Components of loneliness during adolescence

Predictors of adolescent loneliness were investigated in two samples of high school students (n=92)and college undergraduates (n=192).Results were similar across samples. Among the high school sample loneliness was significantly predicted by a combination of alienation, a lack of social facility and acceptance, inferiority feelings, negative school attitudes, and a lack of social integration. Among college students loneliness was negatively related to social facility, regularity, approval, and involvement and positively related to alienation, parental disinterest, negative school attitudes, and inferiority feelings.Research interests include loneliness and self-concept.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from Oklahoma State University. Research interests include loneliness and friendships.     

The politics of security reform in post-2011 Tunisia: assessing the role of exogenous shocks,domestic policy entrepreneurs and external actors

Abstract

In post—2011 Tunisia, the reform of the security sector has proceeded haphazardly, hindering security efficiency and lowering the overall effectiveness in countering threats. Since 2015, the combination of three factors — external shocks, international actors' pressures and domestic configurations of political power — have paved the way for a progressive overhaul of the efficiency of security agencies. Following the 2015 terrorist attacks, that destabilized the political system and risked derailing the trajectory of democratic consolidation, European powers exerted pressure to improve efficiency in the security sector. Lastly, these push factors needed an enabling condition, a strong presidency of the republic, to make the changes happen. The measures adopted reflect a technical and supposedly depoliticized view of reforms, in line with a broader post‐interventionist trend in Security Assistance. Based on process-tracing, the analysis of primary documents and several in‐depth interviews carried out between 2015 and 2017, the article illustrates the workings of the policy process in the security arena. It sheds light on the conditions that made possible the adoption of reforms, the role external actors played in pushing for change and in creating a new multilateral mechanism, the G7+, which produced an unintended set of domestic consequences.     

Older adolescents' engagement in casual sex: Impact of risk perception and psychosocial motivations

The relationship between attitudes for casual sex and casual sex behavior was investigated for a group of older adolescents between the ages of 17 and 19. In addition, factors that influence casual sex orientations were studied. Models of behavior that emphasize disease issues as a primary determinant of casual sex behavior were compared with models that emphasize a broader range of social-psychological motivations. Results showed that the relationship between attitudes and behavior was stronger for females than males. In addition, disease-related variables were found to be correlated with behavior in a direction opposite to what traditional disease models would predict. The results were interpreted in the context of a behavioral inference model. It was found that casual sex behavior is more heavily influenced by a broad range of social-psychological motivations as compared to disease-based variables. Implications for educational interventions were developed.Received Ph.D. in education from Stanford University. Major research interests are in self-efficacy and adolescent sexual risk behavior.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana. Major research interests are in parent-adolescent communication and quantitative methods.Received M.A. in psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Major research interests are in attitudes and attitude change.     

Clientelism and the Utility of the Left‐Right Dimension in Latin America

This article analyzes the relationship between clientelism and citizens' political orientation in Latin America. Consistent political perceptions in the citizenry are central in traditional theories of political competition. This article argues that clientelism hinders the development of consistent political orientation by reducing the utility of information cues, such as left‐right labels. More specifically, clientelistic parties generate indifference among their supporters toward the left‐right divide by offering them an alternative voting rationale, and increase uncertainty in the political realm by making left‐right labels less meaningful. Both arguments are tested with multilevel regression analyses using cross‐sectional data covering 18 Latin American countries. The results indicate that clientelistic party supporters are more likely to show indifference toward the left‐right dimension and, to a lesser extent, that their left‐right orientation corresponds less with their political attitudes.     

Cross-border public care and adoption proceedings in the European Union

The free movement of persons within the EU has meant that children at risk of harm from family members may be living in a Member State of which they are not a national. The child may be made subject to legal measures under the national law of the host State for the protection of their welfare. This article explores the competence of the EU to protect children in these circumstances, and the scope of the Brussels IIa Regulation in governing jurisdiction over child protection proceedings. It discusses the difference between national child protection systems and the political controversy surrounding English law on adoption following care proceedings issued over a child who is a national of a different Member State. It suggests that further information sharing on national systems and cooperation between courts is necessary for the effectiveness of the law and to encourage understanding of legitimate variation in Member State national family law.     

Investment Criteria in Single and Multi-Member Economic Organizations

This paper compares the determination of investment criteriain single- and multi-member organizations. Individualdecisional skills are assumed to be endogenous variables thatdepend on the investment criteria. Our main result specifiesthe condition that determines the relationship between theinvestment criteria in single- and multi-member organizations,given the size of the multi-member organization, the decisionrule it applies and the function relating the individual'sdecisional skills to the investment criterion. Theimplications of our main result are developed for specialorganizations such as hierarchies and polyarchies. Ouranalysis implies that the criteria in a multi-memberorganization may be stricter than the criteria set in asingle-member organization, even though in the former case theorganization may worsen the average decision-making ability ofits members. The analysis can be applied not only in singleand multi-member decision making settings, but also in somecontexts of centralized and decentralized decisions. This isillustrated in the case of decisions by editors ofprofessional journals regarding the acceptance or rejection ofsubmitted papers.     

