School and Family Factors Predicting Adolescent Cognition Regarding Bystander Intervention in Response to Bullying and Victim Retaliation

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Youth aggression occurs at high rates. Aggressive acts can be curbed through bystander intervention; yet, little is known about school and family factors that...     

‘In the way’: intelligence,Eden, and British foreign policy towards Italy, 1937–38*

In 1937–1938 a divide emerged over Italian appeasement between Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden. Chamberlain wanted to appease Mussolini with de jure recognition of his Ethiopian conquest. Eden disagreed and even resigned over the matter. Historians have struggled to define clearly Eden’s resistance. The intelligence archive allows for a reassessment of British policy towards Italy and Eden’s resignation. It shows that secret intelligence was central to Eden’s decisions and demonstrates the importance of intelligence in diplomatic history. It shows that Eden, almost alone, correctly read ambiguous intelligence on Mussolini and recognized him as an enemy of Britain.     

The welfare cost of terrorism

Data from 117 countries over the period 2006 to 2011 are used to estimate a macroeconomic cross-country system of equations that examines the association between terrorism, self-reported life satisfaction, and national income. Results indicate that terrorism is negatively associated with life satisfaction, whereas no such association is found between terrorism and real GDP per worker. Stark contrasts are found, however, between OECD and non-OECD members. In all, our results suggest that the social costs of terrorism are potentially much higher than the economic costs, and measuring only the conventional economic costs of terrorism significantly underestimates the true costs.     

Social Media Social Capital,Offline Social Capital,and Citizenship: Exploring Asymmetrical Social Capital Effects

In pursuit of a healthier and participatory democracy, scholars have long established the positive effects of social capital, values derived from resources embedded in social ties with others which characterize the structure of opportunity and action in communities. Today, social media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways. In these contexts, the question that arises is whether new forms of social capital associated with the use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital or if they are in fact a different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and effects. This study introduces social media social capital as a new conceptual and empirical construct to complement face-to-face social capital. Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in the United States, this study tests whether social capital in social media and offline settings are indeed two distinct empirical constructs. Then, the article examines how these two modes of social capital may relate to different types of citizenship online and offline. Results show that social media social capital is empirically distinct from face-to-face social capital. In addition, the two constructs exhibit different patterns of effects over online and offline political participatory behaviors. Results are discussed in light of theoretical developments in the area of social capital and pro-democratic political engagement.     

Strategic bureaucracies: transnational funding and mundane practices of Ghanaian local governments

The influence wielded by international development actors in Global South bureaucracies remains enormous. These actors actively shape the policy-making practices and funding of local state bureaucracies. Nevertheless, local bureaucracies have become adept at strategically appropriating that influence to their own benefit and to appear legitimate in order to exact development funds for their everyday tasks. Empirical data from two local self-governing areas in Ghana show that attempts towards gaining legitimacy are not only influenced by self-interest but also by external development funds seeking to promote the performance of the local state. Despite numerous institutional changes to enhance participation, the daily tasks of the local political structures tend rather to focus on assessments and qualification for development funds. Although these funds add to the local resource pool, at the same time they inhibit the realisation of the local state’s grandiose promise of reforms promoting participatory development.     

The metagovernance of English devolution

Metagovernance refers to a theory of how governments steer decentralised networks by indirectly shaping the rules and norms of those networks. This article develops metagovernance conceptually and empirically by looking at the use of ‘hands-off’ metagovernance tools in the case of English devolution, which encompass the ‘designing’ and ‘framing’ of local governance networks in the process of their reconfiguration. These concepts provide insights into how a Conservative-led Coalition Government subtly centralised power in the process of devolution to city-regions. Our analysis shows how discursive framing, fiscal conditioning and the recomposition of local governance networks produced a reworking of centre-local and intra-local power relations in a way which allowed the Treasury to shape the priorities of a set of ‘devolution deals’ with regional authorities, emphasising boosting economic growth and improving public services.     

Patterns of Spiritual Connectedness during Adolescence: Links to Coping and Adjustment in Low-Income Urban Youth

Religiosity and spirituality are influential experiences that buffer adverse effects of stressors. Spirituality typically declines during adolescence, although not universally. Using Latent Class Growth Analysis, we examined changes in spiritual connectedness among 188 early (52% female; M age?=?10.77, SD?=?0.65 years) and 167 middle (56% female; M age?=?13.68, SD?=?0.82 years) predominantly African American adolescents participating in a 4-year longitudinal study. Three distinct profiles of spiritual connectedness emerged: low and steady, moderate with declines over the study period, and high and steady. Profile distributions varied across developmental level: there were more early adolescents in the high and steady profile and more middle adolescents in the decliner profile. Youth in the high and steady profile evidenced more goal-directedness and life satisfaction and more effective emotion management and coping strategies than youth in other profiles. Contributions to the positive development literature are discussed.     

Undergraduate Research at Two-Year Community Colleges

There is a growing movement in academia that focuses on increased efforts at undergraduate research. Historically, this movement has been driven by faculty in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and has only recently become a focus for social sciences in general and political science in particular. For students to be successful at conducting undergraduate research, they should be exposed to it as soon as they are ready. This requires exposing students to undergraduate research in the freshmen and sophomore years. There is no reason this exposure should be limited to four-year institutions. To that end, a new journal has been created for students in political science and other social science courses at two-year colleges so they can be recognized for their undergraduate research. The Social Science Text and Academic Research (STAR) Journal is a peer/faculty-reviewed journal limited to students at two-year colleges.     

The Return to the Pressure Track: The Trump Administration and the Iran Nuclear Deal

During the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, Donald Trump promised to “renegotiate” the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The deal does not prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and in some ways actually makes it easier for Iran to go nuclear in the future. The mere continuation of the current deal could undermine America’s interests in the Middle East and its global non-proliferation policy. How then can the Donald Trump Administration work to renegotiate the deal? This analysis provides a strategy that the Trump Administration can follow to improve American policy toward Iran, namely do what Iran is doing to the United States: abide by the strict terms of the agreement, whilst competing in all of the ways not covered in the deal. From an American perspective, increasing pressure on Tehran will constrain Iran’s destabilising influence in the region. Over time, Washington can leverage the pressure to force Iran back to the table to strike a renegotiated agreement that eliminates, not just delays, the Iranian nuclear and missile threat.     

The Rise of Referendums: A Death Sentence for Multilateralism?

Perhaps the most notable development of the second half of the twentieth century, and its greatest achievement, is the rapid global spread of two institutions: democracy and multilateralism. These institutions have collectively made us safer and more prosperous than any previous generation in history. But could the two now be coming into conflict? Recent experience regarding the EU suggests both that referendums as a tool of foreign policy decision-making are likely to become more common in the future, and that they pose major risks for multilateralism and international cooperation.