Do Parents’ Life Experiences Affect the Political and Civic Participation of Their Children? The Case of Draft-Induced Military Service

Myriad studies show that politically-salient events influence civic and political engagement. Yet, on the other hand, decades of research indicate that familial factors mold political and civic dispositions early in life, before an individual experiences political events outside the family. Viewing these two lines of research together, we ask if individuals’ political and civic dispositions might be influenced not solely by their own experiences, but, also, by the experiences of those individuals who create their family environment—namely, their parents. Do parents’ life experiences—before the birth of their children—affect their offspring’s public engagement? To answer that question, we examine how the assignment of military service, via the Vietnam-era Selective Service Lotteries, affected rates of public participation among the children of draft-eligible men. Our analysis finds a negative relationship between a father’s probability of draft-induced military service and his offspring’s public participation. In addition to highlighting how parents’ life experiences can influence the social behavior of their children, this finding challenges the prevailing view that the Vietnam conflict did not contribute to declining civic engagement and it shows how experiences within bureaucratic institutions can yield long-standing effects on politically-relevant behaviors.     

The forming and fracturing of families on a South Carolina rice plantation, 1812–1865

This case study traces family formation among enslaved people on a South Carolina rice plantation owned by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the first half of the nineteenth century. It uses a rare set of documents to show how enslaved people were brought together mainly via inheritance (rather than purchase) to form a new community, and how they responded to frequent mobility within the holdings of a single planter. It also highlights the peculiar challenges to stable family formation that were unique to the South Carolina lowcountry, including individuals being separated from the main body of the community for periods of time while working on other holdings; the presence of a higher percentage of African-born individuals than was usual for the antebellum South; and the devastating impact of the highest mortality experienced by a mainland slave population.     

Tertiary Education in Security and Policing in Australia

This paper reports on the current status of police and security education in Australian universities and technical colleges. The study was undertaken in the context of calls for greater professionalisation of policing and security along with a variety of conduct scandals that have driven reform agendas for both sectors. The study found that police studies had a significant profile in universities with a wide range of courses available, but virtually no profile in technical and further education (TAFE) colleges. Conversely, protective security offerings were proportionately more prominent in the TAFE sector than in universities. Courses in information and communication technology security were more common across universities and TAFE. The research also found that, of the 39 Australian universities, 9 have research centres related generally to policing and security. These also appeared to favour policing over security. We argue that these findings should be of concern, given the fact that private and public sector security services have eclipsed police, in numbers at least, in many jurisdictions. Security should, we argue, be counted as an equal partner with police in crime prevention services. In addition, we argue that those engaged in security management should be given greater opportunities for study at the university level. Moreover, security studies should have an expanded research focus.     

On judgment proofness in the case of bilateral harm

This paper defies the widely held belief concerning the unambiguous superiority of negligence in settings of judgment proofness. We analyze a set-up with bilateral harm, bilateral care, and potential judgment proofness by one party to the accident. We establish that strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence can perform better than simple negligence and negligence with a defense of contributory negligence. It is shown that the former liability rule can better establish a discontinuity in individual costs conducive to inducing efficient care than the other rules.

Fifty Shades of Brexit: Britain’s EU Referendum and its Implications for Europe and Britain

Britain’s vote to leave the EU has raised more questions than answers, which is ironic given that David Cameron’s aim for the referendum was to settle the European question in British politics. The outcome, which reflected a range of causes, leaves significant uncertainties overhanging UK politics, UK-EU relations and wider European politics. It is likely that the confused outcome of the referendum and the technicalities of Brexit mean that for both the UK and the EU future relations will resemble fifty shades of grey rather than some black and white division of in or out.     

Governance of Education in the United Kingdom: Convergence or Divergence?

Abstract

This article considers how structures and processes of governance in education have changed in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland over recent years, setting this discussion within the context of debates about the nature of governance and governing in public services more generally. It is argued, firstly, that governance needs to be considered as a comprehensive concept that encompasses both the role of the state and the range of other actors and processes through which educational provision is steered; and secondly, that governance is essentially about power: its distribution and its use. The article draws on these key ideas to explore the similarities and differences between the experiences of the four constituent jurisdictions of the United Kingdom over recent years. It considers whether the approaches in the jurisdictions are converging or diverging, the reasons underlying this, and prospects for the future. It is concluded that, while national histories and cultures have served to maintain very distinctive governance identities among the jurisdictions, international trends, and the ways in which governments respond to these, are putting these identities under considerable pressure.     

Correlated payoffs in the inspection game: some theory and an application to corruption

The inspection game as formulated by Tsebelis (Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 83:77–91, 1989) has the counterintuitive implication that crime is unaffected by the magnitude of the penalty. This paper demonstrates that to attain this outcome, it is necessary to assume independence of enforcer and offender payoffs. Given correlated payoffs, the comparative statics of the equilibrium yield an inverse relationship between crime and the severity of the sanction. In an application, we enrich the framework of Tsebelis by adding corruption stages and show that this can imply such a correlation of payoffs. Another interesting finding is that harsher anticorruption measures can increase crime incentives.