State-sponsored violence as a tragedy of the commons: England's privateering wars with France and Spain, 1625–1630

The “tragedy of the commons” is the familiar problem that open access to a common property resource leads to overexploitation and to zero profits. A commons model is applied to an example of state sponsored private violence, the practice of privateering or licensed piracy. It is predicted that the presence of uncertainty about the value of the prey will reduce the amount of exploitation effort, and that industry profits may be positive due to both uncertainty and heterogeneous exploiters. Using data from England's wars with France and Spain between 1625 and 1630, the model suggests that the commons, represented by enemy merchant shipping, was not overexploited and that privateering profits were positive. The dynamic paths of privateering effort, ships seized, and individual firm profits were, however, consistent with the normal expectation that commons exploitation will peak and fall, as competition drives down returns through entry. “England was never richer than when at war with Spain.” Sir Edward Coke      

Seeing Canada Through the Referendum: Still a House Divided

On 26 October 1992, a majority of Canadians in a majority ofprovinces rejected the Charlottetown Accord in a national referendum.The accord capped the "Canada round" of constitutional negotiationsand attempted to satisfy Quebec, while also addressing otherpan-Canadian issues. The accord was defeated for different reasonsin different parts of the country. In Quebec, the "No" sideargued that the agreement did not meet their demands for greaterjurisdictionalautonomy within the federation. In the rest of Canada, the "No"side was particularly successful in demonstrating that the agreementdeviated from the principle of equality in the treatment ofindividuals and provinces. These critiques, inspired by differentvisions of the federation, lead in different directions. Inlight of these divisions, many commentators have suggested thatintergovernmental elites ought to abandon efforts of wholesaleconstitutional change. However, political developments in Quebecmay force these questions back onto the agenda.     

Unwanted fertility in Mexico

Data from the 1987 National Health and Fertility Survey were used to explore trends and differentials in unwanted fertility in Mexico. Women were classified in three educational categories: illiterate or incomplete primary, complete primary or some secondary, and complete secondary or more. The four urbanization categories were: under 2500; 2500 to 19,999; 20,000 and more; and metropolitan areas. The place of primary socialization was the place of residence until age 12. Two categories of employment of household head were included, agricultural or nonagricultural. The categories for mother's employment considered employment until the union and employment between the time of union and the birth of the first child. The proportion of births that were unwanted was estimated by calculating the total fertility rate for the year before the survey and comparing it to desired family size. The "total desired family size" was 2.4 for the entire sample. In other words, nearly 37% of the total fertility rate was undesired. The greatest differentials in percentages of undesired fertility were found in educational categories. 40.7% of the total fertility rate in the least educated groups vs. 13.6% in the most educated groups was undesired. Differentials in the other categories ranged from 1.9 for a history of employment before the birth of the first child to 8.8 for agricultural or nonagricultural employment of the household head. When effects of education were controlled, the percentage of undesired fertility declined as educational level increased for all rural or urban residence categories, places of socialization, and employment groups except women who worked before the first child was born. Women with more education, urban residence, and with histories of employment had the lowest levels of undesired fertility.     

The courts,interest groups,and public opinion about abortion

Public preferences about the availability of abortion under various circumstances have remained fairly stable over time. Yet a standard CBS/New York Times abortion question indicates that a significant shift in opinion occurred during the 1980s, whereby the public became increasingly supportive of legalized abortion as it is now. These very different patterns of public opinion about abortion suggest that the public perceived a shift in the abortion status quo, toward more restricted access, over time, and became more supportive of current abortion policy.A model of support for legalized abortion as it is now is developed that incorporates the influences of court activities and interest-group behavior. The analysis indicates that the public reacted directly to the activities of the courts, becoming more supportive of current abortion policy in response to media coverage of court cases that challenged the abortion status quo and Supreme Court nominations and confirmations. Although absolute preferences remained largely unchanged, it appears the public perceived an increasing threat to the status quo and became correspondingly less enamored with further restrictions on the availability of abortion.     

Measuring Economic Integration in Developing Countries: The Case of Central America

This article builds a composite index, the Central American Integration Index (IIC-AMPI), to measure economic integration. This index utilises a robust methodology and conceptual framework. The study shows that IIC-AMPI is responsive to variable changes and resistant to outliers. The findings indicate that the Deep Integration Process initiative dominates the current integration trend, as seen in the regional average score from 2015 to 2017, aligning with Guatemala and Honduras. Nicaragua demonstrates the most consistent progress, while Panama lags behind. The evidence supports the Customs Union as Central America's future integration path, highlighting the index's ability to capture the dynamic reality of economic integration.     

