Judicial economy and moving bars in international investment arbitration

The Review of International Organizations - Historically, international investment law has centered on protecting foreign investors from direct expropriation, but much of modern law includes legal...     

Can General Strain Theory Help Us Understand Violent Behaviors Among People with Mental Illnesses?

Recent work suggests that violence among people with mental illnesses is not simply due to the symptoms and comorbidities that define mental illness. We further this work by examining the extent to which strains or stressors explain the link between mental illness and violence. Specifically, we apply general strain theory (GST) to a longitudinal sample of adults with mental illnesses to investigate the lagged effects on violence of several strain measures, while controlling for mental illness symptoms, substance abuse, past violence, and other key variables. Parental drug abuse from childhood and stressful life events across the life course predict violence in adulthood. In a prospective model, relationship strain from an earlier time period significantly predicts changes in later self-reported violence. The results shed light on the ability of criminological frameworks to explain violence among people with mental illnesses.     

Conditional impact of facebook as an information source on political opinions: the case of political reform in Hong Kong

This study is interested in the impact of Facebook as a source for political information on public opinion during political controversies. In a society where the mainstream media are under heavy influence by the dominant power and yet Internet communication is largely open and free, social media may become particularly important for the transmission of critical information and viewpoints. The social media information environment may exhibit an overall ‘anti-establishment bias.’ However, the impact of social media should vary across individuals depending on the extent and character of user selectivity. Analysis of data collected during the political reform debate in Hong Kong (N?=?3,246) show that reliance on Facebook as an information source relates negatively to support for the government’s reform proposal. But the relationship is strongest for people without a strong political orientation and people who do not name any newspapers as their main information source. General theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Explaining Bullying Victimization: Assessing the Generality of the Low Self-Control/Risky Lifestyle Model

ABSTRACT

The integrated low self-control/risky lifestyle theoretical framework has proven useful for explaining various types of victimization. Bullying victimization (i.e., verbal, social, or physical attacks), however, may not fit this explanation very well if youths who are bullied do not have to engage in risky behaviors to be singled out by their peers, but could instead be targeted for other reasons (e.g., physical vulnerabilities). In this context, the current paper examines the generality of the low self-control/risky lifestyle model by assessing whether it can effectively explain which youngsters are more likely to be bullied. Using a sample of 1,901 middle school students, the results indicate that, although low self-control significantly predicts whether youths will engage in risky lifestyles (e.g., displaying aggressive attitudes, committing delinquent acts, using illicit substances), participating in such behaviors does not elevate the likelihood of bullying victimization. Instead, the authors’ findings reveal that low self-control directly influences victimization. Further, physical vulnerability is significantly related to being bullied. These findings suggest that the low self-control/risky lifestyle model needs to be revised to accommodate potential age-graded consequences of self-control, and that physical limitations—not “traditional” risky lifestyles—are persistent sources of bullying victimization that should be further evaluated.     

Sexual frigidity: the social construction of masculine privilege and feminine pathology

This study examines how mid-twentieth century physicians used the term ‘sexual frigidity’ to disempower women. Conceptualizing medical texts as accounts, I focus on how medical authors saw, described and explained sexual frigidity from the 1930s to the 1960s in both scientific writings and in those aimed at the general public as sex guides, marriage manuals and advice columns. The study concludes, that behind the pretext of treating a woman’s frigidity, psychiatrists and gynecologists, using the language and theoretical structures of psychoanalysis, constructed a narrative in which ‘normal’, non-frigid women always see their man through a lens of unlimited patience, tenderness and altruism. Their attitude is always welcoming, joyous, and worshipful. By contrast, women defined as sexually frigid see their man through a lens of bitterness and resentment, an attitude which reaches its apotheosis during the man’s attempts to engage them in intercourse. Through the frigidity narrative, mid-twentieth century physicians managed to pass judgment, not only on women’s sexuality, but on their autonomy, their character, and the success or failure of their marriage: they are to blame when their husband leaves them for another woman; they are to blame when their husband is impotent; and they only have themselves to blame if they are unable to function in a sexually ‘healthy’ way. The discourse that seemed preoccupied with a woman’s genitals, with their feelings and contractions, was also interested in a woman’s heart, her intentions and activities, with particular emphasis on how she performed as her husband’s housekeeper and companion. There was scarcely an attitude, feeling, or interpersonal activity known to women from which mid-twentieth century physicians did not impute some connection to frigidity.