Older Women Living with Domestic Violence: Coping Resources and Mental Health and Wellbeing

Background: Domestic violence represents a serious public health issue for women and their children worldwide. International evidence suggests that women aged over 50 who are victims of domestic violence are suffering in silence because the problem is ignored by professionals and policy makers. More UK research is needed to identify the extent of the problem, and services to meet the needs of older women.

Study aims: To bridge this gap by seeking to gain a deeper, systematic understanding of how ‘older women’ cope with domestic violence and how it effects their wellbeing, using a theoretical framework of ‘salutogenesis’ to consider coping resources used in lifelong abuse.

Methods: The study recruited a convenience sample of eighteen older women who are currently, or had been in an abusive relationship. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to discuss the personal nature, of domestic violence in their lives, and the pattern of abuse over time and its effects on their wellbeing, ways of coping and sources of support, barriers to reporting and accessing support, and experiences in seeking help.

Results: Living in a domestically violent context has extremely negative effects on older women’s wellbeing. Living with a perpetrator of long-term violence is predisposing these women to extremely negative health outcomes such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety and depression. Three-quarters of the women defined themselves as in poor mental health and were using pathogenic coping mechanisms, such as excessive and long-term use of alcohol, prescription and non-prescription drugs and cigarettes. This negative coping increased the likelihood of these women experiencing addiction to drugs and alcohol dependence and endangering their health and wellbeing in the longer term. Conclusions Public health interventions can work well from a ‘salutogenic’ perspective by finding ways to promote healthy behaviours that increase older women’s sense of wellbeing and coping. The application of this theoretical framework offers the potential for new knowledge to contribute to the discourse about wellbeing in older women dealing with domestic violence.

Political Violence and Adolescent Out-group Attitudes and Prosocial Behaviors: Implications for Positive Inter-group Relations

The negative impact of political violence on adolescent adjustment is well established. Less is known about factors that affect adolescents' positive outcomes in ethnically divided societies, especially influences on prosocial behaviors toward the out-group, which may promote constructive relations. For example, understanding how inter-group experiences and attitudes motivate out-group helping may foster inter-group co-operation and help to consolidate peace. The current study investigated adolescents' overall and out-group prosocial behaviors across two time points in Belfast, Northern Ireland (N = 714 dyads; 49% male; Time 1: M = 14.7, SD = 2.0, years old). Controlling for Time 1 prosocial behaviors, age, and gender, multi-variate structural equation modeling showed that experience with inter-group sectarian threat predicted fewer out-group prosocial behaviors at Time 2 at the trend level. On the other hand, greater experience of intra-group non-sectarian threat at Time 1 predicted more overall and out-group prosocial behaviors at Time 2. Moreover, positive out-group attitudes strengthened the link between intra-group threat and out-group prosocial behaviors one year later. Finally, experience with intra-group non-sectarian threat and out-group prosocial behaviors at Time 1 was related to more positive out-group attitudes at Time 2. The implications for youth development and inter-group relations in post-accord societies are discussed.

Male Perpetrators of Domestic Violence: How should we hold them to account?

Domestic violence is now widely acknowledged as being a significant social, health and legal issue. At both a national and transnational level governments have sought to develop strategies built upon prevention, support for victims and holding perpetrators to account through criminal justice sanctions. However, the current paradigm that informs the policy response to most perpetrators of domestic violence has failed to deliver the outcomes required, in terms of a reduction in levels of recidivism or the improved safety of women and children. It is argued that holding men to account through external controls has failed and that interventions should support men to take responsibility for their own behaviour.

Right-Wing Violence in Germany: Assessing the Objectives, Personalities and Terror Trail of the National Socialist Underground and the State's Response to It

In the last five years the forces of organised right-wing extremism have made electoral advances across many states in contemporary Europe. Germany has not been immune and the extreme right party, the National Democratic Party of Germany won its first seat in the European Parliament since 1989. The recent successes of the extreme right pose issues for European society about tolerance and immigration policy, but this scene has also been associated with an upsurge in racially motivated political violence and acts of right-wing terrorism. Much of this violence is perpetrated by small neo-Nazi styled groups. This paper looks at the most notorious and recent of such groups to emerge in Germany, the National Socialist Underground. The paper explores the origins and personalities behind this terror cell, provides derails of its criminal activities and murder spree, and questions why it took so long for the authorities to identify the NSU.

Land, Popular Politics and Agrarian Violence in Late Nineteenth Century Ireland

"Land, Popular Politics and Agrarian Violence in Ireland" provides an original and insightful study of the highly formative Land War and Home Rule from a local and regional perspective. Lucey examines the emergence and development of the largest mass political mobilisation brought about in nineteenth-century Ireland in the form of the Land League, and subsequently the National League, in the south-western county of Kerry. Such an unprecedented level of local political activity was matched by an upsurge in agrarian violence and the outbreak of serious outrage, which was largely orchestrated by secret societies known as Moonlighters. In turn, this book provides an important exploration of the dynamics behind the mass political mobilisation and agrarian violence that dominated Kerry society during the 1880s. The role of Fenians, radical agrarian agitators and moderate constitutional nationalists are all examined within the county.This study has importance beyond the local and provides a range of insights into motivations behind political action and violence at an everyday level during one of the most seminal and transformative eras in the development of modern Irish history. This title is suitable for students and academics of nineteenth-century Irish history and general readers.

Belfast beyond violence: Flagging up a challenge to local government?

Northern Ireland is emerging from violence but still living with conflict. The recent flags protests in Belfast represent a challenge to public administration to transcend the contested politics of local government in Northern Ireland and to navigate a way through a symbolic legacy issue. This article draws on a longitudinal hermeneutic analysis of empirical research conducted on Northern Ireland local government over a decade, where these concerns dominated much debate. Additional analysis of the research findings reveals broader problems applicable to any public administration faced with managing situations in which good governance in public participation and procedural correctness operates alongside fundamental political disagreement and distrust. These conclusions are particularly pertinent for local administrations in societies transitioning from conflict.

Religion, Violence and Cities

In exploring the connections between religion, violence and cities, the book probes the extent to which religion moderates or exacerbates violence in an increasingly urbanised world. Originating in a five year research project , Conflict in Cities and the Contested State, concerned with Belfast, Jerusalem and other ethno-nationally divided cities, this volume widens the geographical focus to include diverse cities from the Balkans, the Middle East, Nigeria and Japan. In addressing the understudied triangular relationships between religion, violence and cities, contributors stress the multiple forms taken by religion and violence while challenging the compartmentalisation of two highly topical debates – links between religion and violence on the one hand, and the proliferation of violent urban conflicts on the other hand. Their research demonstrates why cities have become so important in conflicts driven by state-building, fundamentalism, religious nationalism, and ethno-religious division and illuminates the conditions under which urban environments can fuel violent conflicts while simultaneously providing opportunities for managing or transforming them.

Religion, Violence and Cities: An Introduction

The catalyst for this special issue was a symposium entitled Religion, Violence and Cities, held under the auspices of a five year inter-disciplinary research project on ethno-nationally divided cities.

While this project expressly addressed cities divided by ethno-national conflict, it was clear from the beginning that there was an important religious dimension to such conflicts in most, if not all, the cities being studied.2 The rationale of the Special Issue is to examine how this religious dimension exacerbates (or moderates) urban violence within a broad comparative context. Although three of the following articles are informed by Project research, we draw the net wider to encompass a broader geographical spread from the Balkans, the Middle East, Nigeria and Japan.