Family Closeness and Domestic Abuse Among Caribbean and South American Women in South Florida

This paper focuses on the importance of family member closeness as a protective factor against domestic abuse. We explore the link between long-lasting relations within the family and intra-familial violence perpetrated against women in Latino households in South Florida. We use data from an Inter-generational Transmission of Drug Use between Latina Mothers and Daughters (ITDMD) study. The study includes data on family relations and domestic abuse. We estimate a series of multivariate regressions to obtain the probability of abuse against women, the types of abuse inflicted and the relationship with the abusers. Our results indicate that among abused women, the effects of long-lasting relations within the family differ depending on the type of relationship between the abuser and the victim and the degree of closeness the victim feels towards other family members. Given these findings, there is a need to further study family relations and abuse in Latino households.     

Human Rights and Tear Gas: The Question of Carter Administration Officials Opposed to the Shah

Jimmy Carter’s arrival to the White House and Washington’s new focus on human rights caused an early, although subtle, rift between the United States and the Shah’s Iran. The aim of this paper is to explore how the Bureau of Human Rights’ activist approach, under the leadership of the outspoken Patricia Derian, muddied the waters between Tehran and Washington, while using the export of riot control equipment as the spearhead of Carter’s human rights policy abroad.     

Luxembourg

European Journal of Political Research -     

Violent Victimization,Aggression, and Parent-Adolescent Relations: Quality Parenting as a Buffer for Violently Victimized Youth

Prospective associations between violent victimization, the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, and the subsequent onset of violent aggression were examined. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), participants were divided into violent and non-violent cohorts based on whether they had committed an act of violence prior to Wave 1. Results showed that violent victimization at Wave 1 predicted the onset of violent aggression at Wave 2 for adolescents who were non-violent at baseline. Earlier violent victimization, however, had no effect on aggression trajectories for baseline violent adolescents. Parent-adolescent relations functioned as a protective buffer, such that violently victimized adolescents who reported high quality relationships with parents were less likely to be involved in violent aggression at Wave 2. Subsequent gender interaction analyses revealed that while the buffering effect was evident for males, parent-adolescent relations did not protect females from the onset of aggressive behaviors. Findings are evaluated in light of social learning and cycle of violence theories that highlight the role of violent victimization among adolescents.

Major vascular neck injury from a handgun cartridge casing

We present a case from the Johannesburg General Hospital of a zone II low-velocity penetrating neck injury with involvement of the ipsilateral subclavian artery. When the "bullet" was retrieved, it was noted not to be an actual bullet but rather a cartridge casing. We speculate that this injury represents one of several possible misfiring scenarios from a homemade firearm. Injuries from homemade firearms are infrequent in the literature, and only one other similar case of a cartridge casing causing a penetrating injury was found. A brief review of homemade handheld firearms is offered.     

Ironic Animals: Bestiaries,Moral Harmonies,and the ‘Ridiculous’ Source of Natural Rights

The Bible recounts that in Eden, Adam gives names to all the animals. But those names are not only representations of the animals’ nature, rather they shape and constitute it. The naming by Adam contains in itself the divide between the human and non-human. Then, there is the Fall: Adam falls and forgets Being. Though he may still remember the names he gave to the animals in Eden, he is no longer sure about their meaning. Adam will have to try to remember his own intentions. Through this effort he can also become aware of how he thinks, who he is, and what was the natural order he knew before the Fall. Medieval bestiaries tell us this story. Bestiaries are works of word play populated by animal figures. They depend on back-and-forth anthropomorphization, or circular metaphor. Animal figures are portrayed as both a mirror of human nature and a window on it. Bestiaries served as means for the moral education of human beings and, at the same time, a way to criticize the current state of humanity, including political and ethical habits. Within the moral irony of medieval bestiaries we can find the origin of the invented nature that modernity will try, subsequently, to insert into natural rights discourse through the teleological oxymoron of their naturalized and naturalizing counter-factuality (natural rights will be simultaneously “being” and “ought,” nature and values/ends). I will propose a historical-semiotic journey through the ironic representations of the human-beasts from the ancient world to contemporaneity. The proposal resulting from this cultural excursion is that the words included in the many national and international Rights declarations operate much like the names Adam gave to the animals and still more as they were re-read in medieval bestiaries, both textual and musical. So, can the words of Rights still serve as musical scores, open to an infinite play of re-signification? If we were able to overcome the modern culture/nature and human being/animal dualisms, we could cast, today as in the past, a zoological gaze on human rights by means of contemporary bestiaries and, in this way, perhaps find the gist of rights’ names and our ever regained and ever lost again humanity.     

Outsourcing a partnership? Assessing ACP–EU cooperation under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement

Since 2000 the cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states has been governed through the Cotonou Partnership Agreement. This article complements existing research that focuses on Brussels-based stakeholders with an analysis drawing on the existing literature and on stakeholders' perceptions of ACP–EU cooperation and ACP institutions gathered via interviews in nine ACP countries. The findings presented observe a social disconnect between, on the one hand, the Cotonou Partnership Agreement's institutions and Brussels-based representatives, and, on the other hand, the broad-based and multistakeholder partnership they are tasked to promote. The article points to low levels of support in ACP countries, particularly in Africa, to continued ACP–EU cooperation in its present form, and stresses the need for an open and participatory process of reviewing and reshaping ACP–EU relations.     

Fear is a Disease: The Impact of Fear and Exposure to Infectious Disease on Correctional Officer Job Stress and Satisfaction

This study examined individual and work-level factors that impact job stress and satisfaction for correctional officers. Existing research has explored officer job stress and satisfaction, but very few studies have focused specifically on fear of contracting an infectious disease while at work (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis), and the impact fear of and exposure to infectious disease have on correctional officer job stress and satisfaction. Random sample data were collected from 2,999 male and female officers from across the state of Texas to assess job stress, satisfaction, personal safety, and exposure to infectious disease. Ordinary Least Squares analyses indicated that fear of disease was positively correlated with job stress, and inversely correlated with job satisfaction. Exposure to disease however, failed to yield any significant effects on job stress or satisfaction. Officers who felt that their supervisors were supportive of them on the job reported less stress and higher satisfaction levels, while perceived dangerousness of the job was positively correlated with job stress. These findings highlight the importance of supervisory support as well as continuous, in-depth education and training on infectious diseases for officers.