PARENTAL EFFICACY AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR: DO CONTROL AND SUPPORT MATTER?

Recently, the concept of "collective efficacy" has been advanced to understand how communities exert control and provide support to reduce crime. In a similar way, we use the concept of "parental efficacy" to highlight the crime reducing effects associated with parents who support and control their youth. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we examine the inter-relationship between parental controls and supports and their joint influence on youthful misbehavior. The results show that (1) support and control are intertwined, and (2) that parental efficacy exerts substantive effects on adolescent delinquency for the sample as a whole and across varying age groups.     

NEW GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOREST POLICY: INSTITUTIONAL,POLITICAL AND REGULATORY DIMENSIONS

This article investigates emerging governance arrangements at the intersection between forest management and climate policy. The authors deploy the symposium's three‐dimensional framework to describe and evaluate developments within two distinct policy sectors (forestry/climate change adaptation and mitigation) at several levels of governance (bi‐national, national, and sub‐national) to explore the nature and operation of the emerging governance arrangements, and assessing and measuring change within these arrangements over time. Drawing on four contemporary case studies from the US and Canada, New Zealand, British Columbia and Alaska, the authors discern little evidence of a generalized, linear trend from ‘government to governance’. Instead, they conclude, across institutional, political and regulatory dimensions of governance, a more variegated and diverse picture emerges. Their analysis also lends support for the Trubek and Trubek (2007) hypothesis that emerging governance arrangements typically interact with extant ones through modalities of rivalry, complementarity and transformation.     

Toward a Refinement of Purpose in Comparative Criminological Research: Research Site Selection in Focus

This paper draws on a distinction between two purposes of comparative research: (1) testing the universality of a proposition (theory testing) and (2) specification of a proposition (theory construction). These two distinct activities have been inadvertently mixed in comparative criminology thereby causing a great deal of confusion. The present paper argues that attention by comparative researchers to this distinction between theory testing and theory construction will contribute to the resolution of one major methodological problem: that of research site selection. We suggest that in light of the distinction drawn, the testing of the universality of a proposition is most appropriately done in research comparing Western and non-Western nations (“dissimilar design”). But comparative research aimed at the specification of a proposition is best conducted by comparing Western nations (“similar design”).     

The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge

This article argues that the breakdown of hierarchical structures in illicit organizations is creating new opportunities for criminals and terrorists to collaborate. The rise of networked organizations has given greater independence to criminals and terrorists who previously answered to a clear chain of command. These members are now willing to engage in operations that before had been off-limits because the leadership believed the activity would hurt the organization's broader mandate. The result is that a “leaderless nexus” is beginning to emerge between criminals and terrorists. The phenomenon has far-reaching and dangerous implications for U.S. security, and should be thoughtfully considered as lawmakers debate homeland security reform.     

What Is It About Politicians?

Why do people dislike politicians and could anything be done about it? Drawing upon survey evidence, it is argued that the twin charge against politicians is that they are engaged in a kind of game and that they are a political class out of touch with real life. These charges are examined and found to have at least some merit. Remedies would involve a change in political behaviour; and measures to widen political recruitment. The consequences of not making such changes will be a further erosion of political trust. Constitutional change is less important in tackling dislike of politicians than alterations in political behaviour.     

The Value of Majority Status: The Effect of Jeffords's Switch on Asset Prices of Republican and Democratic Firms

Using the change in party control of the Senate that resulted from Jim Jeffords's 2001 change in party affiliation, we compare competing partisan and partyless legislative theories. We offer a reconceptualization of agenda control that provides a new and promising basis for studying parties and policymaking in the Senate. Also, we present a novel methodology—an “event study”—to test partisan and partyless hypotheses. Our results show that, when Jeffords switched, the stock prices of Republican‐supported energy firms dropped and prices for Democrat‐supported firms rose, supporting the hypothesis that the majority party influences Senate decisions.