Australia and the Baltic States, 1919–1945

Praised by international organizations, Estonia and Slovenia have long been considered among the most successful post-communist states. Estonia quickly transformed itself into one of the most liberal economies in the world, whereas Slovenia opted for a social justice-oriented market economy. Still, the roots of their success coincide in that consensus played a crucial role. We argue that the public sphere was never as repressed in Estonia and Slovenia during the communist period as it was elsewhere. Distinct national identities continued to be formed and re-formed by intellectuals during the decades of communist rule, who assumed roles as political leaders when the transition started. Consensus based on these national identities legitimized reform policies for the entire decade of the 1990s.     

LONG‐TERM CRIME DESISTANCE AND RECIDIVISM PATTERNS—EVIDENCE FROM THE ESSEX COUNTY CONVICTED FELON STUDY*

Two conflicting definitions of desistance exist in the criminology literature. The first definition is instantaneous desistance in which an offender simply chooses to end a criminal career instantaneously moving to a zero rate of offending ( Blumstein et al., 1986 ). The second definition views desistance as a process by which the offending rate declines steadily over time to zero or to a point close to zero ( Bushway et al., 2001 ; Laub and Sampson, 2001 ; Leblanc and Loeber, 1998 ). In this article, we capitalize on the underlying assumptions of several parametric survival distributions to gain a better understanding of which of these models best describes actual patterns of desistance. All models are examined using 18 years of follow‐up data on a cohort of felony convicts in Essex County, NJ. Our analysis leads us to three conclusions. First, some people have already desisted at the beginning of the follow‐up period, which is consistent with the notion of “instantaneous desistance.” Second, a three‐parameter model that allows for a turning point in the risk of recidivism followed by a long period of decline fits the data best. This conclusion suggests that for those offenders active at the start of the study period, the risk of recidivism is declining over time. However, we also find that a simpler two‐group model fits the data almost as well and gains superiority in the later years of follow‐up. This last point is particularly relevant as it suggests that the observed gradual decline in the hazard over time is a result of a compositional effect rather than of a pattern of individually declining hazards.     

MORALITY,MARKETS, AND THE ASC: 2011 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY*

This Presidential Address explores the possibilities for fruitful multilevel theorizing in criminology by proposing an integration of insights from situational action theory (SAT), a distinctively micro‐level perspective, with insights from institutional anomie theory (IAT), a distinctively macro‐level perspective. These perspectives are strategic candidates for integration because morality plays a central role in both. IAT can enrich SAT by identifying indirect causes of crime that operate at the institutional level and by highlighting the impact of the institutional context on the perception‐choice process that underlies crime. Such multilevel theorizing can also promote the development of IAT by revealing the “micro‐instantiations” of macro‐level processes and by simulating further inquiry into the social preconditions for institutional configurations that are conducive to low levels of crime. Finally, drawing on Durkheim's classic work on occupational associations, I point to the potential role of professional associations such as the American Society of Criminology in promoting and sustaining a viable moral order in the advanced capitalist societies.     

Reassessing the alcohol-violence linkage: Results from a multiethnic city

This article examines the relationship between alcohol availability and nonlethal violence at the census-tract level in Miami, a multiethnic city with high levels of disadvantage and immigration. The effects of alcohol (total outlet rate) are considered from the perspectives of social disorganization and routine activities theories. Nonlethal violence is the average annual rates of robbery, aggravated assault, and total violence (combined aggravated assault and robbery). The analyses include corrections for spatial autocorrelation. The results show that alcohol availability has strong positive effects on rates of nonlethal violence and that the percentage of recent immigrants is also a significant positive predictor.     

