Customary and contemporary resources for women's empowerment in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, dramatic social and economic changes are transforming historical forms of patriarchy with various impacts on pathways to women's empowerment. We hypothesised contemporary resources would be more strongly associated with women's empowerment, as reflected in their influence in family decisions. In cross-sectional analysis, we found the contemporary resources of employment and membership in NGOs were most strongly and consistently associated with women's influence in family decisions. Education was only modestly associated, as were customary resources, including age and fertility. Programmatic efforts to enhance women's empowerment should consider the rapidly changing environment and the importance of women's economic participation.     

Forlorn daughters? The role of social motherhood in transnational African Methodist Episcopal missionary women networks, 1900–1940s

Abstract

This paper examines the transnational networks formed between women who were part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) within the United States (US) and its South African missionary societies during the early twentieth century. From the outset, these networks enabled South African women to gain tertiary education in the US, but were nonetheless entrenched in unequal power dynamics. US-based women considered themselves metaphorical mothers to the female South African members, portraying the African women as daughters in need of social and financial support. US AME women were complex role models for Black African women who could not reasonably maintain the lifestyle enjoyed by many AME missionary women. Often, however, South African women appear to have utilized these unequal power dynamics, embracing the rhetoric of being “forlorn daughters” of Africa to maintain the AME’s support. Nevertheless, these networks helped sustain both US and South African women’s participation within the AME Church.     

Social Support Related to Women Who Have Remained with Their Partners After the Physical Violence has Ceased

Using a U.S. nationally representative sample (N?=?5,692; U.S. National Comorbidity Survey- Replication Part II [NCS-R]; Alegria et al. 2007), this research explored social support as a possible protective factor for abused women. Women who were physically abused by their partners, but not during the past year reported more positive social support from friends than women who continued to experience physical violence or women who had not experienced partner violence. Women who had experienced recent physical violence reported more negative social support than women who had not experienced partner violence. These findings suggest that positive social support might be a protective mechanism for women in abusive relationships.     

Transforming Prevention Systems in the United States and The Netherlands Using Communities That Care

Josine Junger-Tas introduced the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system to the Netherlands as a promising approach to address the growing youth violence and delinquency. Using data from a randomized trial of CTC in the United States and a quasi-experimental study of CTC in the Netherlands, this article describes the results of a comparison of the implementation of CTC in 12 U.S. communities and five Dutch neighborhoods. CTC communities in both countries achieved higher stages of a science-based approach to prevention than control communities, but full implementation of CTC in the Netherlands was hampered by the very small list of prevention programs tested and found effective in the Dutch context.     

Are they different? A comparison of risk in Dangerous and Severe Personality Disordered and Personality Disordered hospitalized populations

Abstract

There has been considerable interest internationally in the assessment and treatment of individuals who have a severe personality disorder and who might pose a high risk of future recidivism. In the UK, the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme was initiated to deal with just this group. It is unclear, yet, whether those admitted to these services are different from those admitted to conventional personality disorder (PD) services. In the present study, 60 patients admitted to DSPD services, under DSPD criteria, were compared with 44 patients admitted to personality disordered (non-DSPD) services within the same high secure psychiatric hospital, on risk measures, including (1) an index of predicted future violence, (2) previous offending behaviour and (3) ‘pre-treatment’ levels of institutional risk-related behaviour. Results indicated that DSPD patients do pose a greater clinical and management risk, have a higher number of ‘pre-treatment’ risk-related behaviour, and have a greater number of convictions and imprisonments after age 18, relative to PD patients. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

The Return of "Captain Moonlight": Informal Justice in Northern Ireland

In the working-class areas of Northern Ireland alternative forms of justice operating in parallel to the State's criminal justice system exist. This informal criminal justice system, administered by paramilitaries, includes threats, warnings, beatings, shootings, and executions. Informal justice mechanisms emerged in the early days of "the Troubles" and have continued to develop. This article maps the development of informal justice in both republican and loyalist areas of Northern Ireland and examines the ways in which paramilitaries "police" their communities and mete out "punishments."     

A Strange Drift to the Right: The Civic Historiography of Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent strives to contribute to the project of "democratic theory," which aims to bring people together across ideological differences. Sandel wants to revitalize citizenship by uniting religious conservatives and those committed to a more just political economy through an appeal to the American tradition of civic republicanism. However, his project is fundamentally incoherent. First, Sandel's narrative conflates the republican and religious aspects of the American founding, ignoring the fact that civic republican political theory actually developed in direct opposition to the ideal of a Christian polity. Second, his version of civic republicanism deviates from the historic tradition in a way that renders it much more conservative than it actually was and might still be. Third, his reading of American history consistently highlights conservative themes. Consequently, Sandel ultimately undercuts the progressive aspects of his own vision, detracting from rather than contributing to the transideological aspirations of "democratic theory."