The moderating effects of religiosity on the relationship between stressful life events and delinquent behavior

Previous research has shown that many forms of strain are positively related to delinquency. Evidence also suggests that religiosity buffers the effects of strain on offending, but this issue requires further research. Using data from a national sample of adolescents, this study examined whether or not religiosity conditioned the relationship between strain and delinquency. This study also looked at the ability of social support, self-esteem, and depression to moderate the influence of strain on delinquent behavior. The findings here lend support to general strain theory in that strain had a direct positive effect on delinquency, yet there was little evidence that the relationship was moderated by religiosity or other conditioning variables. The roles of moderating variables on strain across genders were also considered.     

Exploring the Roots of Public Participation in the Controversy Over Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Cloning

In this study, analyzing nationally represented survey data collected in 2003, we consider the roots of issue-specific citizen participation in the controversy over embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. Building on past research, we pay particular theoretical attention to the role of issue engagements, the impact of church-based recruitment, and the influence of news media attentiveness. Given the increasing emphasis in science policy circles on creating new forms of public engagement, we also measure citizen willingness to attend and participate in a proposed local deliberative forum on the stem cell debate. Results indicate that traditional forms of citizen activism in the controversy over embryonic stem cell research and cloning is rooted almost exclusively in direct requests for participation through religious organizations rather than socio-economic differences among respondents, though issue engagement (measured as opinion intensity) and news attentiveness also play an important role. In terms of deliberative forums, traditional resource factors are significant, as the citizens who indicate they are most likely to participate in such a hypothetical local town meeting are generally highly educated, white, and younger. Above and beyond these resource factors, however, citizens willing to participate are also likely to have received requests to get involved in the debate at church, hold more intense feelings about the issue, and are paying closer attention to news coverage. In the future, in order to ensure the normative goals of diverse and/or representative participation, if actual deliberative forums are employed, these findings suggest that organizers will need to focus heavily on purposive sampling and turn out efforts.

Muslim Mandarins in Chinese Courts: Dispute Resolution,Islamic Law,and the Secular State in Northwest China

Many sociolegal studies have investigated the relationship between state law and informal law, examining alternative dispute resolution and popular justice as intersections between such types of law. However, such questions have received little attention in East Asian authoritarian states. I use the case of dispute resolution among Chinese Muslim minorities (the Hui) to reexamine the relationship between state law and Islamic law. Based on nineteen months of fieldwork in Northwest China, I argue that the Hui case shows codependence between the types of law. Law is deeply embedded in social relationships between the Hui and the party‐state. An analysis of personalistic relationships shows the ways in which religious and secular authorities access each other, transforming each other's law to augment their own legitimacy, but not without the potential for violence. The China case illuminates dynamics between Muslim communities and states that are prevalent elsewhere in the post‐9/11 period.     

What Does It Mean to Control Migration? Soviet Mobility Policies in Comparative Perspective

The migration policies of the former Soviet Union (or USSR) included a virtual abolition of emigration and immigration, an effective ban on private travel abroad, and pervasive bureaucratic controls on internal migration. This article outlines this Soviet package of migration controls and assesses its historical and international distinctiveness through comparison with a liberal state, the United States, and an authoritarian capitalist state, Apartheid South Africa. Soviet limitations on external migration were more restrictive than those of contemporary capitalist states, and Soviet regulation of internal migration was unusual in its direct bureaucratic supervision of the individual. However, Soviet policy did not aim at the suppression of internal migration, but at its complete regularization. The ultimate goal was “regime adherence”: the full integration of the citizen into the Soviet political order. In contrast to the USSR, migration in the contemporary world is marked by “irregularization”: policies that lead to the proliferation of insecure and unauthorized migration.     

Michael Moore on Torture,Morality, and Law

During the past few decades, Michael Moore has written incisively on an array of matters concerning the relationships between law and morality. While reflecting on those relationships, he has plumbed the nature of morality itself in impressive depth. Among the topics which he has addressed, the problem of torture has been prominent and controversial. It is a problem, moreover, that has led to some of his most searching enquiries into the character of moral obligations. In the present essay I take issue not only with many of Moore's conclusions about torture, but also with some of his more far‐reaching claims about the domain of morality.     

The Political Offender Exception in International Extradition Law: Terrorism Versus Human Rights

The political offense exception in the law of international extradition is one of the issues over which the justifiability of terrorist violence is being debated. The evolution of the political offender exception is sketched and the provisions of the 1986 Supplementary Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom, which effectively eliminated the political offender exception for violent offenders, are outlined. The debate over the merits of the Treaty then is summarized. A concluding analysis suggests that limited violence is justified in defense of democracy and fundamental human rights and that the political offender exception should be interpreted so as to promote these values.     

The Deterioration of Democratic Political Culture: Consequences of the Perception of Inequality

Using survey data from nine East European members of the European Union, I find that citizens’ political and social disengagement is strongly related to their perceptions of inequalities in society. Specifically, individuals’ perceptions that income and social inequalities are excessive clearly coordinates with lower levels of trust and political efficacy, as well as higher levels of both a general suspicion of others and political apathy. This is troubling as these attitudes and orientations are part of what constitute a healthy democratic political culture and thus germane to the long-term legitimacy of both national and EU governance. Further, in contrast to much of the work on inequality, this effect is neither contingent on individuals’ income levels nor clearly linked to national-level economic indicators.