Parental Sociopathy as a Predictor of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Research on childhood sexual abuse has often examined, in isolation of one another, such highly correlated risk factors as parental substance abuse, domestic violence, and pathological family functioning. Investigating comorbid antecedents separately does not allow accurate specification of the predictors of abuse. Moreover, sexual trauma research has tended to neglect parental sociopathy as a risk factor. Given the limitations of past research, the present study examined the relationships among parental sociopathy, parental substance use, marital violence, poor family functioning, and childhood sexual abuse. We administered a battery of questionnaires to a nonclinical sample of 130 college women and replicated previous findings by showing that parental substance use predicted sexual abuse when examined in isolation. However, when parental sociopathy and the other risk factors were included in a regression model, parental sociopathy was the only significant predictor. Mother's and father's sociopathy predicted sexual abuse independently and when combined.     

Strength and Commitment of the State: It Takes Two to Tango – A Case Study of Economic Reforms in Argentina in the 1990s

This paper addresses the question of why radical economicreforms became a reality in Argentina in the 1990s byconcentrating on the political andinstitutional dimensions of economic policy reform. Itpresents a framework for analyzing the determinants ofthe quality of economic institutions, notably thepolitical commitment of the state to provide propertyand contract rights, and its administrative capacity(``strength'') in implementing them. The framework isapplied to Argentina under the government of presidentCarlos Menem. The results of an empirical analysisclearly show an improvement in institutional quality,the state strength and commitment during Menem's firstterm. In turn, during his second term, the indicatorsshow ongoing signs of decline. Considering theprospects for Argentina in the near future,deficiencies of commitment with regard to democraticcontrol mechanisms represent a permanent threat tothe economic reforms realized so far.     

The role of debt,death and dispossession in world-ecological transformations: swidden commons and tar capitalism in nineteenth-century Finland

ABSTRACT

This article theorises about the ways in which commodity frontiers replace forest commons. New insights are offered into the role of debt, enclosures, the death of human and extra-human natures, and the role of the state in historical processes through an analysis of historical material and recent scholarship on eastern Finland's role in global capitalist expansion in the nineteenth century. The article contributes to the general study of commons and the expansion of capitalist world-ecology. We discuss how swidden commons were more sustainable than generally assumed. The article provides an original theoretical framework for studying world-ecological transformations. We argue that a study of debt, death and dispossession – which we call the three work-horses of tar capitalism – can shed new light on the expansion of commodity frontiers.     

The political economy of global tree plantation expansion: a review

This contribution analyses the recent global expansion of different types of tree plantations. A literature review collates accounts from recent academic publications and by NGOs, and is accompanied by field research and interview observations about the causal processes, central features and likely futures of contemporary tree plantation expansion. I will analyse the political and spatial causalities explaining varieties and commonalities in expansion style and pace, with elaboration on the applied and empirical significance of these findings for peasant studies. The literature on environmental and developmental impacts of tree plantation expansion is also surveyed.     

Educational business cycles

Strong institutional constraints and better-informed voters may lead re-election seeking incumbents to shift the use of political business cycle mechanisms away from monetary and fiscal policy towards other policy domains that are more easily manipulable, targetable, and timeable. We investigate teacher employment patterns at the state level in Germany and find strong evidence of cycling mechanisms, in the form of electioneering and honeymooning. Against a backdrop of a continuously shrinking total teachers’ pool, German state-level incumbents accelerate the hiring of new teachers during election periods and partly reverse this during politically safer points in the electoral cycle. Cycles are mediated by issue salience: heightened attention to German public schooling after the notorious PISA-2000 tests further strengthens the manipulation of new teacher hiring for electoral purposes.     

Post-Islamism and fields of contention after the Arab Spring: feminism,Salafism and the revolutionary youth

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, conflicts in Egypt and Tunisia over the authority to rule and the role of religion in society raised questions about these societies’ capacity for reconciling differences. In retrospect, the conflicts also raise questions about the theoretical tools used to analyse regional developments. In particular, the ‘post-Islamism’ thesis has significantly changed the debates on ‘Islam and democracy’ by bringing to light the changing opportunity structures, and changed goals, of Islamist movements. However, this paper argues that the theory underestimates differences within post-Islamist societies. Drawing on field theory, the paper shows how the actual content of post-Islamism is contingent on political struggle. It focuses on three fields whose political roles have been underestimated or misrepresented by post-Islamist theorists: Islamic feminism, Salafist-jihadism and the revolutionary youth. Their respective forms of capital – sources of legitimacy and social recognition – give important clues for understanding the stakes of the conflicts after the Arab Spring.     

Stumbling block or stepping stone? The influence of direct democracy on individual participation in parliamentary elections

This paper evaluates whether direct democracy supplements or undermines traditional representative democracy. While a first approach assumes that a culture of active direct democracy stimulates citizens’ political interest and ultimately bolsters participation in parliamentary elections, a competing hypothesis proposes a negative relationship between the frequency of ballot measures and electoral participation due to voter fatigue and decreased significance of elections. Our multilevel analysis of the 26 Swiss cantons challenges recent studies conducted for the U.S. states: In the Swiss context, where direct democracy is more important in the political process than the less salient parliamentary elections, greater use of direct democratic procedures is associated with a lower individual probability to participate in elections. Furthermore, by distinguishing between short and long-term effects of direct democracy, we show that the relationship observed is of a long-term nature and can therefore be seen as a result of adaptive learning processes rather than of instantaneous voter fatigue.     

Patterned imprint mark due to the folded shoulder stock: A possible finding in contact shots from submachine guns

The muzzle imprint (barrel mark) is a pressure abrasion typically associated with contact shots. Apart from the contours of the actual muzzle profile, other constructional parts such as the front sight and/or the recoil spring guide of semiautomatic pistols may be imprinted next to the bullet entrance wound. In some types of submachine guns the shoulder stock can be folded forward so that its end partly encircles the muzzle. If such a weapon was in contact with the skin at the instant of discharge, a corresponding contusion mark is to be expected. The imprint configuration may point to the type of weapon and to the way in which the gun had been held when firing the shot. The paper presents the injury pattern in a 36-year-old man who committed suicide with a Scorpion SA Vz 61 submachine gun cal. 7.65 mm Browning from former Czechoslovakia.     

Zur Entwicklung der Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland

For a long time, the social policy discussion in Germany has been heavily dominated by income inequality and poverty risk rates, while at the same time the analysis of personal wealth distribution was underdeveloped, last but not least due to a severe lack of appropriate data. Using representative micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), this paper analyzes individual level information on net wealth for 2002 and 2007. This five year period saw a pronounced increase in both income and wealth inequality. More detailed analyses by SES reveal significant differences in wealth holdings by migration status, education level, region, income level as well as across age groups. This cross-sectional perspective is being enriched by panel analyses focusing on correlates of individual wealth holdings as well as on determinants of wealth mobility. Using a multivariate regression framework we find clear indication for the relevance of the individual employment and income career as well as a sustaining importance of intergenerational transmission (by means of bestowals and inheritance) for both wealth accumulation and mobility.