How did international economic regulation survive the last period of deglobalization?

As trade wars and protectionism again present severe challenges and obstructions to international economic regulatory organizations (IEROs), it is timely to ask how their predecessors survived the last deep deglobalization of the interwar years. This article presents a fresh neo-Durkheimian institutional explanation. It highlights contrasting pathways to survival and bequest of IEROs in three fields of regulation – international infrastructure, capital and labor, and commodities. Our explanation shows that functional imperatives and short-term market pressures in these different areas of regulation facilitated specific forms of social organization within IEROs (such as hierarchy or individualistic brokering). These contrasting forms of social organization cultivated distinct regulatory styles during deglobalization and cultivated capacities for contrasting survival and bequest strategies. Our approach is thus able to account for variation in pathways to survival in a way that other possible explanations, such as theories of regulatory capture or bureaucratic autonomy, cannot.     

The Centralization/Decentralization Paradox in Civil Service Reform: How Government Structure Affects Democratic Training of Civil Servants

We hypothesize that the structural characteristics (i.e., centralization versus decentralization) of government affect the availability of training in values and skills that are fundamental to democratization. We test our hypothesis in statistical models predicting anticorruption training and policy skills training, using a model of technical skills training for comparison. We find that centralized government structure significantly increases the odds of receiving both anticorruption training and policy skills training. In contrast, we find no statistical correlation between government structure and receipt of technical skills training. In light of these empirical results, we describe a theoretical paradox in civil service reform associated with democratization: While the end goal of such reform is decentralized government with local services and a professionalized civil service, reform itself may best supported by a centralized environment to achieve the democratic value and skills training needed to support transition to democracy.     

Maternal Care, Maltreatment and Callous-Unemotional Traits Among Urban Male Juvenile Offenders

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., lack of empathy/guilt, uncaring attitudes) are believed to be a developmental antecedent to adult psychopathy and identify antisocial youth at risk for severe and persistent aggression. The psychosocial histories of antisocial and aggressive individuals with psychopathic traits are characterized by abusive or unaffectionate parenting; however, there is a gap in the literature regarding the unique impact of these factors on adolescent offenders. The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of maternal warmth and affection (i.e., care) to dimensions of CU traits and aggression, after accounting for the influence of various types of childhood maltreatment. We investigated this aim in a sample of 227 urban male adolescent offenders housed in residential facilities. Results indicated that low maternal care was significantly associated with greater total CU traits and uncaring and callousness dimensions, even after controlling for the effects of various types of childhood abuse and neglect. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between CU traits and care, such that aggression was highest among youths scoring high on CU traits who were exposed to low levels of maternal care. These findings draw attention to the importance of maternal bonding to CU traits and related aggressive behaviors among antisocial youth.     

Creating bodily gender in the fields of symbol and power

This article is a contribution to the ongoing process of elucidating and questioning the distinction between sex and gender in feminist theory, and the presupposition that the body and its sex are “givens”. The article argues, constructively, that the time has come for feminist sociology to re‐establish contact between the acting body and the symbolic body. The aim is to create a frame of reference in which the body, charged with symbols and power, becomes a category of transformation. The concepts “bodily gender” and “constitutive rules” and “regulative rules” are introduced as analytical tools. The theoretical reflections are bounced off empirical material on sexualized violence in a contemporary Norwegian subculture.     

Problems of assessing sibship probabilities by means of genetic analysis

Nowadays, kinship studies based only on STR analysis are a very common practice. Apart from regular paternity cases, there is a rising number of cases in which the type of sibship between two persons has to be determined. Very often the parents or further relatives are unavailable for testing, so that the probability e. g. for a half-sibship has to be calculated as a deficiency situation. 50 unrelated persons (Group 1), 50 full siblings (Group 2), and 50 half-siblings (Group 3) were genotyped using the 15 STRs comprised by the AmpFlSTR Identifiler multiplex PCR-kit to investigate the reliability of common statistics programs and the indicative value of the calculated probabilities. Using a commercially available statistics program, we calculated probabilities for the following hypotheses: 1. The persons investigated are full siblings; 2. the persons investigated are half-siblings; 3. the persons investigated are unrelated. After STR analysis, half-sibling probabilities between 0.03 %-97.56% for group 1, between 0.01%-78.46% for group 2, and between 24.28%-90.18% for group 3 were calculated. In addition, the authors present two complicated deficiency cases which could be resolved only by extensive DNA typing using X- and Y-chromosomal loci, respectively, as well as the investigation of further relatives. The results of this study suggest that typing of autosomal STRs alone is no sufficient tool for resolving cases of possible half-sibship, even if probabilities of more than 90.0% are obtained. Due to the results of our study we suggest the implementation of mandatory standards for the investigation and interpretation of complicated kinship cases.     

Sports accident or natural death? Hematocephalus internus caused by rupture of a choroid plexus angioma

This is a case report of a young policeman who collapsed in the course of a football game. He died seven days later due to a massive intraventricular hemorrhage that resulted in internal hematocephalus. The source of the bleeding was obviously a bilateral angioma of the choroid plexus of the lateral ventricles.