The emergence of a civilian power: Germany and central Europe

This article argues that in its policies towards the central European countries, unified Germany displayed the characteristics of a civilian power. This was a consequence of the changes the west German state had undergone since its inception, which predisposed it towards a particular foreign policy. The article has three sections. It first sketches the ideal type civilian power, and places its normative commitments in the tradition of international liberalism. The second section illustrates the particular German circumstances that make an inclination towards a civilian foreign policy possible. The third section presents an outline of selected German policies towards the Visegrad countries, namely aid, trade, and institutional extension, and compares the findings with the civilian power ideal type introduced in Part I.     

Bausteine des Vertrauens — eine Begriffsanalyse

Vertrauen ist in den vergangenen Jahren zu einem in den Wirtschafts-, aber auch den Sozialwissenschaften populären Forschungsgegenstand geworden. Es wird mit verschiedenen Fragestellungen sowie unter Zugrundelegung unterschiedlicher handlungstheoretischer Grundannahmen untersucht. Dementsprechend existiert eine ganze Reihe wissenschaftlicher Vertrauenskonzepte, die vielfach kaum kompatibel sind: Ähnlich wie in der Sprache des Alltags wird auch im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs eine mehr oder minder heterogene Klasse von Beziehungen und Entscheidungen unter dem Begriff des Vertrauens gefasst. Dieser Beitrag möchte einen systematischen Überblick über die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede wissenschaftlicher Vertrauenskonzepte geben. Zu diesem Zweck werden einzelne Dimensionen des Phänomens ?Vertrauen“ unterschieden, entlang derer eine Begriffsanalyse erfolgt. Hinter dieser Begriffsanalyse steht das fernere Erkenntnisinteresse, den Blick für potenzielle Vertrauensressourcen zu schärfen, entsprechend der Einsicht, dass sich Vertrauen als eine Form von ?social capital“ verstehen lässt. Die Identifikation von Vertrauensressourcen erfordert es, unterschiedliche empirische Formen des Vertrauens zu unterscheiden.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Dating Aggression as a Function of Witnessing Only Same Sex Parents vs. Opposite Sex Parents vs. Both Parents as Perpetrators of Domestic Violence

The present study examined the association between witnessing interparental violence as a child, and the risk for perpetrating and being the victim of dating aggression as an adult, in an undergraduate sample. Specifically, this study tested a modeling hypothesis whereby witnessing a same sex parent vs. an opposite sex parent exclusively in the aggressor role would be more highly associated with risk for perpetrating dating aggression. Similarly, observing a same sex parent vs. an opposite sex parent as exclusively a victim of marital aggression would be associated with risk for being a victim of dating aggression. A same sex modeling effect was found for perpetration of dating aggression. Respondents who witnessed only their same sex parent perpetrate physical marital aggression were at increased risk for perpetrating physical dating aggression, whereas respondents who witnessed only their opposite sex parent perpetrate were not. A same sex modeling effect, however, was not found for being a victim of dating aggression. Rather, risk for victimization by dating aggression was associated only with witnessing bidirectional marital violence. Implications of these results, limitations of the present study, and ideas for future research are discussed.     

Judicial Summation: The Trial Judge's Version of the Facts or the Chimera of Neutrality

This paper analyses some of the rhetorical and linguistic features of two judges' summations to two different juries in a criminal case that was tried twice in the Tasmanian Criminal Court. In the first trial, the jury failed to reach a verdict upon a number of counts in the indictment. In the second trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts. The purpose of this paper is to cast light upon how the linguistic and rhetorical features observed in the summations lent colour or weight to a particular interpretation of the events tried. The paper argues that the judge's summing up is part of the persuasive process of the criminal trial and that judges do present a version of the facts to the jury, deploying various language strategies to construct and communicate that version. The analysis focuses solely upon the judges' summing up of the evidence and the facts. It does not deal with directions or determinations concerning the law. Three major differences between the summations are considered: their distinct thematic approaches to the factual issues, the disparate levels of assistance they provide to the jury in assessing the evidence and their relative comprehensibility. The different thematic approaches produced disparate choices concerning the evidence -- its selection for consideration and its evaluation. The approach in the first summation resulted in an analysis of the evidence that favoured the accused. In the second summation, the thematic approach facilitated a more critical appraisal of the accused's case and a more favourable assessment of the complainant's version of events. The summations also provide differential levels of assistance and achieve differential levels of comprehensibility. The first summation provides relatively little guidance to the jury in evaluating significant items of evidence. In contrast, the second trial summation gives a more directional appraisal. It also achieves a greater level of clarity in the communication of key ideas than the first summation. Both distinctions are attributed to the discourse structures of the summations and to the second summation's reliance upon such organisational and rhetorical devices as repetition, enumeration and rhetorical questions. They are also attributed in part to the comparative syntactic simplicity of the second summation's sentences. It is the conclusion of this paper that the trial judge's linguistic, discourse construction and rhetorical skills are central to the clarification or obfuscation of the facts and issues in a case. How judges say what they say is significant at two levels of sense construction -- at the level of what Bernard Jackson calls signification and at the level of communication.     

