Authoritarianism,socioethnic diversity and political participation across countries

It is argued in this article that threatening stimuli affect political participation levels among non‐authoritarians more than among authoritarians. Focusing on socioethnic diversity, which is known to be particularly threatening to authoritarians and to relate negatively to political participation in the general public, analyses of individual‐ and macro‐level data from 53 countries is presented which supports this thesis. Participation levels among authoritarians are largely static, regardless of a country's level of socioethnic heterogeneity, while non‐authoritarians participate considerably less in countries with relatively high levels of socioethnic heterogeneity. This suggests that authoritarians participate to a proportionately greater degree in the most diverse countries.     

Associations Between Caregiver Support, Bullying, and Depressive Symptomatology Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Girls: Results from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey

Although sexual minority (SM) youth are at an increased risk for being bullied and experiencing depression, it is unclear how caregiver support is interrelated with those variables. Therefore, we sought to assess: (a) the prevalence of nonphysical bullying, depressive symptomatology, and caregiver support among heterosexual and SM girls, (b) the association between caregiver support and bullying in both groups, and (c) whether sexual orientation moderates the interactive effect of caregiver support and bullying on depressive symptoms. Data come from a survey of students in 22 Boston public high schools; 99 of the 832 girls in the analytic sample were SM. We used chi-square statistics to examine group differences, and multiple regression to estimate the association between the caregiver support, sexual orientation, being bullied, and depressive symptomatology. SM girls reported similar levels of caregiver support as heterosexual girls, but reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology. They were also more likely to report nonphysical bullying. Tests for interactions were not statistically significant, suggesting that bullying, caregiver support, and sexual orientation are independently associated with depressive symptomatology.     

The detection of multiply charged dyes using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry for the forensic examination of pen ink dyes directly from paper

Abstract:  Laser desorption mass spectrometry (LDMS) is emerging as a technique for questioned document examination. Its use is limited to detecting ink dyes that are neutral or singly charged. Several inks contain dyes that are multiply charged and LDMS cannot be employed for their identification. We have successfully detected >20 polyionic dyes that can be used in the manufacture of inks using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) MS, directly from paper, with the matrix, 2-(4-hydroxyphenylazo)benzoic acid (HABA), and the additive, diammonium hydrogen citrate (DAHC). For example, Acid Violet 49, a charged dye containing one positively-charged site and two negatively charged sulfonate groups, cannot be detected by LDMS, but forms intact, singly charged ions in the MALDI MS experiment. The method described is also useful for identifying multiply charged dye mixtures that are used in modern pen inks.     

Women in contemporary Soviet society

What enables democracies to succeed has much in common with what enables other forms of modern rule to succeed: notably the capacity for effective military selfdefence and the reasonably efficient functioning of a domestic economy. When the factors favouring the success of any form of modern regime are broken down, most of them may readily be secured for a time under autocratic rule, and none is strucurally ensured by democratic rule. At present there is good reason to believe that the special advantages of democratic rule - above all the heuristic merits of open and competitive political deliberation - at least offset the inherent disadvantages long ago identified by its enemies. The distinctive preconditions for the success of democratic regimes are furnished, if at all, only by the workings of democracy itself. They are both instances and products of success in learning how to live freely as, and within, a large collectivity. That outcome can be menaced or precluded by the causal properties of ill-conceived institutions. But it can only be brought about by free and practically intelligent political action. This is a task for citizens and career politicians, not a potential gift from the social sciences.     

Civil liberties and the left

Mzwanele Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa. Monthly Review Press: New York. 1996. pp. 288. (foreword by Mel King)

Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England, Edited by Susan D. Amussen and Mark A. Kishlansky. (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995)

Modernization and the Production of Power

Kevin A. Yelvington, Producing Power: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in a Caribbean Workplace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 286 pp.

Milagros Pena, Theologies and Liberation in Peru: The Role of Ideas in Social Movements (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 222 pp.

Partha Chatterjee (ed), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 220 pp.

Carol A. Breckenridge (ed.), Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in South Asia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 261 pp.

Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right‐Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995. pp. 445. $19.95.)