How citizenship matters (or not): the citizenship–belonging nexus explored among residents in Oslo,Norway

This article sheds light on what citizenship means for individuals’ experiences of belonging. Through 41 interviews conducted in Oslo, Norway, we trace understandings of how, when and why citizenship matters (or not) for belonging. Our interviewees fall into one of four categories: born citizens; naturalized citizens; dual citizens and non-Norwegian citizens who would qualify for naturalization, thus mixing participants with and without immigrant backgrounds. We interpret individuals’ experiences evaluating whether formal citizenship is explicitly or implicitly salient and whether it is associated with secure or insecure belonging. We find that citizenship matters for security and recognition, both linked to belonging, in expected and unexpected ways. Our findings point to how, when and why citizenship matters (or not) for belonging, constituting the citizenship–belonging nexus. Here, race continues to matter, as does the materiality of the passport document, in how the citizenship–belonging nexus interacts with the nation as locus of membership for citizens.     

Shame and Guilt and its Relation to Direct and Indirect Experience of Trauma in Adolescence,a Brief Report

Exposure to different kinds of traumatic events is common among adolescents. This brief report study examined whether shame proneness and guilt proneness were associated with direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic events (PTEs). We investigated the relationship between gender, PTEs, shame, and guilt among adolescents (n?=?314, age?=?15–20 years). We hypothesized that shame proneness and guilt proneness would be associated with direct experience of interpersonal and sexual PTEs, that both direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic sexual event/s would correlate with female gender, and that potentially traumatic direct and indirect interpersonal event/s would correlate with male gender. Shame was positively associated with having experienced direct sexual trauma and with female gender. Girls had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct sexual events and boys had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct interpersonal events. Indirect experiences of traumatic events were not related to either gender or shame. We conclude that the relation between shame, PTEs, and gender is complex with both types of traumas and gender interact with shame. This study found that shame and direct experience of sexual traumatic events were associated among adolescent girls. Gender and what type of traumatic events adolescents’ direct experience is most likely related but not gender and what type of indirect experienced trauma.

     

Soft budgets and elastic debt: farm liabilities in the agrarian political economy of post-Soviet Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

Since Tajikistan’s independence, market reforms and pressure from international donors have brought changes to the state’s role in the economy. The official narrative holds that the post-socialist state reduced its control over agriculture, but there are still various mechanisms through which it exerts control over farming. In this paper, I examine Tajikistan’s post-socialist agrarian change through the prism of farm debt. Farm debt used to be an accounting nuisance in Soviet agriculture as a result of so-called soft-budget constraints. In the political economy of post-socialist transformation, farm cotton debt has been transformed into indebted land. I classify this debt ‘elastic’ for its ambiguous nature. It ties farmers to land and makes farmers’ independence illusory. With an in-depth analysis based on original ethnographic insights, I aim to provide a theoretical contribution to the way in which debt is conceptualised and politicised in post-Soviet Tajikistan.     

Do They Really Know? On Party Representatives’ Knowledge of the Extent to Which Their Parties Make Election Pledges

The assumption that representatives hold knowledge about their parties’ programmes underlies models of representative democracy. However, representatives’ party knowledge is rarely discussed in theoretical detail, nor is it often systematically empirically investigated. This article takes the first steps and discusses what type of knowledge of their parties representatives need and what knowledge they actually have. Specific focus is given to parties’ election pledge‐making. By comparing the number of parties’ pledges in Swedish election manifestos to Swedish party representatives’ perceptions of the extent to which parties make pledges, the article presents empirical evidence indicating low levels of knowledge. Knowledge is higher among top‐level politicians and politicians who trust parties to generally keep their pledges, but the main conclusion is that research should not assume detailed knowledge of pledge‐making in manifestos among elected representatives, which has not previously been shown in systematic studies.     

Partner similarity for self-reported antisocial behaviour among married,cohabiting and dating couples: the Generation R Study

Abstract

From a criminological perspective, romantic relationships are supposed to decrease the risk of antisocial behaviour (Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, American Sociological Review, 63, 225–238, 1998). However, the effects of these relationships probably depend on the romantic partner's behaviour. In the current study we examined partner similarity for antisocial behaviour in an ethnically heterogeneous community sample of 4135 married, cohabiting and dating couples from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, using self-reports. Spousal correlations were consistently positive for antisocial behaviour but differed in strength according to the type of antisocial behaviour. Associations between spouses remained strong after adjusting for age and educational level depending on the type of antisocial behaviour. In addition, antisocial behaviour was positively associated between partners across marital status and ethnicity, but the strength of this association varied to some extent. Results are discussed in light of the phenotypic assortment, the socialization and the social homogamy hypotheses.     

The Trouble in Mali—corruption,collusion, resistance

The combined force of the 2012 coup in Bamako and the rebellion in the north entailed an unmasking of Mali. What had been presented as a showcase of democracy, good governance, and peace and reconciliation proved to be a facade for institutional weakness and mismanagement. The collusion between regional and national ‘big man’ interests that the crisis revealed showed little if any respect for human security and development. This article will analyse the causes of the crisis and the strategies of key actors, including the Islamist rebels. The consequences of and responses to the conflict will also be addressed before the article ends with some tentative conclusions concerning the future stability of Mali and the Sahel region. The article is based on the authors’ long engagement with Mali, spanning more than a decade, but the most recent material presented is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted there in February and March 2013.     

Incorporating Co-offending in Sentencing Models: An Analysis of Fines Imposed on Antitrust Offenders

Analyses of sentencing (and other criminal justice processes such as the decision to prosecute, plea bargaining, and contact with the police) often use the isolated individual as the unit of analysis. However, the criminal justice system often processes either offenses or court cases rather than persons. If court cases always involved one individual, this would have little impact. However, offenses involving co-offending—two or more persons acting together—comprise a substantial proportion of criminal activity (Reiss, 1980, 1986). Depending on the prevalence of co-offending, it may be very likely that two or more individuals involved in the same case will be selected as members of the same sample of criminal justice or criminological data. Unless it can be shown that both the individual-level variables of co-offenders and their error terms are mutually independent, analyses based on methods such as ordinary least-squares multiple regression would violate the underlying assumptions of such models. However, alternatives to linear models assuming either type of independence are available. Among the most useful of these are mixed models, specifically those assuming compound symmetry. This is illustrated with an analysis of fines imposed on criminally convicted antitrust offenders. These models may yield results which are substantially different than those from models which ignore co-offending. In a model of fines imposed on antitrust offenders, models which ignore co-offending generally overstate both estimates and statistical significance of offense-level variables and understate those of offender-level variables.