‘This gun is our food’: Disarming the White Army militias of South Sudan

The continued presence of ‘other armed groups’ poses a significant challenge to furthering peace and stability in post-conflict environments. A good example of this was ‘White Army’ militias, which maintained an armed presence after the signing of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. This article presents an empirical mapping of the White Army militias as well as a detailed analysis of the disarmament strategies that were implemented for them during the course of 2006. The article concludes with an analysis of the successes in achieving disarmament of White Army militias as well as the continuing challenges faced by Sudanese authorities and the international community alike in building sustainable conditions for peace.     

Book reviews

American Journal of Criminal Justice -     

Economic Conditions,Economic Perceptions,and Public Support for European Integration

Political Behavior -     

Chinese National Oil Companies and Human Rights

China's efforts to secure foreign oil and natural gas to meet its growing energy demand are contributing to massive human rights violations in Sudan and Burma. These human rights conflicts, significantly influenced by abundant oil and gas reserves, have strained U.S.-China relations and complicated international efforts to create a more effective architecture to address both rights crises and conflict management over energy resources. The United States and its allies should not only engage Beijing but also bring Chinese national oil companies into the international energy market as stakeholders. Failure to address these matters could encourage other parties seeking scarce energy supplies to take similar compromises on human rights as they court questionable oil regimes, a development that would be detrimental to international peace and security.     

High School Drinker Typologies Predict Alcohol Involvement and Psychosocial Adjustment During Acclimation to College

This study examined differences among distinct types of high school drinkers on their alcohol involvement and psychosocial adjustment during the first semester of college. Participants were 147 college freshmen (66% female; 86% Caucasian) from a large Southeastern public university who reported on high school drinking and college stress, affect, drinking, and parenting. We used person-centered analyses to reveal relative stability in drinker typologies over the college transition and found some support for the lay-theory that restrictive parenting moderates this stability, with abstainers reacting against restrictive parenting in college through alcohol use. Finally, findings supported Block and Block's (1980) theory of ego-control and resilience such that high school experimenters showed better adaptation than abstainers and heavier users on indices of negative and positive affect. We discuss implications for a person-centered approach to the study of alcohol involvement during the college transition and the need to incorporate parenting constructs in college alcohol use research.Major interests are: Parenting and family processes related to adolescent substance use, and alcohol use across the college transition.Major interests are: Adolescent and young adult substance use and abuse.

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Reassessing the focus of transitional justice: the need to move structural and cultural violence to the centre

After over six decades of evolution, transitional justice remains focused on courts and commissions, evidenced by the allocation of international attention and resources. This is understandable given that courts and commissions are ideal platforms to hold perpetrators to account. While violent individuals and events can be addressed through courts and commission, what cannot be adequately addressed is the structural and cultural violence that makes mass atrocities possible, and remains intact in spite of truth and accountability. Structural and cultural violence manifests as systemic vulnerability and dehumanization, and it is this type of built-in violence that continues to plague countries where transitional justice has been pursued, for example the criminalization and repression of communities in South Africa, or the forced evictions that occur daily throughout Cambodia. This article argues that it is this type of violence which should become the central focus of transitional justice.     

Psychosocial influences that motivate young offenders to engage in a non-custodial community intervention

Offender programmes do not fully consider how psychosocial factors influence individual engagement within interventions. While factors associated with offending behaviour are well-known, their influence on motivational engagement is not clear. The present study of 109 adolescent offenders in a non-custodial community intervention explored the influence of aggression, antisocial behaviour in the community, problematic and disruptive behaviour in school, and parental bonding and self-esteem on reported motivation to engage with a non-custodial intervention. Regression and correlational analysis revealed relationships between these variables and four subtypes of motivation (i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, identified regulation and amotivation), although results in respect of self-esteem were mixed. The findings highlight the multidimensional and complex nature of motivation, and support the need to internalise extrinsic motivations through the promotion of self-autonomy and competence within intervention programmes in order to maximise engagement.     

The Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster: Avoiding the Trap and Realising the Promise

By failing to acknowledge the link between the design of our political institutions and growing levels of anti‐political sentiment, the restoration and renewal programme risks falling into a trap of its own making. Involving the public from the outset in an open review of the (re)design options for Westminster—in a positive and confident conversation—ensures the best opportunity for meaningful engagement between the public and the future of their democracy.     

Resurgent Remain and a Rebooted Revolt on the Right: Exploring the 2019 European Parliament Elections in the United Kingdom

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election took place against the backdrop of the vote for Brexit and the failure of Parliament to agree on a withdrawal agreement. Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party topped the poll and the pro‐Remain Liberal Democrats, which called for a second referendum on EU membership, returned from electoral obscurity to take second place, while other pro‐Remain parties similarly performed well. In sharp contrast, the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, recorded their lowest combined vote share since they became the main representatives of the two‐party system. In this article, we draw on aggregate‐level data to explore what happened at the 2019 EP election in Great Britain. Our evidence suggests Labour suffered from a ‘pincer movement’, losing support in its mainly white, working class ‘left behind’ heartlands but also in younger cosmopolitan areas where Labour had polled strongly at the 2017 general election. Support for the new Brexit Party increased more significantly in ‘left behind’ communities, which had given strong support to Leave at the 2016 referendum, suggesting that national populists capitalised on Labour’s woes. The Conservatives haemorrhaged support in affluent, older retirement areas but largely at the expense of the resurgent Liberal Democrats, with the latter surging in Remain areas and where the Conservatives are traditionally strong, though not in areas with younger electorates where the party made so much ground prior to the 2010–2015 coalition government. Lastly, turnout increased overall compared with 2014, but individuals living in Leave areas were less motivated to vote. Overall, our findings suggest that those living in Remain areas were more driven to express their discontent with the Brexit process and more inclined to support parties that offer a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership.     

Removing the Crutch: External Support and the Dynamics of Armed Conflict

Empirical analysis of civil wars wherein rebels receive support from outside states or actors confirms the expectation that such external support is correlated with conflicts that, on average, are longer than civil wars without external support. When this assistance is lost, the empirical results are at odds with the expectation that these wars should end more rapidly. Instead, wars in which there is a break in external support are more likely to continue into the next calendar year than even those wars with continued external support. This counterintuitive finding suggests a re-evaluation of theoretical foundations of external support to rebel groups.