Partner Violence Entrapment Scale: Development and Psychometric Testing

This article describes the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the Partner Violence Entrapment Scale (PVES), an instrument that evaluates the women’s perceived reasons for staying in violent partner relationships. After initial pilot testing, the scale was administered to 213 Spanish women who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). An exploratory factor analysis identified six factors: Socio-Economic Problems, Attachment and Fear of Loneliness, Blaming Oneself and Resignation, Impact on Children, Fear of Harm and Worry for the Partner, and Feelings of Confusion. Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating associations between PVES factors and socio-demographic, clinical and abuse variables. The scale appears to be a useful assessment tool for social and clinical settings. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity need to be replicated in other populations and samples.     

Cyberbullying Victimization and Depression in Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Body Image and Cognitive Schemas in a One-year Prospective Study

Cyberbullying, the harassment of others via new technologies, is a growing phenomenon with important consequences for its victims. Despite the growing interest in this new form of violence, only a few longitudinal studies have analyzed the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and psychological problems, such as depression, in adolescents. Furthermore, the mechanisms through which cyberbullying victimization contributes to the development of depressive symptoms remain almost unexplored. The current study assesses whether cyberbullying victimization predicts the increase in depressive symptoms over time and the role of body image and cognitive schemas in the association between cyberbullying victimization and depression. We hypothesized that victims of cyberbullying would develop a negative body image, the belief that others would hurt them and that they were defective to some degree, and that, as a consequence of these cognitions, they would increase their symptoms of depression. A sample of 1015 adolescents (mean age?=?15.43, SD?=?1.09) completed measures of depressive symptoms at three waves (T1, T2, and T3) spaced 6 months apart, measures of body image and cognitive schemas at T1 and T2, and measures of CB victimization at T1. Findings indicated that CB victimization at T1 predicted a worsening of body image and cognitive schemas of mistrust and defectiveness at T2, and those changes in cognitions predicted in turn an increase in depressive symptoms from T2 to T3. Gender differences were also examined. The model was very similar for boys and girls. However, changes in body image acted as a mediator between CB victimization and depression only in girls. Therefore, this study contributes to clarifying the cognitive mechanisms involved in the development of depression among victims of CB. These findings suggest that intervention programs with victims of CB should address the cognitions that are relevant for the development of depression.     

At the Turning Point to Repression

The murder of Boris Nemtsov in February 2015 means that Russian activists know that they may be killed because their public activity is not to the liking of some powerful actor. As the Kremlin has increasingly painted Russia as a country at war, it has created an attitude of emergency state legitimacy in which criticism of the authorities has become a crime. The labeling of some NGOs as foreign agents is part of a continuing trend toward increasing restrictions on civil society. Defense of traditional values and morality has been part of this trend toward increasing repression, which may result in the loss of all protections for activism and free expression.     

Responsibility and the Limits of Conversation

Both legal and moral theorists have offered broadly “communicative” theories of criminal and moral responsibility. According to such accounts, we can understand the nature of responsibility by appealing to the idea that responsibility practices are in some fundamental sense expressive, discursive, or communicative. In this essay, I consider a variety of issues in connections with this family of views, including its relationship to free will, the theory of exemptions, and potential alternatives to the communicative model. Focusing on Michael McKenna’s Conversation and Responsibility, I argue that communicative accounts, and the conversational model in particular, direct our attention to important and under-appreciated elements of our responsibility practices. However, rather than focusing on a model of conversation-as-address, as McKenna does, we do better to regard gossip as the paradigmatic conversational form that captures the main features of moral responsibility.     

Fiscal Decentralization and Federalism in Latin America

In contrast to years of centralization when the national governmentdominated the states and municipalities, fiscal decentralizationis now taking place throughout Latin America. This study considersthe reasons for this change. Fiscal decentralization meritsseparate attention because the financial independence of subnationalgovernments ultimately determines their success and power. Competingpolitical and economic explanations are tested on a sample of17 countries between 1985 and 1995. While federalism is a significantpredictor of greater fiscal decentralization, other factorssuch as presidential power, structural adjustment, level ofdevelopment, and country size also determine the level of fiscaldecentralization.     

Accountability or “Good Decisions”? The Competing Goals of Civil Society Participation in International Governance

Civil society participation in international and European governance is often promoted as a remedy to its much-lamented democratic deficit. We argue in this paper that this claim needs refinement because civil society participation may serve two quite different purposes: it may either enhance the democratic accountability of intergovernmental organisations and regimes, or the epistemic quality of rules and decisions made within them. In comparing the European Union and World Trade Organization (WTO) in the field of biotechnology regulation we find that many participatory procedures officially are geared towards the epistemic quality of regulatory decisions. In practice, however, these procedures provide little space for epistemic deliberation. Nevertheless, they often lead to enhanced transparency and hence improve the accountability of governance. We also find evidence confirming findings from the literature that the different roles assigned to civil society organisations as “watchdogs” and “deliberators” are at times difficult to reconcile. Our conclusion is that we need to acknowledge potential trade-offs between the two democratising functions of civil society participation and should be careful not to exaggerate our demands on civil society organisations.     

Domestic relations in Brazil: legacies and horizons

Grounded in literature review and an ethnographic study, this article examines contemporary Brazilian domestic life. Relations among women (employers and maids) and between women and men are analyzed with a focus on the home as a space in which gender, race, and class inequalities are constantly reproduced. The article argues that what happens in domestic life is constitutive of wider social divisions and that the domestic is a universe integral to the national social context. A case in point is the connection between the widespread use of paid domestic labor and the naturalization of black women as subservient, complementing the pairing of whiteness and class entitlement. Another case is the buffering role of maids in the development of gender conflicts in well-off homes, thus blurring gender hierarchies at a broader scale. Locating the domestic within the recent discussion on global domestic labor, the article compares particularities of Brazilian domestic life to those elsewhere.