Public Perceptions of Income Inequality in Hong Kong: trends,causes and implications

This article examines the patterns and changes in public perceptions of domestic income inequality in Hong Kong in the past two decades and explains individual variations in these perceptions. It found that the perceived seriousness of income disparities had been persistently high, while the perceived unjustness of income disparities showed a fluctuating trend. Our findings lent partial support to the structural position thesis that the privileged groups are less likely than the underprivileged groups to consider existing income disparities to be serious and unjust. Nonetheless, the popular understanding of poverty is still biased towards ‘individual’ explanations, and this perhaps explains why the government is less willing to tackle the economic and political foundations of poverty in Hong Kong.     

Centers of Gravity: Regional Powers,Democracy, and Trade

Classic studies on hegemonic stability and power transition suggest that concentration of capabilities favoring a single state can promote economic cooperation and discourage militarized conflict. However, tests of these arguments have been primarily limited to examining temporal variation in global capability distributions and corresponding levels of system-wide cooperation; few have examined the impact of capability concentration at the region level. In this article, we contend that concentration of regional military capabilities corresponds to lower trade costs for states throughout a region and to an incentive for weaker states to de-prioritize expenditure on the military, freeing resources that can be used to promote trade. As a result, this condition promotes higher levels of trade, particularly within the region. We also argue that democratic regional powers are better able to foster confidence in the sustainability of cooperation; thus, the trade-enhancing impact of concentrated regional capabilities is stronger when the predominant state is more democratic. We find evidence in support of our expectations in statistical models examining state trade between 1960 and 2007.     

How Do Indifferent Voters Decide? The Political Importance of Implicit Attitudes

A hallmark finding in the study of public opinion is that many citizens approach the political realm with one‐sided attitudes that color their judgments, making attitude change difficult. This finding highlights the importance of citizens with weak prior attitudes, since they might represent a segment of the electorate that is more susceptible to influence. The judgment processes of citizens with weak attitudes, however, are poorly understood. Drawing from dual‐process models in psychology, I test the idea that citizens with weak explicit attitudes rely on implicit attitudes as they render political judgments. I find support for this conjecture in experimental and observational data. There are two main contributions. First, I show that an important and understudied segment of the electorate arrives at political decisions via automatic (but nonetheless predictable) mental processes. Second, I characterize the conditions under which implicit political attitudes matter more and less.     

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.     

Factors influencing state progress in the implementation of Public Law 99-457, Part H

Policy implementation has been an infrequently studied process although it has become increasingly evident that the implementation processes of policy development, policy approval, and policy application can shape and delay prospective implementation of legislation. The current study analyzes the implementation of P.L. 99–457 (Part H) the Education for the Handicapped Amendments of 1986. This law provides the states with planning money from the federal government to design a comprehensive interagency, multidisciplinary program of services for children with handicapping conditions and their families. Ratings were taken from key administrators and citizens knowledgeable about the law on state progress in implementing the fourteen requirements of the law and also on proposed influential conditions that might affect that implementation. Additional demographic information was obtained for the fifty states. The factor that seemed to be most influential in a subset of 35 states was the prior presence in the state of systems for interagency planning and development. Neither prior history of early childhood services, available resources, wealth of the state, or geographic region appeared to have a significant influence on policy development. There was some indication that different factors might become influential in the next phase of implementation, policy approval. It appears that progress in state policy development may be linked to the special requirements of the legislation itself and to prior availability of institutional structures that make mandated collaborative efforts more possible.     

Cannabis use and the transition to young adulthood

Despite the significance of role changes during the process of transition from adolescence to young adulthood, there have been few investigations of how transitional problems may result in increased illicit drug use. Recent structural changes in the economy may have produced a greater likelihood of such transitional difficulties. The present research uses longitudinal panel data from a sample of graduating high school students in three Canadian cities to test a model that predicts change in cannabis use from late adolescence to early adulthood. Young adults with less job stability, weaker occupational and educational commitment should be freer from informal social controls and therefore more at risk for an increased level of cannabis use. However, none of the measures of informal social control processes was an important net predictor of change in cannabis use. Rather, prior cannabis use in high school was of overwhelming importance in predicting use two years later. There was also evidence that having delinquent friends led to increased cannabis use. These results are discussed and suggestions are given for additional research on this topic.Revised version of a paper presented to the American Society of Criminology, November 1991, San Francisco. Financial assistance was provided by the Solicitor General Canada through the contributions grant to the Centre of Criminology, University of Alberta. Major funding for the larger project was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Alberta and Ontario governments, the cities of Edmonton and Toronto, the University of Alberta and Laurentian University.Received Ph.D. from Indiana University. Current research interests are attitudes toward young offenders, role transition and crime, and female crime trends.     

Newborn kidnapping by cesarean section

A study of 30 cases of violence from a total sample of 199 cases of infant abductions between the years 1983 and 2000 included a subsample of six (or 20%) where the kidnapping was by cesarean section. The six cases are classified by type of crime. Four cases were classified as personal cause homicide, subtype cesarean section homicide; one case classified as personal cause, subtype domestic homicide, and one case classified as a criminal enterprise homicide. The behavioral profiles of the abductors included a confidence style approach to the victim mother, deception, and planning of the cesarean section. The forensic psychodynamics suggest a dual motive to cement a failing partner relationship and to fulfill a childbearing and delivery fantasy. Cesarean section murder suggests a new category of personal cause homicide.