Do Constraints Limit Opportunism? Incumbent Electoral Performance Before and After (Partially) Fixed-Term Laws

Political Behavior - Over the last two decades, a number of Westminster parliamentary countries have adopted fixed or partially fixed election dates in response to growing public concerns about the...     

Ecosocialisms,Past, Present and Future: From the Metabolic Rift to a Reconstructive,Dynamic and Hybrid Ecosocialism

John Bellamy Foster and his colleagues have recently argued that the project of ecosocialism should be understood in terms of a “prefigurative” and “first stage” of red-green thinkers whose insights have largely been transcended by their own work on the metabolic rift. Rift scholars have further argued that “second-stage” ecosocialists should push back against “idealist” deviations occurring amongst historical materialists concerned with the production of nature, socionatures and “hybridity,” as well as more or less all engagements with literatures on eco-technological transitions, industrial ecology and the like, which are implicated in supporting “green capitalism.” This paper critically evaluates these claims. In each case, it is argued, rift scholarship is narrowing the possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement and for thinking in dynamic and reconstructive terms about red-green futures. It is our sense that an ecosocialist vision of just transitions has to be conceptualized as a diverse, dynamic, iterative and always incomplete affair. Anthropocene ecosocialisms are inevitably going to involve co-producing, making and remaking hybrid social ecologies on an irreducibly restless, turbulent and warming planet. We argue that what follows from this is the necessity to both critique and recuperate the better insights of hybrid political ecology and ecological modernities.     

Mexican Origin Youths’ Trajectories of Perceived Peer Discrimination from Middle Childhood to Adolescence: Variation by Neighborhood Ethnic Concentration

Developmentally salient research on perceived peer discrimination among minority youths is limited. Little is known about trajectories of perceived peer discrimination across the developmental period ranging from middle childhood to adolescence. Ethically concentrated neighborhoods are hypothesized to protect minority youths from discrimination, but strong empirical tests are lacking. The first aim of the current study was to estimate trajectories of perceived peer discrimination from middle childhood to adolescence, as youths transitioned from elementary to middle and to high school. The second aim was to examine the relationship between neighborhood ethnic concentration and perceived peer discrimination over time. Using a diverse sample of 749 Mexican origin youths (48.9 % female), a series of growth models revealed that youths born in Mexico, relative to those born in the U.S., perceived higher discrimination in the 5th grade and decreases across time. Youths who had higher averages on neighborhood ethnic concentration (across the developmental period) experienced decreases in perceived peer discrimination over time; those that had lower average neighborhood ethnic concentration levels showed evidence of increasing trajectories. Further, when individuals experienced increases in their own neighborhood ethnic concentration levels (relative to their own cross-time averages), they reported lower levels of perceived peer discrimination. Neighborhood ethnic concentration findings were not explained by the concurrent changes youths were experiencing in school ethnic concentrations. The results support a culturally-informed developmental view of perceived peer discrimination that recognizes variability in co-ethnic neighborhood contexts. The results advance a view of ethnic enclaves as protective from mainstream threats.     

Thinking and Doing Prevention: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Youth Crime and Suicide Prevention Discourses

In this article, we have traced some of the dominant cultural narratives shaping current understandings of youth crime and suicide. We have aimed to show some of the ways that our received understandings of what the problem is and what should be done about it are social constructions that privilege a certain kind of scientific explanation. By starting from the premise that narrow, highly regulated approaches to studying these complex problems are bound to be inadequate we have argued that alternative ways of thinking, studying and doing prevention need to be considered. A number of theoretical frameworks, including constructionist, critical, and postmodern paradigms, have been identified as having a useful contribution to make. We conclude by recommending ways of thinking and doing prevention that capitalize on young people's wisdom, recognize more collaborative approaches to knowledge-making and community building, and enable multiple forms of critical engagement and resistance as well as engendering practices of hope and solidarity.     

NATO: The View from the East

Abstract

Relations between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and NATO have placed more emphasis on cooperation than confrontation since the Cold War, and Ukraine has begun to move towards membership. At the popular level, on the evidence of national surveys in 2004 and 2005, NATO continues to be perceived as a significant threat, but in Russia and Ukraine it comes behind the United States (in Belarus the numbers are similar). There are few socioeconomic predictors of support for NATO membership that are significant across all three countries, but there are wide differences by region, and by attitudinal variables such as support for a market economy and for EU membership. The relationship between popular attitudes and foreign policy is normally a distant one; but in Ukraine NATO membership will require public support in a referendum, and in all three cases public attitudes on foreign policy issues can influence foreign policy in other ways, including the composition of parliamentary committees. In newly independent states whose international allegiances are still evolving, the associations between public opinion and foreign and security policy may often be closer than in the established democracies.     

Population drug use in Australia: a wastewater analysis

Accurate information on drug use in communities is essential if health, social and economic harms associated with illicit drug use are to be addressed efficiently. In most countries population drug use is estimated indirectly via surveys, medical presentations and police and custom seizures. All of these methods have at least some problems due to bias, small samples and/or long time delays between collecting the information and analysing the results. Recently the direct quantification of drug residues in wastewater has shown promise as a means of monitoring drug use in defined geographical areas. In this study we measured 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), methamphetamine and benzoylecgonine in sewage inflows in metropolitan and regional areas of Australia and compared these data with published European data. Cocaine use was small compared to European cities (p<0.001) but was compensated for by much greater consumption of methamphetamine (p<0.001) and MDMA (p<0.05). MDMA was more popular in regional areas (p<0.05) whereas methamphetamine and cocaine were mainly consumed in the city (p<0.05). Greater than 5-fold increases in MDMA use were detected on weekends (p<0.001). This approach has the potential to improve our understanding of drug use in populations and should be further developed to improve prevention and treatment programs.     

Patriarchal Investments: Marriage,Dowry and the Political Economy of Development in Bangladesh

This article explores why dowry inflation persists in Bangladesh, despite the country being widely heralded as a development success, especially with regard to gender. The article asks three questions. Does rural Bangladesh show changing patterns of marriage similar to those reported elsewhere in South Asia and more broadly? What might explain the persistent spread and inflation of dowry payments? How might changes in marriage and the inflation of dowry be related to the broader political economy of development in Bangladesh? Analysis of primary data from rural Bangladesh affirms shifts in norms of marriage arrangement and conjugal relationships, but also emphasises considerable continuity. The political economy of development in Bangladesh is briefly described. Dowry is argued to function not as compensation for perceived weakness in women’s economic contribution, but to bolster men’s. In mobilising “additional” resources, dowries help sustain the economic system and indicate ongoing commitment to cultural idioms of masculine provision and protection, against a background of widespread corruption and political and gender violence.