The ADA on the Road: Disability Rights in Germany

This paper examines the impact of a "disability rights model" on the emerging disability rights movement in Germany. Traditional German disability politics and activism are based on the expansion of welfare and special needs provisions rather than on equal rights and integration. Inspired by the 1990 Americans with Disability Act, German activists adopted a disability rights model and successfully worked toward the passage of a constitutional equality amendment in 1994 and ant-discrimination legislation in 2002. Using the literature on rights mobilization, this paper argues that German disability activists use rights talk to both support and contest culturally specific approaches to disability rights, equal treatment, and the role of the state in guaranteeing welfare rights. The globalization of disability rights should not be viewed as an imposition of American norms but as a more complex process of adaptation and cultural transformation that involves constructing locally legitimate approaches to disability rights with an American import.     

Participation in Transition: Mobilizing Ugandans in Constitution Making

Can participatory programs in transitioning countries increase the involvement of citizens beyond the level expected from individual-level characteristics, such as demographic traits, socioeconomic resources, and civic orientations? To answer this question, I examine the causes of participation in the Ugandan constitution-making process. Statistical analysis of a random sample survey of 820 citizens demonstrates that although individual-level factors play a role, many Ugandans participated because mobilizing agents pulled them into the process. I argue that programs to encourage active and equal participation will be most successful if they supplement weak indigenous institutions of mobilization and help all types of citizens to participate early on in the transition to democracy.     

Effectiveness of Programs to Prevent School Bullying

Sixteen major evaluations of programs to prevent school bullying, conducted in 11 different countries, are reviewed in detail. Of these 16 evaluations, 8 produced desirable results, 2 produced mixed results, 4 produced small or negligible effects, and 2 produced undesirable results. These varying findings may reflect variations in programs, in implementation, in assessment methods, or in evaluation designs. It is concluded that high-quality evaluations are needed in the future, with randomized designs, theoretically grounded interventions, multiple measures of bullying, and attempts to disentangle the effectiveness of different program components.     

Some Men Named William Hunter

The Hunter family of Rhode Island produced two important American diplomatists of the nineteenth century. The elder William Hunter served for nine years as the American envoy to Brazil, where he exerted positive influence over the young emperor, Dom Pedro II. The younger William Hunter entered the Department of State in 1829 and spent fifty-seven years there under twenty-one Secretaries of State. For decades the department's third-ranking officer, he became its “mentor and authority.” The overlapping careers of Hunter and his two successors helped guide American diplomacy until 1937.     

DOES CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER? A CONTROLLED STUDY OF SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF CRIME CONTROL BENEFITS*

Recent studies point to the potential theoretical and practical benefits of focusing police resources on crime hot spots. However, many scholars have noted that such approaches risk displacing crime or disorder to other places where programs are not in place. Although much attention has been paid to the idea of displacement, methodological problems associated with measuring it have often been overlooked. We try to fill these gaps in measurement and understanding of displacement and the related phenomenon of diffusion of crime control benefits. Our main focus is on immediate spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of an intervention. Do focused crime prevention efforts at places simply result in a movement of offenders to areas nearby targeted sites—“do they simply move crime around the corner”? Or, conversely, will a crime prevention effort focusing on specific places lead to improvement in areas nearby—what has come to be termed a diffusion of crime control benefits? Our data are drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street‐level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as “catchment areas” from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20‐minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. They were supplemented by interviews and ethnographic field observations. Our findings indicate that, at least for crime markets involving drugs and prostitution, crime does not simply move around the corner. Indeed, this study supports the position that the most likely outcome of such focused crime prevention efforts is a diffusion of crime control benefits to nearby areas.     

¡Que se Vayan Todos! Popular Insurrection and the Asambleas Barriales in Argentina

In December 2001, Argentina experienced a decisive crisis. A financial collapse accelerated by the massive flight of capital and the IMF denial of a new loan was followed by a popular insurrection which, by putting forward the slogan ¡ que se vayan todos, que no quede ni uno solo ! forced the resignation of national authorities. Whilst Duhalde's provisional government is negotiating the conditions for international financial support, faced with inflation and the rise of the dollar exchange rate, social mobilisation is expanding in new forms. This paper argues that the popular insurrection of December 2001 opened a space for the reinvention of the political as negative politics, the asambleas barriales constituting one example of this.