Prevalence of probable attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in inmates and its relationship with recidivism

The aim of the current study was to determine the prevalence of probable attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in prisoners and to assess the relationship between ADHD and recidivism. We studied 356 inmates, who were evaluated using the Wender Utah Rating Scale and Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. Type of crime and other crime-related data were compared between inmates with and without ADHD. The group with probable ADHD had a higher average number of convictions compared to the group without ADHD. The probable ADHD group also demonstrated higher incidence of extortion crime, drug trade, disciplinary action at school, and military service than the group without ADHD. Linear regression analysis revealed that the presence of probable ADHD was effective on the number of convictions. The findings of our study support that the presence of probable ADHD carries a potential risk of being prone to certain crimes and demonstrate a correlation between the presence of probable ADHD and early involvement in crime and the number of convictions.     

Non-extremist Outbidding: Muslim Leadership in Majoritarian India

How do parties representing minorities survive and expand at a time of majoritarian nationalism? Influential accounts suggest that the rise of majoritarianism should give rise to corresponding extremist outbidding in minority parties. Through a detailed case study of an Indian Muslim party in an era of Hindu majoritarianism, this article elaborates a new notion of non-extremist outbidding. It argues that outbidding need not imply appeals that are extremist in the sense that they are exclusionary, or religious, or intransigent. The agency of leaders, relatively neglected, plays a key role in determining the behavior of ethnic parties.     

China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) development projects and entrepreneurial potential of locals

This research explores a very important issue arising from the initiation of China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan, as the major impact seems to be focused towards small businesses and how they will cope in this competitive market once Chinese businesses enter in the country. According to scholars and officials, CPEC will generate several business opportunities for the local Pakistani community. However, studies related to the CPEC project are limited and only focused on the development of the CPEC project in various aspects alone. The existing study examined the local entrepreneur's attitude and intention in the context of CPEC using a sample of 255 survey questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Data were gathered from the existing business community in Karachi, Pakistan. The results validated most of the hypotheses showing positive attitude towards entrepreneurs and intention towards CPEC development project. Specifically, local transportation and accessibility of cities show a significant relationship with a positive attitude. Similarly, the attitude of entrepreneurs also shows a positive relationship with entrepreneur's intention towards CPEC development projects. Findings have important theoretical and practical implications for policymakers of CPEC in creating an overall entrepreneurial ecosystem.     

The contested capacity of the Indian state

State capacity is often seen as simply the resources and capabilities of state organizations to perform those functions that are seen as essential to monopolizing coercion, maintaining legitimacy, and providing key public and social goods. As such, it is often conceptualized as value-neutral and comparable across national contexts. By contrast, this article posits that in the Indian context, state capacity is a politically contested concept, because there is deep and enduring political conflict in India over the appropriate roles and related capabilities of state power. This conflict is grounded in disagreements between those who wish to use the state as a tool to transform society and those who see it as a means to preserve and protect social relations. As a result of this conflict, the state in India is not weak or captured but internally divided and thus disarticulated. This article demonstrates these dynamics through an examination of state intervention in the statist and post-liberalization political economy of India.     

Land grabs and primitive accumulation in deltaic Bangladesh: interactions between neoliberal globalization,state interventions,power relations and peasant resistance

This essay provides theoretical and empirical analysis of the interrelationships between land grabs, primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession (ABD) in the context of capitalist development. Evidence from a multi-class peasant formation in deltaic Bangladesh indicates that land grabs have been propelled by interactions between neoliberal globalization, state interventions, power relations and peasant resistance. Key roles have been played by illegal violence and de-linking of poor peasants from production organization and clientelist relations providing access to land. Establishment of a shrimp zone for export production has led to systematic eviction of the poor, backed by state power. Poor peasant resistance has shifted towards overt forms involving coalition-building and collective action. It is argued that the concept of primitive accumulation can subsume both market and non-market mechanisms as well as voluntary and involuntary transactions involving different degrees of intentionality, inclusive of deliberate dispossession, unintended consequences and negative externalities. Primitive accumulation and ABD correspond to distinct historical phases of capitalism and are subsumable under a generic concept of ongoing capitalism-facilitating accumulation. The dynamics of ‘actually existing capitalism’ display a two-way and recursive causal relationship in which continuing primitive accumulation is as much a consequence of expanding capitalist production as its precondition.     

Indirect Rule and Varieties of Governance

This article reexamines the venerable concept of indirect rule. We argue, drawing on evidence from colonial and postcolonial South Asia, that indirect rule actually represented a diverse set of governance forms that need to be clearly distinguished. Using a new typology of varieties of governance, we show that colonial governments established suzerain, hybrid, and de jure governance, in addition to direct rule across territories, based on the incentives and constraints of the state. The repertoire of governance forms narrowed and changed but did not disappear during decolonization, showing that the postcolonial state had powerful reasons to maintain forms of heterodox governance. Dramatic shifts, alongside enduring continuity, challenge a simple narrative of path dependence and the adherence to tradition, instead showing that governments have made conscious choices about how to govern. We conclude by discussing the implications of these arguments for broader understandings of state power.     

Can umbrella parties survive? The decline of the Indian National Congress

This paper analyses the defeat of the Congress party in the India’s 2014 election in which it plummeted to its lowest ever vote share (19 per cent) and seat tally (44 of 543). We argue that the defeat is the end result of a gradual decline punctuated by recoveries that began much earlier. We show that the Congress was gradually becoming less competitive in more and more states and constituencies as indicated by its falling to third position or worse. We try to relate this to the desertion of the party by social groups that once supported it in a number of states and other factors. The larger question is whether a Congress-type, encompassing, umbrella party can survive the sharpened politicisation of social cleavages, in the Indian case, religious, caste and regional cleavages since such a party will tend to lose out to parties based on religious, caste and regional identities in identitarian outbidding.     

Technostress and Commitment to Change: The Moderating Role of Internal Communication

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to examine the predicting role of technostress, on commitment to change. Further, this study assesses the moderating role of internal communication in the technostress and commitment to change relationship. A total of 225 administrative employees in public higher education institutions in the Northern Region of Peninsular Malaysia participated in the study. The findings indicated that techno-invasion and techno-insecurity were negatively associated to commitment to change, while techno-uncertainty was positively related to commitment to change. Internal communication was found to moderate the relationship between techno-uncertainty and commitment to change. Theoretical and practical ramifications are highlighted.