Account-making and confiding as acts of meaning in response to sexual assault

A study was conducted to compare the interpretive and coping responses of female and male survivors of incest and female survivors of sexual assault by a nonrelative. Twenty-eight persons responded to a questionnaire that asked them to provide an account of the nature of an assault(s), the role of confidants in helping them cope with the assault, how they coped and tried to understand the assault over time, how they felt the assault affected their close relationships, and how they evaluated their current state of recovery. The results for male and female incest groups were similar in revealing great difficulty in coping and in having adult close relationships. These two groups showed more continuing lack of resolution than did the female nonfamilial survivors. The male group of incest survivors showed the greatest overall difficulty. The findings are discussed in terms of the roles of searching for meaning via account-making and confiding as ways of dealing with long-term, major Stressors in people's lives.     

The intergenerational transmission of aggression across three generations

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of aggression across three generations in 181 community families. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the extent to which child abuse and marital abuse in the family-of-origin (G1) are predictive of child abuse potential and marital aggression in the second generation (G2), abuse in the family-of-origin is predictive of aggression in the third generation (G3), and child abuse potential and marital aggression in the second generation are predictive of aggression in the third generation. For males, exposure to aggression was predictive of aggressive behavior across all three generations. For females, the only significant prediction was from marital aggression in G1 to husband-to-wife marital aggression in G2. This study points to the importance of examining the transmission of both child abuse and marital aggression in order to assess their relative importance. It is also recommended that the transmission of aggression be assessed separately for males and females, as the data point to the family system as a factor related to aggression in males, yet do not provide the same explanation for females.     

Forecasting economies in transition: The case of Romania

Structural change is endemic in the Eastern European economies and the newly emerging Commonwealth of Independent States yet conventional econometric modelling techniques proceed under the assumption that there is a structurally stable ‘true’ economy to be discovered. This paper extends the analysis of Hall (1993) by exploring the consequences of endemic structural change for forecasting and building structural econometric models. We propose a model formulation which makes the econometric model itself able to adjust its parameters in the light of economic change using the Kalman Filter. The paper then illustrates this approach by building a small model of Romania and investigating its forecasting properties.     

Both too much and too little: From elite to street crime in the transformation of the Czech Republic

A social capital theory of crime proposes that both excessively high and low levels of trust lead to crime. Low levels of trust are associated with predatory forms of street crime, while high levels of trust can lead to white collar crime and political corruption. This paper explores the role of social capital and trust in the causation of under and upperworld forms of crime in the rapidly changing circumstances of the Czech Republic. Connections between social capital and crime are the product not only of the transition to a market economy, but also of the problems of the pre-transition Czech society. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Foreign advisors and capacity building: The case of Kenya

Approximately 100,000 foreign advisors work in the public sectors of Sub-Saharan African countries at an annual cost of more than $4 billion. The numbers, range of services, and costs of such advisors increased during the 1980s while at the same time donors launched new efforts to build professional capacity in the African civil service. Based on a study of advisors and their counterpart economists in Kenya's Ministry of Planning and National Development, this article addresses three important questions: what are the functions carried out by advisors in the development ministries?; why is it so difficult to retain skilled professionals in the civil service?; and how does the provision of advisors affect the retention of skilled government officers?     

American Constitutionalism and Democratic Virtue

Neither the historical tradition of American constitutionalism nor those who have theorized about it have promoted political or theoretical designs hospitable to the valorization or promotion of democratic virtue. This article illustrates this point by canvassing practical interpretations of the American constitution, from the document of 1787–1791 to Bush v. Gore , and theoretical interpretations from Madison to Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman, Elster, Holmes, and other contemporary theorists of liberal constitutionalism and natural law. Exposing these roadblocks to the theory and practice of democratic virtue in America, it argues, provides a critical corrective to current debates about the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy.     

Editorial

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