The correlates of spouses' incongruent reports of marital aggression

Husbands' and wives' reports (n=97 couples) of engaging in or experiencing marital aggression were compared to determine congruence. Congruence was defined as spousal agreement on whether either spouse had been nonviolent, mildly violent, or severely maritally violent within the past year. Whereas approximately equal numbers of clinic couples were incongruent for husband and for wife violence (32% vs. 31%), only incongruence for husband violence (H W) was found to correlate with reports of affective and relationship functioning. Incongruent H W wives were more likely to be depressed and angry. H W incongruent wives were also more negative about the inter-spousal communication and rated the relationship as more unsatisfactory for them than did congruent wives. Incongruent H W husbands also perceived the relationship more negatively, but their levels of depression and anger did not differ from congruent H W husbands. These findings were not replicated for spouses who were incongruent for wife violence. Our results support the conclusion that spousal disagreement about H W violence has a more negative impact than does disagreement about wives' level of aggression.     

Efficacy, Self-Derogation, and Alcohol Use Among Inner-City Adolescents: Gender Matters

Prior studies have found inconsistent relationships between measures of self-concept and adolescent alcohol use. The current study explored whether the link between various measures of self-concept and alcohol use depends on gender. In addition, earlier work suggested a focus on negative self-esteem (i.e., self-derogation) might be more useful in predicting alcohol use. Students (N = 1459) attending 22 middle and junior high schools in New York City completed surveys that included measures of efficacy, self-derogation, and alcohol use. Participants completed surveys at baseline, 1-year follow-up, and 2-year follow-up. Data collectors administered the questionnaire following a standardized protocol during a regular 40-min-class period. On the basis of a longitudinal structural equation model, lower efficacy was related to greater self-derogation a year later across gender. Increased self-derogation predicted higher alcohol use for girls but not boys. These findings are congruent with a literature highlighting the importance of negative thoughts about the self in drinking behavior for women but not men. The results suggest that the alcohol prevention approaches should include material to enhance girls' self-esteem.     

National Minorities and the International System

National minorities are collectivities who possess that trait which is the current normative underpinning of states, namely nationhood, and yet for practical purposes cannot enjoy outright political independence. Because national minorities bear these normatively significant characteristics they may be deemed to have legitimate international claims to certain special rights even if these fall short of statehood. Yet although this rationale may be logically sound and morally justified, pursuing it nevertheless raises serious problems with regard to state sovereignty.     

Integrating Rigor and Relevance in Public Administration Scholarship: The Contribution of Narrative Inquiry

A traditional view of scholarly quality defines rigor as the application of method and assumes an implicit connection with relevance. But as an applied field, public administration requires explicit attention to both rigor and relevance. Interpretive scholars' notions of rigor demand an explicit inclusion of relevance as an integral aspect of quality. As one form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry illuminates how this can be done. Appreciating this contribution requires a deeper knowledge of the logic of narrative inquiry, an acknowledgement of the diversity of narrative approaches, and attention to the implications for judging its quality. We use our story about community-based leadership research to develop and illustrate this argument.     

The Structure of Censorship Attitudes

Research about censorship attitudes across disciplines shares the normative goal of predicting and modifying attitudes perceived as either too permissive or too restrictive. Understanding attitude structure is important to achieving this goal. This study explores the intra-attitudinal structure of public censorship attitudes, specifically the general tendency to endorse particular government actions. For twenty-one scenarios, respondents indicated their agreement with each of five possible government reactions: prior restraint; subsequent punishment; time, place, manner restrictions; allow, and protect. Scale scores were computed for each government response. There are strong correlations between the two punitive restriction options and between the two permissive government responses. The time, place, manner response option related moderately to the other scales. Additional structural information is provided by examining scale relationships with other variables: gender, liberal-conservative self-rank, religiosity, need for cognition, authoritarianism, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion.     

Rethinking measures of democracy and welfare state universalism: Lessons from subnational research

ABSTRACT

Democracy and the welfare state are two of the most extensively studied concepts and themes in the field of comparative politics. Debate about how to best measure the two concepts has failed to contemplate the extent to which political and social rights are uniformly present across distinct regions of the national territory, despite the presence of substantial subnational research that underscores wide variation inside countries. We argue that this omission hampers our understanding of the two phenomena and we propose a new measure of democracy and healthcare universalism, which we call the Adjusted Measures of Democracy and Welfare Universalism. The new measures integrate territorial inequality into existing national-level indicators, providing a more accurate picture of country performance and opening the door to new, multi-level theory building.