Abraham Kuyper: Calvinist Anti‐Revolutionary Politician and Political Thinker

The figure of Abraham Kuyper looms large over the political and social landscape of nineteenth and twentieth century Holland. He held significant posts in government, education, and the church. His social theory impacted Dutch society for much of the twentieth century. His influence on both continental and American Christian political thought is substantial. And yet, Kuyper's legacy is largely understated, and his political thought unknown in many corners of the scholarly world, including Australia. This article seeks to address this by surveying some of the major aspects of Kuyper's political thought while placing him in his historical setting. By doing so, I will show that Abraham Kuyper is a transitory figure in political history, occupying an important place in the development of the relationship between religion and the modern state.     

Repression as a Double‐edged Sword: Resilient Monarchs,Repression and Revolution in the Arab World

The Arab world shows a puzzling variation of political violence. The region's monarchies often remain quiet, while other autocracies witness major upheaval. Institutional explanations of this variation suggest that monarchical rule solves the ruler's credible commitment problems and prevents elite splits. This article argues that institutional explanations neglect the role of repression: increasing the scope of repression raises the costs of rebellion and deters rebels. However, the deterrence effect disappears if repression is used indiscriminately. If remaining peaceful offers no benefits, repression creates new rebels instead of deterring them. A time‐series‐cross‐section analysis of repression and political violence in the Middle East and North Africa corroborates our argument and shows the u‐curve relation between repression and violence. Once we control for repression, monarchies have no special effect anymore. Thus, our article addresses the discussion about monarchical exceptionalism, and offers an explanation why repression deters as well as incites political violence.     

The Effect of pH on Electrolyte Detection of Fingermarks on Cartridge Cases and Subsequent Microscopic Examination

Cartridge cases may contain deposited fingermarks when the firearm was loaded ( http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/225320.htm , J Forensic Sci, 53 , 2008 and 812). Cartridge cases can be individualized with microscopic examination. However, heat and friction degrades the deposited fingermark on the fired cartridge cases, if any on the surface. Also, unfired and fired cartridge cases are made of metal, which is a nonporous surface that does not retain fingermarks well ( http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/225320.htm ). This study tests the effects of pH level on fingermark clarity on brass fired and unfired cartridge cases and microscopic striation examination (MSE). Two trials were performed to determine the optimal pH in fingermark clarity for both types of cartridges. This was performed through immersion in six pH range solutions from dilutions of sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide for 24 h for the purpose of enhancing the fingermarks on the metal. The use of the optimal neutral pH level is suggested because immersion of the cartridge cases in pH 1–3 and 3–5 affects MSE.     

Performance Testing of a Semi-Automatic Card Punch System,Using Direct STR Profiling of DNA from Blood Samples on FTA™ Cards

The 1.2 mm Electric Coring Tool (e-Core™) was developed to increase the throughput of FTA^™ sample collection cards used during forensic workflows and is similar to a 1.2 mm Harris manual micro-punch for sampling dried blood spots. Direct short tandem repeat (STR) DNA profiling was used to compare samples taken by the e-Core tool with those taken by the manual micro-punch. The performance of the e-Core device was evaluated using a commercially available PowerPlex™ 18D STR System. In addition, an analysis was performed that investigated the potential carryover of DNA via the e-Core punch from one FTA disc to another. This contamination study was carried out using Applied Biosystems AmpflSTR™ Identifiler™ Direct PCR Amplification kits. The e-Core instrument does not contaminate FTA discs when a cleaning punch is used following excision of discs containing samples and generates STR profiles that are comparable to those generated by the manual micro-punch.     

Bystander Intervention,Bullying, and Victimization: A Multilevel Analysis of New Zealand High Schools

This study examines the association between schools and student bullying behaviors and victimization among a nationally representative sample (N = 9,107) of New Zealand high school students. In particular, the study sought to explore the role of characteristics of schools and school culture with respect to bystander behavior, while controlling for individual student factors related to victimization and bullying behaviors. Results indicated that a total of 6% of students report being bullied weekly or more often and 5% of students reported bullying other students at least weekly. Results of multilevel analyses suggested that schools characterized by students taking action to stop bullying were associated with less victimization and less reported bullying among students. In contrast, in schools where students reported teachers take action to stop bullying, there was no decline in victimization or bullying. Overall, these findings support whole-school approaches that aid students to take action to stop bullying.     

