MutualBenefits

China's economic rise and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economic association have provided the African continent with a range of new development partners and op-portunities unmatched in its post-colonial history. Africa's strategic engagement with BRICS offers a unique chance to promote a new and innovative development path.     

The new nuclear danger

McGeorge Bundy, William J Crowe, JR., and Sidney D Drell, Reducing Nuclear Danger, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, 1993, pp.107.

Robert D. Blackwill and Albert Carnesale (eds.), New Nuclear Nations ‐Consequences for US Policy, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, 1993, pp.272.

Peter Van Ham, Managing Non‐Proliferation Regimes in the 1990s, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, 1994, pp.112.     

Afro‐Chinese relations: An evolving South‐South partnership

A detailed look at the historical and recent developments leading to the current Afro‐Sino relationship and the implications it has for South‐South relations in a changing global order.     

Exploring the Impact of Child Sex Offender Suicide

This paper explores the issues and widespread impact surrounding child sex offenders (CSO) who commit suicide after learning they are under criminal investigation. This phenomenon, which has received scant attention in the literature, affects family, friends, and victims of offenders who may experience a range of conflicting emotions including anger, guilt, confusion, betrayal, and loss. Involved law enforcement may, likewise, experience a range of complex reactions. Law enforcement personnel are neither trained nor required to assess offenders’ suicidality. However, awareness of how CSOs are impacted by an investigation may mitigate the risk of suicide and enhance operational strategies, including officer safety.     

The Public Purpose of Political Economy

ABSTRACT

For too long the discipline of political science has ceded research on the dynamics of the national political economy to the field of economics. In this article, we explore the cost of this cession in the context of the public purpose. Following John Kenneth Galbraith, we define the public purpose in terms of its independence from the market economy and the planning system. Political scientists, and especially political theorists, are uniquely qualified to theorize power relations relative to a host of challenges that have emerged in today’s rapidly transforming national economies. Galbraith’s critique of mainstream economics, coupled with his understanding of power as an inescapable and perpetual dialectical process, provide guidance for theorizations that should attend to rather than deny the contested domain of the public interest and collective good.     

Opening doors for all American youth? Evidence for federal homelessness policy

It is estimated that on a single night in January 2009, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in America (The 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress 2010). The Obama administration recently published “Opening Doors,” the first federal plan to prevent and end homelessness. We argue that the strategy is based on a partial evidence base that raises questions about the potential of the strategy to meet its goals. In order to inform future iterations of the plan, data from 682 young adults (aged 18–27 years old; mean = 22.13 years old) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to examine whether there is a typologys of young adults with a history of homelessness; one of the priority groups in the strategy. A priori selected variables previously associated with lifetime homelessness in non-random samples were mapped to survey items. Data were analyzed using cluster analysis. Comparisons were conducted with a randomly selected “never-homeless” sample from the same study. The cluster analysis revealed four subgroups. It appears that the Federal Plan currently prioritizes homelessness risk factors associated with two subgroups: the Young Offenders subgroup and the Abused Depressed subgroup. The needs of two other subgroups are not fully addressed: the Childhood Adversity subgroup and the Vulnerable African-American subgroup. The authors offer guidance on future directions for homelessness policy relevant to young adults.     

刑事案件中陪审员对科学证据的期望-“CSI效应”神话的观念与现实

美国密歇根州沃什特瑙县抽样调查显示，陪审员对于提供给他们的科学证据抱有很高的期望；在所有强奸案件和依据间接证据定案的案件中，如果把科学证据作为被告人有罪的一个条件，陪审员对这种科学证据的要求很高；观看《犯罪现场调查》的陪审员与没有观看该电视剧的陪审员在这方面没有任何差别。韦恩县的研究结果表明，陪审员对于他们使用的技术越精通，他们对于控方在其案件中使用科学证据的期望就越高。在这两个地方的研究表明，陪审员对科学证据的期望和要求是大众文化广泛变革的结果，是大众媒体和诉讼参与人相信这种效应存在而培养起来的。