EXPLAINING THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INCARCERATION AND DIVORCE

Recent studies have suggested that incarceration dramatically increases the odds of divorce, but we know little about the mechanisms that explain the association. This study uses prospective longitudinal data from a subset of married young adults in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 1,919) to examine whether incarceration is associated with divorce indirectly via low marital love, economic strain, relationship violence, and extramarital sex. The findings confirmed that incarcerations occurring during, but not before, a marriage were associated with an increased hazard of divorce. Incarcerations occurring during marriage also were associated with less marital love, more relationship violence, more economic strain, and greater odds of extramarital sex. Above‐average levels of economic strain were visible among respondents observed preincarceration, but only respondents observed postincarceration showed less marital love, more relationship violence, and higher odds of extramarital sex than did respondents who were not incarcerated during marriage. These relationship problems explained approximately 40 percent of the association between incarceration and marital dissolution. These findings are consistent with theoretical predictions that a spouse's incarceration alters the rewards and costs of the marriage and the relative attractiveness of alternative partners.     

GOVERNANCE FROM THE BOTTOM UP: COMPLEXITY AND DIVERGENCE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This symposium article examines how the threefold governance framework of the symposium actually works across multiple policy sectors and multiple politically systems. It undertakes a comparative survey of governance‐related developments across three policy sectors: environment, education/higher education and forests. To control for differentiation in political structures, the article studies the policy sectors with respect to three political systems Canada, England and Germany, taking into account the role of the European Union, the federal systems and international actors. This broad macro comparative focus enables the authors to make one of the first empirical efforts to assess the presence and sweep of governance arrangements across both policy sectors and states; and to assess the degree of convergence around particular governance practices.     

Measuring Aggregate‐Level Ideological Heterogeneity

Ideological heterogeneity is a key variable for the study of legislative and electoral politics. Scholars have long recognized that members with more ideologically heterogeneous constituencies behave differently than members with more homogeneous ones. Empirical tests of these theories, however, have typically been stymied by a lack of appropriate measures. We corrected this shortcoming by developing a measurement model for ideological heterogeneity, and we used our method to generate estimates for the 50 U.S. states and 435 congressional districts. Beyond the specific results presented here, a key contribution of our model is its flexibility: our technique can be used to produce similar estimates in a variety of contexts.     

EARLY LIFE RISKS,ANTISOCIAL TENDENCIES,AND PRETEEN DELINQUENCY

Early age‐of‐onset delinquency and substance use confer a major risk for continued criminality, alcohol and drug abuse, and other serious difficulties throughout the life course. Our objective is to examine the developmental roots of preteen delinquency and substance use. By using nationally representative longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N= 13,221), we examine the influence of early childhood developmental and family risks on latent pathways of antisocial tendencies from 3 to 7 years of age, and the influence of those pathways on property crime and substance use by 11 years of age. We identified a normative, nonantisocial pathway; a pathway marked by oppositional behavior and fighting; a pathway marked by impulsivity and inattention; and a rare pathway characterized by a wide range of antisocial tendencies. Children with developmental and family risks that emerged by 3 years of age—specifically difficult infant temperament, low cognitive ability, weak parental closeness, and disadvantaged family background—face increased odds of antisocial tendencies. Minimal overlap is found between the risk factors for early antisocial tendencies and those for preteen delinquency. Children on an antisocial pathway are more likely to engage in preteen delinquency and substance use by 11 years of age even after accounting for early life risk factors.     

POLICY-MAKING WITH A DIFFERENCE? THE TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION INITIATIVE

In this study we focus on the emergence of the technical and vocational education initiative. The formulation of the policy is found to differ from that of the conventional British policy style, in that it was announced without prior consultation with the education policy community. Further, overall responsibility for the initiative lies outside the traditional sphere of education — with the Manpower Services Commission. However, in the subsequent processing and implementation stages of the initiative, the established educational interests (local and national) are seen to move from the auditorium back to centre stage. The reasons for the original departure from the conventional policy style, those for the return to normality, and some implications, are examined.     

Books: Political Theory and Methodology

Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984)
John W. Yolton, Locke: an Introduction (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
N. Tarcov, Locke's Educationfor Liberty (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984)
F. G. Whelan, Order and Artifice in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1985)
J. Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh, John Donald, 1985)
J. R. Dinwiddy, (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 6, January 1798 to December 1801 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984)
Alvin W. Gouldner, Against Fragmentation: the Origins of Marxism and the Sociology of Zntellectuals (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985)
Bruce Mazlish, The Meaning of Karl Marx (New York, Oxford University Press, 1984)
Edmond Preteceille and Jean-Pierre Terrail, Capitalism, Consumption and Needs (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
F. R. Dallmayr, Polis and Praxis (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1985)
J. L. Talmon, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution (London, Secker and Warburg, 1980)
L. J. Macfarlane, The Theory and Practice of Human Rights (London, Temple Smith, 1985)
Jeremy Waldron (ed.), Theories of Righfs (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984)
Bill Jordan, The State: Authority and Autonomy (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
Franlin I. Gamwell, Beyond Preference: Liberal Theories of Independent Associations (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)
Ted C. Lewellen, Political Anthropology: an Introduction (South Hadley, Mass., Bergin and Garvey, 1983)
Ilkka Heiskanen and Sakari Hanninen (eds), Exploring the Basis of Politics (The Finnish Political Science Association, 1983)
Christopher G. A. Bryant, Positivism in Social Theory and Research (London, Macmillan, 1985)