The Odd Man Out

Political exigencies continue to trump strategic possibilities in the oft-strained U.S.-China military relationship The latest round of the U . S . - China Strategic ? and Economic Dialogue     

The Real China,on Wheels

"Excuse me, you can sit here,"he said. The man had reasonable pronunciation and looked studious,     

Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes: Support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections

While Euroscepticism is the most important driver of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) support, other attitudinal drivers – namely dissatisfaction towards mainstream parties and xenophobia – are also important. Examining vote‐switching between first‐ and second‐order elections evidence is found of a distinction between two types of supporter: more affluent and middle‐class ‘strategic defectors’ from the mainstream Conservative Party who support UKIP to register their Euroscepticism, and more economically marginal and politically disaffected ‘core loyalists’ who are attracted to UKIP by its anti‐immigration rhetoric and populist anti‐establishment strategy. UKIP also succeeds in attracting core support from groups such as women who have traditionally rejected extreme right parties such as the British National Party (BNP). This suggests that UKIP is well positioned to recruit a broader and more enduring base of support than the BNP.     

ADOLESCENT VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION AND PRECOCIOUS UNION FORMATION*

This article bridges scholarship in criminology and family sociology by extending arguments about “precocious exits” from adolescence to consider early union formation as a salient outcome of violent victimization for youths. Research indicates that early union formation is associated with several negative outcomes; yet the absence of attention to union formation as a consequence of violent victimization is noteworthy. We address this gap by drawing on life course theory and data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of violent victimization (“street” violence) on the timing of first coresidential union formation—differentiating between marriage and cohabitation—in young adulthood. Estimates from Cox proportional hazard models show that adolescent victims of street violence experience higher rates of first union formation, especially marriage, early in the transition to adulthood; however, this effect declines with age, as such unions become more normative. Importantly, the effect of violent victimization on first union timing is robust to controls for nonviolent delinquency, substance abuse, and violent perpetration. We conclude by discussing directions for future research on the association between violent victimization and coresidential unions with an eye toward the implications of such early union formation for desistance.     

Representatives' Attitudes Toward Citizen Protests in Sweden: The Impact of Ideology,Parliamentary Position,and Experiences

What affects political representatives' attitudes toward citizen protests? We test the impact of political representatives' left‐right ideology, parliamentary position, and earlier experience of citizen protests. Using data from a pioneering survey covering all local political representatives in Sweden (n = 9,101, response rate 70%), we examine attitudes toward controversial noninstitutionalized forms of citizen protests. The results show that representatives to the right show considerably lower protest acceptance than those to the left. Representatives in office show significantly lower levels of acceptance than those of the opposition. Finally, the results show that representatives with more protest experience show higher protest acceptance.     

Aggressive Patrol: A Search for Side-effects

Recent interest in the possible deterrent effects of aggressive or proactive policing raises the issue of such strategies' consequences for individual liberties and police-community relations. This study examines the latter—specifically, the effects of four neighborhood-level measures of an aggressive patrol style on citizens' evaluations of police and citizens' propensities to report crimes. The results suggest that, for most citizens, aggressive patrol has almost no effect on either evaluations or reporting behavior. Surprisingly, one form of proactive patrol, the neighborhood rate of suspicion stops, seems to have a positive effect on the evaluations of police made by young black men.     

Gun Availability and Robbery Rates: A Panel Study of Large U.S. Cities, 1974–1978

This paper examines the hypothesis that crime rates and the availability of firearms form a "vicious circle," so that increases in one lead to increases in the other. Two waves of panel data are used to estimate the relationship between rates of robbery and the relative availability of guns in a sample of large U.S. cities. The results indicate that total robbery rates and gun availability had no influence on each other, but that weapons choice in robbery and gun availability did form a mutually reinforcing cycle. Some implications of these findings are considered.