Victims of ‘Friendly Fire’? The NRF,the EU BG and Contested Identity Constructions within the Transatlantic Community

Abstract

The NRF and the EU BG were launched to enable NATO and the EU respectively to shed some of their Cold War roles and begin to incorporate new organisational functions as means to meet their members’ needs in a changing global security environment. However, since their launch the two rapid reaction forces have both failed to fully consolidate. Our argument is that an examination of intra-NATO/EU contested identities at three levels (supra-state, state and sub-state) provides us with additional insights for the lack of success in consolidating the two sets of rapid reaction forces.     

Overreporting Voting: Campaign Media,Public Mood,and the Vote

This study used regional telephone survey data collected after the 1996 U.S. presidential election to examine how two possibly important affective variables public mood and political cynicism predict actual as compared with self-reported voting. Public mood, a construct introduced by Rahn, Kroeger, and Kite (1996) to suggest how affective processes may play a role in political behavior, is shown to have two distinct but positively correlated dimensions, one positive and one negative. After demographic variables were controlled, perceived media usefulness predicted positive mood about the presidential election, which in turn predicted self-reported voting. Negative campaign attitude predicted negative mood, which, in turn, influenced actual but not self-reported voting. Political cynicism, although correlated with both positive and negative public mood, predicted neither measure of voting. The bifurcation of influence of negative and positive public mood about elections may explain why researchers have often shown positive affect to influence voting (as measured by self-report), and why political consultants have continued to rely on negative campaigning and the reported increases in negative feelings it engenders in voters to influence actual votes.     

Cognitive Mechanisms of the Transmission of Violence: Exploring Gender Differences among Adolescents Exposed to Family Violence

This study focuses on the mechanisms through which exposure to family violence leads to aggressive behavior in adolescents who were the victims of abuse and neglect. A sample of 166 adolescents from residential child welfare and protection centers for victims of abuse and neglect completed measures of victimization and witnessing violence at home, three schemas (justification of violence, mistrust, and grandiosity), aggressiveness (proactive and reactive), and depression. The results showed that witnessing family violence is more intensely associated with aggressiveness than victimization, and that part of this association is mediated by schemas of justification of violence and grandiosity. Victimization was associated with less aggressiveness and more depression, through the schema of mistrust. In girls exposure to family violence was more intensely associated with aggressiveness.     

Crime Data,the Internet,and Free Speech: An Evolving Legal Consciousness

Digitization and open access to governmental data have made criminal justice information incredibly easy to access and disseminate. This study asks how law should govern access to criminal histories on the Internet. Drawing upon interviews with crime website publishers and subjects who have appeared on websites, I use legal consciousness theory to show how social actors interpret, construct, and invoke law in a nascent and unregulated area. The analysis reveals how both parties construct legality in the absence of positive legal restrictions: Website publishers use legal justifications, while those appealing to have their online record cleared resort to personal pleas, as opposed to legal remedy. Ultimately, I show how current data practices reinforce structural inequalities already present in criminal justice institutions in a profoundly public manner, leaving website subjects with little recourse and an inescapable digital trail.     

Associations Between Experiencing and Witnessing Physical and Psychological Abuse and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Yemeni Children

There is little research on how family violence affects children who live the Arab world. This study had three aims. First, to examine the prevalence of family violence in Yemen. Second, to examine the associations between family violence and internalizing and externalizing problems in Yemeni children. Third, to examine participant gender as a possible moderator. A total of 598 children, 11–16 years old, completed measures of experiencing and witnessing physical and psychological abuse in the home, and reported emotional symptoms and conduct problems. Findings indicate that prevalence rates of all forms of abuse are high among Yemeni children (57.5% experiencing physical abuse, 71.2% psychological abuse, 33.6% witnessing physical abuse, and 78.9% witnessing psychological abuse). Boys experienced more physical and psychological abuse in the home than girls, although the level of physical and psychological abuse children witnessed in the home did not differ for boys and girls. The structural equation model indicated that witnessing psychological abuse was associated with emotional symptoms and conduct problems in children. Experiencing physical abuse was associated with conduct problems, whereas experiencing psychological abuse was associated with emotional symptoms. These associations were similar for boys and girls. These findings suggest that living in an abusive home can have harmful effects on Yemeni children.     

