A cross-cultural comparison of sociopsychological factors in alcohol use among adolescents in Israel,France, and the United States

The correlates of alcohol use by adolescents are compared in three cultures with different prevalences of alcohol use: France, with high prevalence; Israel, with low prevalence; and the United States, in the middle. In all three countries, significant others, parents and peers, are more powerful predictors of alcohol use than are the adolescent's personal attributes, such as attitudes, behaviors, and demographic characteristics. Cross-cultural differences appear in the relative importance of parents and peers and in the structure of influence of parents and peers as role models. Parents are more important role models in Israel than in the other two cultures, while peers are more important in the United States than in France or in Israel.This research was partially supported by Research Grants DA01902, DA00064, and Research Scientist Grant K05-DA00081 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and by the Center for SocioCultural Research on Drug Use, Columbia University.Received Ph.D. from Stanford University. Main interests are mathematical sociology, social stratification, and adolescent substance use.Received Ph.D. from Columbia University. Main interests are adolescent socialization, substance use, and psychiatric epidemiology.     

The Vocal Euro‐outsider: The UK in a Two‐speed Europe

The EU is divided between member states that have adopted the euro and those that have not. This article looks at the issue of differentiated integration with particular reference to eurozone integration and the euro‐outsiders. I explore the recent public debate in the UK on euro‐outsiderness, comparing this with debates in Denmark. The article highlights some striking differences between the UK and Denmark when it comes to the actual management of euro‐outsiderness in Brussels as well as some of the dilemmas facing euro‐outsiders such as the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Poland as the EU struggles to exit its crises. Finally, I discuss the future of two‐speed European integration and the UK's possible exit from the EU. The UK cannot escape the dilemma of favouring either influence or autonomy; whether the UK remains in or leaves the EU, it will need to allow the eurozone to proceed in order to prevent further eurozone crises.     

A New Leviathan: Benefit Sanctions in the Twenty‐first Century

This article highlights the spectacular growth of benefit sanctions in the United Kingdom which, at their peak, exceeded the number of fines imposed in the criminal courts. It proposes a three‐fold typology of monetary sanctions – punitive judicial sanctions, exemplified by court fines, regulatory administrative sanctions, exemplified by parking penalties, and disciplinary administrative monetary sanctions, exemplified by benefit sanctions – and compares them in terms of their main aims, how they are imposed, whether the interests of those sanctioned are protected, their severity, the socio‐economic characteristics of offenders, the hardship caused, how proportionate they are, and whether they are compatible with justice. It argues that they are particularly problematic because their severity causes great and disproportionate hardship, and because, in addition to punishing offenders, they also attempt to discipline them by managing their behaviour, and concludes that, in the United Kingdom, they function as a key instrument for disciplining and managing the poor.