Showing papers in "Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1995"

Women, Crime, and Fear

Abstract: This article examines women's fear of crime. Through an examination of current attempts to address women's fear of crime, it is argued that women's anxiety about danger is largely a fear of men and reflects women's location in a gendered world. Confronting women's fear means confronting the danger women face at the hands of their partners, acquaintances, clients, and coworkers, as well as other potential violence from men inside and outside the home. In contrast, government advice tries to assuage women's fear by suggesting that women adopt individually managed precautionary strategies to minimize encounters with male strangers. Good lighting, good transport, adequate child care, decent education, safe houses, and safe relationships—one without the others is inadequate to address women's needs and, by extension, women's fear of crime.

Media Constructions of Crime

Abstract: The news media are a vital part of the process by which individuals' private troubles with crime—as victims or offenders—are transformed into public issues. The social construction of crime problems may be understood as reflecting the types of relationships that link news agencies to their sources, and the organizational constraints that structure the news-gathering process. The ways in which the news media collect, sort, and contextualize crime reports help to shape public consciousness regarding which conditions need to be seen as urgent problems, what kinds of problems they represent, and, by implication, how they should be resolved. While much attention has been focused on the ways in which media attention to crime influences the fear of crime, it is likely that the most significant effects of media reporting are broadly ideological rather than narrowly attitudinal. By restricting the terms of discussion, the news media facilitate the marginalization of competing views regarding crime and its solution.

Crime and the Racial Fears of White Americans

Abstract: This article examines the linkages between fear of crime, residential integration, and racial prejudice among whites. Survey studies confirm that residential proximity to black people is related to whites' fear of crime. In addition, whites who are prejudiced (in this case, who disapprove of school and neighborhood integration) are more fearful. The fear-provoking effects of proximity and prejudice are independent and, in fact, whites currently living closer to blacks register lower levels of prejudice than do those who live farther away. This is probably due to their ability to use housing markets to distance themselves from minority neighborhoods. Despite the political salience of white fear, blacks are more fearful of crime, due in large measure to the concentration around them of factors that make everyone more fearful. These include neighborhood-level differences in victimization, social disorder, and physical decay. In a highly segregated society, these factors are highly associated with race, so it...

Fear and Withdrawal from Urban Life

Abstract: Crime and fear of criminal victimization have become major problems in American society. Citizens react to crime in a variety of ways, including distrusting others, avoiding particular places, taking protective action, changing their daily activities, and participating in collective action. The present article reviews these psychological and behavioral reactions to crime. It summarizes current trends in the nature of crime and fear of criminal victimization that may help explain public reactions to crime. The article concludes with a discussion of the consequences of fear and individuals' withdrawal from urban life.

Two Paradigms of Negotiation: Bargaining and Problem Solving

Abstract: The development of negotiation theory over recent decades has been organized around two major paradigms: bargaining and problem solving. For the bargaining paradigm, indicators of flexibility include concession rates, initiation of new proposals, and other soft behaviors. For the problem-solving perspective, flexibility is usually indicated by a search for better, mutually beneficial solutions to problems that satisfy the needs, identities, and interests of all parties. Empirical research generally reveals that bargaining behaviors are used more frequently in international negotiations than is problem solving. This may be explained by the dominance of the realist paradigm of international relations, within which most diplomats are socialized. Since diplomats generally construct their image of negotiations in terms of bargaining, it is hardly surprising that these behaviors should be prevalent in actual negotiations. In addition, empirical research methods utilized to study negotiations tend to emphasize b...

The Impact of Crime on Communities

Abstract: CT: Current wisdom suggests that high or increasing crime levels make communities decline. Researchers usually translate decline to mean an increasing desire to move or higher actual mobility of residents; weaker attachments of residents to, and satisfaction with, their neighborhood; less local involvement; and lower house values. Empirical research confirms only some of this wisdom. Crime relates as expected to house prices, neighborhood satisfaction, and the desire to move. But research simultaneously suggests that crime neither spurs mobility nor necessarily decreases local involvement. Past research fails to differentiate the impacts of specific crime rates and does not examine impacts of static versus changing crime rates. This article examines impacts of past and changing crime levels on changes in relative house values and vacancy rates in Baltimore, Maryland, neighborhoods in the 1970s. The results reveal that different crimes influence different aspects of the housing market. Past and changing cr...

