Saving Strong Neighborhoods From the Destruction of Mortgage Foreclosures: The Impact of Community-Based Efforts in Detroit,Michigan

Mortgage foreclosures hit Detroit, Michigan hard between 2005 and 2014, especially in what we define as strong neighborhoods; there, more than one third of homes experienced foreclosure. Before the crisis hit, these selected tracts had largely intact physical environments and higher owner occupancy, household income and property value than the citywide median. In some of them residents worked intensely to abate the neighborhood effects of mortgage foreclosures. This study examines those efforts’ effectiveness. We selected neighborhoods with the most extensive efforts, as measured, for instance, by creation of community-based plans and applications for grants, and we conducted interviews and field observations to examine those efforts. To assess strengthening of neighborhood housing markets, we applied a modified adjusted interrupted time-series approach to evaluate changes in prices as one measure of neighborhood change. We found that strong resident initiative supported by community development organizations and external assistance led to increased neighborhood housing prices, compared with comparable neighborhoods. However, when initiative, context, and support were weaker, community-based efforts could not prevent considerable decline.     

Rents,knowledge and neo-structuralism: transforming the productive matrix in Ecuador

This paper explores the relationship between ground rent, production and knowledge in Ecuador’s neo-structuralist, state-led project to transform the productive matrix. Based upon insights from the Marxian approach to the critique of political economy, we interrogate how neo-structuralism has conceptualised the relationship between ‘natural resource income’ and ‘knowledge-based’ economic development. The paper argues that a rent-theoretical perspective, which takes seriously the regional unfolding of uneven geographical development in Latin America, can highlight the limits of a national development plan conceived according to the logic of Schumpeterian efficiency. In doing so, the paper identifies the contradictory relationship between natural resource exports, state-led ‘knowledge’-based development and capital accumulation. On this basis the paper offers a historically and empirically informed critical analysis of selective import substitution industrialisation and vanguard science and technology strategies designed to transition Ecuador away from primary resource dependence.     

State–peasant movement relations and the politics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This contribution argues that the articulation between the state and peasant organizations’ internal structures – the class characteristics of their mass bases, their leaderships and the modes of interaction between the two – is critical for determining the nature of contemporary struggles guided by the discourse of food sovereignty. It will show that that counter-hegemonic demands are not synonymous with counter-hegemonic practice; rather than struggling to replace the neoliberal food regime, many peasant organizations employ the food sovereignty discourse as a political tool in their negotiations with the state in order to access resources from within the prevailing neoliberal model, not to transform it.     

Similarities and Differences in Victimization Risk Factors for Nonoffending and Offending Substance Users

In this cross-sectional study of substance users in Norway, the authors describe the patterns of victimization and investigate the factors associated with victimization, for nonoffenders and offenders separately. Recent victimization was reported by 59%, and the victimization rate was higher among offenders compared with nonoffenders (69% and 43%, p < .001). Women, regardless of offender status, experienced more victimization. Unstable housing was associated with victimization among nonoffenders, whereas markers for more severe substance use and indicators for poor mental health were associated with victimization in both groups. Addressing these factors may be important in reducing victimization and its negative outcomes among substance users.     

Elektorale Responsivität als Kriterium zur Beurteilung des deutschen Bundestagswahlrechts

We argue that plurality systems strengthen the accountability of governments towards the electorate while proportional systems lead to a broad representation of voter interests in parliament and coalition governments. We demonstrate these effects in an analysis of all German federal elections from 1949 to 2017 using first-tier votes and directly elected deputies as reflecting the plurality segment and second-tier votes and the seat shares of parties as reflecting the proportional representation segment. We show that the percentages of directly elected deputies react more to differences in perceived party competences (party valences) than the percentages of all party deputies. Electoral system reforms should take into account the effects of both parts of the German electoral system.     

Die „Sonntagsfrage“, soziale Erwünschtheit und die AfD: Wie alternative Messmethoden der Politikwissenschaft weiterhelfen können

In Germany, the standard vote intention survey item has come under attack because it failed to correctly measure the vote share of the German party “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD). We argue that alternative measurement techniques that aim to reduce social desirability bias are better suited for this task. We test three measurement techniques to forecast AfD vote share—a double list experiment, the crosswise-model randomized response technique, and the wisdom of crowds design—and compare their performance to the standard vote intention item. Our results indicate that the wisdom of crowds design is an easily implementable and promising addition to political scientists’ toolbox of survey items.     

Mental Strategies for Fighting the IS: A Field Study of the Peshmerga Soldiers in Northern Iraq

This study analyzes the war against the Islamic State (IS), specifically on the front in northern Iraq, and the mental strategies that the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers use to maintain their combat motivation. For this field study, dozens of soldiers of various ranks were interviewed and observed on three fronts outside of Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk in February 2014. While some mental strategies are nearly universal, others depend on the characteristics of the fighting force and the threat that they face. The article identifies five distinct mental strategies for dealing with the stress of fighting the IS: simultaneous dehumanization and humanization of the enemy, seeing a larger cause, use of humor, religious identity, and martyrdom. The findings suggest that factors beyond primary group cohesion, on which much previous research has focused, can play an important role in increasing soldiers’ fighting power.     

working-class whiteness from within and without: an auto-ethnographic response to Avtar Brah's ‘the scent of memory’

Inspired by and responding to Avtar Brah's ‘The Scent of Memory’, this piece attempts to reinscribe race into an auto-ethnographic narrative where previously whiteness was unmarked. It explores the dynamics of gender, race and class through the author's personal history as a white English woman and class migrant, and through discussion of the broader political and historical context of that trajectory. The discussion includes analysis of the impact of British Conservative politician Enoch Powell's infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968 on the author's white English working-class culture of origin in Wolverhampton, where Powell was a Member of Parliament. The article considers the speech's continuing ramifications in the twenty-first century and in more middle-class contexts, as evidenced by the recent evocation of the speech by historian David Starkey in discussion of the ‘riots’ of August 2011 in British cities. The personal history is reconstructed through a series of memory scenes that trace and retrace the author's experience and understanding of race and its intersections with class and gender; this is attempted in full cognisance of the constructed nature of memory, and of the performance of identity that autobiography entails. The piece draws on the work of the class migrant white French writer Annie Ernaux, with whom the author has been in dialogue since 1997.     

Is Educational Achievement a Turning Point for Incarcerated Delinquents Across Race and Sex?

Research has linked the role of education to delinquency, but much of the focus has been on general population samples and with little attention to demographic differences. Employing a cumulative disadvantage framework that integrates elements of informal social control and labeling theories, this article examines whether academic achievement serves as a positive turning point and re-directs juvenile delinquents away from subsequent offending. Attention is also given to race/sex contingencies. Using a sample of 4,147 delinquents released from Florida correctional institutions (86% male, 57% non-White, average age at release = 16.8 years), propensity score analysis yielded two findings: youth with above average academic achievement while incarcerated were significantly more likely to return to school post-release, and youth with above average attendance in public school were significantly less likely to be re-arrested in the 1-year post-release period. While the academic gains were pronounced among African-American males, the preventive effects of school attendance are similar across race and sex, suggesting that education can be a part of a larger prevention effort that assists juvenile delinquents in successful community re-entry.