Detection of counterfeit antiviral drug Heptodin™ and classification of counterfeits using isotope amount ratio measurements by multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS) and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS)

Isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) and multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) are highly important techniques that can provide forensic evidence that otherwise would not be available. MC-ICP-MS has proved to be a very powerful tool for measuring high precision and accuracy isotope amount ratios. In this work, the potential of combining isotope amount ratio measurements performed by MC-ICP-MS and IRMS for the detection of counterfeit pharmaceutical tablets has been investigated.An extensive study for the antiviral drug Heptodin™ has been performed for several isotopic ratios combining MC-ICP-MS and an elemental analyser EA-IRMS for stable isotope amount ratio measurements. The study has been carried out for 139 batches of the antiviral drug and analyses have been performed for C, S, N and Mg isotope ratios. Authenticity ranges have been obtained for each isotopic system and combined to generate a unique multi-isotopic pattern only present in the genuine tablets. Counterfeit tablets have then been identified as those tablets with an isotopic fingerprint outside the genuine isotopic range.The combination of those two techniques has therefore great potential for pharmaceutical counterfeit detection. A much greater power of discrimination is obtained when at least three isotopic systems are combined. The data from these studies could be presented as evidence in court and therefore methods need to be validated to support their credibility. It is also crucial to be able to produce uncertainty values associated to the isotope amount ratio measurements so that significant differences can be identified and the genuineness of a sample can be assessed.     

Wench Tactics? Openings in Conditions of Closure

Picking up the question of what FLaK might be, this editorial considers the relationship between openness and closure in feminist legal studies. How do we draw on feminist struggles for openness in common resources, from security to knowledge, as we inhabit a compromised space in commercial publishing? We think about this first in relation to the content of this issue: on image-based abuse continuums, asylum struggles, trials of protestors, customary justice, and not-so-timely reparations. Our thoughts take us through the different ways that openness and closure work in struggles against violence, cruel welcomes, and re-arrangements of code and custom. Secondly, we share some reflections on methodological openness and closure as the roundtable conversation on asylum, and the interview with Riles, remind us of #FLaK2016 and its method of scattering sources as we think about how best to mix knowledges. Thirdly, prompted by the FLaK kitchen table conversations on openness, publishing and ‘getting the word out’, we respond to Kember’s call to ‘open up open access’. We explain the different current arrangements for opening up FLS content and how green open access, the sharedit initiative, author request and publisher discretion present alternatives to gold open access. Finally drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit. These wench tactics are alternatives to the more obvious or reported tactic of resignation, or withdrawing academic labour from editing and reviewing altogether. They help us think about brewing editorial time, what ambivalence over our 25th birthday might mean, and how to inhabit painful places. In this, we respond in our own impure, compromised way to da Silva’s call not to forget the native and slave as we do FLaK, and repurpose shrapnel, in our common commitments.     

A New Regional Cold War in the Middle East and North Africa: Regional Security Complex Theory Revisited

Since the 2003 Iraq war, the Middle East and North Africa has entered into a New Regional Cold War, characterised by two competing logics: on the one hand, the politicisation of sectarianism opposing a Saudi-led Sunni bloc against an Iran-led Shia bloc and, on the other, an intra-Sunni cleavage around the mobilisation of political Islam, embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters vs its opponents. Blending Buzan and Weaver’s regional security complex theory with Donnelly’s notion of ‘heterarchy’ and applying it to the cold wars the region has experienced, the similarities and differences between the Arab Cold War of the 1950s/60s and the New Regional Cold War reveal the increasing number of heterarchic features within the regional security complex: multiple and heterogeneous power centres, different power rankings, a more visible and relevant role of non-state and transnational actors, and the fragmentation of regional norms.     

The impact of compulsory voting on inequality and the quality of the vote

Abstract

Democratic elections imply that the electorate holds incumbents accountable for past performance, and that voters select the party that is closest to their own political preferences. Previous research shows that both elements require political sophistication. A number of countries throughout the world have a system of compulsory voting, and this legal obligation boosts levels of voter turnout. Under such rules, citizens with low levels of sophistication in particular are thought to turn out to vote in higher numbers. Is it the case that the quality of the vote is reduced when these less sophisticated voters are compelled to vote? This article investigates this claim by examining the effect of compulsory voting on accountability and proximity voting. The results show that compulsory voting reduces stratification based on knowledge and level of education, and proximity voting, but it does not have an effect on economic accountability. The article concludes with some suggestions on how systems of compulsory voting might mitigate the strength of political sophistication in determining the quality of the vote decision process.