The Politics of Bureaucracy and the failure of post-war reconstruction

Gordon Tullock’s The Politics of Bureaucracy must be considered one of the most important works on bureaucracy ever written. In this paper, I argue that Tullock’s analysis of bureaucracy is as relevant as ever. To support this claim, I focus on U.S.-led reconstruction efforts which attempt to export liberal democracy via military occupation. Bureaucratic organizations play a key role in these reconstruction efforts and as such, Tullock’s analysis is directly relevant. It is argued that Tullock’s study clarifies not just the limits of bureaucratic activity, but also the importance of spontaneous orders for coordinating activities outside those limits and generating the very institutional context in which liberal democracy can evolve and sustain. The main conclusion is that the nature of public bureaucracy constrains the ability of the United States to exogenously impose liberal democratic institutions in foreign countries for the very reasons Tullock emphasized long ago.     

The Protective Role of Parental Media Monitoring Style from Early to Late Adolescence

The goal of the current study was to examine the protective role that maternal media monitoring might have for adolescents. This was done by considering whether styles of media monitoring either directly reduced media use, or whether they buffered the associations between aggressive media use and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, aggression, and delinquency. Participants were 681 adolescents from two cities in the United States (51% female; 73% white), and their mothers, who provided data at two different time points, 2 years apart (when adolescents were roughly ages 13 and 15). Mixture modeling results revealed that mothers used four different styles of media monitoring made up of combinations of active and restrictive monitoring as well as forms of co-use. Styles that included active monitoring and connective co-use (i.e., engaging in media with the intent to connect with children) were directly associated with less media use, and moderated links between adolescents’ media use and behavioral outcomes concurrently but not longitudinally. The discussion was focused on the strength of considering multiple strategies of media monitoring together, and how this approach can inform future research in the area of parental media monitoring.     

Suicide Risk in Emerging Adulthood: Associations with Screen Time over 10 years

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Suicide rates have increased over the past decade, and screen media (and social media in particular) are often blamed for this marked increase. However, there is...     

A hidden cost of war: the impact of mobilizing reserve troops on emergency response times

This paper analyzes a hidden cost of war: the effect of the mass mobilization of reserve troops on the response times of domestic emergency services to accidents. We provide a statistical examination of this linkage following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and find that mobilization significantly increases response times to accidents in the United States. These mobilization-related costs are exacerbated by both legal restrictions and issues of replacing highly specialized human capital.     

Prior problem behavior accounts for the racial gap in school suspensions

Purpose

A large body of empirical research finds a significant racial gap in the use of exclusionary school discipline with black students punished at rates disproportionate to whites. Furthermore, no variable or set of variables have yet to account for this discrepancy, inviting speculation that this association is caused by racial bias or racial antipathy. We investigate this link and the possibility that differential behavior may play a role.

Methods

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K), the largest sample of school-aged children in the United States, we first replicate the results of prior studies. We then estimate a second model controlling for prior problem behavior.

Results

Replicating prior studies, we first show a clear racial gap between black and white students in suspensions. However, in subsequent analyses the racial gap in suspensions was completely accounted for by a measure of the prior problem behavior of the student – a finding never before reported in the literature.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the importance of early problem behaviors and suggest that the use of suspensions by teachers and administrators may not have been as racially biased as some scholars have argued.     

Teenage childbirth and young adult criminal convictions: A quasi-experimental study of criminal outcomes for teenage mothers

Purpose

Teenage childbirth is associated with poor psychosocial outcomes for teen mothers. One example is that teen mothers have higher rates of antisocial behavior. The extant research has not been able to determine if teenage motherhood is independently associated with criminal behavior, or if the association is due to selection factors associated with both teenage childbirth and criminal behavior.

Methods

We used longitudinal data from Swedish national registers and sibling-comparisons (both full- and half-siblings) to identify the extent to which there is an independent association between teenage childbirth and mothers’ likelihood of criminal conviction between ages 20-30, or if the association is confounded by familial (including genetic or environmental) factors that make sisters similar.

Results

Women who began childbearing as teenagers were more likely to be convicted of a crime in young adulthood compared to women who delayed childbearing. When sisters were compared, the association between teenage childbirth and criminal convictions disappeared. Multivariate behavior genetic analyses suggest genetic and shared environmental account for the association.

Conclusions

The statistical association between teenage childbirth and early adulthood criminal convictions is confounded by genetic and shared environmental factors that influence both the likelihood of teenage childbirth and risk of early adulthood criminal conviction.     

Associations Between Violent Video Gaming,Empathic Concern,and Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers,Friends, and Family Members

Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, lowering empathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For these reasons, the current study investigated associations between violent video gaming, empathic responding, and prosocial behavior enacted toward strangers, friends, and family members. Participants consisted of 780 emerging adults (M age = 19.60, SD = 1.86, range = 18–29, 69% female, 69% Caucasian) from four universities in the United States. Results showed small to moderate effects between playing violent video gaming and lowered empathic concern for both males and females. In addition, lowered empathic concern partially mediated the pathways between violent video gaming and prosocial behavior toward all three targets (at the level of a trend for females), but was most strongly associated with lower prosocial behavior toward strangers. Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.