Public Sector Participation and Compliance across National and Global Transparency Regimes

Transparency has recently become a widely supported norm of information regulation within and among states. Transparency may be a widely accepted element of good governance, but it has a number of dimensions and manifestations. This article is among the first to examine the relationship between public sector transparency at the domestic and global levels. While the extant literature suggests that we should expect a strong relationship between the degree of a jurisdiction’s domestic and global commitments to public sector transparency, our sample of the 33 jurisdictions for which data are available finds no such correlation. The article develops an explanation of this unexpected finding, which highlights the varied incentives to implement transparency-promoting reforms that different jurisdictions experience. This analysis suggests that many developing countries engage in marginal participation across regimes. More concerning are possible cases of mock compliance where states participate in transparency regimes without the intention of fully implementing their commitments. Mock compliance is of particular concern in the sphere of global governance in which sovereignty is contested and compliance mechanisms face unique challenges.     

Five years after the Arab Spring: a critical evaluation

A new political geography has emerged in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the Arab Spring. The transformative impact of the popular upheavals appeared to put an end to long-term authoritarian regimes. Today, the region is far from stable since authoritarian resilience violently pushed back popular demands for good governance and is pushing to restore former state structures. However, the collective consciousness of the popular revolts endures, and a transformative prospect may emerge on the horizon. The chaotic situation is the result of an ongoing struggle between those who seek change and transformation and others in favour of the status quo ante. A critical evaluation of the Arab Spring after five years indicates a continuous process of recalculation and recalibration of policies and strategies. There are alternative routes for an eventual settlement in the MENA region, which are in competition against both regional and transregional quests for a favourable order.     

Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ Knowledge and Attitudes About Sex Trafficking of Minors: Associations with Gender,Race, and U.S. Region

Juvenile and family court judges are a professional group that have a significant amount of decision-making power in cases of sex trafficking of minors. The purpose of this project is to examine the association of juvenile and family court judges’ gender, race, and U.S. region with their attitudes and knowledge about sex trafficking of minors. Drawing from a survey of 55 juvenile and family court judges in the U.S., this study used standardized scales to measure attitudes and knowledge about child sex trafficking. Results indicate some differences by gender and geography in a sample of experienced judges across the U.S. The consistency of these findings are discussed in the context of other research and implications for targeted training.     

Principal–Agent Dynamics and Electoral Manipulation: Local Risks,Patronage and Tactical Variation in Russian Elections, 2003–2012

Abstract

Why are some elections manipulated more severely than others, and why do the techniques used to manipulate them vary over time and space? This article addresses these related questions by showing that patronage resources—not incumbent popularity—make manipulation appealing to frontline agents, while local political conditions can make manipulation personally risky for them. Agents can mitigate these risks by adopting more dispersed forms of manipulation like vote-buying, rather than more centralised falsification. These hypotheses are tested using forensic analysis of electoral data from more than 90,000 precincts per election across Russia’s 83 regions, from 2003 to 2012.     

Marijuana medicalization and motor vehicle fatalities: a synthetic control group approach

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This paper reports a quasi-experimental evaluation of California’s 1996 medical marijuana law (MML), known as Proposition 215, on statewide motor vehicle...     

The Role of Intentional Self Regulation,Lower Neighborhood Ecological Assets,and Activity Involvement in Youth Developmental Outcomes

Extracurricular activities provide a key context for youth development, and participation has been linked with positive developmental outcomes. Using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), this study explored how the intentional self regulation ability of youth interacted with participation in extracurricular activities to affect PYD among adolescents living in neighborhoods with relatively low ecological assets. In total, 545 youth were included in the study (50.3% female). Most of the youth were European American (41%) or Latino (37%; African American, 10%; Asian American, 7%; Native American, 4%; and other, 1%). In general, youth with the greatest capacity to self regulate benefitted the most, as compared to their peers with less capacity to self regulate, from involvement in extracurricular activities. Consistent with a developmental systems perspective, and specifically with bioecological theory, the findings from this study confirmed that, within lower asset settings, children with the most positive person-level factors (intentional self regulation) benefit the most from proximal processes such as extracurricular activity involvement.     

Identifying Trajectories of Adolescents’ Depressive Phenomena: An Examination of Early Risk Factors

Few studies have examined risk factors of childhood and early adolescent depressive symptomatology trajectories. This study examined self-report depressive symptomatology across a 6-year time period from 2nd to 8th grade to identify latent groups of individuals with similar patterns of depressive phenomena in a sample of 951 children (440 girls, 511 boys). Analyses, using semiparametric group modeling (SGM), identified 5 trajectory groups for girls and boys: low depressed stables, low depressed risers, mildly depressed stables, moderately depressed changers, and moderately depressed risers. Individual risk factors, with the exception of shy/withdrawn behavior, were significantly different across trajectory group membership for boys and girls, as was low-income status for boys. Boys in the low depressed and mildly depressed stable trajectory groups had significantly higher levels of antisocial behavior, attention problems, and lower social competency compared to girls in similar groups. These results suggest that universal prevention programs implemented in early elementary school that target selected risk factors may be helpful in reducing future adolescent mental health problems, specifically depressive symptomatology.