Young British Partisan Attitudes to Negative Election Campaign Advertising: A Tri-Party Perspective

This article presents an empirical investigation of young partisan first-time voter attitudes toward the use of negative attack advertising in a British general election. Partisanship, particularly in relation to negative advertising and third-party effects, is significantly under-researched, yet it advances understanding of youth electoral interaction. Our study confirms that young British partisans are not passive recipients of information, but are actively involved in information processing, interpretation, and counter arguing. Our findings also highlight a third-party effect among young partisans in their evaluation of the attack advertising. Overall our young partisans broadly reject image-attack election ads, which raises a “health warning” on its use in future election campaigning. The findings of this study are of significant interest to election campaign strategists in their planning for future elections and to political researchers striving to advance understanding within the field of political marketing.     

The “Rights Awakening” of Chinese Migrant Workers: Beyond the Generational Perspective

ABSTRACT

?In the spring of 2010, the strike of the Honda workers in Nanhai instigated an on-going discourse on the “rights awakening” of the “new generation of migrant workers.” Since then, much has been written about these young workers, generally described as more pro-active and ready to stand up against their employers than the older and more subservient generation. Drawing from statistical findings from two factory-gate surveys in the metal mechanics and garment sectors in Shenzhen, this paper tests two hypotheses: (a) that workers of the younger generation are more cognizant of their legal rights than older workers; (b) that the younger generation wants to work fewer hours and to enjoy life more. We argue that this popular image of the younger generation of migrant workers is one-dimensional and reductive, as it focuses only on generational differences as an explanatory factor for worker activism, while ignoring other issues such as types of industries and payment systems. In this paper, we purport that these elements play important roles in shaping the attitude of this younger generation toward their work and rights.     

Patterns of prior offending by child abductors: A comparison of fatal and non-fatal outcomes

Our study examines the prior offending of 750 individuals who are known to be responsible for the abduction of a child under the age of 18 years. The first group comprised of 311 offenders (42%) who had abducted a child that was later located alive (found alive, referred to as FA). The second group was comprised of 439 offenders (58%) who had abducted a child that was either found murdered or was still missing and presumed dead (found murdered, referred to as FM). While males perpetrated the majority of the abductions, women perpetrated 31 (10%) of the offenses in the FA group and 10 (2%) of the offenses in the FM group. The average number of prior offenses as reflected in the NCIC criminal history of each offender was seven with these occurring over an average of 12 years. Seventy-five percent of the offenders had prior arrests for an assortment of different crimes while 25% had no known criminal history, a finding that was consistent across both the FA and FM groups. Of those with a criminal history, 41% had been arrested for assault, 40% for larceny, 35% for burglary/breaking and entering, 33% for forcible sex offenses, 25% for drug/narcotic offenses, 21% for weapons law violations, 17% for motor vehicle thefts, 15% for robbery, and 14% for kidnapping. Our findings are congruent with the theme of criminal diversity among child abductors and argue against the specificity in offending that is often assumed with this type of sexual offender. This information is relevant to our understanding of the progression in criminal offending that is manifested by offenders who abduct children and will hopefully be used by law enforcement in helping to direct and focus their investigations.     

Reviews

Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment By Tim Etchells, 1999. New York: Routledge

Up Your Ass Written by Valerie Solanas, Directed and Presented by George Coates, Performance Works at P.S. 122, New York City, February 7–25th, 2001

Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera Edited by Mary Ann Smart. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

The Garden An installation by Paul McCarthy, Dietch Projects, New York City

39 MICROLECTURES: in proximity of performance by Matthew Goulish, London: Routledge, 2000     

Changing Relations between Government and Citizen: Administrative Law and the Work of the Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman

This article examines the individual complaint‐taking role of the Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman over a 28 year period between 1977–2005. This study was conceived through a curiosity to determine how a 30 year old administrative law institution is reacting to accommodate a dramatically altered legal, political and economic environment. The suspicion was that, in the absence of legislative amendment to its jurisdiction and role, the Commonwealth Ombudsman must strategically change due to the demands of these external forces. The overall quantitative finding from the data analysis is that the internal strategic direction of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is indeed altering. In terms of dispute resolution it is increasingly using its discretionary powers to turn individual complainants back to government departments/agencies. The data analysis reveals that this administrative law institution is shifting from a reactive individual complaint taker to a proactive standard setter for government administration. This article suggests that this movement may impact upon citizen ‘rights’ or perceptions of their rights to have their individual complaints heard against government. This in turn may have a ripple effect for notions of democratic accountability and the relationship between the citizen and the state.     

Repression Technology: Internet Accessibility and State Violence

This article offers a first subnational analysis of the relationship between states' dynamic control of Internet access and their use of violent repression. I argue that where governments provide Internet access, surveillance of digital information exchange can provide intelligence that enables the use of more targeted forms of repression, in particular in areas not fully controlled by the regime. Increasing restrictions on Internet accessibility can impede opposition organization, but they limit access to information on precise targets, resulting in an increase in untargeted repression. I present new data on killings in the Syrian conflict that distinguish between targeted and untargeted events, using supervised text classification. I find that higher levels of Internet accessibility are associated with increases in targeted repression, whereas areas with limited access experience more indiscriminate campaigns of violence. The results offer important implications on how governments incorporate the selective access to communication technology into their strategies of coercion.     

Human Security and Managing Financial Crises: Can Human Security Be Effectively Managed?

Could the negative human security effects during the 1997 FinancialCrisis in East Asia have been mitigated? To shed light on thisquestion, we examine the reasons for the onset of the financialcrisis, the internal and external factors, and the InternationalMonetary Find's (IMF's) involvement/conditionality and how thisaffected the economies at the micro and macro level. The emphasishere is on the micro level, i.e. individuals and businesses.Our main conclusion is that one definite policy mishap was thatIMF loans were in part not available immediately when needed,and were focused on servicing debt payments. Because of this,some businesses with full order books were unable to find thenecessary working credits that could have helped them pull throughthe crisis, which in turn led to unnecessary bankruptcies.     

Switzerland – Really Europe's Heart of Darkness?

Immigration is a prominent and contested global topic of contemporary politics. Several recent popular votes targeting migration such as the minaret initiative, the automatic deportation initiative, and most recently the vote on “mass immigration”, evoke however the impression that Switzerland sets particularly harsh standards in migration policy. Based on historical evidence on Swiss migration policy making and comparative analyses on current cantonal integration policy outputs, I argue that ‐ while far from being a new phenomenon ‐ immigrant scepticism has become a more relevant factor of Swiss migration policy making than ever. Yet, immigration and immigrant scepticism do not only challenge direct democratic Switzerland, but all destination countries of immigration.