“Constructive” vs. “Destructive” deviance in adolescent health-related behaviors

Previous literature suggests that the adolescent at risk to engage in substance use and other negative health-related behaviors is deviant in a negative sense (i.e., rebellious, antisocial, and alienated from traditional institutions). However, some researchers have distinguished between two types of deviance-a true autonomy and independence that is more positive and constructive, and a reactant anticonformity that is more negative and destructive. The current study assessed the roles of both constructive and destructive deviance in adolescent cigarette smoking and positive health-related behaviors. Adolescents who were constructively deviant engaged in higher levels of health-protective behaviors. Moreover, constructive deviance was an independent predictor of both cigarette smoking and positive health behaviors over and above the effects of traditional negative deviance indicators. These data suggest that constructive deviance is not a competing model to more traditional notions, but that it is an additional possible pathway into adolescent positive and negative health behaviors.This research was supported by Grant No HD13449 from ther National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the three authors, and by Grant DA05227 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the first author.Received Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University Teachers College. Current research interests include adolescent substance use and health risk behaviors.Received Ph.D in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University Teachers College. Current research interests include spatial cognition and adolescent health behaviors.Received Ph.D. in Social Psychology from University of Michigan. Current interests include social cognition and adolescent health behaviors.     

Nutmeg (myristicin) poisoning--report on a fatal case and a series of cases recorded by a poison information centre

In literature, cases of nutmeg abuse have been described repeatedly, but only one fatal case of poisoning was reported [1]. In the present case, myristicin (4 microg/ml) was detected for the first time in the postmortal serum of a 55-year-old woman. Identification was achieved with the aid of UV-VIS spectroscopy and TLC; for quantification, HPLC was used. Because also flunitrazepam (0.072 microg/ml) was found, death had probably been due to the combined toxic effect of both substances. From 1996 to 1998, in a series of cases, seven poisonings with nutmeg were recorded by the Erfurt Poison Information Centre. Even where higher doses (20-80 g of powder) had been ingested, a life-threatening situation was never observed. In one of these cases, a myristicin blood level of 2 microg/ml was measured 8h after ingestion of two to three tablespoonful of nutmeg powder (approx. 14-21 g, or 280-420 mg/kg).     

Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage

The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-related information to the news media? Is news coverage of campaigns quantitatively and qualitatively different when opportunities to vote early are available and utilized? Our expectation is that early voting significantly influences the volume and nature of campaign news coverage. We study the effects of early voting on campaign news coverage of gubernatorial and Senate races in 2006 and 2008. Our findings reveal that the volume and content of campaign news coverage is significantly influenced by early voting.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix for Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage—Alternative Model Specifications.]     

An International Perspective on the African Famines

This article examines the practice of male circumcision among the migrant Yao people in Zimbabwe with the goal of showing circumcision's importance as a platform for social mobilisation against HIV and AIDS. The work looks at how the practice has health benefits and creates a new form of identity to fight AIDS. It therefore examines the role of the rite in the creation of a collective Yao identity that facilitates mobilisation against the pandemic within the community. This mobilisation is a complex and contentious process, which involves various levels of negotiation, reconstruction and reconfiguration of Yao identity and the circumcision practice (the surgical act and teachings about it), both within and outside the group. The article argues that the practice can be viewed as a form of an African social movement that is largely driven by a complex but self-conscious collective identity and is also induced by the global donor interest in the circumcision–AIDS debate.     

Book notes

Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among the Kekchi Maya in Belize. By Richard R. Wilks. Tucson, AZ; London: The University of Arizona Press, 1991. Pp. xx + 280. $55 (hardback). ISBN 0 8165 1214 0.

Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900–1986. By Martin W. Lewis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. 292. $40 (hardback). ISBN 0 520 07272 3.

Sustainable Development; Papers from the 6th EADI General Conference. Edited by Olav Stokke. London: Frank Cass, 1991. Pp. 132. £24. ISBN 07146 3449 2.

Gender and Development: A Practical Guide. Edited by L. Ostergaard. London: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xiv 220. £10.99 (paperback). ISBN 0415 071321.

Historical Dictionary of Mozambique. By Mario Azevedo. Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1991. Pp. xxix + 250. £22.15 (hardback). ISBN 0 8108 2413 2.

Understanding Contemporary Africa. Edited by April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992. Pp. xvi + 343. $45 and $19.95. ISBN 1 55587 265 5 and 55587 299 9.     

The Violence of Aid? Giving,power and active subjects in One World Conservatism

Abstract

Using ?i?ek's theorisation of power, we analyse the UK Conservative Party's Green Paper on international development, ‘One World Conservatism’ (OWC). We argue that by placing the West's giving of development aid as something beyond politics, on the moral high-ground of self-evident certainty, it acts to deflect attention from critical engagement with the nature of globalisation, power and aid itself, hiding both economic and epistemological violences behind the apparently benevolent act of giving. An analysis of the nature of the green paper demonstrates the ways in which it draws in UK citizens as active subjects complicit with this vision of the world.     

Public Sector Risk Financing: Exploring the Potential Use of Weather Derivatives by Fire and Rescue Services

The floods of 2007, experienced across much of England, resulted in local authority organisations, including Fire and Rescue Services, mounting large-scale responses and incurring additional and unexpected expenditure. Although central government activated funding schemes, some local authorities fell below the thresholds set and had to absorb the additional costs. This raised a question of what alternative methods were available to allow these local authority organisations to finance such unexpected costs. Weather derivatives are widely used in certain sectors to manage the financial risk that arises from undesirable weather conditions and the objective of this research is to explore the reactions of an FRS towards the use of these financial instruments in managing additional costs, such as those arising from the 2007 floods. Our findings suggest that a combination of risk-aversion, lack of specific financial knowledge and comfort with the status quo seem set to stifle development of weather derivatives as an innovation in public sector risk financing. However, this exploratory study suggests that the method has some merit and is at least worthy of further examination.     

Exploring Gender-Based Disparities in Legal Protection,Education, Health,Political Empowerment,and Employment in Failing and Fragile States

Gender inequalities in legal protection, education, health, employment, and political empowerment have been of special interest to researchers for many years. Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi (2010 Hausmann , R. , Tyson , L. , & Zahidi , S. ( 2010 ). Gender gap index . Geneva , Switzerland : World Economic Forum . [Google Scholar], p. 3) noted, “Although gender-based inequalities exist in the majority of the world's cultures, religions, nations, and income groups, there are differences in the way these disparities manifest themselves and how they evolve over time.” The degree of governmental stability is a salient aspect of the process through which gender-based disparities manifest. Although all citizens are doubtlessly affected when states fail, women are especially marginalized and experience governmental failure in a fundamentally different way compared to their male counterparts. Thus, the goal of the current study is to analyze the relationship between state failure and gender-based disparities. Findings reveal significant relationships between gender disparities in most areas, however the relationship between legal protections and state failure produces the most robust results.     

The Intelligence Requirement of International Mediation

This article explores the intelligence requirement of international mediation, a topic that is ignored in both the literature on conflict resolution and the literature on intelligence. A mediator's strategies and tactics ought to be informed by a deep understanding of the parties' internal calculations about the conflict and its resolution. Intelligence is needed to gain this understanding because the parties typically do not reveal their sensitive deliberations to outsiders. United Nations mediation teams should have a monitoring and analysis unit that endeavours to meet this need and reduce the ignorance that commonly afflicts international mediation.