Stability and Change in Putin's Political Image During the 2000 and 2012 Presidential Elections: Putin 1.0 and Putin 2.0?

There has been a lot of research done on “Western” politicians and political systems with regard to political marketing. But what about other countries, especially those that possess a different political standard? This article seeks to address one particular Russian politician: Vladimir Putin. He rose from obscurity to become Russia's second president (after Boris Yeltsin). Two presidential elections form the focus of attention, 2000 Putin, V. (2000). First person. London, UK: Hutchinson. [Google Scholar] and 2012. The aim is to discover the consistencies and breaks in the manufacturing of Putin's political image and reputation. A number of breaks and continuities were discovered in terms of how Putin is marketed. This seems to be a reflection of the changes taking places in Russia's political environment, which then needs to be taken into consideration when political marketing is conducted.     

中国与拉美社会保障比较:传统文化与制度安排——提高覆盖率的角度

欧洲、拉丁美洲和中国的文化与社会保障改革取向存在差异性.与西欧相比,拉美和中国之间的相似性更多一些,例如低收入的经济背景、积累性质的融资模式、个人账户的引入等,其改革效果也存在一些相似性.例如覆盖面狭小等.中国和拉美社保覆盖面狭小的原因在于传统文化存在较大差异性,即拉美缺乏储蓄文化,其社保改革之后"对等原则"的引入并没有为提高覆盖率和遵缴率作出很大贡献,但对中国住房公积金制度进行分析和对比之后发现,在浓厚的储蓄文化背景之下,中国社保覆盖率狭小的原因正是由于缺乏"对等原则"因素所致.不同文化背景下,社保制度中"对等原则"效果截然相反.鉴于此,本文认为,如果将目前统账结合制度改造为大账户制或名义账户制,将个人和单位缴费完全划入个人账户,覆盖率和遵缴率就会像住房公积金那样立即提高,实现应保尽保.     

Tacticians,Stewards, and Professionals: The Politics of Publishing Select Committee Legal Advice

At Westminster, there are increasing pressures on select committees to publish in‐house legal advice. We suggest that examining the process of deciding to publish provides useful insights into the provision, reception, and use of legal advice, and the dynamics of select committees generally. We argue that the autonomy of select committees to decide what use they make of evidence and advice they receive is, in practice, constrained by the intra‐institutional dynamics and practices of select committees. Committee actors – parliamentarians, clerks, and parliamentary lawyers – each have overlapping, sometimes competing, roles. Most of the time, these roles and the responsibilities they encompass coincide, but the prospect of publication reveals clear tensions between the different actors. This is the politics of publication: the tactical approach of politicians is in tension with the stewardship of clerks and the professional norms of parliamentary lawyers. We suggest this tension will only increase in the near future.     

Fear of terrorism: media exposure and subjective fear of attack

In many Western countries, citizen knowledge of terrorist events is intrinsically shaped by the style of broadcasted messages published by the media. Media discourses regarding terrorist acts raise questions about how such rhetoric elicits fear in people who typically experience such events through news reports. However, we do not fully understand the impact of the media on perceptions of terrorism as clearly as we understand the relationship between the media and fear of crime. This study examines how media sources accessed actively (e.g. through newspapers; Internet) or passively (e.g. through television; radio) influence knowledge and fear of terrorism. We find receiving information about terrorism from multiple media sources increases fear of terrorism, but media sources accessed passively are not as influential as media sources accessed more actively. These results highlight how media consumption from various sources may affect one’s fear of terrorism, and further illustrates how the role of perceived knowledge may exacerbate or mitigate fear. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Understanding Culture in Kentucky's Courtrooms: An Essential Tool for Management and Long‐Range Planning

Though the “old conventional wisdom” explained delay as the product of too few resources and staff, the “new conventional wisdom” posits court efficiency is largely due to the cultural makeup of the court. Adapting the Court Culture Assessment Instrument developed by Dr. Ostrom and colleagues at the National Center for State Courts, this research study examines judicial perceptions of culture in the Kentucky Court of Justice general and family circuit court. Results indicate circuit courts are predominantly autonomous but desire to be more structured (hierarchical). In addition, bivariate analyses showed a significant, but weak, inverse relationship exists between perceptions of a predominantly hierarchical culture orientation and the presence of delay. In other words, judges who perceived their circuit to be predominantly hierarchical in nature were less likely to perceive delay as a problem.     

Thoughtfully Reflective Decision Making and the Accumulation of Capital: Bringing Choice Back In

In this paper we relate a particular type of decision making, thoughtfully reflective decision making (TRDM) in adolescence, to successful and unsuccessful life outcomes in young adulthood. Those who are thoughtfully reflective in their decision making are more likely to consider possible alternative routes to goal attainment, weigh the costs and benefits of those alternatives, and critically revisit the decision once made to examine what went well and what went wrong. We also argue that what mediates the effect of TRDM on later life outcomes is the accumulation of capital. Those who use better decision making practices are more likely to recognize the resources provided by and make the necessary investments to accumulate human, social and cultural capital. These notions are theoretically linked to conceptions of criminal offenders as both rational planners and decision makers and as fully human agents. Using data from the Add Health data set, our hypotheses are largely confirmed. Those who are higher in TRDM as adolescents were more likely to have enrolled in or graduated from college, to be in better physical health, are more involved in civic and community affairs, less likely to commit criminal acts, use illegal drugs and be involved in heavy drinking as adults. TRDM is also positively related to the accumulation of human, social and cultural capital. Finally, a substantial part of the effect of TRDM on young adult outcomes was mediated by capital accumulation. The implications of these findings for future theory and research are discussed.     

An experimental study of compressed work schedules in policing: advantages and disadvantages of various shift lengths

Objectives  

The objectives of this research were to test the impacts of three shift lengths (8-, 10-, and 12-hour) on performance, health, safety, quality of life, sleep, fatigue, alertness, off-duty employment, and overtime among police.