SEVERE SANCTIONS,EASY CHOICE? INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF SCHOOL SANCTIONS IN PREVENTING ADOLESCENT VIOLENT OFFENDING*

Although schools in the United States adopted harsher disciplinary policies in the early 1990s, to date, there is little evidence showing whether severe school sanctions against student misconduct prevent crime. Drawing on both deterrence and rational choice theories, we test the proposition that harsh school‐based policies against violence reduce students’ involvement in violent behavior. However, in contrast to prior research that explores the direct link between sanctions and student behavior, we emphasize the role of school sanctions in adolescent cognitive decision‐making processes, hypothesizing that school sanctions against violence condition the effect of thoughtfully reflective decision making (TRDM) on adolescent involvement in violent behavior. We use data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to test our research hypotheses. The results from a series of multilevel models show that more severe school sanctions against violence (i.e., home suspension and expulsion) disarm the process of cognitive reflection and attenuate the effect of low TRDM on violent offending.     

Academic Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Quality of Experience in Learning

This study investigated learning activities and associated quality of experience of students with different levels of perceived academic self-efficacy. Two groups were formed out of 130 Italian adolescents (age 15–19), one with high and one with low academic self-efficacy beliefs (31 and 32 participants, respectively). Students provided valuation of academic pursuits and aspirations, and were monitored for one week with experience sampling method (ESM). Attention was paid to the association of learning activities with optimal experience, characterized by high perceived environmental challenges matched by high personal skills, involvement, concentration and intrinsic reward. High self-efficacy students reported higher academic aspirations and pursuits than low self-efficacy students. They also spent more time in homework, and primarily associated learning activities with optimal experience. Results have educational implications in fostering motivation and enjoyment in learning. They also provide empirical support for the combination of self-efficacy beliefs and quality of experience in motivational research. Lecturer of Psychology at the Medical School of the University of Milan, Italy. She received her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Milan. She has conducted research in human development, focusing on adolescents’ quality of experience and identity building, as well as on methodological aspects of experience sampling procedures. She received her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Padua. Her main interests focus on the study of subjective and psychological well-being across the life span, as well as on methodological aspects of longitudinal research Her main research interests are the cross-cultural investigation of the quality of daily experience and its long-term developmental impact. She is supervisor in intervention projects on migration, disability and social maladjustment His major research interests include personality development and personality assessment along the life span. He is supervisor in longitudinal projects on psychosocial adjustment from childhood to young adulthood     

DISCERNING UNFAIRNESS WHERE OTHERS MAY NOT: LOW SELF-CONTROL AND UNFAIR SANCTION PERCEPTIONS

Criminologists have long recognized that whether one perceives a sanction as fair or unfair influences the deterrent success of sanctions and the legitimacy afforded to legal authority. Unfortunately, although several scholars have claimed that individual characteristics influence how sanctions are interpreted, very little research has explored the individual factors that influence how one perceives sanctions to be fair/unfair. In this study, we take Gottfredson and Hirschi's notion of self-control and use it to explain, in part, whether an individual perceives a sanction as fair/unfair. We also examine how sanction perceptions and low self-control influence the perceived anger that may result from being singled out for sanctioning and whether self-control conditions the relationship between perceptions and anger. Our results suggest that individuals with low self-control are more likely to perceive sanctions as unfair, that unfair sanctions and low self-control lead to perceived anger for being singled out for punishment and that self-control conditions the effect of unfair sanction perceptions on perceived anger. Future directions are outlined.     

The current EU/US–Russia conflict over Ukraine and the WTO: a preliminary note on (trade) restrictive measures

In 2012, the Russian Federation (RF) joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) as its 156th member. Two years later, an international conflict over the developments in Ukraine in general and the changing status of Crimea erupted, which henceforth saw the RF, the United States (US), and the European Union (EU) drawn into a circle of the unilateral imposition of trade and other restrictive measures. This article looks at the trade aspects of the ensuing conflict and provides a detailed survey of the restrictive measures imposed by the EU, the US, and the RF from the perspective of the national legal orders of the jurisdictions concerned, as well as from the international perspective of the applicable WTO trade rules. It includes a critical assessment of the compatibility of economic sanctions with the parties' WTO commitments, as well as the possibility of addressing the current divergences under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.     

Foreign policy begins at home: the local origin of support for US democracy promotion

ABSTRACT

Citizens hold opinions about what kinds of foreign policy their government should pursue. Because foreign policy often has geographically specific domestic consequences, we expect opinions to vary with the locality of its impact. In this article, we examine whether individual support for US foreign policy to promote democracy abroad depends on exactly where the policy’s domestic impact will occur. We expect individuals to favor policies that bestow local benefits while opposing those that impose local costs. Accordingly, we argue that support for proposed democracy aid grants will be higher when such aid benefits local firms and organizations. Conversely, we expect that opposition to proposed economic sanctions in the form of development aid cuts will be higher when the associated domestic costs stemming from lost jobs fall locally. Using the results from an original survey experiment, we find evidence that a positive local impact of aid increases support for and reduces opposition to democracy promotion, while a negative local impact of sanctions reduces indifference and increases opposition to punitive policy in the case of democratic backsliding.     

On the optimal complexity of law and legal rules harmonization

This paper analyses the determination of the complexity of legal rules in a context of harmonization between different countries. We first assume that there are no harmonization gains. We show that if the optimal complexity levels of legal rules are equal across countries, their common level will stick when legal rules are harmonized. When these levels are different, one nation-state may lose to the determination of a uniform level of complexity. However, when there are harmonization gains we show that if these harmonization gains are large enough, complex legal rules are optimal. Moreover, we show that each nation-state could gain from the determination of a uniform level of complexity, even if this level is not its preferred one.