The United States,the Israeli Nuclear Program,and Nonproliferation, 1961–69

As was evident from the intense reaction to Donald Trump’s comments during the 2016 presidential campaign about nuclear proliferation, many analysts believe that the United States has consistently given the goal of nonproliferation a top priority since the beginning of the nuclear age. That conviction, in turn, plays a major role in policy debates among experts in this area. In this article, I show that nonproliferation does not necessarily take precedence over other important US geopolitical interests through a close examination of American policy toward the Israeli nuclear program during the 1960s. Although nonproliferation goals certainly came into play, US officials repeatedly gave priority to other key objectives and, to a real extent, even believed that Israel’s nuclearization could hold certain strategic advantages. This finding, of course, has important theoretical implications for the basic question of whether international politics still works essentially as it did in the pre-nuclear era, as well as for policy debates over nuclear proliferation.     

Parent-Child Conflict during Elementary School as a Longitudinal Predictor of Sense of Purpose in Emerging Adulthood

Having a sense of purpose is viewed as a benchmark of adaptive development. Though adolescence and emerging adulthood are viewed as central periods for the development of a purpose, work still is needed to understand the childhood factors that influence this developmental process. The current study provides an initial investigation into whether parent-child conflict during elementary school predicts later sense of purpose, assessed during emerging adulthood (mean age: 21.01 years; range: 19.97–23.53). The sample included 1074 students (50% female), and their parents, who both reported on their levels of parent-child conflict during grades 1–5. Higher levels of parent-child conflict were associated with lower levels of purpose in emerging adulthood. Moreover, the study examined whether these effects remained when predicting the variance unique to purpose while accounting for other indicators of well-being in emerging adulthood. Bi-factor models demonstrated that the child’s perception of mother-child conflict has a unique prospective effect on purpose in emerging adulthood, above and beyond its negative association with general well-being. The findings are discussed with respect to how positive parent-child relationships may prove important for starting youth on the path to purpose.

     

Parental Social Support and Sources of Knowledge Interact to Predict Children’s Externalizing Behavior Over Time

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parental social support and monitoring are associated with children’s externalizing behavior but clarity is needed on how these mechanisms interact to...     

A Community‐Based Model for Remediating Juveniles Adjudicated Incompetent to Stand Trial: Feedback from Youth,Attorneys, and Judges

This study examined client satisfaction with a community‐based restoration services program for youth adjudicated incompetent to stand trial in Virginia. The sample consisted of 130 youth (ages 8‐21 years), 80 attorneys, and 43 juvenile court judges. Youth overwhelming found restoration services helpful to them, although some concepts were harder to learn than others. Both judges and attorneys were generally knowledgeable about juvenile competency law, although both were less knowledgeable about competency evaluators and the services provided to youth. Results will be used to improve teaching tools, training of Restoration Counselors, and communication between program providers and the legal community.     

The ARAB Spring’s Constitutional Indigestion: Has Democracy Failed in the Middle East?

In 2013, 3 years after the advent of the ‘Arab Spring’, there is still no single unifying political reform narrative in the Arab World. The unprecedented opportunity for reform and state building appears to have stalled with Islamist movements more concerned with questions of Islamic identity and religious ethics rather than constitutionalism. Incoming governments have lapsed back to the use of police power to curb dissent and protest thus raising the crucial questions: Have post-revolution events proven that the Middle East is incompatible with democracy? Is entrenching democracy in the Middle East failing?     

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Detecting and Responding to Elder Mistreatment: Creating a University-Community Partnership

As the aging population grows, the problem of elder mistreatment is escalating. Cases of elder mistreatment are anticipated to increase further as the—baby boomers age and the number of elderly individuals living and receiving care at home increases (Stiegel 2006; Kennedy 2005; Meeks-Sjostrom 2004). While there has been increasing attention placed on understanding the dynamic of elder mistreatment, advancement of public policy and scholarly work has been hampered due to the fact that much of this work occurs in disciplinary silos. This paper spotlights one example in which university scholars from various disciplines partnered with social service providers, legal professionals, and healthcare educators in the community to enhance the development of a sustainable comprehensive elder justice network.     

Supermarkets,iron buffalos and agrarian myths: exploring the drivers and impediments to food systems modernisation in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Southeast Asian food systems are changing rapidly. Populations are growing and urbanising, production and consumption choices are shifting, and food value chains are experiencing a myriad of ripple effects from rural hinterlands to city marketplaces. These systemic changes are inconsistent, however, and variable challenges define key sectors. Distribution chains, wholesaling, food processing, retail and supermarkets, and other midstream and downstream segments of regional food systems are undergoing transformative and largely unhindered change. On-farm modernisation and trade liberalisation are occurring more haltingly. Previous advances in food production technology and methods have lost momentum, and much of the region faces confronting questions about how to produce adequate and appropriate food in light of shifting demographics, environmental stress, land scarcities, market manipulations and other defining regional characteristics. This paper juxtaposes these challenges with remarkable distribution chain evolutions, and focuses upon three impediments to further shifts in regional food systems: (1) the perpetuation of agrarian mythologies, (2) push-back against rice market integration, and (3) regulatory barriers to the adoption of genetically modified (GM) plants. These seemingly disparate dynamics actually have points of convergence, and are unified in their negative overall impacts on regional food security. This paper explores reasons behind the pervasiveness of these impediments and argues for supply-oriented improvements in the regional food systems.