The Effect of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Psychosexual Functioning During Adulthood

The study examined whether and how characteristics of childhood sexual abuse and disclosure influenced three dimensions of psychosexual functioning—emotional, behavioral and evaluative—during adulthood. The sample included 165 adults who were sexually abused as children. The General Estimating Equation was used to test the relationship among the predictors, moderators and five binary outcomes: fear of sex and guilt during sex (emotional dimension), problems with touch and problems with sexual arousal (behavioral), and sexual satisfaction (evaluative). Respondents who were older when they were first abused, injured, had more than one abuser, said the abuse was incest, and told someone about the abuse were more likely to experience problems in at least one area of psychosexual functioning. Older children who told were more likely than younger children who told to fear sex and have problems with touch during adulthood. Researchers and practitioners should consider examining multiple dimensions of psychosexual functioning and potential moderators, such as response to disclosure.     

Population heterogeneity, state dependence and sexual offender recidivism: The aging process and the lost predictive impact of prior criminal charges over time

Purpose

Two competing theories explain the link between past and future criminal behavior: population heterogeneity and state dependence. Actuarial models of risk prediction emphasize static variables, akin to population heterogeneity. State dependence, has never been tested with similar populations.

Methods

Using survival modeling this study examines both population heterogeneity and state dependence using a sample of adult sex offenders incarcerated in Quebec, Canada from 1994-2000. Analyses were conducted on offenders age 36 and over (n = 242). Official criminal activity was measured at: (a) 18-23 years; (b) 24-29 years; (c) 30-35 years; and, (d) 36 + years.

Results

Cox proportional hazards modeling shows stronger evidence for state dependence, suggesting changeability in risk over time.

Conclusions

Support was found for both offending continuity and discontinuity, or a mixed model of offending. Current actuarial risk assessment tools for adult sex offenders do not accommodate for the inclusion of state dependent and life-course processes, which could have implications for the potential overestimation of offender risk.     

Zum Beginn der einjährigen Präklusionsfrist für Betriebskostenforderungen bei Vermietung durch einen Wohnungseigentümer

Zwar kommt der Eigentümergemeinschaft iSd § 4 Abs 1 WEG auch im Altmietverh?ltnis keine Vermieterposition zu, doch ist sie – und nicht etwa der einzelne Wohnungseigentümer – Vertragspartner hinsichtlich der Aufwendungen iSd § 21 Abs 1 MRG (hier: betreffend einen Hausbesorger). "Vom Vermieter aufgewendete Kosten" iSd § 21 Abs 1 MRG sind notwendigerweise die von der Eigentümergemeinschaft als Wohnungseigentümergesamtheit aufgewendete Kosten für den Betrieb des Hauses insoweit und in jenem Ausma?, als sie auf den Mieter des einzelnen Wohnungseigentümers nach den allein ma?geblichen Bestimmungen des MRG überw?lzt werden dürfen. Auch der einzelne Wohnungseigentümer ist Teil der Eigentümergemeinschaft und wird von dieser in Verwaltungsangelegenheiten repr?sentiert. Die Betriebskosten müssten nicht erst von der Eigentümergemeinschaft auf die einzelnen Wohnungseigentümer überbunden werden, damit sie jenen als "aufgewendet" iSd § 21 Abs 1 MRG zuzurechnen w?ren. Ein neuer Fristenlauf für die Pr?klusion nach § 21 Abs 3 Satz 4 MRG wird dadurch nicht in Gang gesetzt.     

“I Got Your Back”: Friends’ Understandings Regarding College Student Spring Break Behavior

Behaviors that pose threats to safety and health, including binge drinking and unprotected sex, increase during a week-long break from university. Understandings with peers regarding these behaviors may be important for predicting behavior and related harms. College students (N = 651; 48% men) reported having understandings with their friends regarding alcohol use (59%) and sexual behavior (45%) during Spring Break. These understandings were to engage in behaviors characterized by risk (e.g., get drunk [23.5%], have sex with someone new [5.2%]) and protection (e.g., drink without getting drunk [17.8%], use condoms [15.8%]). After controlling for previous semester behavior and going on a Spring Break trip, Get Drunk Understandings predicted a greater likelihood of binge drinking and alcohol-related consequences; No/Safe Sex Understandings predicted condom use; and Sex Understandings predicted not using condoms. Understandings with friends regarding Spring Break behavior may be important proximal predictors of risk behaviors and represent potential targets for event-specific prevention.     

