Incremental validity of ambulatory assessment of acute dynamic risk in predicting time to recidivism among prisoners on parole

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the incremental validity of changes in ten stress-related acute dynamic risk factors, collected through automated telephony over 30 consecutive days following parole, for predicting time to recidivism during the following year. Before release, the participants completed self-report assessment of some stable risk factors – impulsiveness and history of problematic substance use – as well as an assessment of symptoms of anxiety experienced during the weeks prior to release. Analysis of the baseline assessments showed that impulsiveness and a history of problematic substance use, but not pre-release symptoms of anxiety, were associated with recidivism during the parole year. Growth modelling using a linear mixed model was used to assess whether inmates on parole showed changes in acute dynamic risk factors during the first month following release. Individual growth model slopes and intercept were then extracted and used as covariates in a series of Cox regression analyses to test whether changes in acute dynamic risk factors could provide incremental predictive validity beyond baseline stable risk factors. Changes in five dynamic risk factors were associated with an increased risk of recidivism, of which daily drug use and daily summary score showed incremental predictive improvement beyond impulsiveness and history of problematic drug use.     

Tracing leadership: the ECB’s ‘whatever it takes’ and Germany in the Ukraine crisis

Abstract

Political scientists face problems when assessing a leader’s impact: how can we know that a policy outcome or institutional change is caused by leadership? This article argues that in addition to relying on comparisons and counterfactuals, we need to trace the causal mechanisms by which leadership affects outcomes. Therefore, the article proposes a way to trace leadership and applies it to two cases of EU crisis management: the European Central Bank’s role in announcing Outright Monetary Transactions in the eurozone crisis, and Germany’s role in shaping the EU’s response to the Ukraine crisis. Systematic process-tracing shows that both actors provided leadership ‘by default’. However, while the ECB had to combine the provision of knowledge with unilateral action in order to overcome the eurozone crisis, Germany could use manifold bargaining-based strategies and thus became the EU’s de facto agenda setter and main representative in managing the Ukraine crisis.     

Trade ‘outside the law’: Uzbek and Afghan transnational merchants between Yiwu and South-Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the trajectories of two transnational networks present in the Chinese city of Yiwu: Afghan merchants who trade goods in and out Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan; and Uzbek traders (citizens of either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan) who commercialize their merchandise in and out Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Our aim is to capture an ethnographically grounded understanding of informal markets and economies by analysing the notion of trade ‘outside the law’, including the contested yet widely used category of the ‘smuggler’. By paying attention to the fluidity of trading practices ‘outside the law’, we also address the uses and limitations of metaphors widely used in scholarly analysis of informal markets: notably those of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ forms of globalization, and the transposition of formal-legal and informal-illegal exchanges onto the notions of economic ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’.     

From policy lessons to policy actions: motivation to take evaluation seriously

The purpose of this article is to analyse the institutional aspects of creating effective systems for monitoring and evaluations (M&E) in government‐led rural development efforts in developing countries. We argue that the ultimate challenge of creating effective M&E systems for public policy is not only related to the supply of information and the delivery of new knowledge to policy makers, but more importantly to their demand for lessons learnt about the effects of earlier policies. The challenge, then, is for governments to construct institutional arrangements that support the transformation of policy lessons into policy actions. This article shows that the likelihood of this transformation is closely related to the capacity of institutions to deliver mechanisms for downward accountability and processes for organisational learning. We add to earlier work in this area by considering the conditions under which such a transformation process is more or less likely, given the severe power and information asymmetries that characterise the institutional context of many developing countries' national governments. We use the tools of institutional analysis to examine the incentive structures of the actors involved in two concrete field settings, and assess to what extent these actors are likely to take evaluations seriously. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Democracy the Swedish Way? The Exclusion of ‘Immigrants’ in Swedish Politics

Official declarations state that Sweden is today a multicultural society. At the same time, ethnic hierarchies have become increasingly conspicuous in contemporary Sweden. Recently, a governmental inquiry on structural discrimination in Swedish society presented a report analysing the relationship between the multi-ethnic composition of the Swedish population and participation in Swedish politics. This article discusses some of the main findings of the report. On the basis of a number of case studies, it illustrates how inequalities in terms of participation and influence in Swedish politics are (re)produced. One of the main conclusions drawn in the article is that all citizens that participate in Swedish politics are faced with a series of routines, conventions and idea(l)s categorising citizens according to their perceived closeness to a Swedish 'normality'. Thus, democracy not only constitutes a formalised system of impartial procedures and conventions, routines and norms that regulate the political process in a way that guarantees freedom and equality to all participants. Rather, political participation also reflects exclusionary practices long well-documented in, for example, the housing and labour markets. In order to understand these practices, it is necessary to examine the historical interconnections between nationalism and democracy . By means of the recurrent characterisation of Swedish democracy as specifically Swedish, it becomes the job of Swedes to 'enlighten' the 'immigrants' to become 'Swedish democrats'. This specific conceptualisation of democracy is founded on the ideal of an archaic national community, which in contemporary multi-ethnic Sweden is not capable of including the whole population on equal terms.     

