List of Contributors

The emergence of regional parliamentary assemblies (RPAs) in Africa has been on the ascendancy since the mid-twentieth century. The essence of these parliaments is to contribute to regional economic and political integration through oversight, legislation and representation. However, the ability of Africa's RPAs to perform these functions has been challenged by institutional and legal factors. Using five regional parliaments (the East African Legislative Assembly, the Economic Community of West African States Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Pan-African Parliament and the South African Development Community Parliamentary Forum) as case studies, this paper examines the impact of these challenges on the functionality and viability of Africa's RPAs. It finds that given that these parliaments lack legitimacy of authority and enabling status of operation, they exist merely as deliberative, consultative and advisory bodies rather than independent organs of regional economic communities with full legislative and oversight powers. Consequently, the paper recommends, among other things, the amendment of their constitutive acts to grant them full legislative and oversight functions, and the election of their members by universal adult suffrage in order to give them legitimacy of authority.     

Free voting in a provincial parliament: The case of ‘same‐sex’ legislation in Ontario, 1994

Previous research on parliamentary free voting, which has been confined exclusively to national parliaments and almost exclusively to the British House of Commons, has found relatively little constituency impact on members’ voting decisions, even on the most contentious issues of social policy. Since sub‐national parliaments tend to be smaller, less professionalised, and (arguably) ‘closer to the people’, it is possible that a more significant ‘constituency connection’ might be observed in these legislative arenas. This study extends the literature on this topic by empirically examining the fate of a recent homosexual rights bill in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Contrary to expectations, none of the constituency characteristics used in logistical regression models generates a significant MLE coefficient, suggesting that Canadian provincial legislators may be even less sensitive to constituency preferences than their national counterparts.     

Competence to Complete Psychiatric Advance Directives: Effects of Facilitated Decision Making

Psychiatric advance directives (PADs) statutes presume competence to complete these documents, but the range and dimensions of decisional competence among people who actually complete PADs is unknown. This study examines clinical and neuropsychological correlates of performance on a measure to assess competence to complete PADs and investigates the effects of a facilitated PAD intervention on decisional capacity. N=469 adults with psychotic disorders were interviewed at baseline and then randomly assigned to either a control group in which they received written materials about PADs or to an intervention group in which they were offered an opportunity to meet individually with a trained facilitator to create a PAD. At baseline, domains on the Decisional Competence Assessment Tool for PADs (DCAT-PAD) were most strongly associated with IQ, verbal memory, abstract thinking, and psychiatric symptoms. At one-month follow-up, participants in the intervention group showed more improvement on the DCAT-PAD than controls, particularly among participants with pre-morbid IQ estimates below the median of 100. The results suggest that PAD facilitation is an effective method to boost competence of cognitively-impaired clients to write PADs and make treatment decisions within PADs, thereby maximizing the chances their advance directives will be valid.     

Measurement bias in self-reports of offending: a systematic review of experiments

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Self-reported offending is one of the primary measurement methods in criminology. In this article, we aimed to systematically review the experimental evidence...     

The measurement of family process variables: The effect of adolescent and parent perceptions of family life on delinquent behavior

Both adolescent and parental perceptions of how family members interact with and feel about one another are examined to determine their relationship to official and self-reported delinquent behavior. Consistent with prior research, adolescent perceptions of family processes were weakly related to those of their parents. Both parental and adolescent family process measures made independent and significant contributions to the explanation of self-reported and official delinquent behavior. Parental measures contributed more to the explanation of official data than did adolescent measures when compared to the results for self-reported delinquency. Methodological and substantive reasons for these findings are discussed. The importance of taking into account parental perceptions of family interaction, as well as the perceptions of adolescents, is emphasized.     

From authoritarianism to political democracy in Grenada: Questions for U.S. policy

Beginning as early as 1498 when Grenada had its initial contact with metropolitan forces, this island state has experienced little of the political democracy U.S. President Reagan pledged to restore to the country as part of the 1983 intervention. Yet, for the 1984 elections that followed the toppling of the remaining vestiges of the 1979–83 revolution, the United States and selected Caribbean allies attempted to amalgamate a party as an alternative to the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) and the remaining revolutionary forces. The resulting New National Party (NNP) was electorally successful in 1984 but by 1987 defections from the Party had produced a base for the National Democratic Congress (NDC). In 1989 the NNP again divided. It was thus predictable that the 1990 elections would not return either wing of the National Party and instead would result in a coalition government led by the NDC. Chances for real political democracy in Grenada are improved but will not be easily realized in the face of severe economic crisis and a potentially weak government. The economic crisis could well promote current movements toward increased regional integration. It is important that the 1983–1984 pledge of the United States to promote democratization in Grenada be honored. W. Marvin Will is associate professor of comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tulsa. He is past president of the Midwest Association of Latin American Studies and a founding member of the Caribbean Studies Association. Will has done extensive field research in the Caribbean and is the recipient of a 1991–92 Fulbright Research Fellowship for Caribbean Research. He is co-author of a forthcoming book on the Pacific and Caribbean Basins.     

Violent Behavior Preceding Hospitalization Among Persons with Severe Mental Illness

The need to better understand and manage risk of violent behavior among persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in community care is increasingly being recognized. Of particular concern is a subset of the SMI population characterized by a revolving door pattern of institutional recidivism and poor adherence to outpatient treatment. Little empirical research exists which examines the specific dimensions of violent incidents and their surrounding context in this population. The present paper describes characteristics of violent behavioral events in a sample of 331 people with psychotic or major mood disorders who were placed on involuntary outpatient commitment in North Carolina. By pooling baseline data from respondents' self-report, collateral informant interviews, and hospital records, the study found violent behavior to be a problem affecting over half the sample in a 4-month period preceding hospitalization. The study also found considerable variability in the frequency of violent events, severity, weapon use, subjective state when incidents occurred, initiation of fights, settings, relationship to others involved, and associated threat of victimization. Multivariable analyses showed that cooccurring substance abuse problems, history of criminal victimization, and age (being younger) were significantly associated with violent behavior when all sources of data were taken into account. Clinical diagnosis and symptom variables were not related to violence in this sample. Implications of these findings for service delivery priorities and future research are discussed.