Stabilization and symbolism: language and regional politics in the Chuvash Republic

The government of the Chuvash Republic, an ethno-federal region of the Russian Federation, used a targeted and symbolic language policy in an attempt to stabilize the position of the republic's titular language while avoiding conflict with local Russophones and the Russian federal government. The resulting policy allowed the republic's government to frame the existence of an autonomous Chuvash republic – as well as the local elite's form of governance – as being essential to the preservation of the Chuvash language and thus the Chuvash people. In this way, it used language politics to strengthen its position vis-à-vis both local constituents and the Russian federal government. However, the limited nature of the government's program has made its gains tenuous in the face of continuing Russian political and cultural recentralization.     

Fear of a black planet: anarchy anxieties and postcolonial travel to Africa

Western travel to Africa has historically involved the construction and consumption of African otherness. In the postcolonial era this is most clearly evident in Western tourism to the continent, where Africa is frequently marketed as an exoticised destination to see and consume both ‘nature’ and ‘native’. The Western tourist gaze often requires fixing Africans, both in a spatial site (‘village’) and a temporal site (‘tradition’). Africans on the move (both spatially and temporally) are often seen as threatening to the Western‐established images of Africa, which are grounded in a long‐standing fear of ‘unorded’ and ‘chaotic’ African space. After 11 September and the USA's ‘war on terror’ retributive response, the political implications of these fears are evinced in the writings of Robert Kaplan and his popular ‘coming anarchy’ thesis. The article concludes with a critique of Kaplan's work and a discussion of its implications for Africa and African international relations.     

Event Dependence and Heterogeneity in Duration Models: The Conditional Frailty Model

Suzanna De Boef and Kyle A. Joyce Department of Political Science, 219 Pond Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 e-mail: sdeboef{at}psu.edu e-mail: kjoyce{at}psu.edu e-mail: jboxstef+{at}osu.edu (corresponding author) We introduce the conditional frailty model, an event historymodel that separates and accounts for both event dependenceand heterogeneity in repeated events processes. Event dependenceand heterogeneity create within-subject correlation in eventtimes thereby violating the assumptions of standard event historymodels. Simulations show the advantage of the conditional frailtymodel. Specifically they demonstrate the model's ability todisentangle the sources of within-subject correlation as wellas the gains in both efficiency and bias of the model when comparedto the widely used alternatives, which often produce conflictingconclusions. Two substantive political science problems illustratethe usefulness and interpretation of the model: state policyadoption and terrorist attacks. Authors' note: Three anonymous reviewers gave valuable advice.Replication materials and an online appendix are available onthe Political Analysis Web site. Any errors are our own responsibility.     

Revisiting the relationship between age,employment, and recidivism

Employment theoretically serves as a source of informal social control that can promote desistance from crime (Sampson & Laub, 1993). Findings from studies assessing the effects of employment, however, have been mixed. In a seminal study, Uggen (2000) reanalyzed data from the National Supported Work (NSW) Demonstration Project and found that employment significantly reduced the rate of recidivism among individuals aged 27 and older but had no impact on younger individuals. We reproduce and replicate Uggen's (2000) findings with data from four distinct employment programs: The National Supported Work Program (1975–1979), the Transitional Aid Research Project (1976–1977), the Employment Services for Ex-Offenders (1981–1984), and the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Center for Employment Opportunities (2004–2008). We closely reproduced Uggen's original findings in the NSW but found evidence that the statistically significant interaction between age and employment in the NSW was only present at the year 3 follow-up and the observed effect is highly sensitive to minor threats to internal validity. Furthermore, a significant age–employment interaction was not observed in the three other data sources. These findings should encourage scholars to continue to investigate the age-graded nature of employment and crime, especially through a sociohistorical lens.     

Capital Mobility and the Embeddedness of Labour

The paper discusses claims that radical restructuring of capitalism in the late 20th century fundamentally changed class relations. It challenges abstract presentations of space and time transformation, in particular contesting the logic of generalised, asocial concepts of spatial compression. Changes in capital mobility are dynamic and contradictory processes and spatial and temporal transformations are experienced inherently unevenly. Movements of capital are themselves made by workers. Moreover, the economic weight and social labour involved in transport and communications increased rather than decreased during the last two decades of the 20th century. The paper concretises this critique, evaluating claims that the “national” scale and national systems of industrial relations became less important, through a preliminary investigation of data of levels of industrial action. It shows that even amongst key sectors of labour such as transport and communications workers, who might be thought especially implicated in global transformation, the significance of the national scale for labour activity shows no sign of diminishing.     

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND SOCIAL POLICY: BRIDGING THE GAP1

Clinical examples of misapplications of social science research are reviewed with an emphasis on what can be learned with regard to dealing with and preventing such misuse of this type of knowledge. The differences in language and culture that characterize scientific research as separate from advocacy and social policy are also examined, with recommendations for improved cross‐cultural communication.