‘Joe everyday,people off the street’: a qualitative study on mediators’ roles and skills in victim–offender mediation

This qualitative study examined multiple perspectives of participants who experienced a Victim–Offender Mediation (VOM) program in a Midwestern city in the United States. Of particular interest are the roles and skills of mediators. Data consisted of 34 face‐to‐face interviews with 37 participants including adult crime victims, juvenile offenders and their parents, mediators and representatives from referring agencies. Insider perspectives regarding the roles and skills of the mediators in restorative processes were revealed through personal stories. Although the majority of the participants reported that the roles and skills of mediators were consistent with restorative justice principles, this exploratory study also revealed that some roles and skills exhibited by mediators were inconsistent with restorative justice values, which shows the variance of ‘real world’ restorative justice. Recommendations are made to promote mediators’ roles and skills that are compatible with restorative justice principles.     

The attribution of responsibility in cases of stalking

There is a general belief that stranger stalkers present the greatest threat to the personal safety of victims, despite national victimisation surveys and applied research demonstrating that ex-partner stalkers are generally more persistent and violent. The just-world hypothesis offers a possible explanation for this apparent contradiction. The current research used nine hypothetical scenarios, administered to 328 university students, to investigate the assumptions that underlie attributions of responsibility in cases of stalking. It explores whether these assumptions are consistent with the proposed mechanisms of the just-world hypothesis, and whether they vary according to the nature of the perpetrator–victim relationship and conduct severity. Thematic analysis revealed that the victim was perceived to be more responsible for the situation when the perpetrator was portrayed as an ex-partner rather than a stranger or acquaintance. Furthermore, victims were perceived to be more responsible when the perpetrator's behaviour was persistent and threatening. These findings are discussed in the context of the just-world hypothesis and related to the proposed mechanisms by which a person can reinterpret a situation so that the perceived injustice disappears.     

Counting the cost of crime in Italy

We gauge the cost of crime in Italy by concentrating on a subset of offences covering about 64% of total recorded crimes in the year 2006. Following the breakdown of costs put forward by Brand and Price, we focus on the costs in anticipation, as a consequence, and in response to a specific offence. The estimated total social cost is more than €38 billion, which amounts to about 2.6% of Italy's GDP. To show the usefulness of these measures, we borrow the elasticity estimates from recent studies concerning the determinants of crime in Italy and calculate the cost associated with the surge in crime fuelled by unemployment and pardons. Indeed, in both cases such costs are substantial, implying that they should no longer be skipped when assessing the relative desirability of public policies towards crime.     

Shifts in police–informant negotiations

This paper examines the impact of increasing criminal cooperation programmes for police handler–informant relationships. Over the last two decades, many countries have introduced policies to regulate the use of criminal informants and defendants who agree to provide information or testimony in exchange for financial incentives, protection, and leniency. Many researchers assume this trend has no bearing on the relationship between the handler and the informant. Following this assumption, they maintain that agreements made with criminal trade participants are still informally negotiated and unsupervised. I investigate this oversight, drawing on data obtained from in-depth interviews with handlers and informants. Findings from this fieldwork illustrate that, in order to compensate for weakening of their discretionary power, police officers are developing new deceptive tactics in dealing with informants. Furthermore, the increasingly institutionalised use of informants has given handlers a false sense of security. Informants gain skills and knowledge from their relationship with handlers, which they can use to undermine the handler's authority.     

Role-Switching in the Dutch Parliament: Reinvigorating Role Theory?

The lack of explanatory power of roles in the study of legislative behaviour has led to questioning of the utility of role theory. The problem may be that scholars tend to focus on classifying legislators according to one role orientation, thereby running the risk of oversimplification. Using questions from the 1990, 2001 and 2006 Dutch Parliamentary Studies, this study explores whether MPs specialise in a particular role or switch between roles depending on the situation at hand. A general trend towards specialisation in the partisan role is detected, accompanied by a decrease in the number of role-switching MPs. Furthermore, it is found that whereas government MPs tend to specialise in the role of the parliamentarian, opposition MPs are more prone to put on their partisan hats.     