A Comparison of Men and Women Arrested for Domestic Violence: Who Presents the Greater Threat?

Recent increases in the number of women arrested for domestic violence raise important questions about implementation of proarrest policies, equivalency of intimate partner aggression across genders, and management of female domestic violence offenders. This study compares demographic characteristics, criminal history variables, and the past domestic violence history of men (n = 5,578) and women (n = 1,126) arrested for domestic assault against a heterosexual intimate partner. Using victim reported information and data collected by local criminal justice agencies, we found that female arrestees were significantly less likely than males to have histories that warrant concern regarding the potential for future violence. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Welfare Nationalism and Popular Support for Raising the Child Allowance: Evidence from a Norwegian Survey Experiment

Refugee and labour immigration have placed the issue of immigrants’ access to welfare benefits high on the political agenda. This article explores how voter preferences for increases in the child benefit change when respondents are reminded about immigrants’ access to benefits. The survey experiment shows that information about newly arrived immigrants’ access to child benefit has only a small impact on support for increasing the child allowance. By contrast, information about labour migrants’ access to benefits for children living in another European Union country has a strong impact, and the observed sensitivity to this cue is not to the same extent confined to respondents who otherwise support welfare dualism.     

Partner similarity for self-reported antisocial behaviour among married,cohabiting and dating couples: the Generation R Study

Abstract

From a criminological perspective, romantic relationships are supposed to decrease the risk of antisocial behaviour (Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, American Sociological Review, 63, 225–238, 1998). However, the effects of these relationships probably depend on the romantic partner's behaviour. In the current study we examined partner similarity for antisocial behaviour in an ethnically heterogeneous community sample of 4135 married, cohabiting and dating couples from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, using self-reports. Spousal correlations were consistently positive for antisocial behaviour but differed in strength according to the type of antisocial behaviour. Associations between spouses remained strong after adjusting for age and educational level depending on the type of antisocial behaviour. In addition, antisocial behaviour was positively associated between partners across marital status and ethnicity, but the strength of this association varied to some extent. Results are discussed in light of the phenotypic assortment, the socialization and the social homogamy hypotheses.     

It can happen here: the impact of the Mumbai terror attacks on public opinion in Western Europe

Do terror attacks have an impact on public opinion, even if the terror attacks happen far away? We exploit the fact that the fourth round of the European Social Survey was conducted in several West European countries at the time of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, in order to identify the causal effect of the Mumbai attacks on public opinion. We identify a clear jump in fear of terrorism at home as a consequence of the terror attacks, but despite the increase in fear of terrorism, we find no significant effect of the attack on support for illiberal interrogation techniques or for liberal immigration policies. We do find indications of a shift in conservative direction on the left–right scale, but this shift is not significant in all time windows. Our findings suggest that a terror attack needs to have a very large impact on the fear of terrorism before people change their policy preferences.     

Whose world? Development,civil society,development studies and (not only) scholar activists

The current international development discourse focuses much on the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs) as part of a global social contract in support of international cooperation and governance, with the debate on the post-mdgs and the Sustainable Development Goals (sdgs) indicating a shift. These goals are at least in part addressing developmental constraints confronting the world as a result of the effects the dominant growth models have had on limited resources and global goods. Rio+20 was a forum which brought to the fore the conflicting issues at stake and the challenges for any development paradigm seeking to enhance global justice and equality. This article explores the discrepancies between dominant paradigms cultivated in official discourses, on the one hand, and alternatives for another development presented as anti-hegemonic counter-models for survival strategies. It considers the role of civil society agencies and scholar activists in development studies.