Anti-corruption: What Do We Know? Research on Preventing Corruption in the Post-communist World

This review assesses the anti-corruption literature in a first attempt to identify systematically significant trends so far and challenges remaining to future political science research. Research on anti-corruption is a young métier. While reflecting on the field at large, the review focuses on two issues that have been central to its development: the role of post-communist Eastern Europe and of civil society involvement. Organised in a chronological way, the review distinguishes and discusses four phases, in order to trace how scholars have addressed these two issues in the context of a rapid evolution of anti-corruption debates, ongoing transformations in Eastern Europe and increasing insight into the controversial matter of anti-corruption efforts. It considers four crucial periods: (1) earlier scholarly debates on corruption (pre-1990s); (2) initial anti-corruption debates (1990s); (3) a period of reorientation (early 2000s); and (4) latest anti-corruption debates (mid-2000s). Changing perspectives on anti-corruption in relation to post-communism and civil society involvement are discussed for each of the four phases in order to delineate the different research trajectories. This leads to the conclusion that future research, while addressing the theory deficit, needs to take account of increasingly complex conceptual challenges posed by the (interrelated) changes in international and domestic governance.     

Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities

Agency has been central to modern conceptions of politics but it is a complicated and contested idea that seems to have fallen into both theoretical and historical crisis. I explore the underlying ideas that have grounded it, as well as some recent historical and theoretical challenges. I respond by advocating an ontological agnosticism regarding who or what exercises agency and suggest a spectrum of agentic capacities instead. Commending a phenomenological approach, I then suggest that agentic capacities emerge and interact across this spectrum. At one pole I envisage pre- personal, corporeal processes and at the other, a transpersonal, intersubjective interworld that requires a novel social ontology. I locate individual or collective agents in the middle of the spectrum where they emerge as contingent singularities. My aim here is to retain agency as a necessary ingredient of politics while eliminating the Cartesian presuppositions that have, for example, rendered the agency-structure debate irresolvable and supported a subjectivist account of agents that is no longer tenable. I show how all three dimensions of the spectrum have political significance and discuss examples to illustrate this.     

Body Morph: Feasibility Testing of an Interactive CD-ROM to Teach Young Adolescents about Puberty

The aim of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility of an interactive computer program among 34 sixth and seventh grade children and to assess the potential for knowledge acquisition about puberty. Based on a developmental self-esteem approach to teach children about their bodies, the Body Morph program was designed to maximize the educational experience by: (1) tailoring puberty information to boys or girls, and (2) creating a confidential experience. Preliminary results indicated that students significantly improved their knowledge about puberty after using the program. Satisfaction among boys and girls for this type of educational approach suggests that it is a compelling format from which to learn about puberty.This research project was funded with the support of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) 1R43DK061269-01A2 to develop an educational computer program to improve body image in middle schoolers.     

Adult attachment as a risk factor for intimate partner violence: the "mispairing" of partners' attachment styles

This study examined the relationship between intimate partner violence and adult attachment in a sample of 70 couples. The attachment style of each partner and the interaction of the partners' attachment styles were examined as predictors of intimate partner violence. Additional analyses were conducted to examine violence reciprocity and to explore differences in the relationship between attachment and violence using continuous and dichotomous violence measures. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated the "mispairing" of an avoidant male partner with an anxious female partner was associated with both male and female violence. When controlling for partner violence, the relationship between attachment and violence was significant for males only. In addition, analyses using a dichotomized violence variable produced different results from analyses using a continuous violence measure. Clinical implications include focusing on the discrepancy between partners' needs for intimacy and distance within the couple as a strategy for treating intimate partner violence.