The war in Afghanistan: its background and future prospects

If the West loses in Afghanistan and its region, the most important reason will be that we are pursuing several different goals simultaneously, most of which are in contradiction to the others. Western governments need to choose between these goals, and co-ordinate a strategy in pursuit of the most desirable and achievable ones. The creation of a democratic Afghanistan needs to be recognised as a hopeless fantasy. Instead, the West should imitate the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and concentrate on creating an effective military force that can survive Western withdrawal and continue to fight the Taleban. In the meantime, something to be avoided at all costs is the further destabilisation of Pakistan, since Pakistan in the end constitutes a far greater potential threat to the region, the West and the world than does Afghanistan.     

Self-Focus and Procedural Fairness: The Role of Self-Rumination and Self-Reflection

This article examined the differential role of self-rumination and self-reflection on the psychological influence of procedural fairness. Study 1 induced self-rumination and self-reflection relative to an outward-focused control. Self-rumination increased the perceived importance of procedural fairness, whereas self-reflection decreased it. Study 2, assessing individual differences in self-rumination and self-reflection, showed that a standard procedural fairness manipulation (voice vs. no voice) predicted future interaction preferences with the enactment source among those high (but not low) in self-rumination and among those low (but not high) in self-reflection. The findings validate a multiple process approach to understanding the role of the self in procedural fairness.     

The politics of Belgium: Institutions and policy under bipolar and centrifugal federalism

This volume seeks to provide an integrated understanding of the Belgian political system through the prism of comparative politics. The transformation of the political system from a unitary into a federal system is used as a connecting theme linking the contributions. The volume is divided in two parts. The first part touches upon the sociological and institutional determinants of policy-making in Belgium, such as the dynamics of the Belgian federal system, the consociational features of the Belgian polity, the presence of a Belgian political culture (or of two distinct political cultures), the fragmentation of its party system and the role of political parties. The second part addresses policy performance and policy reform within the context of Belgian federalism, with a focus on divergence in policy performance and administrative practices, social security as a contentious federal policy area, policy failure and corruption and the impact of EU policies on the domestic federal order.     

Violent Youth Group Involvement, Self-reported Offending and Victimisation: An Empirical Assessment of an Integrated Informal Control/Lifestyle Model

The present study assesses the relationship between family and educational disadvantage on self-reported offending, victimisation and violent youth group involvement in a Belgian medium-sized city. Many studies have focused on the relationship between family disadvantage (one-parent families, immigrant background) and educational disadvantage (vocational tracking, school failure) and violent youth group involvement, offending/victimisation in surveys. The present study primarily assesses to what extent social bonds (parental monitoring and the school social bond), deviant beliefs, low self-control and lifestyle risk are stable mediators of the relationship between family and educational disadvantage and self-reported offending, victimisation and troublesome youth group involvement among young adolescents. The results indicate that the lifestyle-exposure model, which was initially used to explain individual differences in victimisation is much better capable of explaining differences in selfreported offending and violent youth group involvement than victimisation. The implications for further studies are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Delinquency and Situational Action Theory: A Partial Test

This paper investigates to what extent a recent perspective in criminology, Situational Action Theory, is valid for both males and females and to what extent elements from the theory explain gender differences in delinquency. Data are used from the first (N?=?843) and second (N?=?616) wave of the Study of Peers, Activities, and Neighborhoods, which included detailed data about core elements of Situational Action Theory (morality, self-control, unsupervised peer activity and peer deviancy), proposed indirect causes (bonds with parents and school, parental monitoring) and self-reported delinquency. Cross-sectional and lagged Tobit regression analyses show that the core relations with delinquency are not significantly different between boys and girls and that the elements of Situational Action Theory are able to explain gender differences in delinquency for a substantial part. However, there is still a remaining independent effect of gender on current and lagged delinquency.