Social distance and the multimodal construction of the Other in sectarian song

This paper introduces the concept of “tonal gravity” through a multimodal analysis of a YouTube video to demonstrate how multimodality is key to the construction of “Rule Britannia” as a sectarian song. The analysis focuses upon the multimodal semiotics of social distance which has been a key concept in sociological and anthropological traditions in recent times. This concept offers a means to understand the social semiotic relationship between Self and Other in multimodal discourse. Following previous work in social semiotics and music studies which examine how visual composition, music and the voice have constructed social distance or expressions of intimacy, I introduce the concept of tonal gravity which extends the metaphors of semiotic space in previous work in the musical mode, to account for a fuller understanding of how music helps narrate the multimodal Self and Other. This is introduced via a close multimodal analysis of “Rule Britannia” as a Rangers Football fan video which is only transformed into a sectarian text through multimodal collocation where different semiotic resources in various modes act in combination to produce a dominant Self actively prejudiced against a low Other.     

Sport and Diplomacy: A Global Diplomacy Framework

ABSTRACT

The actors, or “players,” involved in the transactions of diplomacy occasioned by sport are manifold. In the case of the world’s “global game”—association football—they include but are not limited to individual footballers, football clubs, national leagues, national associations, football’s international governance structures, multi-national sponsors, and numerous hangers on. Importantly for this analysis, such a panoply of actors creates an architecture, replicated across other sports, which speak to the necessity of furthering the understanding of the relationship between sport and diplomacy. These two phenomena share a long-standing similarity in global affairs; both having been over-looked as means of comprehending relations between different polities otherwise centred on the nation-state. This exegesis advances our understanding in two areas. First, it addresses the parameters of the discussion of “sport and diplomacy” and problematises the discourse between the two with a note on language; and second, it utilises a framework provided by an appreciation of “global diplomacy” to explore concepts of communication, representation, and negotiation in sport and diplomacy.     

How the Indashyikirwa Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Programme in Rwanda Influenced Parenting and Violence against Children

There is increasing interest in working at the intersections of intimate partner violence (IPV) and violence against children (VAC), especially in the family, yet few programmatic strategies exist or have been evaluated to assess the combined impact of strategies on both types of violence. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the influence that Indashyikirwa—a programme designed to reduce IPV in Rwanda— had on VAC in the families of couples participating in the programme. Indashyikirwa included a 21-session couples’ curriculum, safe spaces for IPV survivors, and community activism against violence. In addition to reductions in IPV, a randomized control trial found significant reductions in parent’s reports of children witnessing IPV, parents’ attitudes condoning harsh physical punishment of children, and parents’ use of corporal punishment as discipline. This paper uses qualitative data to better understand how and why the couples’ curriculum influenced parenting and VAC. Twenty-eight participants (fourteen male-female couples) were individually interviewed at three time points, once before and twice after the couples’ curriculum implementation. Six men and six women who completed the curriculum and subsequently carried out activism were also interviewed at two time points. The data were analyzed thematically. Pathways motivating couples’ attitude and behavior changes towards children included reflecting on the consequences of IPV for children and appreciating the benefits for children of non-violent, gender equitable households. This analysis suggests that working with co-habiting couples presents a viable strategy for working to prevent IPV, VAC and promote more gender equitable family dynamics.

     

Traversing the Fantasy: Why Leftist Academics Must Abandon the Myth of Organic Resistance and Think Again About the Problems We Face

Critical Criminology - The concept of organic resistance has stood as a cornerstone of critical social science for decades. Countless authors have claimed that minor acts of...     

Violence and Mental Illness: A New Analytic Approach

Empirical studies of violence and mental illness have used many different methods. Current state-of-the-art methods gather information from both subject and collateral interviews as well as official records. Typically these sources are treated as additive. Any report of a violent incident from any source is treated as true and all reported incidents are added to generate estimates of frequency. This paper presents a new statistical technique that uses the level of agreement between the sources of data to adjust those estimates. The evidence suggests that, although the additive technique for using multiple sources correctly estimates how many people are involved, it substantially underestimates the number of incidents. The new technique substantially reduces both false negatives and false positives.