Political Positions,Hierarchies and Political Markets: Towards a New Theory on Political Recruitment*

This article adresses itself to the problem of political recruitment. Most recruitment studies are based on models of recruitment where the model presupposes more candidates than positions. Studying local committees we cannot presuppose excess demand for political positions. The article tries to introduce economic theory into the study of political recruitment. With concepts of market, supply, demand and prices, the article discusses recruitment to various types of positions. When we have extreme market conditions with either excess demand or lack of demand, the recruitment processes can best be understood in terms of hierarchical forces. The sales of less important positions in a situation with low demand for these positions could best be understood in terms of market mechanism. Comparing an economic market with a political market, the article finds variation in the transaction structure. The economic markets have a specific transaction structure, with specific obligations linked to transactions, while the political markets have a more unspecified transaction structure with more unspecified obligations linked to the transactions. A less specified transaction structure has lower transaction costs in a hierarchy than in a market. This, the author believes, could explain why some transactions take place in markets while others take place in hierarchies.     

Developmental patterns of sex differences in delinquency among African American adolescents: A test of the sex-invariance hypothesis

This paper addresses a developmental issue concerning longitudinal patterns of sex differences in delinquency. Hirschi and Gottfredson argue that the age-delinquency relation is invariant across sex and that sex differences in delinquency are invariant over time as well. A combination of these two propositions generates a hypothesis, called here the sex-invariance hypothesis, that sex differences in delinquency are invariant over developmental stages of adolescents. To test the sex-invariance hypothesis, nine waves of panel data collected from a representative urban sample of African American adolescents are analyzed. The overall findings show that sex differences in delinquency tend to vary as the subjects grow older, rather than remain constant as the invariance thesis posits. Specifically, sex differences in delinquency peak at the age of 15 and thereafter declines with age. We also find that parental supervision significantly explains sex differences in delinquency for younger adolescence, but not for older adolescence.     

Family Transitions and Later Delinquency and Drug Use

Changes in the family structure can be very disruptive to adolescents who live in those families. This article examines the impact of the number of family transitions on delinquent and drug-using behavior. Specifically, the effect of family transitions is hypothesized to be mediated by problems within the family, school, and peer settings. A sample of 646 boys (73%) and girls (27%) taken from a longitudinal panel study of high-risk adolescents are used to examine these hypotheses. For girls, little support is found for the direct or the indirect effect of family transitions on delinquent behavior or drug use. For boys, however, both forms of problem behavior are influenced by family transitions directly and indirectly through changes in, and problems with, peer associations. The findings suggest that during times of family turmoil, the friendship network of adolescent male children is also disrupted, leading to an increase in associations with delinquent others and, in turn, an increase in problematic behaviors.

Delinquency and family life among male adolescents: The role of ethnicity

This study addresses the role of ethnic and racial diversity in the relationship between family processes and delinquency. The study evaluates the overall role families play in the etiology of delinquency across different ethnic/racial groups, and investigates the relative role of specific issues such as family involvement, family attachment, and family control among Hispanic, African American, and white male adolescents. This analysis utilizes two waves of data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, a longitudinal project investigating the causes and correlates of delinquency among a high-risk urban sample of youth. Results of this study indicate that family variables as a group are more important in constraining delinquency for Hispanic adolescents. In addition, the relative influence of particular family processes on delinquent conduct appears to differ among diverse populations. We also find that living in a single-parent home has less impact on family processes than living in a situation of economic hardship.Prepared under Grant No. 86-JN-CX-0007 (S-3) from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Grant No. 5 R01 DA05512-02 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Grant No. SES-8912274 from the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank Terence P. Thornberry and Alan Lizotte for their helpful comments. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the funding agencies.Received Ph.D. from University at Albany. Research interests include the family etiology of delinquency and the impact of the social context on parenting.Received Ph.D. from Florida State University. Research interests include adolescent substance use and juvenile delinquency.     

Investigating Friendship Quality: An Exploration of Self-Control and Social Control Theories’ Friendship Hypotheses

While associations with deviant peers are well understood to impact individual development, less is understood about the relationship between friendship quality and delinquency. Two criminological theories-social control theory and self-control theory-are able to offer an explanation for the latter relationship. Social control and self-control theories both premise that delinquents will have largely fractured, weak, and "cold and brittle" friendships. This study investigates how variations in perceptions of friendship quality are related to the delinquency, maternal attachment, school attachment, and self-control levels of both a participant and his/her close friend. To explore these relationships, we use a diverse (14% black; 18% Hispanic; 9% Asian) sample of 2,154 emerging adults within 1,077 friendship pairs (66% female). In each dyad, both members perceived the friendship's quality and reported personal markers of delinquency, social bonds, and self-control. Several series of multilevel models are estimated that regress each participant's friendship quality perception onto the participant's and their friend's delinquency, attachments, self-control, and demographic characteristics. Results show that delinquents have as intense, or more intense, friendships as non-delinquents. However, low levels of both actor and partner attachments and self-control are independently related to low friendship quality, and this is especially true for self-control. Supplemental analyses demonstrate that the effect of self-control on friendship quality may be reduced when individuals in dyads are delinquent. In conclusion, studies that address friendship quality without including characteristics of multiple members of the friendship are only capturing part of one's estimate of friendship quality.     

Umwelt in schlechter Verfassung?

Im Koalitionsvertrag der gro?en Koalition ist eine F?deralismusreform bis in die Details der geplanten Verfassungs?nderung hinein vereinbart und – wie gewünscht – mit wenigen ?nderungen durch Bundestag und Bundesrat verabschiedet worden. Die wissenschaftliche Kritik, die Kritik aus den Wirtschafts- und den Umweltverb?nden sowie aus Berufsverb?nden insbesondere an der Reform der Verteilung der Gesetzgebungskompetenzen für den Umweltschutz hatte gegen die politischen Absprachen zwischen gro?er Koalition und den Bundesl?ndern keine Chance. Nachfolgend wird die Neuordnung der Gesetzgebungskompetenzen für den Umweltschutz analysiert, wobei die Verfasser insgesamt zu einer skeptischen Einsch?tzung gelangen.     

Desistance as a Developmental Process: A Comparison of Static and Dynamic Approaches

New research in the field of developmental criminology has led researchers to reconceptualize desistance as a behavioral process that unfolds over the life course. This approach puts more emphasis on the pathways by which people reach the state of non-offending, and less emphasis on the state of non-offending itself. This reconceptualization has implications for how we measure desistance in longi-tudinal data. In this paper, we suggest that the traditional measurement approach is inconsistent with this view, and we present an alternative measurement approach based on the premises of developmental criminology. Although not perfect, we argue that the dynamic measure better describes the key elements of the process of desistance. Both approaches are implemented using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, a longitudinal study of youthful offenders. We demon-strate that the two approaches identify different people as desistors. Moreover, we argue that the dynamic definition of desistance has more promise for providing insight into the changes that are the behavioral focus of the desistance process.