Social Network Position of Gang Members in Schools: Implications for Recruitment and Gang Prevention

Schools are venues in which gang and non-gang involved youth converge. It is therefore a likely venue for gang recruitment. The extent to which this occurs depends upon the ability of gang members to connect with non-gang members. In this study, we compare the social network positions of high social status gang members who are well integrated into school networks with low status members who are not. Using network data from the Add Health study (n = 1,822), we find that not only are high status gang members strongly embedded within school networks, but that this status is driven by their ability to connect with non-gang members rather than other gang members (indicated by the high number of friendship nominations they receive from non-gang members). These gang members are potentially in optimal positions to influence others to join gangs. The implications of these results for school-based gang prevention programs are discussed.     

From the Claw to the Lion: A Critical Look at Capitalist Globalization

ABSTRACT

This article argues that capitalist globalization is largely responsible for creating or intensifying many of our most serious economic and social problems. It first describes the forces that drove core country transnational corporations to create a complex system of cross-border production networks. It then maps the resulting new international division of labor, in which Asian countries, especially China, import primary commodities from Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries to produce exports for core countries, especially the United States. In core countries, globalization has led to the destruction of higher paying jobs, financialization of economic activity, and stagnation. While the new international division of labor has boosted third world rates of growth, especially in Asia, it has also left the third world with unbalanced and inequitable economies. Moreover, contradictions in the globalization process point to the spread of core country stagnation to the third world. Capitalist globalization has increased third world dependence on core country consumption while simultaneously undermining core country purchasing power. The article ends by discussing a process and program of transformation that highlights the feasibility of an alternative to global capitalism as well as the organizational capacities and institutional arrangements that must be developed if we are to realize it.     

Political-Administrative Relations in Collaborative Environmental Management

One of the central ideas of liberal democracy is to ensure broad-based citizen participation in the governance process that goes beyond simply voting. However, evidence shows that on many occasions it has been failing to do so both in the developed and developing countries. As such, this paper, based on an empirical study, analyzes the scopes, forms, and nature of citizen participation in the urban local governance process in Bangladesh. It is found that citizen participation has been nominal in the local governance process due to a number of social, political, and institutional factors, for example, electoral politics, limited citizen’s accesses to various decision-making bodies, the existence of clientelistic politics and the presence of a weak civil society.     

加强政务微博建设的若干思考

政务微博作为了解民意、汇集民智和官民沟通互动的重要平台,对于进一步推进现代政府转型和民主政治建设具有积极的意义。     

Vulnerability among paupers: Determinants of individuals receiving poor relief in nineteenth-century northern Sweden

This study combines computerized parish registers with parish meeting records that account for individuals who received poor relief in the nineteenth-century Sundsvall region, Sweden. The combination of sources especially helps to explore the recipients who are overlooked in the literature or difficult to trace in historical data. Their demographic characteristics in relation to relief allocation and experiences prior to it are analyzed and show that they did not only share the occurrence of entitlement. Vast but insufficient family networks failed to give the recipients support to manage their distressed situation. Deaths and births of relatives jeopardized their capability to guarantee subsistence for them or their family, and so did also their gender and phase in the lifecycle. The multi-dimensional concept of vulnerability is employed to comprehend the dynamic determinants of poverty represented by individuals granted poor relief. It is argued that this concept has to be further developed but nevertheless helps to identify and stratify some of the vulnerabilities that characterized paupers in the past.     

Dynamic Attenuation: Terrorism,Transnational Crime and the Role of the US Army Special Forces

This article analyses the ability of the US Army Special Forces to combat illicit networks (criminal and terrorist) through ‘dynamic attenuation’. It is argued that a process of dynamic attenuation, where network ties and not the actors in the network are targeted, should replace the current US strategy of ‘killing or capturing’ criminal agents threatening US interests. By dynamically attenuating (not destroying) the ties between and among criminal actors and criminal organisations, the US can effectively reduce the capability of criminal organisations to operate and achieve their missions (profit and/or terror). This argument is substantiated by assessing the environments where criminal networks thrive, the characteristics of criminal networks, the utility of targeting networks instead of individual actors, and through a comparison of criminal organisations' and US Army Special Forces' strengths and weaknesses. This article concludes with implications and recommendations for US policy in the fight against criminal organisations.     

The Defining Elements of Advocacy Coalitions: Continuing the Search for Explanations for Coordination and Coalition Structures

As the theoretical and practical interest in policy networks increases, so does the need for further research into how, and based on what rationales, actors within a policy subsystem engage in interorganizational collective action and form political coalitions. The aim of this paper is to continue the search for explanations for coordination and coalition structures in the setting of Swedish carnivore policy. Based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and a previous case study within the same policy subsystem, the study investigates a set of hypotheses regarding actors' coordinating behavior and the defining elements of coalitions. The empirical analysis indicates, in support of the ACF, that perceived belief correspondence is a better predictor of coordination than perceived influence. Moreover, the explanatory power of empirical policy core beliefs in general, and normative policy core beliefs in particular, is further reinforced, while deep core beliefs seemingly do not influence coalition structure. The relevance of more shallow beliefs for coalition formation cannot be dismissed and therefore calls for additional research.     

The Brazilian Association of Regulatory Agencies: Integrating levels,consolidating identities in the regulatory state in the south

This article discusses a unique organization in the regulatory world, the Brazilian Association of Regulatory Agencies (ABAR), which brings together federal, state, and municipal regulatory agencies across different policy sectors. The paper argues that as a regulatory policy network, ABAR has been crucial to the professional socialization, capacity building, and institutionalization of regulators in Brazil. Moreover, it has promoted their identity as professionals and differentiated them from politicians, regulatees, and societal actors. Thus, while ABAR raises the shield of expertise to secure independence from political and social interference, it has itself become a relevant actor in the country's regulatory political dynamics, contributing as such to the strengthening of the Brazilian regulatory state.