Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

The Catalytic Effect of IMF Lending: Evidence from Sectoral FDI Data

Our study contributes to the search for the elusive catalytic effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending on inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). Recent scholarship has found that the catalytic effect is conditional on political regime and program stringency. We contribute to this literature by developing and testing a theory which describes how the catalytic effect also varies by economic sector. This is a departure from existing studies, which have tended to focus on aggregate FDI flows after crises. Our findings corroborate previous research, which finds that in general IMF lending has a substantial and negative effect on FDI. However, we find that the negative effect is concentrated in sectors that are highly dependent on external capital and have low sunk costs in the host country. Our findings are robust to several alternative explanations common in IMF literature, namely the importance of IMF program design and the ability of governments to make credible commitments to reform. Substantively, our findings suggest that investors are more likely to use IMF lending as an escape hatch in countries where FDI is dependent on external capital and has low sunk costs.     

Discourses on countering violent extremism: the strategic interplay between fear and security after 9/11

This article explores the construction of extremism in media discourse, the factors driving specific constructions and the implications of these constructions for counterterrorism policy. We contend that extremism has predominantly and increasingly been framed as a security issue. This article explores the implications of this practice through the framework of securitisation. We measure the average intensity of security framing in 38,616 articles found in three major US newspapers, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, between 20 January 1993 and 19 January 2017 comprising the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies, and look at factors influencing the shift in intensity over time. Through our analysis, we show that it is possible to return to a pre-9/11 discourse but that the confluence of real-world events and the strategic choices of political actors have so far prevented this from fully occurring. We then explore the effect of securitisation on public perceptions of the threat from terrorism, finding that increases in the intensity of security framing artificially increases the public’s worry about becoming a victim of terrorism. We conclude by discussing implications for the communication of counterterrorism policy and the requirements for an after, after 9/11 approach     

Implementing European case law at the bureaucratic frontline: How domestic signalling influences the outcomes of EU law

This article analyses the implementation of European case law at the bureaucratic frontline of European member states. Theoretically, insights from street‐level implementation studies are combined with judicial impact research. Empirically, we compare how EU rules on free movement and cross‐border welfare are applied in practice in Denmark, Austria and France. We find that when applying EU rules in practice, street‐level bureaucrats are confronted with a world of legal complexity, consisting of ambiguous rules, underspecified concepts and a recent judicial turn by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In order to manage complexity, street‐level bureaucrats turn to their more immediate superiors for guidance. As a consequence, domestic signals shape the practical application of EU law. Despite bureaucratic discretion and many country differences, domestic signals create uniform, restrictive outcomes of EU law in all three cases. Thus we show that there is considerable room for politics in EU implementation processes.     

Wasted Words? The Limitations of U.S. Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy

For America's foes in Afghanistan and the Middle East, triumph on the battlefield is less important than winning the battle of perceptions. In response, the United States has turned to Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy (SC-PD) to engage key audiences in ways that advance U.S. interests and to win the political-ideological contest for domestic and international legitimacy. But are these strategies effective? While winning hearts and minds is politically important, SC-PD—even at its best—is much less effective than other well-crafted and mutually supportive policies and strategies. Moreover, there are structural obstacles that greatly limit the effectiveness of SC-PD.     

A Profile of Violent Offenders in Spanish Prisons

In Europe, it is relatively uncommon to find studies that investigate the criminal profiles of violent offenders, especially infrequent are those that pay special attention to offenders’ mental health/substance use disorders and histories of violence during childhood. The current research explores whether inmates who are incarcerated for violent offenses (n = 536) in Spain are different in terms of the aforementioned factors as compared to inmates incarcerated for non-violent offenses (n = 536). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that violent offenders, as compared to their non-violent counterparts, were more likely to be younger, younger at the time of their first arrest, single, use alcohol, receive treatment in prison for anxiety or schizophrenia, and report physical abuse during childhood.     

Flesh of the Same Flesh: A Study of Voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 Federal Election

Using the 2017 post-election German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), this article examines the voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 German federal election. We show that AfD voters in 2017 were truly ‘flesh of the same flesh’ of the mainstream German political parties, with the AfD drawing its voters from across the political party spectrum as well as from previous non-voters in 2013. In contrast to previous scholarship, we find that in most respects AfD voters in 2017 did not differ demographically from voters for all other parties, be that in terms of gender, education, employment status, and union membership. Furthermore, we find that AfD voters were not driven by anxiety about their own economic situation: they are no ‘losers of globalisation.’ Instead, AfD voters in 2017 were driven solely by two factors: their attitudes towards immigrants/refugees and anti-establishment sentiment/satisfaction with democracy in Germany.     

State Capitalism in Time: Russian Natural Gas at the Service of Foreign Policy

This article explores the phenomenon of the enduring state control over the Russian natural gas sector. We suggest that explanations of the underlying motives can be classified under two broad theoretical categories: idealism and utilitarianism. Thus, we argue that state capitalism in the Russian natural gas industry can be understood through the idealistic claims of state power and of serving the national interest, which underpin the dominant perception of natural gas resources as a foreign policy tool. Moreover, we contend that although this perception is often considered as a product of the last decade, in fact it is rooted in history, as a legacy of the Soviet era.