Crime and Fear on Campus

Abstract: A few violent campus incidents highlighted by the media have drawn a spotlight to college and university campuses that has created the impression that campuses are increasingly dangerous places. This article discusses the legal, legislative, and administrative responses to victimization and fear on campuses and critically examines issues raised by these responses and the media. Several court decisions have addressed issues concerning university liability to student victims of campus crime and have used the doctrine of foreseeability as the standard for establishing liability. Congress responded by passing the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, which mandates postsecondary schools to publicly report certain crime statistics and security policies. Several state legislatures have also enacted reporting legislation. Further, administrators have begun to implement a variety of educational crime prevention and safety programs, as well as security procedures, to reduce crime, risk, and fear.

Modeling Distributive and Integrative Negotiations

Abstract: Two main types of negotiation processes can be distinguished, distributive and integrative. While the distributive process consists primarily of concession making, the integrative process involves both concession making and a search for mutually profitable alternatives. Thus the meaning of “flexibility” is not always the same: in distributive negotiations, it means “readiness to make concessions”; in the integrative negotiations setting, it means in addition “readiness to engage in the search process.” Computer simulations suggest that the distributive process is faster but that the integrative process is potentially more productive in that it can increase the chances of an agreement. In order for integrative negotiation to fulfill its potential, however, the search engaged in must be joint, and during the search, the adversaries must interact face to face. Distributive negotiation can also be made more productive by having the adversaries interact face to face, under conditions that emphasize their simil...

The Changing Values of Local Government

Abstract: Local government reorganization has been almost ubiquitous in developed countries in the last decades. Local authorities have been restructured, the relationships between central and local government have been reshaped, and new local government acts have been passed in a number of countries. Basically, this is a response to the expansion of governmental intervention in the society. The ideological premises underlying these processes are complex and manifold. Partly, they refer to the traditional values of local self-government, with an accent on autonomy, participation, and efficiency. Partly, they refer to fundamental requirements of central steering in the contemporary state: rule of law, geographical redistribution, and macroeconomic steering. This variegated set of values and requirements has to be given space in the local government institution. This is why the process of reorganization cannot be subsumed under a dichotomy of centralization and decentralization. Local government in advanced democraci...

Politics, Public Policy, and Street Crime

Abstract: For more than two decades, the United States has been at war with street crime, but we have precious little to show for it. Our obsession with punishment at the expense of, indeed to the exclusion of, prevention is not just futile but criminogenic and divisive. This article explains what is problematic about our indiscriminately punitive response to street crime and explores the political forces driving these self-defeating policies. What emerges is an understanding of the politics of street crime that is rooted less in the fear of crime than in a variety of anxieties that transcend street crime but are affectively related to it. Criminals provide a convenient target for the anger that is widely felt, but is not quite appropriate to express, with respect to unwelcome changes in race relations, employment opportunities, homelessness, and the like. To serve their own distinct but convergent purposes, the media, the public, and the politicians all contribute to the perpetuation of our perverse approach to co...

Local Politics and Democracy in Turkey: An Appraisal

Abstract: Local government and politics in Turkey have been under the tutelary control of the central state. Contrary to the Western republican tradition of autonomous local self-government, local politics in Turkey were created by and for the central state. More recently, however, a municipal movement with a social democratic coloring emerged to put an end to central governmental tutelage. This movement was followed by the rise of a new conservative perspective in the 1980s. A peculiar synthesis of technical reason and traditional nationalism was the main characteristic of Turkish new conservatism, which identified local political problems with technical problems of urban management. This approach has been adopted by the party of political Islam, now controlling major metropolitan areas and most smaller towns in central and eastern Turkey; this party tries to resynthesize technical reason and Islamic traditions. Whether Turkey will walk on the path toward more decentralized and participatory political organization...

Less Crime, by Design

Abstract: Design against crime has always existed, but a combination of circumstances has led to its recent takeoff. Design seeks fitness for purpose and involves reconciling conflicting requirements, one of which may be crime prevention. The focus in this article is on design changes to the physical world while acknowledging links with social processes. The aim is to illustrate how design and prevention overlap, not to identify what works. After a review of contemporary schools of design, some of which can be criticized for narrowness and an uncertain empirical base, a broader definition of prevention is proposed that allows less restricted exploration of how different types of prevention employ design. The article then considers the process of preventing crime through design, discussing the special difficulties of designing when offenders can fight back. A wider-ranging look, from an ecological perspective, reveals interesting parallels between design against crime and other fields.

