From “frozen conflict” to enduring rivalry: reassessing the Nagorny Karabakh conflict

This article draws on international relations theory to attempt a reframing of the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorny Karabakh as an enduring rivalry (ER): a particular kind of interstate conflict known for its longevity and stability. The article begins by identifying a number of conceptual deficits circulating around this conflict, notably the notion that it is a “frozen conflict,” before introducing the ER framework and its analytical dividends for this case. Different layers of the ER between Armenia and Azerbaijan are then explored at systemic, interstate, domestic, decision-maker, and temporal levels, with a view more toward identifying directions for future research than conclusive findings. Among the article's tentative conclusions are the primacy of endogenous over exogenous factors in explaining the durability of the rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the impacts of the passage of time on the human and physical geography of the territory under dispute, and the convergence of conflict dynamics across disparate levels.     

Ethical considerations on quadratic voting

This paper explores ethical issues raised by quadratic voting. We compare quadratic voting to majority voting from two ethical perspectives: the perspective of utilitarianism and that of democratic theory. From a utilitarian standpoint, the comparison is ambiguous: if voter preferences are independent of wealth, then quadratic voting outperforms majority voting, but if voter preferences are polarized by wealth, then majority voting may be superior. From the standpoint of democratic theory, we argue that assessments in terms of efficiency are too narrow. Voting institutions and political institutions more generally face a legitimacy requirement. We argue that in the presence of inequalities of wealth, any vote buying mechanism, including quadratic voting, will have a difficult time meeting this requirement.     

Managing in the Regulatory Thicket: Regulation Legitimacy and Expertise

Although the influence of government regulation on organizations is undeniable, empirical research in this field is scarce. This article investigates how the understanding of and attitudes toward government regulation among public, nonprofit, and for‐profit managers affect organizational performance, using U.S. nursing homes as the empirical setting. Findings suggest that managers’ perceptions of regulation legitimacy—views of regulation fairness, inspectors’ effectiveness, and internal utility of the mandates—positively affect service quality. Subgroup analysis suggests that managers’ views of regulation matter in nonprofit and for‐profit organizations but not in public organizations. In nonprofit homes, performance declines when managers report higher regulatory expertise—better knowledge of the regulatory standards. In for‐profit facilities, frequent communication with regulators lowers quality. These findings suggest that the regulated entities’ views of government regulation are central to their success, which necessitates improvements in the regulatory process.     

The Age–Crime Curve in Adolescence and Early Adulthood is Not Due to Age Differences in Economic Status

One of the most consistent findings in developmental criminology is the “age–crime curve”—the observation that criminal behavior increases in adolescence and decreases in adulthood. Recently, Brown and Males (Justice Policy J 8:1–30, 2011) conducted an analysis of aggregate arrest, poverty, and population data from California and concluded that the widely-observed adolescent peak in rates of offending is not a consequence of developmental factors, but rather an artifact of age differences in economic status. Youngsters, they argue, offend more than adults because they are poorer than adults. The present study challenges Brown and Males’ proposition by analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97; N = 8,984; 51 % female; 26 % Black, 21 % Hispanic, 52 % non-Black, non-Hispanic; ages 12–18 at Wave 1), which collected measures of criminal behavior and economic status at multiple time points. Consistent with scores of other studies, we find that criminal offending peaks in adolescence, even after controlling for variation in economic status. Our findings both counter Brown and Males’ claim that the age–crime curve is illusory and underscore the danger of drawing inferences about individual behavior from analysis of aggregated data.     

Emotional Reactivity and Exposure to Household Stress in Childhood Predict Psychological Problems in Adolescence

In recent years, research has examined the role of heightened emotional reactivity and poor regulation on maladjustment during childhood and adolescence. Although much of this research has shown a direct link between high emotional reactivity and maladjustment, there is less research on the ways in which reactivity interacts with contextual factors. Using data from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), the current study asks how emotional reactivity in childhood, household chaos, and household income impact changes in emotional and behavioral problems between childhood and adolescence. Participants in the SECCYD were followed from birth until adolescence. Of these, 958 youth (52 % male; 80 % Caucasian, 13 % African American, 2 % Asian, and 5 % Other) who completed measures at age 15 were included in the current study. Results indicate that emotional reactivity and low household income during childhood directly predict higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems in adolescence. In contrast, the impact of household chaos on adolescent mental health depends on the child’s emotional reactivity. Specifically, the adverse impact of household chaos on emotional problems was observed among adolescents who were highly emotionally reactive as children, but not among their less reactive counterparts. Taken together, the relationship between an individual’s childhood context and temperament are important aspects in the prediction of outcomes in adolescents.     

