Short Term Change in Attitude and Motivating Factors to Change Abusive Behavior of Male Batterers after Participating in a Group Intervention Program Based on the Pro-Feminist and Cognitive-Behavioral Approach

The Domestic Abuse Education Project (DAEP), in Burlington, Middlebury, and St. Albans, Vermont, is a group based domestic abuse intervention program, based in a pro-feminist and cognitive-behavioral approach for domestic violence intervention and prevention. A pre and post-test instrument was developed and implemented to determine short-term change in attitude of participants and motivating factors to change behavior, after completing the twenty-seven session program. After the program, participants reported a positive change in attitudes regarding their abusive behavior and stereotypical beliefs about women. Participants were also more motivated to change their behavior by the effect abuse has on their family relationships. However, many participants continued to agree that insecurity, jealousy, and alcohol and drug use can cause violence. The positive changes in attitude and motivational factors show that this is an effective model in changing underlying batterer attitudes that provide rationale for abusive behavior.     

Collusion and Facilitating Practices: A New Perspective in Antitrust Analysis

A systematic revision of the notion of facilitating practices is put forward in this paper, with the purpose of relaxing the long-debated tension between economic and legal perspectives on oligopoly. Whereas the law knows of just one collusive illegal conduct, namely agreements, in economic theory the focus on internal enforcement makes the distinction between agreements and other behaviour resulting in the collusive outcome irrelevant. However, the tension may be relaxed, at least in a number of relevant circumstances, provided the focus of competition law shifts from straightforward co-ordination on market strategies to the firms' concerted efforts in the design and implementation of given organisational arrangements of the oligopolistic industry, to which an anticompetitive object can be attached. The theoretical analysis is extensively supported by examples drawn from some recent decisions of the European Commission and the Italian Competition Authority.     

‘Don’t become a lost specimen!’: polygyny and motivational interconnectivity in Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

Why would a woman agree to wed a legally married man when the state would neither recognize her marriage nor grant her alimony, child support or inheritance rights? Although the Communist Party curtailed the rate of openly acknowledged polygynous marriages among the Kyrgyz, its work was undone by glasnost and perestroika, which ushered in a permissive environment. This article highlights constructions of gender as a driver of polygyny in Kyrgyzstan from the perspective of women who voluntarily become second wives. The Kyrgyz case suggests that the cultural value of marriage and motherhood – traditions that grant women communal identities, power and prestige – might lead a woman to consent to second-wife status. I employ the concept of motivational interconnectivity, defined as two or more related reasons women make important personal decisions that have societal repercussions, to explain a woman’s decision to become a second wife.     

The Equality of Public School District Funding in the United States: A National Status Report

For over 30 years, the distribution of educational opportunities and the equality of education funding across communities has generated considerable interest among policy makers, the public, and the courts. This article takes advantage of national data sets to examine funding equality across school districts in 49 states for fiscal years 1992 and 1995. It presents rankings of each state's funding equality and explores factors that may be related to the level of equality within states and to changes across years.
The analyses suggest that, overall, within-state equality improved slightly between 1992 and 1995, although most states' relative rankings changed little during the period. States with fewer school districts relative to students tended to have a more equal distribution of education dollars than states with more districts. States with higher proportions of revenues provided by state governments generally showed a more equitable distribution of resources than states in which districts were more dependent on local revenues.     

The Demise of ATSIC? Accountability and the Coalition Government

ATSIC has been portrayed by the Coalition government as an organisation that is not financially accountable and, because of this, is not achieving positive service delivery outcomes for Aboriginal people. Drawing on documentary material and fieldwork data, this article argues that ATSIC is indeed accountable and that the Coalition is putting the accountability argument forward as a means of justifying the dismantling of ATSIC. Given the past and recent actions taken by the Coalition, it is unclear how much longer ATSIC will be able to survive in its current form.