Public sector corruption and major earthquakes: A potentially deadly interaction

Recent studies have identified various negative effects of public sector corruption. We add to these by considering the association between corruption and deaths due to major earthquakes. After developing a brief theoretical model of the relation between these two variables we test the proposition by analyzing 344 quakes occurring between 1975 and 2003. The empirical model takes into account the endogeneity of corruption and controls for factors, such as earthquake frequency, magnitude, distance from population centers, and a country’s level of development which influence quake destructiveness. The results indicate that public sector corruption is positively related to earthquake deaths.     

Express Consent and Full Membership in Locke

It seems mysterious why Locke requird express consent as a condition of full membership of civil society. It is suggested this requirement be interpreted as a political programme. In a draft of a pamphlet of 1690 Locke criticizes the oath of allegiance required after the Glorious Revolution for not demanding the recognition of William and Mary de jure. So Perhaps he does not want to exclude the greater part of the natives from citizenship; he wants to establish William's throne on a full and universal recognition of his legitimacy.     

TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY PINK OR BLUE: HOW SEX SELECTION TECHNOLOGY FACILITATES GENDERCIDE AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

In the midst of a genetic revolution in medicine, Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has become a well‐established technique to help infertile women achieve pregnancy. But many women are now turning to ART not just to circumvent infertility, but consciously to shape their families by determining the sex of their children. Many patriarchal cultures have a gender preference for males and to date have used technological advances in reproductive medicine to predetermine the sex of the child being born. Women have sought sex‐selective abortions, where the pregnancy was being terminated solely on the basis of the sex of the unborn fetus. The combination of ART advances and gender preference has led to the disappearance of at least 100 million girls from the world's population leading to a mass gendercide. This article examines the societal impact of unbalanced gender ratios and the need to regulate sex selection to avoid nations of bachelors.     

Changing the Debate About “Success” in Conflict Resolution Efforts

This essay outlines a conceptual framework for discussing success in interactive conflict resolution and in conflict resolution efforts more generally. It first proposes reasons why evaluation is crucial for improving practice. An overview of the new framework and its development are then presented. This gives the reader a window into its construction and some of the challenges of evaluation in conflict intervention processes. Next, the uses of the framework are explained as well as how its use helps to change the debate about successful processes. Finally, this article discusses how the theoretician, practitioner, and researcher-evaluator can use this framework for their own purposes, and how evaluating processes based upon their goals helps to improve the theory, practice, and research of the field.     

The Role of Language, Parents, and Peers in Ethnic Identity Among Adolescents in Immigrant Families

To construct a model of the influences on ethnic identity among adolescents in immigrant families, we surveyed adolescents and their parents from 81 Armenian families, 47 Vietnamese families, and 88 Mexican families. Adolescents completed measures of ethnic language proficiency, in-group peer social interaction, and ethnic identity. Parents completed a measure of support for cultural maintenance. Across all groups, ethnic language proficiency and in-group peer interaction predicted ethnic identity, and parental cultural maintenance predicted adolescent ethnic language proficiency. However, because of differences among the groups, a separate model was required for each ethnic group. The results suggest both common processes and group differences in the factors that influence ethnic identity.     

Validation of the Propensity for Abusiveness Scale in Diverse Male Populations

The Propensity for Abusiveness Scale (PAS; Dutton, 1995) was designed as a self-report perpetrator profile for intimate abusiveness. It was empirically validated through reports of abuse by intimate partners. The original PAS (Dutton, 1995) was given to 144 men in treatment for partner abuse and 44 demographically matched controls. It correlated significantly with partner reports of abusiveness and correctly classified men 82.2% of the time, as one standard deviation above or below the mean partners' report score for abusiveness. In the present study, the PAS was given to clinical outpatients, gay males, male college students, and a group of spousal assaulters. A criterion measure for abusiveness (the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory; Tolman 1989, or the Psychological Maltreatment Inventory; Kasian & Painter, 1992) was collected from intimate partners. In all groups, the PAS correlated significantly with partners' reports of both physical and psychological abusiveness on subscales of the criterion measures: Dominance/Isolation and Emotional Abuse. For the college students and wife-assault groups, a new criterion measure was used: the Severity of Violence Against Women Scale. The PAS correlated significantly with partners' reports of threats and violence measured by this scale. The PAS appears to provide a nonreactive assessment instrument that is a strong predictor of intimate abusiveness across a variety of populations.