Is Gun Violence Contagious? A Spatiotemporal Test

Objectives

Existing theories of gun violence predict stable spatial concentrations and contagious diffusion of gun violence into surrounding areas. Recent empirical studies have reported confirmatory evidence of such spatiotemporal diffusion of gun violence. However, existing space/time interaction tests cannot readily distinguish spatiotemporal clustering from spatiotemporal diffusion. This leaves as an open question whether gun violence actually is contagious or merely clusters in space and time. Compounding this problem, gun violence is subject to considerable measurement error with many nonfatal shootings going unreported to police.

Methods

Using point process data from an acoustical gunshot locator system and a combination of Bayesian spatiotemporal point process modeling and classical space/time interaction tests, this paper distinguishes between clustered but non-diffusing gun violence and clustered gun violence resulting from diffusion.

Results

This paper demonstrates that contemporary urban gun violence in a metropolitan city does diffuse in space and time, but only slightly.

Conclusions

These results suggest that a disease model for the spread of gun violence in space and time may not be a good fit for most of the geographically stable and temporally stochastic process observed. And that existing space/time tests may not be adequate tests for spatiotemporal gun violence diffusion models.

     

Gender Dimensions of Public Service Motivation

Feminist scholars of public administration have critiqued the dominance of masculine imagery in public administration theory and practice. However, public service motivation is one area of public administration discourse that contains both feminine and masculine imagery. Focusing on Perry's multidimensional public service motivation scale, the authors borrow from a range of social science literatures to contend that compassion is a feminine dimension of public service motivation, whereas attraction to policy making and commitment to public service are masculine dimensions. Data from a survey of public managers in state health and human service agencies reveal that women score higher on Perry's compassion subscale but also on attraction to policy making. No statistically significant gender differences were found on commitment to public service.     

ASEAN and transboundary haze pollution in Southeast Asia

In recent decades the countries of Southeast Asia have been affected by air pollution (commonly called haze) arising from the burning of vegetation by small holders, plantation owners and logging companies. This is done in order to clear or rejuvenate the land for cultivation and planting and can occur at particular times during the year, most noticeably in the periods March to May and August to October. The burning has resulted in widespread forest fires and has been particularly intense in years when the weather has been noticeably dry due to the effects of the El Nino phenomenon. By far the main source of forest fires caused by small holders and plantation owners has been Indonesia. The smoke from the forest fires has not only caused widespread air pollution in Indonesia itself but also in neighbouring countries, resulting in what is termed as transboundary air pollution. This has affected, amongst other things, public health, bio-diversity, tourism, air transport, and agricultural production. So serious have the effects been that the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were prompted from 1990 to collaborate in tackling the problem and to embark upon a series of joint initiatives for that purpose. After discussing the extent of forest burning in Indonesia, its causes and effects, the article will examine and assess the initiatives mentioned above, culminating in the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which came into effect in November 2003. The paper will then examine a crucial impediment to the effective implementation of the initiatives: viz. the standards of governance and administration in Indonesia. In conclusion, the paper will consider the challenges to be overcome to enable the aims of the ASEAN initiatives to be realised, and also, by examining these initiatives, what conditions are necessary to ensure that international agreements affecting domestic policy and administration in signatory states, have a genuine impact and achieve their goals.This article is an updated and amended version of an earlier article by the author entitled ‘ASEAN Initiatives to Combat Haze Pollution: An Assessment of Regional Cooperation in Public Policy-Making’, Asian Journal of Political Science, vol. 12, no.2 (December 2004):59–77.

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