Gender,Race, and Intersectionality in Campaign Finance

Political Behavior - Campaign finance research has given greater attention to race and gender, but, due to data limitations, only separately. Using new data on the ethnoracial and gender...     

European integration and lessons for China

This paper compares the European Union and the People’s Republic of China by viewing them primarily as conglomerates of smaller constituents, each with their own political and economic significance in relations with their respective political centres. While this is a perspective that is more easily applied to the EU given that each of its members enjoys sovereignty and also the Union’s rather short history, Chinese area studies have only recently begun viewing China as a sum of its parts. The present study while conscious of the huge differences in the historical development and present realities of both the EU and China, posits that the similarities in the centre-constituent as well inter-constituent relationships developing in both the EU and China allow for important lessons to be drawn. A key focus is the differentiated set of relationships developing between Brussels and the latest entrants to the EU and between the older and newer members of the EU. In China, too, the nature of relationships between the central government and the better-developed coastal provinces is different from those that Beijing has with the central or western provinces, with implications also for the relationships among these different sets of provinces themselves. The tensions and charges of unfair treatment seen in the accessions of the Central and Eastern European nations to the EU, have an echo in the similar complaints that have been coming from the interior provinces of China since the beginning of economic reforms in that country, and perhaps, provide pointers to the future direction of the development of centre-province and inter-provincial relationships in China.     

Ultrastructural differences of fibrin coagulation before and after cardiovascular arrest

The reconstruction of killing offences often requires the differentiation between vital and postmortal blood traces at the sites of action and finding. Earlier investigations seemed to imply the possibility of such a differentiation depending on the different clot structure. We therefore examined clots prior and after 10 minutes of complete occlusion of the upper extremity morphologically and morphometrically with the REM. The morphologic comparison of these clots revealed narrow, round shaped fibrin fiber networks for clots of native blood, whereas clots after occlusion showed linear, rarely connected long fibrin fibers. The morphometry of the fibrin free spaces revealed a significant enlargement of the single fibrin free spaces as well as of the total fibrin free space after occlusion. For capillary blood a significant decrease in fiber diameter was observed after occlusion. The examination of clinical clotting parameters revealed alterations of thrombocyte aggregation for the collagen induction, a slightly reduced thrombocyte retention and slightly steeper flanks in the thromboelastogram after occlusion. The reason for these changes was interpreted as lack of high energetic phosphates in the retraction process as the clotting cascade itself requires a very high amount of these phosphates. Use of these results in the forensic practice will have to take factors as temperature, drying out, surface-structure and many others into account.     

Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan

Policy debates on strategies to end extremist violence frequently cite poverty as a root cause of support for the perpetrating groups. There is little evidence to support this contention, particularly in the Pakistani case. Pakistan's urban poor are more exposed to the negative externalities of militant violence and may in fact be less supportive of the groups. To test these hypotheses we conducted a 6,000‐person, nationally representative survey of Pakistanis that measured affect toward four militant organizations. By applying a novel measurement strategy, we mitigate the item nonresponse and social desirability biases that plagued previous studies due to the sensitive nature of militancy. Contrary to expectations, poor Pakistanis dislike militants more than middle‐class citizens. This dislike is strongest among the urban poor, particularly those in violent districts, suggesting that exposure to terrorist attacks reduces support for militants. Long‐standing arguments tying support for violent organizations to income may require substantial revision.     

Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage

Can civilians caught in civil wars reward and punish armed actors for their behavior? If so, do armed actors reap strategic benefits from treating civilians well and pay for treating them poorly? Using precise geo‐coded data on violence in Iraq from 2004 through 2009, we show that both sides are punished for the collateral damage they inflict. Coalition killings of civilians predict higher levels of insurgent violence and insurgent killings predict less violence in subsequent periods. This symmetric reaction is tempered by preexisting political preferences; the anti‐insurgent reaction is not present in Sunni areas, where the insurgency was most popular, and the anti‐Coalition reaction is not present in mixed areas. Our findings have strong policy implications, provide support for the argument that information civilians share with government forces and their allies is a key constraint on insurgent violence, and suggest theories of intrastate violence must account for civilian agency.     

Apartisans and the changing German electorate

The concept of party identification is central to our understanding of electoral behavior. This paper builds upon the functional logic of party identification and asks what occurs when more Germans manage the complexities of politics without needing to rely on habitual party cues—what we label as Apartisans. We track the distribution of party mobilization and cognitive mobilization within the German electorate from 1976 until 2009. Then, we demonstrate the importance of these mobilization patterns by documenting strong differences in electoral commitment, the content of political thinking, and electoral change. The results suggest a secular transformation in the characteristics of the public has led to a more differentiated and dealigned German electorate.     

Changes in self-control during adolescence: Investigating the influence of the adolescent peer network

Purpose

Previous research on changes in self-control during adolescence provides evidence of stability for most individuals but change for some, drawing attention to the role of factors that may account for change. We contribute to this area of research by examining the extent to which changes in peer self-control and peer delinquency within peer networks is related to individual self-control during adolescence.

Method

This study uses longitudinal social network data from three waves of the NSCR School Project to construct growth curve models of self-control and MLM models to examine the factors that contribute to changes in self-control.

Results

Growth curve models demonstrate within and between-individual differences in changes to self-control that occur between ages 12-17. Furthermore, multilevel models reveal that changes in levels of self-control and delinquency among respondent's peers are related to between-individual differences and within-individual changes in self-control, net of parental social control.

Conclusions

This study finds that self-control continues to evolve during adolescence as a result of processes that take place within adolescent peer-networks, calling into question Gottfredson and Hirschi's contention that peers are inconsequential for explaining differences in self-control across individuals.