In a Violent World a Just World Makes Sense: The Case of “Senseless Violence” in The Netherlands

Recent violent incidents in The Netherlands caused nationwide debates about their purported senselessness. Building on Lerner's Just World Theory (Lerner, 1980, The Belief in a Just World. A Fundamental Delusion, Plenum Press, New York), the present experiment sought to delineate the circumstances under which violence is perceived as senseless by outside observers. Participants were more likely to perceive an act of violence as senseless and to identify with the victim when there was no opportunity to blame the victim and when the victim was uninvolved with the perpetrator. These findings suggest that acts of violence are perceived as senseless when attributional strategies fail to uphold observers' belief in a just world.     

Discovering Directions for Change in Higher Education Through the Experiences of Senior Women Faculty

The Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, an NSF-funded ADVANCE Institutional Transformation project, employed the “discovery interviews” method to characterize the experiences of senior women faculty in science and engineering on campus. This method allowed WISELI to reach its aims of (1) gaining information from senior women that would inform the programs developed by WISELI, and (2) building relationships among the senior women and WISELI. The discovery interview process also had some unintended consequences, including creation of an expectation of advocacy that exceeded the original intent of the project. This method was well-matched to the needs of WISELI as a change agent at the UW-Madison, and has contributed a great deal to its Institutional Transformation efforts, primarily by changing WISELI’s perceptions of what leadership means to senior women faculty.     

Citizenship and justice: public prosecutors in social contexts in Portugal

All over the world judicial systems are under tremendous pressure as the instruments used by citizens to access their full rights. The erosion of other state powers has transferred expectations of social intervention or, at least, protection for the rights of the weak and vulnerable, to the sphere of justice. Hence, in some countries the social role of judges or public prosecutors has become more important and their work is publicly scrutinised to ensure that their duties are performed correctly and fairly. In addition to criminal law, social areas of justice (concerning workers and children) have become more central to judicial systems, conferring a new public responsibility on these professionals.

In several countries, including Portugal, public prosecutors are unusual within the legal profession given that they have equal status in both social and criminal areas of law. In certain systems, public prosecutors may act as a party, defending the rights of powerless citizens and leading them through the judicial process. Such powers offer great potential for fairness and justice but at the same time can lead to dangerous professional controversies. Through an analysis of the Portuguese model, one of the more advanced of its kind (in terms of intervention), some of the main features will be described and identified.

Public prosecutors in Portugal have, for many years, been in charge of a set of very varied responsibilities within the context of the Family and Juvenile and Labour Courts which far exceed what is publicly acknowledged, particularly in criminal matters. However, their functions are not limited to those of the ‘public prosecutor’ or ‘coordinator of the investigation’ typically associated with responsibilities in criminal matters.

Within the context of these two major and socially sensitive areas, public prosecutors act as intermediaries between the different parties and entities involved in litigation, a fact which, in professional terms, endows them with features which are atypical of magistrates and places them in close contact with citizens. Thus, taking a case study based on the Coimbra Family and Juvenile and Labour Courts as its starting point, this paper aims to map out these formal and informal functions, which create a level of importance that is probably much higher than would have been expected, particularly given the lack of truly credible and effective alternatives that enable citizens to access law and justice.     

Psychometric properties of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale version 11 among a Portuguese sample of incarcerated juvenile offenders

The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale version 11 (BIS-11) among a forensic sample of incarcerated male juvenile offenders (N?=?221). Principal Component Analysis with Promax rotation revealed the expected 6-factor structure, but Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the 6-factor first-order and the 3-factor second-order factorial structures did not present sufficiently good fits. Despite that, the Portuguese adaptation of the BIS-11 demonstrated generally acceptable psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, mean inter-item correlation, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and concurrent validity that justifies its use among the youth forensic population. Statistically significant associations were found with age of crime onset, conduct disorder, crime seriousness, alcohol use and drug use.     

Communications

How do people handle their regret at having believed that a foolish war was not just acceptable but necessary? Japan after World War II provides an instructive example. Many contrite Japanese revisited the aesthetic realm, looking for ways to interpret culture that did not convey the values of fascism, such as glorifying willing surrender to a powerful leader. They saw their task as engendering an individual aesthetic and therefore political subjectivity, so that Japanese would in the future more bravely resist state violence at home and abroad. These individuals saw culture as intrinsically political rather than as a refuge from politics. Recognizing the difficulty in countering fascist culture through ideas alone, they also created what economists today call “capacity building” institutions to help them do so, such as Japan's first museum dedicated solely to modern art, the Kamakura Museum of Modern Art, established in 1951. The founders of the Kamakura Museum self-consciously set out to create a new institution that would embody a democratic aesthetic and so prevent—they hoped—Japan from repeating the disastrous experience of war. The curators argued for diverse and dynamic modernities, a concept that parried both the idea that artistically Japan was a pale copy of modern Europe and the notion of a single national culture in Japan or elsewhere. At the same time, however, the legacy of the war was visible in an entirely different and less admirable way in the museum curators’ stance toward Asian modernity beyond Japan and its evasion of Japan's responsibility for the wartime devastation of China.     

The dark valley illuminated: Recent trends in studies of the postwar Japanese economy

Abstract

Historians are continually fascinated by the way a new idea, seemingly independently and simultaneously, emerges from many minds at once. Such ideas step assuredly into the mental environment that has been prepared for them by material conditions, but they seem to belong so naturally that it is easy to forget to question how they arrived. In the case of historians this often involves a re-examination of a historical period. The most recent years to emerge, reorganized in a novel interpretation, are those of World War Two. In several recent publications the war has been described as the crucible for Japan's postwar growth. This presents the embryo of a new theory of the origins of Japanese economic growth, competing with the earlier explanations of culture, miracles, and rational and evolutionary modernization.     

Introduction: The Territory of Identity and Remembrance in Okinawa

In the wake of the 1997 regional economic crisis, but before 11 September 2001, many Southeast Asian governments were besieged by formidable challenges to their legitimacy These challenges have been arguably mitigated by the political capital provided by the September 11 event as many regional governments have joined forces with the United States in its “war against terror.” These governments have uncovered the existence of regional terrorist organizations, such as Jemaah Islamiah, with alleged links to the al-Qaida network. With the ostensible routing of the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia has been postulated as the new front line and base for Islamic militants. While international forces have undoubtedly contributed to the rise of political and militant Islam in Southeast Asia, this article will highlight the importance of localized sociopolitical and economic sources of Muslim grievance and the vexed issue of authoritarian governance. It is imperative that these issues be seriously addressed if the ideological appeal of radical and militant Islamists is to be effectively mitigated.     

The three dimensions of online child pornography offending

Abstract

The internet has opened up opportunities for non-contact sex offending, such as the viewing of child pornography. This paper proposes a model for the classification of child pornography offenders as an aid for their assessment and treatment, deducted from empirical studies and existing typologies for child pornography offenders. Different subgroups of child pornography offenders may be described according to three dimensions: (1) type of offending, (2) the motivation behind child pornography offending and (3) the situational and social engagement in the offending behaviour. Distinct pathways of child pornography offending can be identified, related to differing criminogenic needs, severity of offending, and appropriate assessment and treatment strategies for the offenders.