Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights: A Statistical Analysis from 1976 to 1996

Most studies posit and identify a linear and negative relationship between democracy and the violation of human rights. Some research challenges this finding, however, suggesting that nonlinear influences exist. Within this article, we examine the structure of the relationship between democracy and repression during the time period from 1976 to 1996. To conduct our analysis, we utilize diverse statistical approaches which are particularly flexible in identifying influences that take a variety of functional forms (specifically LOESS and binary decomposition). Across measures and methodological techniques, we found that below a certain level, democracy has no impact on human rights violations, but above this level democracy influences repression in a negative and roughly linear manner. The implications of this research are discussed within the conclusion .     

Thomas Malthus and maternal bodies politic: gender,race, and empire

Abstract

This essay explores the uneasy fit of representations of the Victorian monarchy and maternal metaphors of state with Malthusian doctrine and the debates over colonial initiatives and population pressures. Malthus's work on the principle of population authorized a potent mid-Victorian narrative which viewed the exalted body of the mother – and, by metaphoric homology, that of the state – as diseased, corrupt, and in imminent danger of putrefaction and decay. In Malthusian discourse, the colonies became the absolute sign of the pathology eating its way to the heart of the body politic. Malthusian discourse re-gendered the early nineteenth-century social body so that it became a silent, passive space upon which discursive expressions of the masculine could act. In the process, it also brought together troublesome conceptions of both race and gender to make a case for imperial progress and expansion     

Policy‐Induced Risk and Responsive Participation: The Effect of a Son's Conscription Risk on the Voting Behavior of His Parents

When do government policies induce responsive political participation? This study tests two hypotheses in the context of military draft policies. First, policy‐induced risk motivates political participation. Second, contextual‐level moderators, such as local events that make risk particularly salient, may intensify the effect of risk on participation. I use the random assignment of induction priority in the Vietnam draft lotteries to measure the effect of a son's draft risk on the voter turnout of his parents in the 1972 presidential election. I find higher rates of turnout among parents of men with “losing” draft lottery numbers. Among parents from towns with at least one prior war casualty, I find a 7 to 9 percentage point effect of a son's draft risk on his parents’ turnout. The local casualty contextual‐level moderator is theorized to operate through the mechanism of an availability heuristic, whereby parents from towns with casualties could more readily imagine the adverse consequences of draft risk.     

In Defense of the Responsibility to Protect: A Response to Weissman

This article defends the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine (adopted by the United Nations in 2005) against critiques by Fabrice Weissman in this journal, and against similar criticisms of humanitarian intervention and human rights norms made by postmodern thinkers in the Nietzschean tradition, such as Alain Badiou and Anne Orford. I argue against Weissman that R2P can be effective in stopping or preventing mass atrocities, and in particular that opposition to military intervention in Syria during the 2013 debates was a terrible mistake. Moreover, the moral ground for humanitarian aid efforts is the same as the basis for forceful rescue from mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and persecution (when other conditions of just war can be met). Weissman's critiques misinterpret just war theory on key points and rely on inflated rhetorical strategies inspired by extreme forms of cultural and moral relativism that are intellectually bankrupt—both in blaming “Western imperialism” for most crimes against humanity committed by tyrants, and in leaving hundreds of thousands without the only protection that could prevent their murder and exile. These extreme positions and the strained rhetorical devices used to defend them do not deserve the wide respect they command in some parts of academia.     

Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents

Low turnout among the urban poor has implications for democratic representation. The fact that turnout among the economically disadvantaged is especially low in municipal elections means that citizens most in need of services provided at the local level may not be represented in policy decisions that affect their daily lives. This paper reports the results of an experiment that compares the effects of two voter mobilization interventions: traditional canvassing appeals and face-to-face exchanges in which canvassers distribute a feedback intervention consisting of printed records of individual voter histories. In contrast to previous studies, this experiment measures the effectiveness of using social pressure to mobilize turnout among relatively infrequent voters in a low salience election. The campaign was implemented by a credible tenant advocacy organization within the context of a municipal election; the sample consisted of registered voters in two Boston public housing developments. I find that the feedback intervention dramatically increased voter turnout. Turnout among those reached by canvassers with voter histories was approximately 15–18 percentage points higher than turnout in the control group, an effect that is approximately 10 percentage points larger in magnitude than that of standard face-to-face mobilization.     

Reviews

Scribe, Griot and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire by Thomas A Hale. University of Florida Press, Gainesville (Florida, U.S.A.), 1990. xiv plus 313 pp. including notes, bibliography and index. £23.06. Hardback.

General History of Africa VII. Africa under Colonial Domination 1880–1935 (abridged edition) edited by A. Adu Boahenforthe UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa. UNESCO (Paris), University of California Press (Berkeley) and James Currey (London), 1990. xxi plus 387pp. including illustrations, bibliography and index. £4.95. Paperback.

South Africa: Constitutional Development ‐ A Multi‐disciplinary Approach by Donovan Marais. Southern Book Publishers, Johannesburg, 1989. 315pp. Notes and index. R37.50. Paperback.

Transport Planning for Third World Cities edited by Harry T. Dimitriou. Routledge, London, 1990. xxii plus 432pp. including figures, tables, notes, bibliography and index. £40.00. Hardback.

The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power by Robert I. Rotberg with Miles F. Shore. Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. xxii plus 800pp. including maps, illustrations and bibliography. $35.00 and £25.00.

The Development of the Executive underthe Nigerian Constitutions, 1960–81 by J.D. Ojo. Ibadan University Press, Ibadan, 1985.189pp.

Cultural Forces in World Politics by Ali A. Mazrui. James Currey, London 1990.262pp. R46.60. Paperback.

Urban Markets ‐ Developing Informal Retailing by David Dewar and Vanessa Watson. Routledge, London, 1990. xii plus 154pp. £30.00. Hardback.