Measuring School-Related Stressors in Adolescents

Some 1620 high school students responded to 68 items that measure adolescent stressors. Thirty-five of the items were based on J. P. Kohn and G. H. Frazer's Academic Stress Scale [1(1986) An Academic Stress Scale: Identification and Rated Importance of Academic Stressors, Psychological Reports, Vol. 59, pp. 415–426] developed in the United States, while the remaining 33 items were developed from P. Strutynski's [(1985) A Survey of Queensland Year 10, 11 and 12 Student Attitudes to Schools and Schooling, State Planning Committee, International Youth Year, Brisbane] lists of the most frequently named problems of 2336 Australian high school students. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to test and develop a measurement model developed from an extensive review of previous scales. The High School Stressors Scale emerged from the analytic process and measures nine school-related stressors. For researchers focusing on school-related problems and stressors among adolescents, the HSSS promises to be a very useful instrument. It has sound construct and predictive validity and adequate reliability, as demonstrated by the goodness-of-fit indices the squared multiple correlations.     

Expectations regarding development during adolescence: Parental and adolescent perceptions

The aims of this study were (1) to compare the age-related expectations of parents and adolescents concerning the timing of achievement in a number of developmental tasks, (2) to examine whether personal characteristics of the adolescent affect developmental expectations, and (3) to examine whether discrepancies between the adolescents and the parents expectations are related to the amount of parent-adolescent conflict. The sample consisted of 508 families with adolescents (12–18 years old). During a home visit, a battery of questionnaires was administered individually to mothers, fathers, and adolescents. A new 24-item instrument to assess expectations for adolescents mastery of developmental tasks was developed for this study. Analyses showed that when the expectations of adolescents and those of their parents are compared at aggregate level, parents consistently indicate later ages for the achievement of developmental tasks than adolescents. Although parents have later timetables, parents and adolescents have strikingly similar views of the sequence in which achievement of developmental tasks should occur. The adolescents age appears to be the most potent predictor of developmental timetables, followed by gender, pubertal timing, and temperament, respectively. The amount of conflict within the parent-adolescent relationship was associated with differences in developmental expectations. The utility of the new instrument for research and clinical work is discussed.This research was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Health and Culture (PCOJ).     

“Comorbidity” of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems in adolescence

The purpose of this study was to examine in a sample of 11,516 secondary school students the extent to which different behavioral, emotional and cognitive problems (a) reflected one or more underlying common factors; (b) actually cooccurred; and (c) were single problems. Principal Component Analyses were performed and percentagewise techniques were used. PCA demonstrated that one or more general syndromes could not by far account for all of the variance of the variables. The results suggest the existence of adolescent subgroups with divergent comorbidity patterns: those who primarily report one single symptom; those who report concurrent symptoms either exclusively in the category of behavioral problems or exclusively in the category of emotional and cognitive problems; and those who report concurrent symptoms in both categories. This distinction between different subgroups has important theoretical, diagnostic, and treatment implications.     

Reviews

Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. London: Jonathan Cape, 1996, xx + 923 pp., £25.00

Hafeez Malik (ed.), The Roles of the United States, Russia and China in the New World Order. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xvi + 333 pp., £47.50.

Leszek Buszynski, Russian Foreign Policy after the Cold War. Westport and London: Praeger, 1996, xiv + 243 pp., £46.95.

Mette Skak, From Empire to Anarchy: Postcommunist Foreign Policy and International Relations. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1996, x + 340 pp., £35.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Hans von Zon, The Future of Industry in Central and Eastern Europe. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, x + 164 pp., £35.00.

Bartlomiej Kaminski (ed.), Economic Transition in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996, xviii + 430 pp.

Ben Fowkes, The Disintegration of the Soviet Union: A Study in the Rise and Triumph of Nationalism. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xii + 273 pp., £40.00

Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post‐Communist Europe. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, xx + 479 pp., £15.50.

David Lane, The Rise and Fall of State Socialism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996, 233 pp., £12.95.