The Impact of Pro-Government Militias on Human Rights Violations

New data show that between 1982 and 2007, in over 60 countries governments were linked to and cooperated with informal armed groups within their own borders. Given the prevalence of these linkages, we ask how such links between governments and informal armed groups influence the risk of repression. We draw on principal-agent arguments to explore how issues of monitoring and control help understanding of the impact of militias on human rights violations. We argue that such informal agents increase accountability problems for the governments, which is likely to worsen human rights conditions for two reasons. First, it is more difficult for governments to control and to train these militias, and they may have private interests in the use of violence. Second, informal armed groups allow governments to shift responsibility and use repression for strategic benefits while evading accountability. Using a global dataset from 1982 to 2007, we show that pro-government militias increase the risk of repression and that the presence of militias also affects the type of violations that we observe.     

The British general election: Synthetic forecasts

Election forecasting work, in Britain and elsewhere, has been confined mainly to traditional approaches – statistical modeling or poll-watching. We import a new approach, which we call synthetic modeling. These models, developed out of forecasting efforts from the American 2012 presidential election, we are currently testing in a comparative European context. In this exercise, we apply the strategy to forecasting British general elections, in particular the upcoming 2015 contest. These synthetic forecasts come from hybrid models blending structural knowledge with contemporary public opinion. We generate ongoing nowcasts, from six months prior, to one month before, Election Day itself.     

Forecasting the 2015 British election through party popularity functions

To forecast the May 7, 2015 British General Election, we develop party popularity models based on Continuous Monitoring Survey (CMS) data from April 2004 to February 2015. Our models predict party vote shares three months prior to the election, using previous support levels, national economic evaluations, macro-partisanship and political measures. Our Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) methodology allows us to predict support for the Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats and “other” parties, separately, yet simultaneously, by constraining total support for all parties to 100%. Our model, estimated with data from February 2015, predicts that Labour will win the highest vote share in Great Britain, but that no party will win a majority of seats in parliament.     

Forecasting the 2015 British general election: The 1992 debacle all over again?

This article introduces and reviews a set of twelve academic forecasts of the 2015 British general election. Along with the vast majority of others including journalists and betting markets, they failed by a big margin to predict that the Conservatives would emerge with an overall majority of seats. Several suffered from the 1992 scale inaccuracies of the vote-intention opinion polls. Forecasts based on other data sources typically did a bit better, but also fell short. Nonetheless, this was not 1992 all over again. The dramatic collapse of the Liberal Democrats and rise of the SNP, UKIP and Greens were successfully anticipated. Also this collection includes numerous methodological advancements, with several new methods and developments to established approaches.     

Does the economy really matter for satisfaction with democracy? Longitudinal and cross-country evidence from the European Union

Research focusing on the relationship between the economy and satisfaction with democracy often presents mixed results. This article argues that this uncertainty is mainly due to model specification, number of surveys and measurement. After discussing why the role of the economy should not be overlooked, by using an empirical strategy that applies Bayesian cross-classified mixed models to 572 national surveys in 28 European countries from 1973 to 2013 drawn from the Eurobarometer, it is shown that objective macro-economic indicators and a subjective indicator seem to substantially affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in Europe. The findings are robust when controlling for various institutional and political variables and using alternative model specifications.     

Ripple effects: An exclusive host national context produces more perceived discrimination among immigrants

This article examines the perceived discrimination of immigrants – a group for whom experiences of discrimination can be damaging for their long‐term commitment and identification with the national core group. Taking its point of departure in the literature on national identity, the article argues that perceived discrimination should be strongest among immigrants in host national societies with an exclusive self‐image. This hypothesis is examined by use of multilevel regressions on cross‐national survey data from 18 Western European countries. It is found that where exclusive attitudes are widespread in the host population, the percentage of immigrants who perceive themselves to be part of a group discriminated against is significantly greater, all else being equal. In addition, there is a cross‐level interaction effect of host national inclusivity and ethnic minority identity which suggests that individual‐level determinants of perceived discrimination do not ‘work’ in the same way in normatively different contexts. In terms of the implications of these findings, the article points to the importance of contextualising individual‐level accounts of perceived discrimination, with particular focus on the power of a society's attitudinal milieu to affect individual feelings of inclusion and exclusion.