The Longitudinal Consistency of Mother–Child Reporting Discrepancies of Parental Monitoring and Their Ability to Predict Child Delinquent Behaviors Two Years Later

This study examined the longitudinal consistency of mother–child reporting discrepancies of parental monitoring and whether these discrepancies predict children’s delinquent behaviors 2 years later. Participants included 335 mother/female-caregiver and child (46% boys, >90% African American; age range 9–16 years [M = 12.11, SD = 1.60]) dyads living in moderate-to-high violence areas. Mother–child discrepancies were internally consistent within multiple assessment points and across measures through a 2-year follow-up assessment. Further, mothers who at baseline consistently reported higher levels of parental monitoring relative to their child had children who reported greater levels of delinquent behaviors 2 years later, relative to mother–child dyads that did not evidence consistent discrepancies. This finding could not be accounted for by baseline levels of the child’s delinquency, maternal and child emotional distress, or child demographic characteristics. This finding was not replicated when relying on the individual reports of parental monitoring to predict child delinquency, suggesting that mother–child reporting discrepancies provided information distinct from the absolute frequency of reports. Findings suggest that mother–child discrepancies in reports of parental monitoring can be employed as new individual differences measurements in developmental psychopathology research.     

Protective Factors Associated with Daily Affective Reactivity and Instability During Adolescence

The daily emotional experiences of adolescents are dynamic, vary significantly across individuals, and are crucial to their psychological adjustment, warranting a need to identify factors that promote adaptive affective responses to stressors and attenuated affective instability. The objective of this study, therefore, was to examine protective factors linked to individual differences in daily affective reactivity and instability utilizing a daily diary design in a national sample of 100 U.S. adolescents (13–17 years; 40% girls; 79% White). Adolescents completed a baseline survey and then 14 daily online surveys. Better mother-adolescent communication predicted lower negative affect reactivity, whereas greater use of problem-focused coping strategies predicted higher positive affect reactivity. Greater trait resilience and instrumental support seeking predicted lower negative affect instability. Conversely, more emotional support seeking predicted higher negative affect instability. No factors were associated with positive affect instability, and father-adolescent communication was unrelated to daily affective reactivity and instability. The findings implicate specific protective factors associated with distinct aspects of affective reactivity and instability.

     

Dynamics of State Modernization in Colombia: The Virtuous Cycle of Military Transformation

Military transformations are usually understood as linear processes involving diverse, steady, and costly initiatives to be achieved during a specific timeframe. However, other influencing elements, such as assessment, follow-up, and feedback from the personnel in charge of enforcing and evaluating their implementation, are often disregarded. This article seeks to bridge this information gap and provide a model to analyze the transformation of the military forces of Colombia as a virtuous cycle using the perceptions of its future implementers as its core and main evaluating resource. The questionnaire developed focuses on national interests and the roles and functions of the military forces, gathering the perceptions of officers who will be responsible for implementing the transformation. The statistical findings suggest that determining threats, factors of influence, obstacles, enhancers, and priorities such as drug trafficking, defense expenditure, conflict of interests, fiscal responsibility, and doctrine and policy are central to obtaining successful outcomes.     

The Impact of EU Export Refunds on the African Continent: An Impact Assessment

The EU’s export refund policy has long been a source of controversy for its perceived impacts on third country markets. However, the EU Commission maintain that these concerns are largely historic as CAP reforms mean that export refunds are now used infrequently. The purpose of this article is therefore to assess the impacts of refunds in the wake of the 2003 reform of the CAP using two complementary analyses: first, an analysis using a computable general equilibrium model and second, two case studies to assess the potential impact of export refunds in selected African developing countries.     

First Amendment influence in argentine republic law and jurisprudence

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution has influenced the development of freedom of expression in a number of countries, including the Argentine Republic. This article focuses on law as it came to affect mass media beginning with assumptions from the 16th century, when Argentina was under Spanish domination, and continues through the 1853–60 constitutional conventions that marked the initiation of First Amendment influence in Argentine law and jurisprudence. The article explains how the de facto governments that ruled Argentina from 1862 to 1983 gave direction to law and court decisions affecting the mass media, including film censorship, press penal responsibility, prior restraint, state of siege and the right to reply. The article concludes by analyzing how these laws and court decisions have influenced media and Argentine society, especially in fostering self‐censorship.     

Socrates behind bars: a report on an experimental course on justice and philosophy

This paper describes a particular educational experience: a course that took place in prison involving law students and inmates. One of the co-authors was the leading instructor in the course, whereas the other played an active role during its design and implementation. Social prejudices and taboos on crime, criminals and prisons offer a simplistic, biased and altogether negative image of penal institutions and those involved in them. This picture pervades society in general, and the legal professions in particular. The course described in this paper is aimed at bridging the gap between inmates and future lawyers by bringing them together into the same classroom to think and reflect collectively. The method used was the Socratic dialogue, in which the professor acted as a “spiritual midwife” encouraging dialogue and debate around fundamental issues such as truth, fear, happiness, respect, responsibility, justice, and so on. During each session, participants explored these concepts in depth, and had the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the other’s point of view. The ultimate aim was that upon completing this course both groups could have a better understanding of each other’s realities. This paper is based on the personal accounts of the participants in the course, including professors and students (both law students and inmates). The methodology is qualitative and phenomenological, and its value lies in the singularity of the experience. Drawing on the theory of justice of Amartya Sen, we identify this course as a non-transcendentalist and non-institutionalist approach to justice, exploring the role that emotions play in it. In the conclusions we express our belief that by thinking together and trusting each other students and inmates can open themselves to a logic of cooperation that connects both with a broader sense of justice and the enhancement of democracy.     

An impressive line-up of law and economics experts ...

Reviewing edited books is sometimes a difficult task, particularlywhen faced with interdisciplinary collections of articles. IntellectualProperty Rights: Innovation, Governance and the InstitutionalEnvironment is such a book, and therefore a true analysis ofits impact may elude this reviewer because of a lack of knowledgein some of the topics covered within the work. Nevertheless, even a non-specialist can recognize a good collectionwhen he sees one. The book presents an impressive line-up ofexperts in the increasingly relevant field of law