Routine activities as determinants of gender differences in delinquency

This study examined the extent to which gender differences in delinquency can be explained by gender differences in participation in, or response to, various routine activity patterns (RAPs) using data from the second and third waves of the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988. While differential participation in routine activities by gender failed to explain males’ high levels of deviance relative to females, two early RAPs moderated the effect of gender on subsequent deviant behavior. Participation in religious and community activities during the sophomore year in high school decreased, while unstructured and unsupervised peer interaction increased, levels of delinquency two years later substantially more for males than for females, suggesting there are gender differences in reactivity to contextual opportunities for deviance during early high school with effects that persist over time.     

The Alliance Politics of Concerted Accommodation: Entente Bargaining and Italian and Ottoman Interventions in the First World War

This article examines the challenges allies face in coordinating diplomatic efforts to accommodate and peel off their main enemy's potential allies. It elucidates the key dimensions, and the underlying coordination dynamics, of this problem of “concerted accommodation,” and it develops propositions about the conditions that shape the efficacy of such efforts. The argument links allies’ strength to their divergent or convergent assessments of the target state's ability to tip the war toward victory or defeat. Divergent assessments foster weak allied efforts that are likely to fail, but when allies agree that the target is a potential “war-tipper,” they will support their concerted accommodation policy with more robust cooperation that is more likely to work. The causal arguments and mechanisms are examined in a paired comparison analysis of two First World War cases: the Entente's efforts to induce (1) Ottoman neutrality and (2) Italian intervention.     

The Course and Psychosocial Correlates of Personality Disorder Symptoms in Adolescence: Erikson's Developmental Theory Revisited

Personality disorder symptoms were investigated in a community sample of young people (n = 714) to assess their relationship over time with well-being during adolescence and the emergence of intimacy in early adulthood. Drawing on Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, changes in adolescent well-being were conceptualized as indirect indicators of identity consolidation. Cluster B personality disorder symptoms (borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic symptoms) were conceptualized to represent identity diffusion—i.e. maladaptive personality traits that usually resolve during the identity crisis of adolescence. Latent growth models were used in 2 age cohorts to assess (1) interrelationships between Cluster B symptoms, well-being, and intimacy at mean ages 13.8 and 18.6 years; and (2) associations between their developmental trajectories over the next 6 years. As expected, higher personality disorder symptoms were associated with lower well-being during adolescence, and declines in personality disorder symptoms over time were associated with corresponding gains in well-being. Consistent with Erikson's developmental theory, there was an inverse relationship between Cluster B symptoms and intimacy that increased in strength as young people entered adulthood. As an indicator of successful identity consolidation, well-being was significantly associated with intimacy in female adolescents and young adults.     

Risky sexual behavior in college students: Relationships between number of sexual partners,disclosure of previous risky behavior,and alcohol use

To examine relationships between disclosure of previous sexually risky behavior to current sexual partners, multiple sexual partners, condom and alcohol use, and vulnerability to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, an anonymous survey was administered to 427 unmarried undergraduates. Of the 262 sexually active students (66%), one third reported having more than one sexual partner in the prior 11 weeks and three fourths reported inconsistent or no condom use. Failure to disclose having previous sexual partners, not using condoms, and testing positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) was common among both men and women. Students with multiple sexual partners were less likely to disclose about previous partners and about failure to use condoms, and more likely to use alcohol prior to sexual activity. Although 40.8% of respondents said they did not use or were less likely to use condoms while drinking, no relationship between alcohol and condom use assessed during the last discrete incident was found. College students continue to engage in sexual activity that puts them at risk for contracting HIV and other STDs. Self-disclosure about past risky behavior, when it occurs, does not appear to lead to higher levels of condom use.The authors contributed equally to this study.Received Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Research interests: AIDS prevention, community-based behavior change, and women in higher education.Received Ph.D. from University of California, Davis. Research interests: Cognitive neuroscience, attention, and alternate states of consciousness.     

Undermining Western democracy promotion in Central Asia: China’s countervailing influences,powers and impact

This article examines whether and to what extent China’s involvement in Central Asian countries undermines the democracy promotion efforts of the European Union and the United States. Findings confirm that China does indeed challenge Western efforts, but in an indirect way. First, Chinese provision of substantial and unconditional financial assistance makes Western politically conditioned aid appear both ungenerous and an infringement of sovereignty. Second, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, inclusive of China’s leadership role, creates an institutional means through which the (semi-)authoritarianism of member states is legitimized and challenges Western emphasis on democracy and human rights. Finally, by the power of its own example, China demonstrates that democracy is not a prerequisite for prosperity, the rule of law and social well-being.     

A statistical approach to aid examiners in the forensic analysis of handwriting

We develop a statistical approach to model handwriting that accommodates all styles of writing (cursive, print, connected print). The goal is to compute a posterior probability of writership of a questioned document given a closed set of candidate writers. Such probabilistic statements can support examiner conclusions and enable a quantitative forensic evaluation of handwritten documents. Writing is treated as a sequence of disjoint graphical structures, which are extracted using an automated and open-source process. The graphs are grouped based on the similarity of their shapes through a K-means clustering template. A person's writing pattern can be characterized by the rate at which graphs are emitted to each cluster. The cluster memberships serve as data for a Bayesian hierarchical model with a mixture component. The rate of mixing between two parameters in the hierarchy indicates writing style.     

Implementing Environmental Sustainability in Local Government: The Impacts of Framing,Agency Culture,and Structure in US Cities and Counties

This article focuses on the organizational factors of environmental sustainability implementation in local government. We investigate the interactions, as well as direct and indirect impacts, of the framing of environmental sustainability and organizational culture and structure on implementation outcomes. We use a survey of 217 city/county planners and managers in 146 randomly selected American mid-sized cities and counties. The survey was specifically designed to tease out organizational features and their impacts. We model these impacts using structural equation modeling. We find that horizontally and vertically integrated organizational structure supports two essential dimensions of organizational culture: innovation adoption and consensus building. These cultural traits positively impact the framing of environmental sustainability at the core of organizations’ logic, which in turn significantly supports implementation outcomes. These findings provide important insights into city/county managers seeking to promote sustainability, and provide a base for future studies of the organizational factors of implementation.