INFLUENCE AND SELECTION PROCESSES IN WEAPON CARRYING DURING ADOLESCENCE: THE ROLES OF STATUS,AGGRESSION, AND VULNERABILITY*

The role of peers in weapon carrying (guns, knives, and other weapons) inside and outside the school was examined in this study. Data stem from a longitudinal study of a high-risk sample of male students (7th to 10th grade; N = 167) from predominantly Hispanic low-socio-economic-status schools in the United States. Longitudinal social-network models were used to test whether similarity in weapon carrying among friends results from peer influence or selection. From a goal-framing approach, we argue that weapon carrying might function as a status symbol in friendship networks and, consequently, be subject to peer influence. The findings indicate that weapon carrying is indeed a result of peer influence. The role of status effects was supported by findings that weapon carrying increased the number of friendship nominations received by peers and reduced the number of given nominations. In addition, peer-reported aggressiveness predicted weapon carrying 1 year later. These findings suggest that adolescent weapon carrying emerges from a complex interplay between the attraction of weapon carriers for affiliation, peer influence in friendship networks, and individual aggression.     

Law as Convention

Abstract. The widely recognized impasse in legal theory, which requires an account of law as "both a social fact and a framework of reasons for action" has been most interestingly addressed in recent years by writers characterizing law as convention in the sense of a solution to a game theoretical "coordination problem." As critics have neutralized most of these proposals, the author advances an account of conventionalism, drawing on economic and sociological theory, which he claims makes the bridge between positivist and naturalist theories of law without compromising the basic insights of either. The result is a unified theory of law, politics and society.     

Political transition,economic liberalization and civil service reform in Malawi

This article reviews the efforts aimed at reforming the civil service of Malawi at the same time as the country has been undergoing political transition and economic liberalization since 1991. Some of the measures in the civil service reform programme interfaced with either the political transition process (for example, the Public Service Act) or with economic policy reform (for example, privatization). In a few other cases, it was a mixture, a political economy perspective (for example, curbing corruption). The article draws attention to the achievements and problems of implementation, including the coordination of donor support, and highlights the lessons learned and the prospects for the remaining years of the decade and beyond. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 : 209–222 (1997). No. of Figures: 2. No. of Tables: 2. No. of Refs: 9.     

Grounding the Rule of Law

Abstract. Although the concept of Rule of Law has been revived and developed vigorously by mid-twentieth century conservative political theorists, contemporary legal positivists have not been impressed. The author reviews this confrontation, outlines the logic for a strong theory of Rule of Law, and surveys the leading attempts to provide compelling grounds for such a theory.