Effects of Motivational Enhancement on Immediate Outcomes of Batterer Intervention

This article presents results of a quasi-experimental trial of a 6 week motivation enhancing intervention for batterers highly resistant to intervention. One hundred and forty one (29%) highly resistant batterers were identified from a consecutive sample of 486 men referred to a large batterer intervention program. Resistant batterers attended either standard intervention (16 weeks) or a specialized 6 week motivation enhancing group followed by 10 weeks of standard intervention. Observation of counselor behaviors confirmed significant differences in rates of confrontation across groups. Analyses of immediate program outcomes provide some support for the value of motivation enhancing intervention. Resistant batterers who attended specialized intervention completed intervention at a significantly higher rate (84.2%) than both resistant clients in standard intervention (46.5%) and non-resistant clients (61.1%). Differences were maintained even after controlling for demographic and lifestyle related predictors of attrition. Advantages of specialized intervention did not extend to counselor-rated success at meeting core treatment goals. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results for the use of motivation enhancing intervention strategies to improve attendance at batterer intervention programs.     

Latvians on the road to market democracy

This article began as a contrast between the politics and processes of budgeting and revenue mobilization in Latvia under Soviet rule and as an independent country. The dynamics of events in Latvia and opportunities presented during our research broadened its scope. The article became a broad review of the economic and political processes in Latvia since independence, with an emphasis on the effects of attitudes inherited from fifty years of Soviet rule, traditional Latvian values, and emerging public policies. The interdependence between government and business infrastructure is dramatically shown in the bank scandal of 1995. The bank failures caused near catastrophic reductions in tax revenues.     

Economic change and labour market policy: Corporatist and dualist tendencies in britain and Sweden

This article explicates John Goldthorpe's recent analytical distinction between ‘corporatist’ and ‘dualist’ tendencies in Western political economies. By linking these categories to macro‐economic strategies, the role of trade unions and the circumstances under which state policy is initiated, this dichotomy can be of value in the analysis of these polities. The article examines the major characteristics of British and Swedish labour market policy in the areas of wage policy, trade unions and training and education as they relate to the respective macro‐economic policies adopted by British and Swedish governments. These provide examples of the presence and development of corporatist and dualist tendencies in these two countries.     

Transgender Individuals and Psychological Intimate Partner Violence: a National Study

Journal of Family Violence - Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive public health problem in which transgender individuals are at elevated risk. The present study examined associations...     

Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: Evaluating and Selecting Anchoring Vignettes

Jonathan Wand Department of Political Science, Encina Hall, Room 308 West, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6044 e-mail: wand{at}stanford.edu e-mail: king{at}harvard.edu (corresponding author) When respondents use the ordinal response categories of standardsurvey questions in different ways, the validity of analysesbased on the resulting data can be biased. Anchoring vignettesis a survey design technique, introduced by King et al. (2004,Enhancing the validity and cross-cultural comparability of measurementin survey research. American Political Science Review 94 [February]:191–205), intended to correct for some of these problems.We develop new methods both for evaluating and choosing anchoringvignettes and for analyzing the resulting data. With surveyson a diverse range of topics in a range of countries, we illustratehow our proposed methods can improve the ability of anchoringvignettes to extract information from survey data, as well assaving in survey administration costs.     

No Evidence on Directional vs. Proximity Voting

The directional and proximity models offer dramatically differenttheories for how voters make decisions and fundamentally divergentviews of the supposed microfoundations on which vast bodiesof literature in theoretical rational choice and empirical politicalbehavior have been built. We demonstrate here that the empiricaltests in the large and growing body of literature on this subjectamount to theoretical debates about which statistical assumptionis right. The key statistical assumptions have not been empiricallytested and, indeed, turn out to be effectively untestable withexisting methods and data. Unfortunately, these assumptionsare also crucial since changing them leads to different conclusionsabout voter decision processes.     

中国与非洲的人力资源合作

中国与非洲的合作正在日益加深,这种有深刻历史渊源的合作大大超乎西方一些发展机构的预想。在中国的发展话语中,中国将自己定位于发展中国家,似乎是为了避免与非洲之间形成“捐助者-受援者”这样的不对称关系。另外,中国与非洲的关系以双边关系为主,强调的核心是互利互惠。中非人力资源的合作原则是“请进来、走出去”,合作方式主要有教育项目合作、师资合作,以及在中国对非洲国家人员的各类培训。中国当前与非洲展开的教育合作方式特别体现了这种“双边主义”。