Creativity Heuristics for Impasse Resolution: Reframing Intractable Negotiations

Abstract: This study deals with a very sensitive but all too common problem: how to activate parties that have failed in using negotiation to find common ground. What can be done to get seemingly intractable negotiations back on track and redirected toward peaceful conclusions? A promising and practical approach to accomplishing this task—using creativity heuristics—is addressed in this research. In particular, the study evaluates the effectiveness of one creativity heuristic, analogical reasoning, to help protagonists reframe their conflict, generate fresh and novel solutions, and thereby reduce the psychological barriers to restarting negotiations. The results of an experimental simulation suggest the possible utility of such heuristics for impasse resolution: they enhance flexibility in the negotiation process, and they facilitate the reaching of agreements. The conceptual framework and empirical findings expand current understanding of the role of creative processes in negotiation. The study's results yield pra...

The Balkan Tragedy

Abstract: The tragic conflict in the Balkans is the product of a complex interaction of historical, religious, and political factors, the absence of effective political institutions in new states, and personal and ideological imperatives. This article reviews that interaction, focusing on events following the breakup of Yugoslavia. It highlights in particular the impact of extremist ethnic nationalism on all of the parties to the conflict. The article also addresses international involvement in the Balkan conflict, reviewing the numerous peace plans that have been unsuccessfully promoted and the impact of the crisis on transatlantic relations. It contends that no country or institution has won particularly good marks for its policies and actions.

The Evolving Watchdog: The Media's Role in Government Ethics

Abstract: The mass media's influence on the ethics of public life, as characterized by the press's watchdog role in monitoring the conduct of government officials, is assumed to be vital to democracy. The effectiveness of this watchdog role is less clearly understood. Partial answers are found in the evolving institutional history of the press, including its control, ethics, laws, technology, organization, and the content of news stories. Just as reporters rarely discuss their ethics in terms of teleology and deontology, the press does not conceptualize in sophisticated terms its impact on the ethics of public employees. It traditionally finds motivation from the popular belief in watchdog success models from muckraking to Watergate. As partisanship, news values, and reporting techniques evolve, effectiveness varies. Research sheds light on media trends but focuses more on presidents than county clerks, more on political campaigns than government process. Optimism, as new doors and new technology open to reporters,...

Public Perceptions of Ethics in Government

Abstract: To explain negative perceptions of government ethics, and particularly of the ethics of public administrators, the authors use the paradox of distance and the absence of role differentiation. In the paradox of distance, the public holds negative views of government generally and public administrators in the abstract, but they have favorable to very favorable views of governmental programs with which they interact and favorable views of the bureaucrats whom they encounter. Much of the negative perception of government ethics and the ethics of public officials is based on public observations of the misdeeds of those who are elected or politically appointed. These negative perceptions are well founded. Unfortunately, the public holds similarly negative views of merit civil servants, although these public officials are much less often associated with corruption or unethical behavior. Finally, the authors suggest that several contemporary governmental reforms will, in the long run, result in more rather than l...

Leaders, Leadership, and Flexibility: Influences on Heads of Government as Negotiators and Mediators:

Abstract: Under what conditions do heads of governments have the flexibility to change their policies, and what is the impact of such flexibility on their behavior in negotiation and mediation processes? Leadership is viewed as an umbrella concept that involves at least four ingredients: the characteristics of the leader; the needs, images, and expectations of those led, the constituents of the leader; the nature of the relationship between the leader and those led; and the context in which the leadership is exercised. This article explores how these four aspects of leadership influence leaders' ability to change and be flexible. It also suggests the relevance of the resulting flexibility for negotiation and mediation.

Firearms and Self-Defense

Abstract: While usually discussed as a cause of crime, guns also may protect against it. Firearm ownership is difficult to measure, but all sources agree that millions of Americans have guns for defense. Although existing research is not in complete agreement, defensive gun ownership appears to increase with fear of crime and with concerns about collective security. How often victims use guns against offenders is controversial; some data suggest that armed resistance is rare, while other data suggest that it is very common. The data showing that firearm defense is rare also indicate that it is often successful.

