The Return of Great-Power Competition to the Middle East: A Two-Level Game

Great-power competition has once again assumed primacy in the international arena. Facing a rising China and a resurgent Russia, the United States formally reoriented its National Security Strategy in 2017 to place more emphasis on the return of great-power politics and global multipolarity. With the resumption of such competition, the Middle East has rightfully been noted as a regional theater where Russia and China have sought to exploit US policy blunders and retrenchment (real or perceived) to push for increased regional multipolarity. Although the Middle East has been recognized as a prime theater for great-power competition, the approaches adopted by most existing studies are primarily one-sided: they examine great-power competition in the region from the outside, stressing how global powers are manipulating affairs in the Middle East in order to advance their own interests. Often missing from this conversation is how external engagement in the Middle East is being exploited and shaped by regional powers and endogenous developments. This study seeks to fill this gap by using the conceptual lens of omnialignment to examine how regional powers are manipulating the return of great-power competition to advance their own strategic imperatives, both at home and abroad.     

Informant Discrepancies in Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in an At-Risk Sample: The Role of Parenting and School Engagement

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - A number of studies have used variable-centered approaches to examine informant discrepancies on children’s behavior problems; however, few such studies...     

The Broader Context of Relational Aggression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Predictions from Peer Pressure and Links to Psychosocial Functioning

The broader context of relational aggression in adolescent romantic relationships was assessed by considering the ways such aggression emerged from prior experiences of peer pressure and was linked to concurrent difficulties in psychosocial functioning. Longitudinal, multi-reporter data were obtained from 97 adolescents and their best friends at age 15 and from adolescents and their romantic partners at age 18. Teens’ relational aggression and romantic partners’ victimization were predicted from levels of best friends’ pressuring behaviors toward teens in an observed interaction as well as from best friends’ ratings of how much pressure teens experienced from their peer group. Romantic partner relational aggression and teen victimization were predicted by pressure from teens’ peer group only. Adolescents’ romantic relational aggression and victimization were also associated with elevated levels of depressive symptoms and increased alcohol use. Results are discussed in terms of the connection of relational aggression in romantic relationships to the broader task of establishing autonomy with peers in psychosocial development.

Dereliction of Duty Redux?: Post-Iraq American Civil-Military Relations

The protracted war in Iraq has exacerbated existing tensions and dysfunctional elements inherent in American civil-military relations. Many in the national security community were worried that civil-military relations were far from satisfactory well before the war.¹ For too long this dimension of “the American way of war” had been allowed to drift without resolution. The Iraq conflict could result in a further deterioration in this crucial component of strategic effectiveness due to mutual “scapegoating, blame-avoiding and willful institutional refusal to recognize and act on the sources of defeat.”² This essay explores the current precarious nature of civil-military relations in this country. It also explores the emergence of a “stab in the back” thesis among the military community, and various issues raised by the ongoing Long War. Based on this evaluation, the article concludes with some proposals to remedy or lessen the strains that exist today. These remedies seek to better define the compact and code of conduct that governs the overall relationship between the masters of policy and the dedicated servants we ask to carry out those policies.     

The Alchemists' Search for the Philosophers' Stone: The Status of Registered Social Landlords under the Human Rights Act

Social housing in Great Britain is undergoing a radical transformation with the transfer of local authority housing to housing associations, more particularly registered social landlords (RSLs). While the former are clearly 'public authorities' for the purposes of the Human Rights Act (HRA), the status of the latter is less clear. The first part of this article addresses the increasingly important role played by housing associations in the provision of social housing, and the significant implications of the stock transfer process. It goes on to explore the meaning of 'public authority' for the purposes of claims under the HRA, taking into account available approaches to interpretation as well as the tests traditionally used to determine amenability to judicial review. It concludes that there is a strong case for acknowledging that RSLs are hybrid authorities for the purposes of the HRA, given in particular their 'publicness' and the fact that they are often carrying out the same functions as local authorities.