Internalizing Symptoms: Effects of a Preventive Intervention on Developmental Pathways from Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood

This study examined the mediated and moderated effects of a universal family-focused preventive intervention, delivered during young adolescence, on internalizing symptoms assessed in young adulthood. Sixth grade students (N=446; 52% female; 98% White) and their families from 22 rural Midwestern school districts were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions in 1993. Self-report questionnaires were administered at seven time points (pre-test to young adulthood-age 21) to those receiving the Iowa Strengthening Families Program (ISFP) and to the control group. Results showed that growth factors of adolescent internalizing symptoms (grades 6-12) were predicted by ISFP condition and risk status (defined as early substance initiation). Moderation of the condition effect by risk status was found, with higher-risk adolescents benefitting more from the ISFP. Results also supported the hypothesis that the ISFP's effect on internalizing symptoms in young adulthood was mediated through growth factors of adolescents' internalizing symptoms; risk moderation, however, was only marginally significant in young adulthood. The relative reduction rate on clinical or subclinical levels of young adult internalizing symptoms was 28%, indicating that for every 100 young adults displaying clinical or subclinical levels of internalizing symptoms from school districts not offering an intervention, there could be as few as 72 displaying those levels of symptoms in school districts that offered middle school prevention programming. These findings highlight how the positive effects of family-focused universal interventions can extend to non-targeted outcomes and the related potential public-health impact of scaling up these interventions.     

Kazin’s Trilling: A Cold War Portrait

This essay describes the eminent Americanist, critic, and New York intellectual, Alfred Kazin’s creation of a Lionel Trilling “character” in his 1978 autobiography, New York Jew, and his use of that character to critique significant features of the country’s Cold War literary culture. Among these are: the narrowing and hardening of intellectual discourse in a cultural-political climate dominated by the “liberal consensus,” the discrediting of the progressive impulse in American writing, the subordination of “class” to “culture” in evaluations of American writers, and the changing status of Jews and Jewish writers in post-war America. Tapping into strong personal feelings, Kazin creates in Trilling a harsh, thoughtful and compelling portrait of an era.     

Contending regionalisms: hubs and challengers in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific

As regions become more institutionalized, they are characterized by two competing trends. First, key regional institutions can become hub institutions that act as transmitters of a comprehensive set of norms. Second, as regional institutions increase in number, regions themselves are liable to become more fragmented. How these trends have played out is explored in two key regions, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific. It is concluded that regions are not static entities but are ever-changing structural arrangements. Hub institutions can be challenged and the consequences can be significant as regions gain in importance on the international stage.     

One Europe or None? Monism,Involution and Relations with Russia

Abstract

The crisis in relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) is part of the broader breakdown of the post-Cold War security order. This commentary focuses on structural interpretation and identifies four interlinked processes shaping the crisis: tension between the logic of the enlargement and transformation; a dynamic of involution and resistance; the problem of monism, whereby the expanding self is unable adequately to engage with the un-integrated other; and the recent emergence of ‘other Europes’ that may potentially overcome involution. The erosion of the Atlantic system provides an opportunity for delayed institutional and ideational innovation.     

Policy Analysis,International Relations,and European Governance – Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

ABSTRACT

The article highlights the rationale of the special issue in terms of its objectives and guiding principles. It maps different evolutions and challenges within three analytical streams (1) regarding the field of policy analysis, (2) concerning the interaction between domestic and international affairs, and (3) with regards to the transformation of European Union governance in troubled times. These three research avenues highlight how not only European governance itself has evolved in a changing world, but also how the analysis of interests, institutions, and policy-making has morphed, oftentimes transgressing disciplinary and methodological boundaries.     

ASEAN At 50: the global political economy’s contribution to durability

Why has the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proved so durable as a regional organisation given the many challenges it has faced since its inception in 1967? This analysis makes use of an historical institutionalist approach. It shows how the global political economy, through the injection of aid and investment and the development of production networks and increased trade, generated a generally positive regional economic environment that encouraged cooperation. It also provided the resources for the gradual institutionalisation of ASEAN and the expansion of its reach through the establishment of associated regional organisations. The result was that these factors, in combination, contributed to ASEAN’s staying power.     

The culture of skilled work in a Norwegian shipyard, 1945–90

We anatomise the culture of skilled work in the Solheimsviken shipyard in Bergen, Norway, from 1945 to 1990, linking it to democratic impulses within the workforce. This independent culture had strong if bounded democratic elements that were ultimately reflected in the institutions of a worker’s cooperative which operated from 1985. However, a shift away from shipbuilding immediately preceded the cooperative’s foundation and eroded the position of the older skilled workers who had carried the culture, undermining it even before the cooperative’s collapse.