Commission Newsletter: Winter 1981

I.A.A. Thompson: Crown and Cortes. Government, Institutions and Representation in Early‐Modern Castile (Variorum, Collected Studies Series CS 427, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1993, pp. 352; ISBN 0–86078–393–6; £49.50)

Janusz Mallek: Preußen und Polen: Politik, Stände, Kirche und Kultur vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992. Schriften der Mainzer Philosophischen Fakultätsgesellschaft Nr. 12, pp. 207; ISBN 3–515–05943–1; DM 58)

Cristiana Senigaglia: Il gioco delle assonanze: a proposito degli influssi hobbesiani sul pensiero filosofico‐politico di Hegel (Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1992, pp. 235)     

Representative institutions among contemporary American Indian tribal societies

SUMMARY

In this article Rebecca Starr examines how a broad political consensus was maintained in the politics of South Carolina during the difficult transitional period that followed the gaining of independence. The colony's legislature had been firmly controlled by an oligarchy of planter and merchant families from the coastal plain, and centred in Charleston. Even before the revolution there had been tensions emerging between the oligarchy and the inhabitants of the developing up-country settlements, who had reason to feel that they were being neglected and excluded from representation. The article explains how the oligarchy succeeded in sustaining consensus, while preserving its own ultimate hegemony over the politics of the new state. This was done mainly by a skilful use of committee and petitioning procedures to neutralize and conciliate the potentially divisive political challenges from the up-country. These tactics enabled the oligarchy to maintain its grip on power until the economic development of the decades after independence generated a renewed planter oligarchy which transcended the old geographical divisions and provided a solid foundation for a new consensus in South Carolina politics that held good until the Civil War.     

Loss Due to Death and its Association with Mental Disorders in Juvenile Detainees

This study investigated the prevalence of loss due to death and its association with mental disorders in a random sample of 898 newly detained adolescents in Chicago, Illinois. Nearly 90% of youth experienced the loss of an important person; most had also experienced a “high‐risk” loss (e.g., loss due to violence, sudden loss). Minority youth were at particular risk. Youth with any loss or multiple losses were more likely to have mood disorders and ADHD/behavioral disorders, respectively, than youth who had no such losses. Interventions focusing on modifiable protective factors following loss may increase positive outcomes in this vulnerable population.     

Narcissistic Features in Young Adolescents: Relations to Aggression and Internalizing Symptoms

Recent research and theory suggest narcissistic features contribute to aggression in adults. The present study examined the association of narcissistic features with aggression and internalizing symptoms in 233 students of 5th–8th grade at three inner-city schools. A factor analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory in this sample revealed three factors: Adaptive Narcissism, Exploitativeness, and Exhibitionism. Regression analyses were used to predict the association of these three narcissistic features with self-, teacher-, and peer-reported aggression and self-reported internalizing symptoms. Results indicate narcissistic exploitativeness positively predicted self-reported proactive aggression, and narcissistic exhibitionism positively predicted internalizing symptoms. Narcissism and self-esteem interacted to predict teacher-reported aggression and self-reported internalizing symptoms. Results are discussed in the context of existing theories of narcissism, threatened egotism, and self-perception bias.     

Voters and macroeconomics: Are they forward looking or backward looking?

The political business cycle hypothesis has been criticized on the grounds that it is impossible for governments to generate a vote winning boom because voters judge political candidates by the performance they expect in the future. In this paper, we directly test the hypothesis that voters are forward rather than backward looking. We compare the conventional view that presidential popularity depends on recently observed inflation and unemployment to three alternative models which assume varying forms of forward looking behavior. Non-tested hypothesis tests reject the forward looking models in favor of the one with the recent actual variables.