Partner similarity for self-reported antisocial behaviour among married,cohabiting and dating couples: the Generation R Study

Abstract

From a criminological perspective, romantic relationships are supposed to decrease the risk of antisocial behaviour (Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, American Sociological Review, 63, 225–238, 1998). However, the effects of these relationships probably depend on the romantic partner's behaviour. In the current study we examined partner similarity for antisocial behaviour in an ethnically heterogeneous community sample of 4135 married, cohabiting and dating couples from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, using self-reports. Spousal correlations were consistently positive for antisocial behaviour but differed in strength according to the type of antisocial behaviour. Associations between spouses remained strong after adjusting for age and educational level depending on the type of antisocial behaviour. In addition, antisocial behaviour was positively associated between partners across marital status and ethnicity, but the strength of this association varied to some extent. Results are discussed in light of the phenotypic assortment, the socialization and the social homogamy hypotheses.     

The commission and its lessons

This article surveys the history, organization and mixed success of the Hutchins Commission. The commission was foremost a creature of its own times, and, notwithstanding the sometimes unclear philosophy about its goal and the elitist content of its declarations to reform journalism, was motivated by high principles of communitarianism and duties of democratic citizenship. The article suggests an important lesson for academicians and journalists, politicians and social theorists, who today feel the need for another commission to address the difficult issues of, among other things, sensationalism of news content and concentration of media ownership. The message is that journalism should not be reformed, but informed. It should address the same kinds of issues broached long ago by the Hutchins Commission Report, but in a much different way.     

Book reviews

Mike Marqusee, REDEMPTION SONG: MUHAMMAD ALI AND THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTIES (Verso Books, 1999)

Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert, and Laura Whitehorn, ENEMIES OF THE STATE, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Resistance in Brooklyn Publication, 1998). Meyer, c/o WRL, 339 Lafayette Street, NY 10012 or mmmsrnb@igc.org.

Viviane Forrester, THE ECONOMIC HORROR (Cambridge, UK: The Polity Press [in association with Oxford, UK, and Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers], 1999).

Peter Roman, PEOPLE'S POWER: CUBA'S EXPERIENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999).

Stanislao G. Pugliese, CARLO ROSSELLI: SOCIALIST HERETIC AND ANTIFASCIST EXILE (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).     

Historical political economy and liberal democratic capitalism

This paper explores the ways in which pregnancy is increasingly portrayed as a state requiring careful and detailed risk prevention. The subject of risk reduction in not the pregnant woman; the effort here is not to reduce maternalrisk during pregnancy, but rather to reduce possible risks to the foetus due to maternal behaviour.

The deployment of risk discourse regarding foetal endangerment through maternal diet, exercise, lifestyle choices and personal habits is investigated using popular advice manuals directed at pregnant women. Through an examination of these materials, connections are made between the use of this ‘risk talk’ in prenatal advice to pregnant women and a larger practice of ‘self-regulation’ that occurs in advanced liberal rule.     

Contesting Europe,or Germany's Place in Europe? European Integration and the EU Policies of the Grand Coalition Government in the Mirror of Parliamentary Debates in the Bundestag

This article explores how European integration is contested between political parties in debates of the German Bundestag. Distinguishing between ‘domestic’ debates about the conduct of EU policy-making by the German government and ‘supranational’ debates about the institutions and policies of the European Union, the article asks for thematic objects and patterns of polarisation between parties within these debates. Presenting empirical evidence from the manual coding of 23 plenary debates during the second ‘Grand Coalition’ government, it is shown that the polarisation between parliamentary parties differs greatly at both levels of discussion. Whereas the antagonism between government and opposition appears to determine the polarisation of parties in ‘domestic’ debates, more ambiguous and atypical position patterns emerge on behalf of supranational issues. Therefore, the article suggests that a differentiation of various levels of debate is helpful in capturing the polarisation of political parties over the issue of European integration.