Give them toys? Military allocations and regime stability in transitional democracies

In contrast to the conventional wisdom that democratization reduces coups, 46% of coups targeted democracies from 2000–2009, twice the rate seen in the prior half-century. Efforts to explain coups have arrived at wildly varied conclusions regarding the vulnerability of democracies. We argue that this is attributable to regime type acting as a conditional influence. We theorize that democratization incentivizes old elites to veto the process, and these vetoes are more likely to occur when the new regime cannot credibly commit to the military’s corporate interests. Using cross-national data for 172 states for the years 1952–2009, we find that though young democracies are more vulnerable to coups than either civilian authoritarian regimes or older democracies, this vulnerability is mitigated when military expenditures are near or above the sample mean. We also find that commonly argued determinants of coups appear to be driven by their influence in democracies, suggesting the need for scholars to revisit commonly held assumptions regarding autocratic survival.     

从人民代表到代表人民-由《选举法》的修改说起

一、楔子 在中华人民共和国建国六十周年之际，当改革开放行进三十年之际，全国人大常务委员会公布了《选举法》修改草案。就草案的内容看，其是我们政治体制改革的进一步深化与具体化，是人民民主之法治化的延伸，是人民当家作主的进一步扩大。     

Psychopathy in Youth: Pursuing Diagnostic Clarity

Psychopathy in youth has received increased recognition as a critical clinical construct for the evaluation and management of troubled adolescents (e.g., Frick, P. J. (1998). In Cooke, D. J., Forth, A. E., and Hare, R. D. (eds.), Psychopathy: Theory, Research and Implications for Society. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, pp. 161–187; Lynam, D. R. (1998). J. Abnorm. Psychol., 107: 566–575). To date, clinical research has examined psychopathy simply as a global construct rather than focusing on its specific criteria. In addition, researchers have tended to utilize downward extensions of adult conceptualizations of psychopathy to understand this syndrome in youth. This study was designed to assist in clarifying the construct of psychopathy in youth from a fresh perspective via prototypical analysis. Psychologists from the Clinical Child Psychology Section of the American Psychological Association (i.e., Division 53; N = 511) rated the prototypicality of the psychopathy construct for both male and female youth. Factor analyses for both genders resulted in 2 dimensions that reflected both personality and behavioral components of the disorder. Prototypicality ratings revealed important adult-to-child and male-to-female differences. In addition, child psychologists' views of their effectiveness at treating psychopathy in youth was surveyed. Contrary to the prevailing pessimism, clinical child psychologists reported that children and adolescents made moderate gains in psychotherapy. These results provide a framework for clinical child psychologists in their evaluations and treatment of psychopathic youth.     

社会保障成本转嫁及其自我强化机制

在我国经济体制转轨过程中,社会保障一直承担着国有企业改革的成本转嫁。近年来,某些重大公共工程和公共政策,诸如三峡工程、南水北调工程等,也向社会保障进行成本转嫁,加重了社会保障的负担。本文认为,为了防止把社会保障变成转嫁成本的公地,应建立社会保障评估制度,对重大工程和公共政策实行事先的社会保障评估。     

文化体制改革中公平与效率的关系探讨

中国深化文化体制改革、推动社会主义文化建设有两个目标,一个是发展文化事业,一个是发展文化产业,公平与效率是衡量这两个目标的重要纬度。公平目标包括了平等原则和效率原则,在文化体制改革中,公平与效率的关系依赖不同的条件,即因适用的范围不同而不同,这些范围和条件包括文化市场、政府和精神道德三个领域。深化文化体制改革要采取多种措施来兼顾公平与效率二者之间的关系。     

Generality, continuity, and change in offending

A number of criminological theories make either implicit or explicit predictions about the empirical relationship between prior and future offending behavior. Some argue that time-stable characteristics such as criminal propensity should account for any positive correlation between past and future criminal behavior for all individuals. Others contend that the positive association between offending behavior at different points in time are partly causal and partly spurious. Still others anticipate that different patterns will emerge for different groups (distinguished by their ciminal propensity) of individuals. Using a longitudinal data set comprised of 848 training school releasees, we test various hypotheses emanating from these different theoretical perspectives. The results indicate that (1) both stability and change have causal implications for one's offending behavior and (2) with but one exception, these effects do not vary between high and low criminal propensity groups.     

The ‘Cross+check’ system: Integrating profiling approaches for police and security investigations

It is an investigative truism that “information is the lifeblood of an investigation.” Yet in many investigations police and security personnel fail to fully utilize the diverse range of different types of information readily available to them which can add significant value to an investigation. In effect, potentially useful information simply falls between the cracks in an investigation. In serious, complex and/or high profile crimes and security type terrorism threats, the risks of missing such informational gaps and cracks pose a very real and present danger. To address this “falling between the cracks” informational phenomenon the current author devised and developed a deliberate low-tech ‘Cross-Check’ system that the average investigator can be trained in to use on a daily basis without the need for expensive or sophisticated equipment. The C+C system teaches an investigator to think in a logically grounded and creatively systematic manner using different types of information about a crime or security problem. The core of the C+C system is its ability to bring together and focus on the interrelationships between four qualitatively different levels of information. The goal of the C+C system is to generate and then prioritize the investigative leads that logically flow out of systematically ‘cross+checking’ informational interrelationships in order not only to plan and manage an overall investigative strategy but also to develop leads into evidence. This paper presents the theoretical, conceptual, and operational frameworks of the C+C system as a knowledge management tool in relation to the integration of several police and security profiling approaches as well as illustrating its practical application with a case example of an arson investigation.