State‐Administered Rural Change: Agricultural Cooperatives in Kenya by Björn Gyllström. Routledge, London and New York, 1991. xvii plus 319pp. including figures, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography and index. Hardback.

The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies. Edited and with an introduction by Igor Kopytoff. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. 1987. vii plus 288pp. including maps, notes and index. R70.15. Hardback.

Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa. Volume Two: South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland edited by Z.A. Konczacki, Jane L Parpart and Timothy M. Shaw. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London, 1991. xvii plus 290pp. including maps, figures, tables, notes, bibliography and index. £35.00 Hardback. £19.50 Paperback.

Incentives and Agriculture in East Africa by Mats Lundahl. Routledge, London, 1990.223pp. Hardback.

African Agriculture: The Critical Choices edited by HA Amara and B. Founou‐Tchuigoua. UN University Press, Tokyo and Zed Books, London, 1990. 227 pp. Paperback.

A History of Agriculture in West Africa: A Guide to Information Sources by S.C. Saha. Studies in African Economic and Social Development, Volume 6, The Edwin Mellen Press, New York and Lampeter, Wales. 136pp. $49.95. Hardback.

Ethnographic Decision Tree Modelling by Christina H. Gladwin. Sage University Paper Series on Qualitative Research Methods Vol.9. Beverly Hills CALSage, 1989.96pp. $6.50. Paperback.

Samora Machel: A Biography by lain Christie. London: Panaf 1989. 181pp including photographs, bibliography and index. Paperback.

Mozambique: Norwegian Assistance in a Context of Crisis by Grete Brochmann & Arve Ofstad. Fantoft: Christian Michelsen Institute, 1990. vii plus 173pp. including tables, bibliography and index. Paperback.

Self‐Employment for Disabled People: Experiences from Africa and Asia by Malcolm Harper and Willi Momm. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1989. viii plus 85pp. Swiss Francs 15. Paperback.

Technology, Gender and Power in Africa by Patricia Stamp. Ottawa, Ontario, International Development Research Centre, 1989. x plus 185pp. Paperback.

The Devils are Among Us: The War for Namibia by Denis Herbstein and John Evenson. Zed Books Ltd., London, 1989. ix plus 202pp. including maps, photographs, bibliography, glossary and index. Paperback.

Zimbabwe: A Model for Namibia? A Comparison of Events in Zimbabwe‐Rhodesia 1979–1980 with the Situation in SWA in 1989by Ted Sutton‐Pryce. Academica, Pretoria, 1989. vii plus 77pp. including photographs and acknowledgements. R12.50 plus VAT. Hardback.

The Failure of the Centralised State: Institutions of Self‐Governance in Africa edited by James S. Wunsch and Dele Olowu. Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford, 1990. viii plus 334pp. including tables, notes, bibliography and index. Paperback.     

The Enduring Effects of Social Pressure: Tracking Campaign Experiments Over a Series of Elections

Recent field experiments have demonstrated the powerful effect of social pressure messages on voter turnout. This research note considers the question of whether these interventions’ effects persist over a series of subsequent elections. Tracking more than one million voters from six experimental studies, we find strong and statistically significant enduring effects one and sometimes two years after the initial communication.     

Psychological adjustment of adolescents with myelodysplasia

The psychosocial development of 20 adolescents with congenital paralysis due to myelodysplasia is compared to 20 age- and gender-matched subjects with no physical handicap. On many of the measures the myelodysplasia group showed poorer adjustment and lower self-esteem than the controls. Consistent with hypotheses regarding adjustment during adolescence the paralyzed males did show greater concern on Offer's scales of Body and Self-Image and External Mastery and showed poorer adjustment on his Sexual Attitudes Scale. The paralyzed girls, particularly those 13 years or younger, showed the poorest emotional adjustment with a significant variability in responses on many of the tests. This degree of variability may indicate a lack of integration of self-concepts and is consistent with an emotional immaturity discordant with advanced physiologic maturation of these girls.This study was supported in part by the National Foundation-March of Dimes.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1959. Main interests are adolescent development, personality, and evaluative research.Received her M.D. from the University of Rochester, New York, in 1953 and her pediatrics training at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles. Main interests are comprehensive care of patients with birth defects; research and management of hydrocephalus.Received her M.D. from McGill University in 1968 and her pediatric training at University of Washington, Seattle. Main interest is care of children with handicapping conditions, with emphasis on communication problems of the hearing impaired.     

Crime and the transformation of capitalism

This study investigates factors that enhance criminal behavior. Typically, explanations for increasing crime rates discuss various familial and community attributes; i.e., single parent households and poverty rates. When crime has increased, these attributes are cited as being responsible. This we believe is an incorrect assumption. In particular, we argue the factors that are cited by these authors merely reflect transformations within the greater economic structure. As a result, the familial and community attributes suggested as causing crime are seen as intervening variables; which are either attentuated or amplified in their ability to control criminal behavior by the condition of the economy itself. Within this study, five urban cities (New York, Detroit, Newark, Boston, and Philadelphia) are observed over a twenty eight year period. Structural change is measured by industrial employment and crime is measured by three indices: burglary, robbery and murder. Our investigation reveals a strong relationship between declining industrial employment and increasing crime rates. In addition, we find that the magnitude of this relationship is subject to variation. This variation is dependent upon whether or not the industrial decline experienced was steady or vacilating between high and low levels. These findings support the contention that familial units and other communal organizations are merely intervening variables between large-scale structural changes and criminal behavior. Moreover, it suggests that unless anti-crime efforts (increasing the size of the police forces, increasing state expenditures for law enforcement, etc.) are accompanied by strategies of industrial reorganization, they will have no impact on reducing crime rates.