Parental Social Support and Sources of Knowledge Interact to Predict Children’s Externalizing Behavior Over Time

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parental social support and monitoring are associated with children’s externalizing behavior but clarity is needed on how these mechanisms interact to...     

Fiscal Reforms and the Fiscal Effects of Aid in Uganda

Abstract

Uganda implemented public expenditure and revenue management reforms from the early 1990s with specific aims of improving budget planning and aligning aid with fiscal priorities. The dynamic relationship between aid and domestic fiscal aggregates is analysed using a Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive model with annual data for 1972–2008 and quarterly data for 1997–2014. Aid has been a significant element of long-run fiscal equilibrium, associated with increased tax effort and public spending and reduced domestic borrowing. Fiscal reforms have improved aid and expenditure management, contributing to improved fiscal performance in Uganda, with lessons for other African countries.     

Family formation and everyday travel in Britain since c.1850

This paper focuses on the extent to which everyday travel behaviour in Britain changes in relation to family responsibilities, and examines how this has altered over the past century and a half. It is argued that prior to the mid-twentieth century changes in the family such as increased child-care responsibilities barely influenced the modes of transport used for everyday travel, but that increasingly in the later twentieth century people adjusted their travel behaviour during the family formation phases of the life cycle. In particular, parents of young children have become more car-dependent and less likely to walk or cycle. Data are drawn from two separate projects, one that collected travel life histories from the past half-century as context for research on cycling in later life, and one that uses personal diaries to reveal everyday mobility strategies of people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is argued that the observed changes are due not only to increased access to a wide range of different transport forms, especially the motor car, but also to changes in societal perceptions of risk and norms of travel behaviour. In conclusion, it is suggested that more awareness of past travel behaviours could aid the development and implementation of more sustainable transport policies in the UK.     

Power,norms and theory. A meta-political inquiry

Realism criticizes the idea, central to what may be called ‘the priority view’, that philosophy has the task of imposing from the outside general norms of morality or standards of reasonableness on politics understood as the domain of power. According to realism, political philosophy must reveal the specific standards internal to the political practice of handling power appropriately and as it develops in actual circumstances. Framed in those terms, the debate evokes the idea that political power itself is lacking normativity until such time as norms are devised that govern its use. In contrast, this essay identifies a normative dimension internal to (the conquest and exercise of) power. Power depends on recognition and support in the form of belief. This dependence explains how an interest in power introduces a responsiveness to normative considerations into the domain of politics.     

“We Are Left with No Other Alternative”: Legitimating Internal Secession in Northern Ontario

There are three distinctive schools of thought regarding the legitimacy of secession. According to scholars in the permissive school, secession is legitimate when it is based on the democratic expression of political will on the part of a territorially defined community. In the eyes of adherents to the remedial school, secession is justified only as a last remedy to unjust and harmful treatment. Finally, proponents of a third school see the right to secession as part-and-parcel of national self-determination, ultimately grounding it in the existence of a distinctive national identity. All three schools of thought are concerned primarily with secession from an existing state. This paper will explore if, and to what extent, they can serve as a framework for the empirical analysis of the public philosophy of internal secession—that is, secession within a state. It will do so by examining separatism in Northern Ontario.     

Playing the Recognition Game: External Actors and De Facto States

It is impossible to understand the creation and continued survival of de facto states without reference to external actors. External patrons provide vital support and the international system constrains and shapes these aspiring states. The relationship is, however, not one-sided, and these entities are not merely puppets. In fact external dependence creates significant dilemmas for de facto states: it undercuts their de facto independence and contradicts their strategy for gaining international recognition, thereby undermining their long-term sustainability. The dilemmas facing de facto states have been accentuated by the recent recognition of Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.     

The United States in a world of rising regional powers: farewell Lilliput,hello Shanghai

Regional powers such as China, India, Russia, and to a lesser degree Brazil and South Africa, now occupy a significant role on the world stage. The United States, while still enjoying superpower status, has taken note. At the same time, the transnational nature of the challenges facing the world will require multilateral and bilateral co-operation perhaps unprecedented in modern history. How will the United States respond to these new requisites within the context of this changed world? While it is too early to assess the Obama administration's foreign policy substantively, it looks to be adopting an approach emphasising the building of consensus and multilateralism in its international engagement. Moreover, there is reason to expect that it will actively seek a more constructive set of relationships with regional powers. United States domestic political constraints may yet hamper Obama in this new approach, as might the type of response the new administration receives from old and new powers to its overtures. Whether the changes are more in tone than substance remains to be seen.