Voting for the Radical Right in Swedish Municipalities: Social Marginality and Ethnic Competition?

Sweden is no longer a negative, exceptional case regarding the presence of radical right‐wing populist parties. The Sweden Democrats has continually grown stronger, and in 2010 they won seats in the Swedish parliament. However, their electoral support varies considerably across Sweden. This study analyses their electoral support in 290 Swedish municipalities in order to explain this variance. Support is found for the social marginality hypothesis: electoral support for the Sweden Democrats tends to be negatively correlated with the average level of education and with the Gross Regional Product per capita, and positively correlated with the unemployment rate. The ethnic competition hypothesis, that there is a positive correlation between the proportion of immigrants and electoral support of the Sweden Democrats, is also supported.     

A Capacity for Central Coordination: The Case of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

For the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) the year 1987 can now be seen as pivotal in marking a clear end to a period of transition in coordinating structures in the Australian Public Service (APS) that had lasted roughly 20 years. The abolition in 1987 of the Public Service Board, formerly a powerful coordinating agency, is the most obvious marker of the change. The PSB's departure left the Secretary of PM&C with a role that is now often described as ‘head of the public service’. More broadly, the 1987 changes to the machinery of government both formalised and enabled a sea‐change in PM&C's role. Before 1987 a large policy initiation and development project would usually have been considered as beyond PM&C's scope. Since then, extensive and direct policy development work by PM&C has become common. The continuing debates have been over whether PM&C actually delivers in these roles (an empirical question) and how far it should play them (a normative issue). In this article we itemise the capacity, both continuing and developing, which PM&C has to support policy development. Traditional coordination mechanisms are an important part of this armoury and PM&C has long experience of most of them. However policy initiation and development calls for other tools which PM&C has had to develop over the past few decades. There is scope for conflict between the coordination and initiation/development roles. Understanding how a central agency like PM&C carries out each of them and balances the two can potentially contribute to debates on organisational design. We also address the normative issue: whether the growth of prime ministerial impact is a result of an increase in public service support or a cause of its increase ( Walter and Strangio 2007 ) and whether it should be restrained. We accept that the new developments give prime ministers the capacity to oversee policy arenas where once they could not, but regard this as a consequence as much of demand from above as of ambition within the department.     

Regulatory harmonization and agricultural biotechnology in Argentina and China: Critical assessment of state‐centered and decentered approaches

The international harmonization of technology‐related regulations seeks certain norms across diverse contexts. Harmonization efforts are based primarily on the promulgation of state‐centered command and control forms of regulation, though they may also be accompanied by the diffusion of more plural approaches that are decentered from the state. We contrast the ways in which the “proper” use of transgenic cotton seed technologies is understood in harmonizing regulations with the way this technology is used in practice in regions of Argentina and China. We find divergence that poses challenges for both state‐centered and decentered approaches to harmonization. While state‐centered approaches are blind to some critical processes on the ground, decentered strategies are found wanting in situations where norms remain deeply contested amongst actors situated in very uneven power relations. In both cases, we find that establishing and securing norms that are socially just and environmentally sustainable means attending much more explicitly to the political economies in which technological practices actually take root.     

How Coordinated Capitalism Adapts to the Knowledge Economy: Different Upskilling Strategies in Germany and Switzerland

The rise of the knowledge economy challenges coordinated models of capitalism by requiring their skill formation systems to produce a workforce with higher skills. This paper examines how coordinated capitalism adapts to upskilling pressures by jointly studying general education and vocational education and training (VET) at both upper-secondary and tertiary levels. Employing a comparative research design covering German and Swiss upskilling efforts over the past 50 years, we observe important differences. Switzerland, with influential small firms and weak union presence, focuses on keeping VET an attractive option at upper-secondary level by favoring VET graduates' access to tertiary education. By contrast, Germany, marked by large firm dominance and influential unions, concentrates on expanding general education throughout and adding vocational elements later. Our analysis suggests that firms' reform preferences are conditioned by their size and political constraints to reform.     

State-led bricolage and the extension of collective governance: Hybridity in the Swiss skill formation system

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfill core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic. In deindustrializing societies, these sectors are key for the survival of collectively governed training systems. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we examine the reform process that led to the creation of new intermediary organizations that enable collective governance in these sectors. In addition, we compare the organizational features of these organizations with the respective organizations in the traditional crafts and industry sectors. We find that the new organizations result from state-led bricolage. They are hybrid organizations that reflect some of the bricoleur's core policy goals and critically build on the combination of associational and state-oriented institutional logics.