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During the long reign of Alfonso VIII, Castilian bishops were crusaders, castellans, cathedral canons, and collegiate officers, and they served as powerful intermediaries between the pope and the king of Castile. In A Constellation of Authority, Kyle C. Lincoln traces the careers of a septet of these bishops and uses this history to fill in much of what really happened in thirteenth-century Castile.The relationships that local prelates cultivated with Alfonso VIII and the Castilian royal family existed in tension with how they related to the reigning pope. Drawing on diocesan archives, monastic collections, and chronicles, Lincoln reconstructs the complex negotiations and navigations these bishops undertook to maintain the balance among the papal and royal agendas and their own interests. Lincoln examines the bishops' ties to crusades and political influence, the growth of canon and Roman law, religious and church reform, and the canonization of local leaders. In the process, he makes the case that the medieval past is best illuminated by the combined luminescence of a "constellation of authority" represented, at least in part, by a conglomerate of bishops.Through seven case studies, each examining a prelate in his individual historical context, A Constellation of Authority improves our understanding of the politics of thirteenth-century Castile and provides an important foundation for further consideration of the ties between Castile and the broader European medieval world. It will appeal to medieval Hispanists and historians of the medieval church and episcopacy

Today's high recidivism rates, combined with the rising costs of jails and prisons, are increasingly seen as problems that must be addressed on both moral and financial grounds. Research on prison and jail reentry typically focuses on barriers stemming from employment, housing, mental health, and substance abuse issues from the perspective of offenders returning to urban areas. This book explores the largely neglected topic of the specific challenges inmates experience when leaving jail and returning to rural areas. Rural Jail Reentry provides a thorough background and theoretical framework on reentry issues and rural crime patterns, and identifies perceptions of the most significant challenges to jail reentry in rural areas. Utilizing three robust samples--current inmates, probation and parole officers, and treatment staff--Ward examines what each group considers to be the most impactful factors surrounding rural jail re-entry. A springboard for future research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of rural reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, and criminal justice policy.

Summary
This short note edits and studies (briefly) the contents of two previously unpublished letters from the Archivo Catedralicio de Toledo. The two letters describe the case of a young sub-deacon in the archdiocesan parish of San Nicolas, whose mother was born a Muslim but converted prior to the young cleric's conception. The conflict over his status required a visit to Rome, and resulted in a clarification of a gray area in canon law.

This Article examines the "straightwashing" of the census through the "Identity Undercount"—the failure of the state to collect sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) population data in government surveys such as the Census. The Identity Undercount, while counting the literal bodies of LGBT people, erases their lived identity. For many in the LGBT population, their lived identity and reality is one of poverty and powerlessness, a reality contrary to the widely accepted narrative that the LGBT population is more affluent and powerful than the rest of the population. Because federal and state governments rely on population data to drive policy decisions about the allocation of $675 billion in federal funds, most of which is apportioned to anti-poverty programs, the straightwashing of government data does real harm to LGBT people in poverty. If policymakers cannot see the problems, they cannot craft meaningful policy solutions or modify existing policies to meet the needs of the LGBT population. Because data are tied to resource allocation, the Identity Undercount results in resource deserts where LGBT people do not get critical and necessary services. The Article argues that the government should collect SOGI population data and that the near-complete failure to do so makes the state an active participant in creating and sustaining institutionalized poverty for LGBT people.

This paper develops a method for forecasting the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of climate policy using three features of the failed Waxman-Markey bill. First, the MAC is revealed by the price of traded permits. Second, the permit price is estimated using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) comparing stock returns of firms on either side of the policy's free permit cutoff rule. Third, because Waxman-Markey was never implemented, I extend the RDD approach to incorporate prediction market prices which normalize estimates by policy realization probabilities. A final bounding analysis recovers a MAC range of $5 to $19 per ton CO2e. (JEL G12, G14, Q52, Q54, Q58)

AbstractThis article examines religious identity and its effect on political participation in the context of the Mennonite Church USA. Traditionally, Mennonite doctrine discouraged political activity because of its "worldly" nature. But it is uncertain if traditional doctrine influences the political behavior of contemporary church members. This article seeks to determine (1) to what extent there is a religious identity among contemporary Mennonites, (2) does this identity discourage support for political participation, and (3) if Mennonite identity discourages political participation, what is the substantive difference in support for political participation between low and high identity Mennonites? The analysis reveals that Mennonite religious identity is widespread in the Mennonite Church USA and high levels of identity decreases support for political activity. Despite this, Mennonites as a whole are fairly supportive of political participation, regardless of their level of identity.

This article explores the effect of domestic and international politics on the choice of mediation as a conflict management strategy in international crises. Existing work has yet to fully explore how domestic and international audiences shape the combatants' preferences for mediation. With regard to domestic pressures, combatants often desire mediation as political cover for unpalatable concessions. That is, intermediaries might obscure responsibility for disappointing outcomes or signal the prudence of compromise. In terms of international audiences, affected third parties eager to shape the resolution outcome might lobby to serve as a mediator. Since both domestic and international audiences are affected by the crisis severity, the article also explores how the pain of fighting conditions the effect of international and domestic political pressures. Empirical analysis of international crises since World War I confirms that potential domestic audience costs for seeking peace and the propensity for concessions positively affect the probability of mediation. Less clear is the role of third-party incentives; the results indicate that a higher potential for neighboring-state intervention actually decreases the likelihood of mediation. Consistent with previous studies, conflict costs increase mediation incidence, and the findings also indicate that at high costs of conflict, states appear in less need of political cover for making concessions.

A series of specific choices, made by both the antagonists in a conflict and the third parties that mediate, determine the distribution of mediation resources. These choices, which include the selection of whether to have mediation, the choice of who mediates, and the adoption of particular mediator strategies, ultimately affect the prospects for successful outcomes. Studying the mediation selection process has two primary purposes. First, it prevents misleading inferences caused by the involved actors conditioning their mediation preferences on their expectations of the outcomes. Second, it clarifies the constraints on optimal mediation, and thus provides insight into how effective mediation can be more prevalent. Using quantitative analyses, the results demonstrate that mediation occurs when the bargaining problems are manageable enough for success to be likely, or when there are conditions that give the actors devious incentives for mediation. In the cases that receive mediation, the conflict actors prefer the most potentially effective intermediaries when the bargaining problems are less manageable. The project also finds that when persuasive third parties derive sufficient benefits, mediation is more likely to occur, more likely to involve these types of third parties, and more likely to include the most costly tactics. Taking steps to mitigate selection and omitted variable biases substantially affects the inferences drawn regarding what contributes to effective mediation. Factors such as the type of mediator, power balance, changes in power balance, previous interaction, ethnic dimensions and overall third-party incentives to mediate appear to have no effect on mediation outcomes in analyses that do not take into account the selection process. Once the models are informed by the information in the selection process, the important effects of these factors materialize. Accounting for the selection process, the findings demonstrate that mediation is an effective vehicle toward peaceful resolution. In addition, the findings reveal that mediation performs best when the most resourceful mediators are willing to use all the tactics at their disposal, and when the belligerents do not have incentives to use mediation merely as a stalling tactic