Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

INTENDED AND UNINTENDED EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON POVERTY: WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY

During the mid‐1960s, the United States adopted a series of cash and in‐kind transfer programs, as well as human capital investment strategies, as part of the War on Poverty. A number of other programs were first proposed as part of this “war” but were not implemented until the mid‐1970s. These programs had noble goals: to increase incomes at the bottom of the income distribution, reduce poverty, and improve nutrition, heath, and human capital. However, various features of the programs also had the potential to produce unintended consequences: for example, means‐tested programs can discourage work. In this paper, we comprehensively evaluate the main War on Poverty programs that were aimed at the low‐income nonelderly population along with several follow‐on programs. We focus on both intended and unintended consequences, drawing on the most compelling causal evidence. We conclude with a series of lessons learned and questions that are outstanding.     

The emerging political economy of austerity in Britain

This paper uses data from the British Election Study's Continuous Monitoring Surveys to investigate reactions of the British public to the economic crisis and the austerity policies the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government has adopted to deal with it. Multivariate models informed by competing valence and positional theories of electoral choice are employed to study the impact of these reactions on support for the Conservative Party and Prime Minister David Cameron and evaluations of the Conservatives' ability to handle important issues. Analyses indicate that there is widespread and growing pessimism about the prospects of resolving the economic crisis in the near future. Since the crisis began in 2008, the dynamics of these bearish attitudes have been closely linked to rising unemployment rates. Differing positions regarding the Coalition's austerity policies exert sizable effects on party support, but these attitudes have not negated the force of valence politics considerations such as party leader images, partisan attachments and global assessments of party performance.     

Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational Transmission of Crime Within a Birth Cohort

Previous studies documented that crime is heavily concentrated in families. However, many studies relied on relatively small samples, often males and information on criminal involvement was self-reported. The present study investigates: (1) the prevalence of arrests in three generations; (2) the concentration of offenders and arrests within families; (3) the relationships between arrests among the relatives; (4) the relationship between arrests and family violence. A complete cohort of the families in which a child was born in a Dutch city was selected, and the arrests of all known family members (siblings, parents and grandparents) were investigated. Results showed that 7.2 % of the mothers and 18 % of the fathers had been arrested. The likelihood of parental arrests was related to the likelihood of grandparental arrests. There was clear evidence for assortative mating: when the mother was arrested, the likelihood that the father was arrested was increased with a factor five. Maternal arrests were also related to arrests of her parents-in-law. Arrests are heavily concentrated within families, 7.8 % of the families account for 52.3 % of the suspects. Arrests in family members constitute a major risk factor for poor developmental outcomes, such as criminal behavior. At the time of birth, it is possible to use information on arrests to select children who are at relatively high risk for the target of prevention efforts.Implications for prevention policies are discussed.     

Routine Activities and Deviant Behaviors: American, Dutch, Hungarian, and Swiss Youth

The current investigation examined cross-national similarities and differences in routine activities, measures of deviance, and their relationship in representative samples of 7,000 adolescents aged 1519 years (mean age: 17.5 years) from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. For the majority of youth, most of their time was spent in solitary activities, followed by peer activities, community/sports activities, and family activities; Hungarian youth reported spending a much greater amount of time with the family than adolescents from other countries, while Dutch youth spent far more time in solitary activities than their peers. Rates of total deviance were remarkably similar for American, Dutch, and Swiss youth; Hungarian youth reported substantially lower rates than all other adolescents. Finally, findings indicated that routine activities accounted for 18% for males and 16% for females of the variance explained in total deviance. Furthermore, with the exceptions of alcohol and drug use, country had very little or no explanatory power in deviance. The current study suggests that the utility and the explanatory power of the routine activities framework replicates across national boundaries.