.5% female; 46.2% Black/African American, 44.9% Hispanic/Latino, 6.9% Asian or Native American/Alaska Native, and 2.1% Non-Hispanic White). Specifically, this study examined (1) the effect of home chaos and poor parental monitoring on adolescent primary and secondary psychopathy and callous-unemotional traits through the lens of multiple reporters, and (2) whether classroom climate quality across three years of childhood moderated these relationships. The results indicated that delinquency and home chaos in childhood were related to primary psychopathy in adolescence and that exposure to higher quality classroom climates across childhood acted as a buffer by mitigating the negative relationship between parental monitoring in childhood and secondary psychopathy in adolescence. These findings have implications for designing interventions to mitigate the manifestation of youth psychopathy.     

Is the Future of SSR non-linear?

This article explores issues around security sector reform (SSR) and the involvement of the international community in peace-building. It argues that the international architecture which surrounds SSR privileges a particular form of knowledge that reflects a technocratic approach to security, and illustrates this by systematically examining the literature. Research on the literature itself shows that three core themes dominate: state-centric approaches, technocratic approaches, and approaches to local ownership. These comprise a current, linear approach to SSR that ignores much of the critical literature on peace-building. The article then goes on to draw on some of this critical literature to develop an alternative approach to SSR building using a non-linear approach which incorporates a better understanding of institutional politics, an emphasis on process rather than structures, and analysis of hidden politics.