Local Government and Democratic Political Development

Abstract: The spread of democratic ideas and the emergence of a global system have contributed to a resurgence of the local. One major form of decentralization in the twentieth century has been the breakup of empires into nation-states, the most recent example being the Soviet Union. The pressures for democratization have led to a new emphasis on local governance below the level of the nation-state. The rise of a global political economy provides localities with an alternative to national capitals. Although the patterns of local governance have similar features of provincial and local governments, the push for democracy will give local politics a greater role in the issues of peace and prosperity than has been true during the long recent period of the rise in authority of nation-states.

Democracy and Globalization in India: Post-Cold War Discourse

Abstract: The post-Cold War project of globalization is changing the established notion of liberal democracy and local governance. The political autonomy of the liberal state is being increasingly compromised in favor of market forces and local governance more and more exposed to direct penetration by global and corporate power structures. This change has far-reaching implications for the future of democracy, particularly in the Third World. Aware of this challenge, new social movements in India, active at the grass roots of politics, are resisting global penetration of local communities, using new political spaces opened up by the retreat of the state from socioeconomic arenas. Through an inventive politics of struggle over issues concerning local communities and their empowerment, they articulate a vision of democracy as a creative political process, operative primarily at the local level. Their politics are addressed to establishing direct access and control of people over their immediate environment—economic, s...

Ethics and the Public Administrator

Abstract: This article provides an overview and analysis of the practical problems of developing and implementing a code of ethics for public administrators. The article addresses three key issues: (1) What are public ethics and where do they come from? (2) What are the central ethical issues facing public administrators? and (3) Are there practical tools and guidelines to assist public servants to be both ethical and effective public managers? The article concludes with a plea for consideration of ethical issues, and it presents five general ethical principles for public administrators.

State Disintegration and Ethnic Conflict: A Framework for Analysis

Abstract: With the end of the Cold War, the growing challenges of regional conflict and instability are receiving significant international attention. Broadly, these regional clashes are taking place both between and within states. The former are concerned with regional competition and power distributions, while the latter are the result of animosities rooted in ethnic, religious, communal, secessionist, and irredentist contestations. This article proposes a framework for understanding and analyzing the dynamics and complexities of these post-Cold War internal conflicts taking place within an increasing number of states in various regions of the globe. To accomplish this, a review is undertaken of the causes and dimensions of this internal violence and the state disintegration it engenders, with particular attention to the impact of ethnicity, ethnonationalism, religion, and communalism. The framework developed for analyzing and understanding the complex developments that characterize these ethnic and religiously m...

Community Organizations and Crime

Abstract: Although not a panacea, community organizations have particular strengths that they bring to crime prevention: generating and sustaining participation, generating a broader understanding of community crime, developing programs that address broader social causes of crime, and forming partnerships for community policing. Questions about the efficacy of community-based crime prevention programs may be due to several limitations of prior evaluations. First they fail to acknowledge the fluid and political planning process of community organizations, which results in changing goals and objectives. Second, the need of community organizations to balance the production of outcomes and the process of developing activists makes it difficult to assess their accomplishments. Third, the emphasis on outcomes forces organizations to shorten the necessary social learning process, undermissing the programs' effectiveness. Finally, the evaluations' conceptual model ignores the political and institutional dimensions of commu...

Flexibility in Negotiation and Mediation

Abstract: This introductory article provides an overview of the concept of flexibility and the articles to follow. Both positive and problematic aspects of flexibility for conflict resolution are discussed: if manifest in joint problem-solving behavior, flexibility can contribute to improved negotiated outcomes; if used tactically by one or another party, it can lead to unfavorable outcomes for at least one of the parties. Flexibility can be understood at each of three levels of analysis—individual, small group, and organizational behavior—and the articles in this collection reflect these different levels. A variety of factors have been shown to influence flexible behavior, including the way negotiators plan, their orientations, tactics, and a number of aspects of the negotiating situation. These and other factors are treated in the articles to follow, each of which is summarized in this article. The articles in this collection are intended to contribute to our understanding of this concept, and the key lessons lea...

