The politics of war and debt relief in Uganda

This article analyses the politics behind Uganda's relations with its multilateral creditors, particularly the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in the context of the country's military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ugandan officials exploit the anxieties of creditors, which want the country to be considered a successful case of debt relief and reform to justify similar policies in other states around the world. In reality, however, multilateral creditors help to sustain patronage politics that is increasingly based on access to plunder in a neighbouring state. Positive economic-growth figures and social indicators mask the underlying vulnerability of Ugandan state institutions, as the country's military officers pursue private interests. As a result, creditors face real dilemmas in deepening their support for the regime of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, which is increasingly reliant on its external backers. Creditors are indirectly subsidising a patronage-based political strategy and the war in the DRC. Alternatively, if they decide to abandon Uganda, they may have to accept a dramatic rise in internal instability.     

Toward a Victimology of State Crime

State crimes have been studied by criminologists for nearly three decades. While far from stagnant, research and theory in this area of criminology have not developed at the pace one may have expected a decade ago. In an attempt to rejuvenate the study of state crime, we first identify and review the various types of victims and victimizers of state crime identified in the criminological literature. By employing a previously created typology of state crime, we discuss how individuals and groups of individuals can be identified as state crime victims in both domestic and international contexts. We then highlight the common themes involved in the victimizations, and offer six inductively generated propositions intended to facilitate future developments in the victimology of state crime. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Political Scandal: A Theory

We study a model that characterizes the conditions under which past misbehavior becomes the subject of present scandal, with consequences for both the implicated politician and the parties that work with him. In the model, both authentic and fake scandals arise endogenously within a political framework involving two parties that trade off benefits of continued collaboration with a suspect politician against the possibility of reputational fallout. Rising polarization between the two parties, we show, increases the likelihood of scandal while decreasing its informational value. Scandals that are triggered by only the opposing party, we also find, are reputationally damaging to both parties and, in some instances, reputationally enhancing to the politician. The model also reveals that jurisdictions with lots of scandals are not necessarily beset by more misbehavior. Under well‐defined conditions, in fact, scandals can be a sign of political piety.     

“Wild Years”: Rock Music,Problem Behaviors and Mental Well-being in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescent preferences for non-mainstream types of rock music can be markers of adolescent problem behaviors, but no study has ever investigated whether this...