Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Criminal career research finds that the most consistent predictors of continued offending are early onset and frequent, serious offending as a juvenile. Considerable attention has been directed to these chronic offenders as they contribute to over half of the offenses committed by juveniles. However, only one study demarcates by type of offense for chronic juveniles and finds that prior record is predictive of serious nonviolent offenses and personality characteristics for violent offenses. In Texas, approximately 3% of juveniles processed by the juvenile justice system are committed. Arguably, they constitute the most violent and chronic juvenile offenders. Using data from the Texas Youth Commission, this research extends prior work by examining subgroups of chronic offenders. The data consist of all juveniles released in 2000 with arrest data follow-up for five years extending into adulthood. Analyses employ logistic and Cox regression to investigate the factors affecting recidivism for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders using static and dynamic factors from pre-, during, and post-commitment time periods. Theoretical refinements and the implications for treatment and risk assessment instruments are addressed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the viability of studying life course criminality issues of the onset of offending, persistence and chronic criminality among adult populations. Sampson and Laub have argued that important information on these issues can be gleaned from tracking people into middle and later stages of their lives. Using data for a population of both men and women from the combined files of juvenile police records, young adult police and court records, and subject interviews, this study underscores the declining significance of age in the study of desistance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper applies a threshold autoregression (TAR) model to a casualties time series to show that the autoregressive nature of such events depends on the level of terrorism at the time of a shock. Following a shock, persistence of heightened attacks characterizes low-terrorism regimes, but not high-terrorism regimes. Similar findings are associated with incidents with deaths, bombings with deaths, and hostage taking. In contrast, the assassinations series indicates some persistence even in the high-terrorism state, while the threats/hoaxes series displays persistence in only the high-terrorism state. For all series studied, the TAR model outperforms a standard autoregressive representation. A forecasting method is engineered based on the TAR estimates, and nicely tracks resource-using events.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Part of a larger project devoted to the process of party formation, persistence and change in the post-communist world, the current paper focuses on the issue of organizational development of Bulgarian political parties. The paper starts by presenting some theoretical arguments about the importance of organization for the development and evolution of parties. Later on, it discusses the level or organizational development of Bulgarian parties and the attitudes of party leaders towards organizing, and compares the Bulgarian situation to that of East-Central European parties reported elsewhere. The paper ends with some tentative conclusions about the role organizational factors play in the evolution of the party formations and the party system as a whole.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper describes the theory-building portion of a larger project inquiring into the effects of war on the tendency of international rivalries to persist or terminate. The research design of the larger project, a comparative cases design focusing on the rivalry profiles of three different states (Germany, the United States, and Argentina) is discussed. Selected preliminary findings from the Argentine case are utilized in an effort to refine extant hypotheses regarding war and rivalry termination in an effort to build more nuanced theory in this area. The paper concludes with a discussion of one possible direction: a new categorization of rivalries, where different hypotheses regarding war and termination are expected to apply to different rivalry types.