A Theoretical Understanding of Abusive Intimate Partner Relationships that Become Non-violent: Shifting the Pattern of Abusive Control

Our theoretical understanding of abusive intimate partner relationships has ignored relationships that have become non-violent. We interviewed a community convenience sample of 27 women whose relationships had become non-violent. Using the constant comparative analysis of grounded theory, we generated a substantive theory, shifting the pattern of abusive control with three sub-processes, counteracting abuse, taking control, and living differently. Women’s acquisition of personal capacity and autonomy was foundational to countering the insidious oppression of abuse. Partners in these relationships that became non-violent, paid attention, gradually backing off and ceasing violent acts. For some women, coexisting in a violence-free relationship was satisfactory; for others, investing in an improved intimate partner relationship was essential for sustaining living differently. This theory provides direction for women who are working toward living differently with partners who are no longer violent, and for their helpers. Further, our findings contribute to our theoretical understanding of how abusive couple relationships may evolve over time.     

Issue definition and two‐level negotiations: An application to the American foreign policy process

This article builds on the two‐level games and international negotiation literatures and shows how the use of an issue typology can shed light on the nature of the interactions between domestic political forces and international negotiations. This is done by presenting four foreign policy process models illustrating that the decision‐making process varies depending on the type of issue that is involved in a particular situation. The varying structure and nature of the process affects the range of the domestic level win‐set and hinders or aids the achievement of international agreement depending on which model is in play. Although the focus in this article is on the American foreign policy process, the argument is generic to the broader theoretical development of the two‐level games approach because similar, but country‐specific, decision‐making models can be developed for use in the study of non‐American foreign policy. Such generalizations build on recent work focusing on the impact of state structure on the foreign policy process and its outcomes.     

A population genetic database of cat breeds developed in coordination with a domestic cat STR multiplex

A simple tandem repeat (STR) PCR-based typing system developed for the genetic individualization of domestic cat samples has been used to generate a population genetic database of domestic cat breeds. A panel of 10 tetranucleotide STR loci and a gender-identifying sequence tagged site (STS) were co-amplified in genomic DNA of 1043 individuals representing 38 cat breeds. The STR panel exhibits relatively high heterozygosity in cat breeds, with an average 10-locus heterozygosity of 0.71, which represents an average of 38 breed-specific heterozygosities for the 10-member panel. When the entire set of breed individuals was analyzed as a single population, a heterozygosity of 0.87 was observed. Heterozygosities obtained for the 10 loci range from 0.72 to 0.96. The power for genetic individualization of domestic cat samples of the multiplex is high, with a probability of match (p(m)) of 6.2E-14, using a conservative θ = 0.05.     

The Programme de recherche en démographie historique: past,present and future developments in family reconstitution

The Programme de recherche en démographie historique (Historical Demography Research Programme) (PRDH), founded in 1966 and based at the Département de Démographie of the Université de Montréal, has since its inception featured a central project, a family reconstitution database of Quebec’s Catholic population from 1621 to 1799 named the Registre de la population du Québec ancien (Population Register of Historic Quebec) (RPQA). This article, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the project, explores the development of the RPQA over the five decades in the context of similar international databases, explains the current state of the database as well as our record linkage methodology, describes an important collaboration now underway to build a larger Quebec historical data infrastructure, outlines new and renewed international collaborations, and summarizes research conducted using these data as well as future research possibilities. The particular geographic context, historical development and manageable colonial population size of Quebec favoured family reconstitution of the whole colony from the beginning of the project. Today, the RPQA comprises 438,193 individual biographies and 74,000 family files encompassing up to nine generations. To reconstitute families, we must identify and incorporate into the database all demographic events, including those whose existence can only be inferred through other sources. Future efforts to link nineteenth-century parish acts will need to deal with large case counts, mixed Catholic–Protestant marriages, and increased geographic and social mobility. The integration of complementary data will provide information on household co-residence, occupations, help track the destinies of mixed-religion persons and persons outside nuclear families and provide additional points of observation.