Intimate partner violence within a cohort of Pacific mothers living in New Zealand

Maternal reports of intimate partner violence (IPV) were obtained from a cohort of Pacific mothers living in New Zealand. The Conflict Tactics Scale was completed by 1,095 women who had given birth in the past 12 months, and who were married or living with a partner as married. The 12-month prevalence of "victimization" through verbal aggression was 77%, 21% for "minor" physical violence, and 11% for "severe" physical violence. The 12-month prevalence of "perpetration" of verbal aggression against a partner was 90%, 35% for "minor" physical violence, and 19% for "severe" violence towards their partner. The experience of social inequality and acculturation are associated with IPV, albeit differentially across the experience of victimization and perpetration. Factors significantly associated with victimization are ethnicity, maternal education, social marital status and household income. Factors significantly associated with perpetration are ethnicity, cultural alignment, maternal birthplace and alcohol consumption since the birth of the child.     

Discrepancies Between Youth and Mothers’ Perceptions of Their Mother–Child Relationship Quality and Self-Disclosure: Implications for Youth- and Mother-Reported Youth Adjustment

Recently, researchers have devoted greater attention to understanding how disagreement between mothers and their children regarding parent-child relationship quality and functioning impacts youth adjustment. While some view discrepancies as indices of developmentally appropriate individuation, discrepancies regarding family functioning also have been found to predict problematic youth functioning. This study examined the effects of mother-child discrepancies for mother-child relationship qualities and youth self-disclosure on youth- and mother-reported youth internalizing and externalizing adjustment. 232 fifth, eighth, and 11th grade youth (55?% female) and their mothers completed measures of mother-child relationship quality, youth self-disclosure, and youth internalizing and externalizing adjustment. For internalizing adjustment, few effects of discrepancy on adjustment were evident. Instead, informant-specific perceptions of mother-child relationship functioning were most relevant for informant-specific reports of youth adjustment. For youth externalizing adjustment, the magnitude of mother-child discrepancies for negative relationship quality and for youth self-disclosure predicted lower levels of problematic externalizing behavior from both the children's and the mothers' perspectives, which could indicate a lack of parent-child communication. Future research is needed to fully understand how discrepancies in negative or maladaptive aspects of mother-child relationships are formed (e.g., low disclosure), are understood by the members of the dyad, and contribute to the onset, maintenance, and treatment of problematic behavioral outcomes.     

Striving for Educational and Career Goals During the Transition After High School: What is Beneficial?

The present study takes a motivational perspective that views youths’ educational and career engagement as influential and potentially competing for the same motivational resources in the transition to adulthood. We investigated whether motivational engagement with educational and career goals in the year after high-school graduation was differentially associated with educational, career-related and subjective well-being outcomes 2 and 4 years after school graduation. Our longitudinal study of a multi-ethnic sample of Los Angeles high-school graduates followed participants 2 years (N = 561; 61.5 % female) and 4 years (N = 364; 59.8 % female) after high school graduation. The findings indicate that motivational engagement with educational goals after high school graduation predicted educational attainments and psychological well-being at follow-up 2 and 4 years after graduation, and occupational progress at 4 years after graduation. Work hours assessed shortly after high school graduation were associated with poorer educational outcomes both at 2 and 4 years after high school. Occupational goal engagement was not associated with better outcomes, but predicted less educational attainment 4 years after graduating. Thus, educational goal engagement predicted favorable outcomes, whereas career-related goal engagement for the most part was neutral with some select associations with negative educational outcomes. A strong motivational commitment to educational goals, but not to career goals, is an important component of a successful transition to adulthood.