Perceived Sanction Threats and Projective Risk Sensitivity: Auto Theft,Carjacking, and the Channeling Effect

Although sanction threats promote fear, among committed offenders, that fear can become a resource with which to sculpt emerging crime preferences. In such cases, criminality is not deterred but channeled. We explore the channeling process here as it relates to auto theft and carjacking. Our qualitative findings reveal that auto thieves are reluctant to embrace the violence of carjacking due to concerns over sanction threat severity they attributed to carjacking—both formal (higher sentences) and informal (victim resistance and retaliation). Meanwhile, the carjackers are reticent to enact auto theft because of the more uncertain and putatively greater risk of being surprised by victims, a fear that appears to overcome the enhanced long-term formal penalty of taking a vehicle by force. We examine the implications of offenders’ decision-making for the analytic intersection of rational choice and deterrence, offering the notion of projective risk sensitivity to encapsulate the process.     

Dependency today—finance,firms, mafias and the state: A review of Susan Strange's work from a developing country perspective

The movements of political protest, competitive elections and the installation of new regimes are widely regarded as the most significant political upheaval to shake Africa since political independence. The impression is often given that this transformation has also seen the sweeping away of the old guard of autocratic leaders. The image of renewed leadership does not however correspond with reality. Taking the leaders that were in office in 1990 at the beginning of the democratisation movement, the article traces their subsequent history. It finds that half still hold the highest office, having for the most part successfully transformed themselves into 'democratic' leaders. This remarkable success story is examined, for the purpose of this article, from a voluntarist perspective, that is, the tactics that the incumbents pursued so as to remain in office are the focus. Continuing in the tradition of Sandbrook, and Jackson and Rosberg's work on 'personal rule',1 it constitutes a primer on how to hang on to power against the odds.     

Images of the homeless: Public views and media messages

Abstract

Despite its potential policy relevance, public opinion about homelessness has received little attention from researchers. This deficiency is addressed here by bringing together data obtained in four recent surveys. The survey results indicate that many Americans accurately perceive the characteristics of homeless people, consider homelessness a serious problem with structural roots, and support a variety of measures intended to solve it. Certain segments of the public— Democrats, liberals, blacks, and residents of communities that have homeless populations—are especially likely to hold these views. The extent to which the public's thoughts on homelessness have been shaped by the media is difficult to determine. However, an analysis of the volume and content of print and broadcast news coverage of the issue hints at a plausible causal connection.     

The Perils of Bula Matari: Constraint and Power in the Colonial State

This review article argues that analyses of the food security implications of emerging powers in Africa could be strengthened through foregrounding the issue of perspective. Researchers working in this area should engage with food security opinion contests, and avoid obscuring these debates moving forward.     

Unravelling the linkages between the millennium development goals for poverty,education, access to water and household water use in developing countries: Evidence from Madagascar

All members of the United Nations have pledged to meet eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015. This study looks at the MDG objectives and linkages between poverty, education, access to water, and household water use based on primary data collected in Madagascar. We find strong links between these MDGs. Better educated and higher income households rely significantly more on private water supplies and use significantly more water. Econometric results show that, for poorer households who rely on public sources, improving access to public water taps (by reducing the distance to such a water source) would not alter dramatically water use patterns. Improved access does free up a significant amount of time that could contribute to poverty reduction. The willingness of households to pay for improved access is very price sensitive, probably because of the liquidity constraints of these households.     

Responding to terrorism across the technological spectrum

The ‘revolution in military affairs’ arguably heralds a new era of warfare dominated by the American military's mastery of the conventional battlefield. This ‘revolution’, however, will have little if any impact on American military capabilities so far as countering terrorism, insurgency, or guerrilla warfare are concerned. With regard to terrorism specifically, a combination of the resurgence of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative and the implications that it has to trigger acts future of mass, indiscriminate violence; the proliferation of ‘amateur’ terrorist groups which may contribute to the loosening of previous self‐imposed constraints on operations and lethality, and the growing sophistication of established, more ‘professional’ groups is likely to lead to higher levels of lethality and destruction than in the past.