Trait Anger,Physical Aggression,and Violent Offending in Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are common conditions in forensic settings that present high rates of violence. Personality traits related to the five‐factor model personality domains of neuroticism and agreeableness have shown a relationship with physical aggression in nonclinical and general psychiatric samples. The aim of the present investigation was to examine the association of these personality traits with violence and aggression in ASPD and BPD. Results revealed that trait anger/hostility predicted self‐reported physical aggression in 47 ASPD and BPD subjects (β = 0.5, p = 0.03) and number of violent convictions in a subsample of the ASPD participants (β = 0.2, p = 0.009). These preliminary results suggest that high anger and hostility are associated with physical aggression in BPD and ASPD. Application of validated, self‐report personality measures could provide useful and easily accessible information to supplement clinical risk assessment of violence in these conditions.     

Buying Negative Agenda Control in the U.S. House

We explore the foundations of the legislative party cartel, as theorized by Cox and McCubbins (1993, 2005) , to determine how majority‐party moderates who suffer net policy losses from the majority leadership's use of negative agenda control are kept from defecting from the cartel arrangement. First, we identify formally the group of majority‐party members who are net policy losers. We find that those members occupying the initial 30% of the space within the majority‐party blockout zone—that space closest to the floor median—are hurt on a pure policy basis by the cartel arrangement. Second, we find that members in this “30% zone” are rewarded disproportionately by majority‐party leaders (relative to members in other intervals on the same side of the floor median) via side payments in the form of campaign contributions. In addition, majority‐party members within the 30% zone receive side payments commensurate with their particular policy loss.     

The Unequal Distribution of Speaking Time in Parliamentary‐Party Groups

Parliamentary debates provide an arena where Members of Parliament (MPs) present, challenge, or defend public policies. However, the “plenary bottleneck” allows the party leadership to decide who participates in a debate. We argue that in this decision the timing of a debate matters: in proximity of elections, the leadership should be concerned with maintaining its brand name and therefore restrict floor access, in particular if the debate is salient for the respective party. We evaluate our hypotheses in a cross‐country study drawing on a novel data set covering all speeches given during one or two legislative terms in six European parliaments. We find that the electoral cycle matters for the distribution of speaking time: Party leaders do restrict parliamentary speechmaking to a smaller number of MPs at the end of the term. This has important implications for our understanding of parliaments as an electoral arena and for our understanding of intraparty politics.     

Inter-disciplinary contradictions and the influence of science on policy

Policy conclusions of two or more disciplines often appear to contradict one another, and so cancel out one another's influence on policy. This article investigates the degree to which the contradiction is only apparent, in the sense that the disciplines answer different questions. In many instances the disciplines are complementary; some measure of reconciliation can be obtained by defining more sharply the assumptions and data that lie behind their questions, and hence the theoretical domains over which their answers are valid. By showing that those domains are non-overlapping, disputes can often be understood and opposing views reconciled.For some scholars empathy with the aims and methods of another discipline is possible; for others the advance of their own discipline is too important an objective to allow limiting its applicability. By uncompromising arguments, however, they may harm their own cause. For when different disciplines publicly press for opposite policies they weaken the credibility and influence of science in all fields, including their own.