State-sponsored violence as a tragedy of the commons: England's privateering wars with France and Spain, 1625–1630

The “tragedy of the commons” is the familiar problem that open access to a common property resource leads to overexploitation and to zero profits. A commons model is applied to an example of state sponsored private violence, the practice of privateering or licensed piracy. It is predicted that the presence of uncertainty about the value of the prey will reduce the amount of exploitation effort, and that industry profits may be positive due to both uncertainty and heterogeneous exploiters. Using data from England's wars with France and Spain between 1625 and 1630, the model suggests that the commons, represented by enemy merchant shipping, was not overexploited and that privateering profits were positive. The dynamic paths of privateering effort, ships seized, and individual firm profits were, however, consistent with the normal expectation that commons exploitation will peak and fall, as competition drives down returns through entry. “England was never richer than when at war with Spain.” Sir Edward Coke      

Adolescent Participation in Structured and Unstructured Activities: A Person-Oriented Analysis

The current study used a person-oriented approach to examine the participation of adolescents in both constructive, organized activities as well as relaxed leisure activities. The goal of this research was to identify different profiles of involvement in activities and the relations to psychosocial indicators for these differing groups. Activity profiles were created using cluster analytic techniques for 918 adolescents' responses in 11 activity domains. The groups were found to be both statistically and substantively unique and consistent with findings from previous research. Further, the groups showed meaningful and consistent differences across a range of psychosocial indicators, including academic performance, problem behavior, and mental health. Results indicated that adolescents' activity involvement was related to their psychological and behavioral functioning and that the profiles of participation across activity settings provide a more holistic view of teens' choices than do single variable models.     

Mapping the production of political communications: a model to assist in understanding the relationships between the production and consumption of political messages

High public interest today in political communications such as ‘spin’ and in political participation such as electoral turnout suggests that there may be value in exploring the processes by which political messages are produced and consumed, and their inter‐relationship with participation. It may be that what citizen‐voters think of message production influences how they consume political news and publicity (through observing and evaluating), and that the propensity to political participation is subsequently affected. This paper offers a model which traces the production of political communications, starting at their origins in the political class, and flowing via traditional political journalism or controlled media and new media to citizen‐voters who both observe and evaluate them (ie consume them) before, during and after making any political choices. It is hypothesised that the observation and evaluation of message production and content by political consumers influences both their types and levels of participation. Research of this nature into political organisations is relatively rare. Similarly, there is little evidence of investigations into other aspects highlighted in the model: attitudes of the political class towards political communications, the production of political communications before they reach the media and how they are received by the media, and their consumption by citizen‐voters in relation to the propensity to participate in politics. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Bonding in a High-Risk and a General Sample of Children:Comparison of Measures of Attachment and Their Relationship to Smoking and Drinking

Bonding in parent, peer, and school domains were compared in a general sample of children and a sample of children of methadone-treated parents. Bivariate comparisons revealed that children of methadone-treated parents had lower SES, and were significantly more likely to smoke cigarettes but not more likely to drink alcohol. Several measures of attachment were significantly different between the two samples across parent, peer, and school domains. Multivariate analyses indicated that the children of methadone-treated parents were more likely to smoke, even after accounting for the effects of demographic and attachment variables. For drinking, sample membership was not found to be significant. Attachment to school decreased the odds of both smoking and drinking in both samples. Peer attachment had no effect on the odds of smoking initiation; however,loyalty to best friend did predict increased odds of drinking initiation.     

How a Presidential Primary Debate Changed Attitudes of Audience Members

This article examines the effect of primary season presidential debates on voters' attitudes toward presidential candidates. Employing a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, we examine the 1996 Arizona Republican primary debate. We find that the debate led respondents to change their viability and electability assessments of the candidates and produced significant changes in respondents' vote preferences. In addition, we demonstrate that changes in viability, changes in electability, as well as differences between expected and actual debate performance influenced the vote preferences of audience members. We conclude by speculating about the debate's effect on the Arizona Republican primary, and by noting the potentially important differences between the impact of general election and primary debates.     

Multiparty electoral competition in the Netherlands and Germany: A model based on multinomial probit

A typical assumption of electoral models of party competition is that parties adopt policy positions so as to maximize expected vote share. Here we use Euro-barometer survey data and European elite-study data from 1979 for the Netherlands and Germany to construct a stochastic model of voter response, based on multinomial probit estimation. For each of these countries, we estimate a pure spatial electoral voting model and a joint spatial model. The latter model also includes individual voter and demographic characteristics. The pure spatial models for the two countries quite accurately described the electoral response as a stochastic function of party positions. We use these models to perform a thought experiment so as to estimate the expected vote maximizing party positions. We go on to propose a model of internal party decision-making based both on pre-election electoral estimation and post-election coalition bargaining. This model suggests why the various parties in the period in question did not adopt vote maximizing positions. We argue that maximizing expected vote will not, in general, be a rational party strategy in multiparty political systems which are based on proportional representation.