Estimating the Impact of Education on Political Participation: Evidence from Monozygotic Twins in the United States,Denmark and Sweden

In this study we provide new evidence on the much-discussed effect of education on political participation by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and participation within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs we are able to circumvent traditional sources of confounding of the relationship rooted in genes and early life family environment because MZ twins share both. The results of within-twin pair analyses based on surveys from the United States, Denmark and Sweden show that while the relationship between education and political participation is highly confounded by genes and/or familial environment in all three countries, a positive impact remains of years of education in the US and of high school completion in Denmark. No effect is found in Sweden. Robustness checks suggest that the observed effect is not confounded by within-twin pair differences in prenatal environment nor differential treatment during childhood, and, if anything, that it most likely constitutes a lower bound estimate.     

Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?

International organizations (IOs) take on an increasing share of civil war mediation around the world. The determinants of IO mediation effectiveness remain poorly understood, partly because prior research has not adequately captured the institutional heterogeneity of peace-brokering IOs. To explore how mediation effectiveness depends on institutional variation, I combine newly gathered data on the design of 13 peace-brokering IOs with existing data on 109 civil war mediation episodes in the 1975-2004 period. I find that IOs with institutionalized capabilities to deploy field missions, such as peacekeeping operations, outperform other IOs as mediators of civil wars, whereas information-gathering capacity does not yield a significant advantage. The results suggest that IO enforcement assistance has a forward-looking effect: the ability to credibly signal, ex ante, that peacekeeping or monitoring forces will be deployed to enforce an agreement, helps IOs shape negotiations long before forces are actually deployed. Reaffirming the credible commitment theory of conflict resolution, the study demonstrates that there is considerable variation among external guarantors, which explains why some IOs can shift civil war disputants away from violent bargaining strategies whereas other cannot.     

Stability and change in international policy-making: A punctuated equilibrium approach

International organizations (IOs) have developed into important policy venues beyond the state. Yet our understanding of the broader dynamics of IO policy-making is limited. This article offers the first comparative analysis of macro patterns in IO policy-making. Theoretically, we draw on punctuated equilibrium theory to develop hypotheses about stability and change in the orientation of IO policy agendas. Empirically, we examine novel data on the policy output of five general-purpose IOs between 1980 and 2015, combining statistical analysis and comparative case illustrations. The analysis yields two central results. First, the policy agendas of all five IOs display patterns of punctuated equilibria, with longer periods of stability interrupted by shorter periods of dramatic change. Second, the level of institutional friction in decision-making contributes to variation in punctuations across IOs and within IOs over time. The results suggest four broader implications: (1) punctuated equilibrium theory applies to a broader empirical domain than previously thought; (2) patterns of change in IOs are more complex than conventionally expected; (3) institutional friction matters for IOs’ responsiveness to societal demands and problem pressures; and (4) deeper integration of punctuated equilibrium theory into the study of IOs can pave the way for a promising IR research agenda.     

The Question of Feminism in Gender Mainstreaming—A Case of Non-conflict in Local Politics

This article discusses gender equality and how and why a gender mainstreaming strategy avoids the question of gender conflict. The making of gender-equality work is studied by investigating how feminism is talked about and rejected in a specific gender mainstreaming project in the municipality of Örebro, Sweden. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts of hegemony and discourse, the focus is on the silences—the unspoken questions and problems—surrounding the project. I examine how the exclusion of feminism and conflict is articulated when gender mainstreaming is introduced as a new way of doing gender-equality work in the municipality. The struggles identified show that feminism is rejected because it is seen as being in opposition to (1) professionalism and (2) legitimate political issues. I conclude that within the local discourse of gender mainstreaming there is a notion that this form of gender-equality work ought to be performed without harmful or threatening gender conflicts. This means that the strategy of gender mainstreaming constitutes a short-cut to bypass controversial problems like equal treatment, special efforts for women, and men's privileges in gender-equality work.