Wakeup Call: Strategic Management,Network Alarms,and Performance

New empirical evidence suggests that service performance is shaped by the strategies adopted by public organizations and the networking behavior of public managers. Strategy captures two central behavioral aspects of public organizations: the way in which objectives and actions are selected (processes), and an organization’s approach to service delivery (content). Networking is similarly concerned with the behavior of public managers as they interact with others. These twin themes are linked in an integrated study that explores the relationship between strategy, networking, and service performance within a sample of English local governments. The results show that strategy processes based on rational planning offer long‐run positive effects on public services, as does a strategic proactive stance.     

A Within-Individual Examination of the Predictors of Gun Carrying During Adolescence and Young Adulthood Among Young Men

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Although prior studies have identified several risk factors for gun carrying, no prior longitudinal studies have examined a comprehensive set of explanatory...     

Religious decline in the 20th century West: testing alternative explanations

Retrospective questions from recent surveys let us estimate rates of church attendance among children and their parents in ten Western democracies throughout most of the 20th century. We combine these time series with standard sources to test competing theories of religious change. Although our attendance estimates affirm the prevalence of religious decline, our statistical tests offer no support for traditional theories of secularization (which link decline to changes in income, education, industrialization, urbanization, and family life). Nor can we attribute much of the observed decline to growth in the welfare state. But increased school spending by governments does reduce church attendance, and this effect is not the result of greater educational attainment. In shaping the content of schooling, governments may strongly influence long-run religious trends.     

Fairness and Efficiency in Smallholder Farming: The Relation with Intrahousehold Decision-Making

Agricultural households face collective action dilemmas when making decisions about investments in their common household farm and the allocation of resources and benefits derived from it. We relate intrahousehold decisions, as measured in a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted with spouses in agricultural households in western Uganda, with actual investments and intrahousehold resource allocation. Intrahousehold decision-making that supports cooperation and equitable sharing is associated with greater investment in the intensification of cash and food crop production, and more equitable access and control over income. Freeriding behaviour by husbands is associated with the intensification of cash crop production, but not with equitable sharing.     

Development of a harmonised method for the profiling of amphetamines VI: Evaluation of methods for comparison of amphetamine

Amphetamine samples were analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the peak areas of 33 target compounds were transformed by applying various pretreatment techniques. The objective was to optimise the ability of a number of distance metrics to establish links between samples of amphetamine originating from the same batch (henceforth referred to as linked distances). Furthermore, partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used to evaluate the effects of various pretreatment methods on separation of amphetamine batches synthesised by the Leuckart reaction, reductive amination of benzyl methyl ketone, and the nitrostyrene route. The most efficient way to pretreat GC-MS data varied for the different distance metrics, although best results were obtained when data were normalised to the sum of peak areas, and either the fourth root or a logarithm was applied to the normalised data. When pretreating normalised data by fourth root transformation, Pearson correlation was the distance metric that was most successful at finding linked samples. Normalisation and the use of fourth root also represented the best method of pretreating data when employing PLS-DA to separate samples synthesised by different routes. To achieve a faster and more user-friendly procedure for evaluating chromatograms, experiments were performed in which the number of target compounds used to compare samples was reduced. The effect of each compound that was removed was studied by applying PLS-DA and by using Pearson correlation to calculate linked distances as well as unlinked distances (between samples from different batches of amphetamine). Considering both links between samples from the same batch and separation of samples synthesised by different routes, the best results were obtained with the data set comprising 26 compounds. Finally, it was found that the profiling method developed in this work was superior to an existing technique with respect to separating linked and unlinked distances.