Traumatic Events and Maternal Education as Predictors of Verbal Ability for Preschool Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Despite research on the effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) on children, little is known about its impact on cognitive development. In this study, 87 preschool-aged children and their mothers exposed to IPV within the last two years participated in interviews to ascertain verbal ability, history of violence, and exposure to trauma. When compared to a national sample of 1,700 same-age children not evaluated for exposure to traumatic events, children exposed to IPV scored significantly lower on verbal ability, as assessed with standardized measures. In order to understand variation in verbal ability, multiple regression models were tested. Both prior exposure to traumatic events and the level of mother’s education were significant predictors of verbal ability. However, level of education mediated the relationship between traumatic events and the child’s verbal ability.     

The Scottish Independence Referendum 2014

On 18 September, in a historic referendum, the people of Scotland voted by 55.3 per cent to 44.7 per cent to remain in the United Kingdom. This article provides an immediate response. It is inevitably provisional and broadbrush in character and cannot cover all of the varied and conflicting perspectives on the referendum and its consequences; it is just one man's view. Given the varied international readership of this journal, I shall assume little prior knowledge of politics and government in the United Kingdom or of its history. Citations have been kept to a minimum.     

Book reviews

Taking issue with the thesis (advanced by Weber, de Ste Croix, and others) about the link between unfree labour and economic decline in ancient society, Banaji claims that between the fourth and seventh centuries the eastern Mediterranean was characterized much rather by economic growth and the emergence of productive aristocratic landowners employing 'free' wage labour. These 'new' agrarian classes become in turn 'evidence' for the presence in late antiquity of early capitalism. The sources for such a reinterpretation, however, are either incomplete or wholly lacking. Locating capitalism in ancient society also reproduces the claim made by cliometricians that capital and labour are ever-present, historically non-specific and thus 'natural' economic categories that cannot be transcended.     

Nuclear-free Korean Peninsula: Visit of the MV Green peace Spotlights South Korean Nukes

Abstract

The problem of plutonium proliferation in Northeast Asia has received a great deal of international attention in the past few years, in the first instance over Japan's plutonium program, and most recently about the suspected production of plutonium in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). Both countries' nuclear programs have touched off regional and global fears of a de facto nuclear arms race.     

Torture Approval in Comparative Perspective

Torture is (almost) universally condemned as barbaric and ineffective, yet it persists in the modern world. What factors influence levels of support for torture? Public opinion data from 31 countries in 2006 and 2008 (a total of 44 country-years) are used to test three hypotheses related to the acceptability of torture. The findings, first, show that outright majorities in 31 country-years reject the use of torture. Multiple regression results show that countries with high per capita income and low domestic repression are less likely to support torture. Constraints on the executive have no significant effect on public opinion on torture.     

Living in the Past? Change and Continuity in the Norwegian Central Civil Service

In this article, the authors describe the changes that have taken place in the Norwegian civil service over the past 30 years, focusing on demographic changes in education and gender and on changes in civil servants' tasks, attitudes, and contact patterns. The changes are analyzed using tenure, structural, and demographic perspectives. The unique empirical database is provided by surveys conducted every 10 years of civil servants in the ministries since 1976. The main empirical findings are that there has been a combination of robustness and change. The findings show little support for the generational version of a tenure perspective, meaning that civil servants are not living in the past. The structural perspective, illustrated by the importance of formal position, best explains the variations in civil servants' contact patterns and attitudes, followed by the career version of a tenure perspective. Demography, as represented by different educational backgrounds and gender, also has an effect.     

Legitimacy and Deterrence Effects in Counterterrorism Policing: A Study of Muslim Americans

This study considers the circumstances under which members of the Muslim American community voluntarily cooperate with police efforts to combat terrorism. Cooperation is defined to include both a general receptivity toward helping the police in antiterror work and the specific willingness to alert police to terror‐related risks in a community. We compare two perspectives on why people cooperate with law enforcement, both developed with reference to general policing, in the context of antiterror policing and specifically among members of the Muslim American community. The first is instrumental. It suggests that people cooperate because they see tangible benefits that outweigh any costs. The second perspective is normative. It posits that people respond to their belief that police are a legitimate authority. On this view we link legitimacy to the fairness and procedural justice of police behavior. Data from a study involving interviews with Muslim Americans in New York City between March and June 2009 strongly support the normative model by finding that the procedural justice of police activities is the primary factor shaping legitimacy and cooperation with the police.