Sleep in Mexican-American Adolescents: Social Ecological and Well-Being Correlates

A burgeoning body of research documents links between sleep and adjustment in adolescence, but little is known about the role of the social ecology in promoting healthful sleeping habits. This study was aimed at identifying the socio-cultural correlates of adolescents’ sleep, including average nighttime sleep duration, average daytime napping, and night-to-night variability in sleep duration and assessing the links between these dimensions of sleep and adjustment in Mexican-American youth. Participants were 469 Mexican-American adolescents (50.5% female) and their mothers and fathers. Data on family socio-cultural characteristics and youth adjustment were collected in home interviews with youth, mothers, and fathers, and, during 7 evening telephone interviews, adolescents reported on nighttime sleep and daytime napping for the prior 24-h period. Night-to night variability and napping were more strongly linked to youth depressive symptoms and risky behavior than was average nighttime sleep, whereas nighttime sleep predicted lower body mass index. Lower parental acculturation and fathers’ familism values predicted more healthful sleep, and higher levels of family income, parental education and neighborhood crime predicted less healthful sleep. In addition to illuminating the significance of socio-cultural influences on youths’ sleep, this study contributes to the literature by documenting the multidimensionality of sleep patterns and their links with adjustment in an understudied population.     

A Strategy for Building Public Service Motivation Research Internationally

As public service motivation research grows qualitatively and quantitatively, some scholars question its appropriateness for international applications. This essay sets out a strategy of convergence for international research and measurement approaches. Studies that assess commonalities in public service motivation content internationally are analyzed in order to develop a broader conceptual and more operational definition as well as consequently a more universal public service motivation construct. Public service motives, according to this review, are based on self‐sacrifice and fall into three categories: instrumental, value‐based, and identification. The dimensions of the public service motivation construct are refined along the lines of attraction to public participation, commitment to public values, compassion, and self‐sacrifice. Researchers are urged to include all of its dimensions within their empirical studies to advance contemporary public service motivation studies.     

Political judgments,perceptions of facts,and partisan effects

We test two competing hypotheses about the impact of partisanship and information on people's political judgments and perceptions of facts using Canadians' reactions to a major scandal. Our findings with respect to subjective political judgments confirm the argument that partisan predispositions are crucial. But there is no evidence to support the argument that the polarizing effect of partisanship is most evident among the most informed. When it comes to perceptions of “objective” facts, the results are consistent with Zaller's reception axiom: the more informed people are, the more likely they are to correctly perceive objective facts. Partisanship does not appear to affect these perceptions.     

European experience for East Asian integration: ideas, national interests, and the international circumstance

This paper traces the possibility of East Asian integration through comparison with the early stage of European integration on three different levels: ideas, national interests, and international circumstance. Judging from the European experience, ideas always come first, then national interest contests, and eventually the international circumstance conditions the context. I compare the multilateral approach in Europe with the imperial hegemony competition in East Asia, Adenauer’s regionalization policy in Europe with the Yoshida line of Westernization detouring from Asia, and the US and Russia’s different roles in the two regions as external forces constraining the international order. My conclusion for the future of East Asia is located somewhere between views of procedural divergence and fundamental skepticism. I worry about integration for the sake of integration in which regional integration is presupposed as inherently good. Such discourse will easily be deteriorated and such a blind community simply collapses when circumstances change. For these reasons, there needs to be an adequate discussion regarding for what, by whom, and through which method integration is achieved.     

关于斯大林是否劝阻中共渡江问题再分析

在斯大林是否曾"劝阻中共渡过长江"的问题上,上世纪80年代中国史学界曾进行过热烈争论.1994年俄国学者齐赫文斯基在俄国<近现代史>杂志发表了<1949年1月的函电往来>一文,公布了斯大林与毛泽东就国共和谈问题的往来电报,有的学者根据1月14日电报,认为斯大林没有"劝阻渡江".①笔者在俄罗斯查到了斯大林与毛泽东往来函电的原件以及其他原始文件,依据这些文件对斯大林是否曾劝阻中共渡江问题试做一次新的辨析,认为斯大林的几封电报及1949年1月底米高扬所说的"联合政府"就是斯大林"劝阻渡江"的根据.     

Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in Reports of Parenting and Adolescent Outcomes in Mexican Immigrant Families

Parents and adolescents often have discrepant views of parenting which pose challenges for researchers regarding how to deal with information from multiple informants. Although recent studies indicate that parent–adolescent discrepancies in reports of parenting can be useful in predicting adolescent outcomes, their findings are mixed regarding whether discrepancies relate to more positive or more negative adolescent outcomes. This study examined the longitudinal implications of parent–adolescent discrepancies in reports of parenting (warmth, monitoring, and reasoning) on adolescent behavioral, psychological, academic, and physical health outcomes among Mexican immigrant families in the United States. Participants were 604 adolescents (54% female, M _age.wave1?=?12.41 years) and their parents. Taking a person-centered approach, this study identified distinct patterns of parent–adolescent discrepancies in parenting and their different associations with later adolescent outcomes. Adolescents’ more negative perceptions of parenting relative to parents were associated with more negative adolescent outcomes, whereas adolescents’ more positive perceptions relative to parents related to more positive adolescent outcomes. There were also variations in discrepancy patterns and their associations with adolescent outcomes between mother–adolescent vs. father-adolescent dyads. Findings of the current study highlight individual variations of discrepancies among parent–adolescent dyads and the importance of considering both the magnitude and direction of discrepancies regarding their associations with adolescent well-being.     

Can alternative service delivery save cities after the Great Recession? Barriers to privatisation and cooperation

ABSTRACT

Cities continue to face fiscal challenges after the Great Recession and alternative service delivery is being emphasised as a solution. How promising is alternative service delivery as a solution and what are its barriers? Regression analyses using 2012 survey data of US local governments show that local governments manage procedural barriers, but structural barriers of economy and demography hinder privatisation and cooperation. Places with a housing bust (measured as decline in home values) can use privatisation, but not places with more or increased poverty. Cooperation is more promising for places with increased poverty, but lack of a willing partner hinders this spatially constrained tool. Neither cooperation nor privatisation is promising for places with low home values. State governments must level the playing field for localities with weak economies if market approaches to service delivery are the main tools for local governments to survive fiscal stress.     

Coup,riot, war: How political institutions and ethnic politics shape alternative forms of political violence

This article explores how different types of governance systems shape different forms of political violence. We identify four governance types by combining the “institutional” dimension of coalition size represented by a minimum winning coalition (MWC) and the “ethno-political” dimension represented by the size of ethnic groups participating in the governing coalition. This study hypothesizes that (a) an exclusive system (small MWC; narrow-based ethnic coalition) is likely to engender civil war, (b) an oversized system (small MWC; broad-based ethnic coalition) is likely to generate a coup, and (c) an undersized system (large MWC; narrow-based ethnic coalition) is likely to stimulate riots or protests. Statistical analyses confirm all three hypotheses, implying that opposition groups choose alternative forms of conflict that maximize their chances of accessing power under different governance configurations. The article concludes by identifying three possible paths toward inclusive governance and suggesting that institutional reform before ethnic inclusion makes a transition toward inclusive governance far less dangerous.     

Evaluating US soft power in Asia: military,economic and sociopolitical relationships between Asia and the United States

The changing dynamics of international politics such as the expansion of the European Union, the growing importance of Asia, and the post-11 September environment have raised great concern about US soft power all over the world. At the governmental level, transpacific relationships may have encouraged military, economic and sociopolitical collaboration. The Asians' perceptions about US soft power at the individual level, however, may not be consistent with the governmental level. By using the 2003 AsiaBarometer survey, this article examines the factors that contribute to individuals' perceptions about US soft power in seven Asian nations – China, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Three main factors – military, economic and sociopolitical – are considered. Higher assistance by the US government engenders positive responses from the respondents. For causal relationships, economic and sociopolitical variables, rather than the military variable, enforce individuals' positive perceptions about US soft power, according to the multilevel estimates.     

When top‐down meets bottom‐up: Local adoption of social policy reform in China

Authoritarian local leaders face two driving forces in social policymaking: top‐down pressure from the regime and bottom‐up motivations derived from local conditions. Existing studies recognize the importance of both forces, but remain unclear as to how they interact and which of them is more influential in driving local policy adoption. Focusing on two health insurance integration policies in China, we find that when the policy entails substantial class or distributive conflicts and bureaucratic friction, top‐down pressure for compliance is a dominant driver for local policy adoption; when the policy does not entail such conflicts or bureaucratic infighting, bottom‐up motivations based on local economic geography together with top‐down pressure drive local adoption. We find support for this argument from an analysis of an original city‐level data set in China from 2004 to 2016. This study has implications for social policy reform, decentralization, and government responsiveness in authoritarian countries with multilevel governance.