Personality and Turnout: Results from the Finnish Longitudinal Studies

Scholars in the field of electoral participation have for long been aware that turnout is strongly connected to sociopsychological variables such as religiosity, party identification, political interest and sense of political efficacy. The impact of personality characteristics has remained largely unexplored until recently. Based on the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS, original N = 369), this article analyses the links between individuals' personality traits and their propensity to vote at ages 36, 42 and 50. The personality traits are measured by using the five‐factor model of personality consisting of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. The results show both extraversion and agreeableness to be positively associated with electoral participation, but the findings are not consistent at all ages. Finally, the analysis suggests that the effect of extraversion varies depending on the level of education. Whereas well‐educated people are more prone to be habitual voters regardless of their level of extraversion, among less‐educated respondents it has a more sizeable effect.     

Increased adrenaline to noradrenaline ratio is a superior indicator of antemortem hypothermia compared with separate catecholamine concentrations

The significance of urinary catecholamines and small gastric mucosal bleedings, Wischnewsky's spots, in postmortem diagnosis of hypothermia deaths was evaluated. Autopsy cases (n=358) were divided into hypothermia, suspected hypothermia, and control groups. The catecholamine levels did not correlate with the length of the postmortem period. The adrenaline to noradrenaline ratio was most effective in detecting hypothermia (68.9% sensitivity, 78.1% specificity). The median adrenaline concentrations were significantly higher in hypothermia than in control groups. The control group containing mostly sudden cardiac deaths with no cold exposure had a noradrenaline level comparable to the hypothermia groups. The sensitivity and specificity of determining Wischnewsky's spots in hypothermia deaths were 63.9% and 88.3%, respectively. The adrenaline to noradrenaline ratio is more suitable in proving antemortem cold stress than either of these independently, and its diagnostic value is comparable to that of Wischnewsky's spots.     

Managing in the contemporary world: rape victims' and supporters' experiences of barriers within the police and the health care system in Tanzania

Grounded theory guided the analysis of 30 in-depth interviews with raped women and community members who had supported raped women in their contact with the police and health care services in Tanzania. The aim of this study was to understand and conceptualize the experiences of the informants by creating a theoretical model focusing on barriers, strategies, and responses during the help seeking process. The results illustrate a process of managing in the contemporary world characterized as walking a path of anger and humiliation. The barriers are illustrated by painful experiences of realizing it's all about money, meeting unprofessionalism and irresponsibility, subjected to unreliable services, and by being caught in a messed-up system. Negotiating truths and knowing what to do capture the informants' coping strategies. The study indicates an urgent need for improvement in the formal procedures of handling rape cases, improved collaboration between the police and the health care system, as well as specific training for professionals to improve their communication and caring skills.     

Föderalismus als Entdeckungsverfahren &;ndash; Zur Theorie und Empirie des innovativen Bundesstaates am Beispiel Österreichs

Differenzierungen im Recht gehören zu den Wesensmerkmalen des Bundesstaates. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie über diese Differenzierungen föderalistischer Wettbewerb entsteht und wechselseitiges Lernen ermöglicht wird. Nicht zu vernachlässigen ist aber auch der Effekt der Rechtsangleichung durch kooperativen Föderalismus. Beide Phänomene sind Bausteine einer Theorie des innovativen Bundesstaates.     

COVID-19 Infodemic: A study on the Fragile Five countries

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many rumors and conspiracy theories spread in various media outlets. The purpose of this study is to reveal the nature of the misinformation detected by fact check platforms that spread in the Fragile Five countries. To determine the themes of misinformation about COVID-19 and from which media it is disseminated are a possible way to prevent it. The data of the study were obtained from International Fact-checking Network's CoronaVirusFacts database. One thousand seven hundred thirty-four piece of misinformation collected by web scraping method during the period January 24, 2020 to November 14, 2020 and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of the research, it was found that rumors (96.3%) spread more in the Fragile Five countries than conspiracy theories (3.7%). While the main theme of the rumors is about illness (26.9%) and diagnosis-treatment (25%), conspiracy theories are mostly related to the cause of the disease (68.8%). 53.06% of misinformation was spread through the Facebook platform. 15.32% on Twitter; 13.34% on WhatsApp. Misinformation has been heavily false (85.12%) in both rumor and conspiracy theories. In the second place, misleading (10.09%) news spread.     

Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence

While recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the most powerful technologies of our times tend to portray it as a predominantly technical issue, it also has major social, political and cultural implications. So far these have been mostly studied from ethical, legal and economic perspectives, while politics and policy have received less attention. To address this gap, this special issue brings together nine research articles to advance the studies of politics and policy of AI by identifying emerging themes and setting out future research agenda. Diverse but complementary contributions in this special issue speak to five overarching themes: understanding the AI as co-shaped by technology and politics; highlighting the role of ideas in AI politics and policy; examining the distribution of power; interrogating the relationship between novel technology and continuity in politics and policy; and exploring interactions among developments at local, national, regional and global levels. This special issue demonstrates that AI policy is not an apolitical field that can be dealt with just by relying on knowledge and expertise but requires an open debate among alternative views, ideas, values and interests.     

The negative relationships between employee resilience and ambiguity,complexity, and inter-agency collaboration

Employee resilience (ER) is often needed to face demands inherent in public sector work. Some types of demands, however, may hinder its development, rather than provide the type of challenging adversity from which resilience can develop. Public sector job demands have been a long-standing issue for public workplaces and employees but are also growing in salience as organisations face an increasingly variable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources model and the challenge/hindrance stress literature, this multi-level study of Aotearoa New Zealand civil servants (n = 11,533) in 65 public sector organisations shows that ER is negatively affected by demands such as job insecurity, unclear job and organisational goals, and inter-agency collaboration. However, organisational resource constraints are positively associated with ER. This study identifies core PA job and organisational demands that hinder ER and offers practical implications and suggestions for further research.

Points for practitioners

• Job role ambiguity, job insecurity, unclear organisational goals, and inter-agency collaboration are common job and organisational demands in public sector workplaces.
• For employees, these demands are stressors that employees do not feel they control, and may therefore hinder employee resilience: the ability to learn, adapt, and leverage networks in the face of challenges.
• Surprisingly, resource constraints, where employees have to ‘do more with less’, might help employees develop ER.
• While inter-agency collaboration has potentially many benefits, it appears to have negative spillover effects on employees unaware of it or not involved in it.
• To encourage ER, agencies should clarify both organisational and job goals, and assure job security, control, competency development, and supervisor support.