Reneo Lukic & Allen Lynch, Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xvii + 436 pp.

Thomas Cushman & Stjepan G. Mestrovic (eds), This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia. New York: New York University Press, 1996, ix + 412 pp., $50.00 h/b, $18.95 p/b.

Derek Hall & Darrick Danta (eds), Reconstructing the Balkans. A Geography of the New Southeast Europe. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1996, xx + 260 pp., £45.00.

Ajay Patnaik. Central Asia. Between Modernity and Tradition. New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1996, viii + 238 pp.

Rudolf L. Tokes, Hungary's Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change and Political Succession, 1957–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xxiii + 544 pp., £19.95.

John D. H. Downing, Internationalizing Media Theory, Transition, Power, Culture, Reflections on Media in Russia, Poland and Hungary 1980–95. London: Sage, 1996, xviii + 269 pp., £45.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xi + 202 pp., £35.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Donald P. Steury (ed.), Intentions and Capabilities: Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces, 1950–1983. Washington DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1996, xxii + 504 pp.

R. W. Davies, Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy, 1931–1933. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xviii + 612 pp., £65.00.

William Chase, Jeffrey Burds, S. V. Praslova, A. K. Sokolov & E. A. Tiurina (eds), Russian Stale Archive of the Economy: A Research Guide: I. Guide to Collections. Moscow: Blagovest, 1994, xx + 679 pp.

V. P. Butt, A. B. Murphy, N. A. Myshov & G. R. Swain (eds), The Russian Civil War. Documents from the Soviet Archives. London: Macmillan, 1996, xvii + 217 pp., £15.99.

Ilya Somin, Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996, ix + 236 pp., £21.95, $32.99.

David R. Shearer, Industry, State, and Society in Stalin's Russia, 1926–1934. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996, xiv + 263 pp., £33.50 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Peter H. Solomon Jr., Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xvii + 494 pp., £55.00 h/b, £19.95 p/b.

Richard G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, Volume III, From London to Sèvres, February‐August 1920, xx + 534 pp., and Volume IV, Between Crescent and Sickle: Partition and Sovietization, xii + 496 pp. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996. £35.00 each volume.

Ian D. Thatcher & James D. White (eds), Journal of Trotsky Studies. Glasgow: Institute of Russian & East European Studies, 1993–1996, Nos. 1–4, £10.00 (Institutions), £5.00 (Individuals).

Mikhail Baitalsky, Notebooks for the Grandchildren. Recollections of a Trotskyist Who Survived the Stalin Terror, Edited and translated by Marilyn Vogt‐Downey. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1996, xviii + 447 pp.

Leopoldina Plut‐Pregelj & Carole Rogel, Historical Dictionary of Slovenia. London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1996, xxvii + 345 pp., £63.65.     

Book reviews

Roland Axtmann, Liberal democracy into the twenty‐first century: Globalization, integration and the nation‐state (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996), 198 pp., ISBN 0–7190–4304–2 (hb), 0–7190–4305–0 (pb)

Paul Kapteyn, The Stateless Market: The European Dilemma of Civilization (Routledge, London and New York, 1996), 194 pp., ISBN 0–415–12232–5 (hb), 0–415–12233–3 (pb)

Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger (eds), Postcolonial Identities in Africa (Zed Books, London & New Jersey, 1996), 292 pp., ISBN 1–85649–415–2 (hb), 1–85649–416–0 (pb)

Mark Wheeler, Politics and the Mass Media (Blackwell, Oxford, 1997), 274 pp., ISBN 0–631–19783–4 (hb), 0–631–19784–2 (pb)

Nigel Harris, The New Untouchables: Immigration and the New World Worker (Penguin Books, London, 1995), 254 pp., ISBN 0–14–014689‐X (pb)

Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997), 273 pp., ISBN 0–7456–1557–0 (hb), 0–7456–1558–9 (pb)

Leonard Weinberg, The Transformation of Italian Communism (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995), 147 pp., ISBN 1–56000–180–1 (hb)

Brian Jenkins and Spyros A. Sofos (eds), Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, London, 1996), x + 294pp., ISBN 0–415–12312–7 (hb), 0–415–12313–5 (pb)

Stuart Parkes, Understanding Contemporary Germany (Routledge, London, 1997), 247 pp., ISBN 0–415–14123–0 (hb), 0–415–14124–9 (pb)