Social perception of rape: how rape myth acceptance modulates the influence of situational factors

This study assessed the role of rape myth acceptance (RMA) and situational factors in the perception of three different rape scenarios (date rape, marital rape, and stranger rape). One hundred and eighty-two psychology undergraduates were asked to emit four judgements about each rape situation: victim responsibility, perpetrator responsibility, intensity of trauma, and likelihood to report the crime to the police. It was hypothesized that neither RMA nor situational factors alone can explain how rape is perceived; it is the interaction between these two factors that best account for social reactions to sexual aggression. The results generally supported the authors' hypothesis: Victim blame, estimation of trauma, and the likelihood of reporting the crime to the police were best explained by the interaction between observer characteristics, such as RMA, and situational clues. That is, the less stereotypic the rape situation was, the greater was the influence of attitudes toward rape on attributions.     

Representing China in the South Pacific

Chinese diplomacy, aid, economic interactions and manifestations of soft power have increased the country??s influence in the South Pacific region. By some accounts, China??s influence is already approaching that of traditional stakeholders Australia and New Zealand. In Africa and other regions state-led and private activities in established powers?? perceived spheres of influence has caused concern and inspired particular narratives about China??s motivations. In this article we examine how media discourses in Australia and New Zealand have represented China??s role in the South Pacific. We find that China??s role has been constructed using multiple negative frames, which seek to establish China as unequivocally ??different??. More than being unencumbered by the constraints of public opinion and a free press, China is portrayed as operating in a different moral universe, in which the cold hearted exploitation of vulnerable island nations (often in cahoots with venal island elites) is entirely normal. The article shows how such constructions reveal some of the complex issues involved in Australia and New Zealand??s relationships both with China and other South Pacific nations.     

Erzählungen des Kindes‐ und Erwachsenenschutzes: Eine Anwendung und Erweiterung des Narrative Policy Frameworks

The Child and Adult Protection Authorities (KESB) have been the subject of controversial discussion since their establishment in 2013. The reform of the Guardianship Law provided for an institutional shift away from local guardianship authorities to regional specialist authorities. This article uses the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine the history of today’s controversy, simultaneously proposing an analytic strengthening of said framework. Previous NPF studies summarize policy actors into opponents and proponents. As a result, we do not know whether different actors use different narratives. We therefore separate the expert from the MP discourse. The analysis shows that the experts' arguments for a new institutional arrangement and a person‐oriented narrative dominated, which put the fundamental rights of the persons affected by guardianship measures up front. The study contributes to the understanding of the current controversy, in which a person‐oriented narrative seems to be dominant again, directed against the new authorities.     

Impact of public seed-funding on academic spin-offs

In the entrepreneurial economy of today, it is not the multinational firms which are the predominant driver in the creation of new knowledge, but the individual entrepreneur. Correspondingly, new ventures of small size are leading in commercializing new knowledge and transferring it to the market. This economic shift has been reflected by broad entrepreneurship policies, which aim at supporting the individual on the challenge of a high-growth start-up. However, prior experience shows that uniform entrepreneurship policies do not address the individual needs in different countries and ecosystems adequately. In this paper, we study the performance of academic spin-offs that received public funding from the German EXIST Business Start-Up Grant, a support program which aims at increasing the number of innovative start-ups from academia. Using a control group matching approach, we provide evidence that these start-ups are smaller by two full time equivalent employees, generate 1.7 times higher losses and have a nearly three times lower return on capital than science-based entrepreneurial firms with comparable characteristics in the first 5 years after foundation. We interpret these results to be primarily caused by the inferior financial contracting structure of the program compared to private venture capital funding and by the resulting adverse selection and incentive effects on the entrepreneurs. The evidence calls for rethinking public interventions in a national system of entrepreneurship.     

Artenschutz im Gentechnikrecht Zugleich zu Problemen von Effektivit?t, Demokratie und Abw?gung im Gentechnikrecht

Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich der Frage, ob und inwiefern den Belangen des Artenschutzes im Rahmen der geltenden Vorschriften beim Anbau gentechnisch ver?nderter Pflanzen angemessen Geltung verschafft werden kann. Besch?ftigte sich der Beitrag in NuR 2011, Heft 2 mit dem Artenschutzrecht, nimmt der vorliegende Beitrag das Gentechnikrecht – und das Verh?ltnis von Gentechnikrecht und Artenschutzrecht zueinander in ihren jeweiligen artenschutzbezogenen Vorgaben – n?her in den Blick. Dabei kommen auch Verfassungsprobleme des subkutanen Vorrangs der grünen Gentechnik in den Blick. Sie beziehen sich auf das Demokratieprinzip, den Gesetzesvorbehalt und die vermeintliche grundrechtliche Beweislastverteilung zugunsten der Gentechnik in Bezug auf unsichere naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachenfragen – und damit auf eine Sto?richtung, die (auch) dem BVerfG bisher eher entgangen ist.