Budgetary Negotiations: How the Chilean Congress Overcomes its Constitutional Limitations

Recent research suggests that the Chilean Congress is marginalised in the policymaking process, especially when setting the budget. This paper argues that previous studies have overlooked the fact that the legislature uses two amendment tools – specifications and marginal notes – to increase the national budget and reallocate resources within ministries. This behaviour contradicts the constitution, which only allows Congress to reduce the executive's budget bill. To test this empirically, a pooled two-stage time-series cross-sectional analysis is conducted on ministries for the years 1991–2010. The findings clarify how the legislature surpasses its constitutional limits and demonstrate that specifications are useful to predict when Congress increases or decreases a ministry's budget.     

Neoconservatism,US–China conflict,and Australia's ‘great and powerful friends’ dilemma

Abstract

Following its time-honoured ‘great and powerful friends’ foreign policy tradition, Australia has been cultivating close ties simultaneously with the United States and China. Yet, as a rivalry between the two powers apparently looms large, Australia faces an acute dilemma. While the rise of China and the question of Taiwan are often cited as main causes of US–China discord, this article argues that the American neoconservative policy on China, underpinned by a belief in both military strength and moral clarity, is integral to this growing competition and is, by extension, partly responsible for the emergence of Australia's predicament. To avoid such a difficult choice, the article suggests that Australia should strive to curb the policy influence of neoconservatism both in the United States and at home by pursuing a more independent foreign policy, making clear its strategic postures on US–China relations, and helping establish a trilateral strategic forum between Australia, the United States, and China.     

Taming the tigers? Reforming the security sector in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Despite global trends towards military reform characterized by processes of professionalization and democratization, militaries in Southeast Asia have continued to play prominent roles in domestic politics since 11 September. This suggests that wider patterns of global military reform have not had as great an impact on the control, capacity and cooperative functions of armed forces in Southeast Asia as they may have elsewhere. In order to explore why the security sector reform agenda has had so little impact in the region, we investigate recent patterns of civil–military relations in Southeast Asia by focusing on the experiences of four of the region's militaries: Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. We argue that the security sector reform agenda is informed by a predominantly North American approach to civil–military relations based on a number of core assumptions that do not reflect Southeast Asian experiences. Hence, we ask whether the reform agenda itself could be modified to better suit the Southeast Asian context. We suggest that although the regional military sector has not reformed along a ‘Western’ path it is nonetheless possible to see other types of, and potential for, reform.     

The fly in the ointment? Chinese dissent and US–China relations

After the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June 1989 many Chinese pro-democracy activists have been able to settle in the USA. They have attempted to federate all the opposition forces overseas in an organization which aimed at influencing the US government’s policy toward China. However, plagued by factionalism, the opposition in exile has not been able to put to an efficient use the capital of sympathy that it enjoyed at the time of Tiananmen. After the failure of political organizations, Chinese dissidents have created NGOs which are regularly consulted by the Administration and the Congress. Since the mid-eighties, they represent a substantial factor in the making of American policy towards China.     

New capitalist processes,interdependence and the Asia–US private equity relationship

Abstract

Private equity has had a short but eventful history in East Asia, characterized first by US firm dominance and then by a nationalistic backlash. This article charts these earlier patterns, but argues that significant developments have taken place since the early 2000s, which have strengthened the position of private equity capital in the Asian political economy. As private equity deal-making has returned to Asia, new linkages have been formed between US private equity funds and local private equity players. Of particular importance have been US–Asian joint ventures, Asian nationals returning to domestic firms from US private equity houses and supportive local elites in the banking and pension fund sectors. The significance is two-fold. First, the spread of private equity has been founded on interdependent relationships between US actors and local actors, which have more successfully grounded the private equity industry in national political economies than its origins in the Asian crisis period. Second, despite the relative localization of Asian private equity, industry practices are still largely shaped by the US model of private equity and the merger and acquisition activity that it entails, rather than a distinct Asian private equity model. The findings of the article contribute to calls that have been made for research on the changing global economy that comprehensively integrates domestic and international levels of analysis.