Space Matters: Designing Better Electoral Systems for Emerging Democracies

Although the holding of founding and subsequent elections is essential for any transition from authoritarian to democratic rule, the comparative literature on electoral system design is limited on the experience of "Third Wave" democratizers. This is especially true with respect to the interactive effects between the choice of electoral system and the spatial, i.e., geographic, distribution of the vote—a critical factor that shapes electoral outcomes in all societies, but particularly in emerging democracies because many are plural and agrarian societies. Political elites in these countries have also rarely considered the impact of alternative electoral systems when selecting a system for their country. This article addresses these gaps in the literature and practice by presenting a computational model known as a spatial decision support system or SDSS that both explores these interactive effects and facilitates electoral design. The utility of the model is then demonstrated with data from Kenya and South Africa—two emerging democracies where issues posed by the spatial distribution of the vote have given rise to demands for redesigning or modifying the electoral system.     

The Relative Importance of Mothers’ and Youths’ Neighborhood Perceptions for Youth Alcohol Use and Delinquency

Prior studies have examined the influence of neighborhood perceptions on youth outcomes, but few studies have examined whose report of neighborhoods, parents’ or youths,’ are most important in predicting youth outcomes. This study addresses the relative associations of youths’ and mothers’ neighborhood perceptions with youth alcohol use and delinquency. The sample includes 499 mother-child dyads (youth age: 10 to 16 [mean=13.3; SD=2]). Structural equation modeling showed that youths’ perceived neighborhood problems were significantly associated with their delinquency but not their alcohol use. However, mothers’ perceived neighborhood problems were not related to either youth alcohol use or delinquency, suggesting that youths’ perceptions are better indicators of youth behavior. Youth reports may reflect their activities in the neighborhood and their exposure to different forms of deviance, so youths’ reports would be better indicators of exposure to neighborhood risk. Challenges for prevention are discussed. NIAAA Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Research Scientist at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, and the Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Berkeley, CA. Her research interests include psychosocial and environmental factors influencing youth problem behaviors. Interests are interventions for children with substance use or externalizing problems and their families. She is currently conducting alcohol, drug and other risky behavior prevention studies that include a focus on young adults in club settings as well as a variety of different family-based studies in different geographic regions (San Francisco Bay Area, Alaska, Thailand). Her work integrates both quantitative and qualitative research methods and centers on alcohol and other drug use, and related health issues among adolescents and young adults. She is especially interested in applying theoretical models of socially learned behaviors to populations with different cultural and social backgrounds     

Overlooking the merits of the individual case: an unpromising approach to the right to die

Abstract .
One of the strongest arguments against the legalization of voluntary euthanasia is that even though a given suffering or comatose patient may have a moral right to die, legal recognition of the right would lead inevitably to mistakes and abuses in other cases. The flaw in this argument is the assumption that it is always and necessarily a greater evil to let someone die by mistake than to keep a person alive by mistake. In fact, we cannot plausibly say that one of these two kinds of mistake is in itself, isolated from other factors, always more serious than the other. This point is illustrated by an examination both of a terminal patient whose prospect is a full year of intolerable pain (Matthew Donnelly) and of a patient in a "persistent vegetative state" (Nancy Cruzan). Moreover, it is untrue that legalization would necessarily lead to greater numbers of mistakenly approved discontinuances of treatment than of mistakenly approved refusals of termination, and numbers, it is argued, do matter.