The Large Small War in Angola

Abstract: The Angolan conflict is no small war according to most criteria: lasting nearly 35 years, with a death toll exceeding half a million, it has involved the troops of four countries and the intervention of three superpowers. Four attempts have been made to negotiate an end to the conflict, but they failed and in fact led to an even bloodier and more brutal phase of the protracted conflict. This article will first define the intrastate nature and causes of the conflict, examining the mediation processes at Gbadolite, Zaire, and Bicesse, Portugal. Then the authors identify how, due to a lack of requitement and a lack of accommodations for all parties after elections, further escalation remained a possibility even after an agreement was signed. The third section analyzes how these attempts failed in terms of both construct and implementation; it then discusses how these failures have led to a direct reexamination of the conflict and redefinition of a mutually satisfactory and tenable resolution in the ongoing m...

The Turkish Imbroglio: Its Kurds

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine the current Kurdish problem in Turkey, the Turkish government's reaction to the issues raised by this problem, and the challenge the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) poses to Ankara through its tactics of intimidation and terrorism. This imbroglio is also detailed in both political and economic terms. The article goes on to analyze the implications of this conflict for Turkey's relations with Europe, the United States, and other regional players, such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The conflict could jeopardize Turkey's relations with Europe and Washington and limit Ankara's role as a stabilizing influence in the region, thereby limiting its role regionally and internationally. This linkage to the West will be very difficult to substitute. In addition, civil violence and terrorist acts by the PKK could deter foreign investments and undermine tourism, thus affecting Turkey's long-range economic plans. Finally, the future prospects and options that Turkey might consider in b...

Canadian Cities and their Immigrants: New Realities:

Abstract: Following new federal regulations and procedures introduced in the 1960s, the nature of immigrant flows to Canada has changed radically. Over the last two decades, the immigrant population has increasingly become nonwhite and now comes mostly from macroregions other than Europe (including Britain) and the United States—notably, Asia. Thus the new immigrants exhibit greater cultural and racialized diversity than ever before. Most immigrants settle in Canada's cities, principally the leading metropolitan centers. Certain metropolitan areas—especially Toronto—attract large numbers; others participate relatively little in the settlement process. This, together with new social geographies at the municipal and neighborhood scales, has important implications for public debates over immigration and intergovernmental policymaking. The new immigrants have brought about important changes in urban social life, including education, health care, policing, business development, and labor markets. New urban realities cha...

Situational Levers of Position Change: Further Explorations

Abstract: Negotiated agreements often depend on the willingness of bargainers to change their positions. This willingness is shown to depend in large part on certain aspects of the negotiating situation. This article reports the results of simulation experiments that demonstrate increased flexibility when the negotiations are held in private at remote locations. Talks under such conditions have a stronger impact on bargaining behavior than do suggestions made by a mediator. Bargainers were also responsive to the timing of their opponent's moves: more agreements occurred when their opponent demonstrated early firmness followed by later flexibility. The variables explored in the experiments were also used to diagnose outcomes of historical and contemporary cases. Correspondences found between the diagnosed and actual outcomes provide support for the relevance of these variables as influences on the flexibility of international negotiators.

Ethics and Public Service

Abstract: There is widespread concern for ethics in government, and news reports justify that concern. The public's emphasis, fueled by both accurate and inaccurate reporting, appears to center upon the conduct of elected officials. Some of that reporting is significant, and some is trivial. Professional literature tends to concentrate upon the bureaucracy. This article traces the history in general of ethical thought regarding public service in America and sketches attempts to require adherence to ethical standards. It concludes that—with notable exceptions and despite considerable insightful work from ethicists—the strongest reactions have often come in response to relatively trivial infractions and that prescriptions tend to be entirely negative. Such negative approaches are unlikely to result in significant improvement of ethics in public service, whether judged by standards of personal conduct or the even more important standard of institutional performance and integrity.

Entry and Exit: Canadian Immigration Policy in Context

Abstract: Immigration and the multicultural population that results from it are contentious issues in contemporary Canada. Canada accepts more than twice as many immigrants per capita as does the United States, and a majority of immigrants now comes from nontraditional sources in Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America. Critics of a liberal immigration policy charge that these newcomers threaten Canada's social harmony and challenge its cultural identity and that the country faces unprecedented economic and security problems because of uncontrolled immigration. Historical and contemporary evidence suggests, however, that the situation is neither unprecedented nor a crisis. Canada needs immigrants for the compelling reasons it has always sought them: for economic growth and to replace population lost by emigration to the United States. By any comparative yardstick, the Canadian experiments in immigration and multiculturalism have been a resounding success.