The Evolution of Substate Nationalist Parties as Statewide Parliamentary Actors: CiU and PNV in Spain

This contribution examines party competition between the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), two substate nationalist parties, and the statewide governing party based on the degree to which they ally in Spain's statewide parliament. It demonstrates that party competition during statewide minority governments is quite cooperative, though with variation, and statewide majority governments are associated with less cooperation. The weight of properiphery stances in the nationalist parties’ manifestos does not explain the patterns of party competition. In part, their behavior is associated with opportunities to influence policy and interparty competition in their respective regions.     

Exploring Options Including Class Action to Transform Military Mental Healthcare and End the Generational Cycle of Preventable Wartime Behavioral Health Crises

This article examines three major options for transforming military mental healthcare in order to end the pattern of self-inflicted and largely preventable wartime behavioral health crises plaguing American veterans, their families, and broader society since the turn of the twentieth century. Evidence is provided that the first option of maintaining the status quo consisting of internal incremental changes has proven largely ineffectual in addressing the broader issues responsible for perpetuating wartime crises. The second option describes necessary transformative changes required to end the cycle of mental health neglect and preventable crises. However, there are no signs that responsible government agencies are inclined to compel the military to overhaul its system. Lastly, we offer a legal analysis for an unprecedented class action against the Department of Defense to effect change. After reviewing the history of tort law and the US military’s immunity from the Feres Doctrine, we examine legal precedents both domestic and aboard. Legal strategies are described in detail from a landmark class action by British soldiers against the Ministry of Defense (MoD) or Multiple Claimants v. MoD (2003) who sued for failure to properly identify and treat predictable war stress injury like post-traumatic stress disorder. The successful claims from individual military plaintiffs have been instrumental in compelling the MoD to implement necessary reforms of its mental health services and possibly end their cycle of neglect and preventable wartime crises. If successful, the proposed American class action will establish a critical precedent to elevate the importance of mental healthcare on equal footing with physical medicine both within and outside of the military.     

Opportunity and Self-Control: Do they Predict Multiple Forms of Online Victimization?

This study investigates the predictors of four types of cybercrime victimization/experiences: online harassment, hacking, identity theft, and receiving nude photos or explicit content. The effects of victimization opportunity and low self-control are examined as the primary independent variables in logistic regression analyses of data collected from a large sample of undergraduates enrolled at two universities in the United States. Results suggest that opportunity is positively related to each of the four types of online victimization, and that low self-control is associated with person-based, but not computer-based, forms of cybercrime. These findings speak to the utility, and also the limitations, of these perspectives in understanding cybercrime victimization risk among college students, and to the potentially criminogenic nature of the Internet.

     

Interpersonal Violence Among College Students: Does Sexual Orientation Impact Risk of Victimization?

Researchers have shown that college students are at an increased risk of experiencing interpersonal violence (IV). One factor that appears to play a role in shaping their likelihood of IV is sexual orientation. However, little is known about this relationship and how IV risk varies across categories of sexual orientation. Utilizing a sample of approximately 43,000 college students from the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment II, this study examined the prevalence of IV across five categories of self-identified sexual orientation and examined whether sexual orientation was a predictor of IV. Results indicated that, on average, students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning were significantly more likely to experience IV than their heterosexual counterparts. Implications for prevention and future research are discussed.