The European Parliament Elections of June 2004: Still Second-Order?

A quarter of a century ago the first series of European Parliament elections were characterised as second-order national elections. Much has changed since, which might have had an impact upon this diagnosis. In this article the central assumptions and predictions of the second-order elections model are restated and evaluated against the outcome of the 2004 European Parliament election and a post-election survey. Surprisingly enough, the findings confirm the persisting second-order nature of EP elections for Western Europe. Matters look very different, however, in the eight new Central and East European member countries.     

The Janus Face of Europeanisation: Explaining Cross-Sectoral Differences in Public Utilities

Although policymakers have sought to liberalise network-based utilities, a more detailed look at privatisation pathways reveals remarkable sector-specific differences. This article examines why efforts to privatise public utilities have differed so greatly in the telecommunications, postal, and railway sectors. By estimating probit models, it is demonstrated that firm characteristics and sector-specific EU integration account for cross-sectoral differences in privatisation. More specifically, governments dispose of the most efficient firms first to maximise revenues from privatisation sales with low political costs. Regulations at the European level pushed governments to privatise their national postal providers, while privatisation in the telecommunications sector is a global trend. In the railway sector, exceptional clauses and regulations have decelerated privatisation.     

Implementing Developmental Screening Programs for Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare System

In 2003, revisions to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act required states to develop plans to refer children younger than 3 years of age with a substantiated case of abuse and neglect for developmental screening. A decade after legislation was passed, its implementation varies considerably across states. This article explains how research informs the need for careful developmental monitoring of young children, especially those experiencing trauma or living under stressful conditions. Finally, this article presents how one community used colocation to increase developmental screenings for young abused and neglected children.     

Is Deterrence Effective? Results of a Meta-Analysis of Punishment

It is supposed that threats of punishment deter potential criminals from committing crimes. The correctness of this theory is, however, questionable. Numerous empirical investigations have come to different results. In this article a meta-analysis is described which tries to find out the reasons for the different findings. First evaluations indicate that the methods of research have an influence on the results and that a possible deterring effect of the penal law can only be covered reasonably with a very differentiating model. Not all criminal acts can be influenced by deterrence. It appears that the most significant deterrent effects can be achieved in cases of minor crime, administrative offences and infringements of informal social norms. In cases of homicide, on the other hand, the meta-analysis does not indicate that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. According to the results, the validity of the deterrence hypothesis must be looked at in a differenciated manner.     

Transforming top‐down agricultural extension to a participatory system: a study of costs and prospective benefits in Egypt

This article challenges some previous assessments of agricultural extension relying on simple measures of costs per farmer trained. Taking the case of Egypt, five pilot projects that aim to transform the existing agricultural extension system to a participatory system are analysed as regards their cost‐effectiveness and prospective cost–benefits. It is shown that the intensity and likely impact of participatory approaches among the different projects vary. Hence, it is insufficient to judge extension programmes by their cost‐effectiveness alone. In the case of cotton, for example, the costs per farmer trained are considerably lower than in horticultural crops but there are large differences in prospective benefits which would make investment in participatory extension in the latter more promising. The article calls for a more careful analysis of the costs of extension programmes in agricultural development and identifies four major cost categories, namely base costs, start‐up costs, recurrent and farmers' costs. The article also submits that in the context of the debate on privatization of agricultural extension there is a role to be played for the public sector in agriculture. The success of participatory approaches to extension will depend on the quality of services provided in connection with farmer training programmes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sensitivity to befallen injustice and reactions to unfair treatment in a laboratory situation

At Time 1, 171 students were administered questionnaires for measuring sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI), trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, self-assertiveness, and attitudes toward principles of distributive justice (equality of chances, equity). Two months later (Time 2), 75 of these subjects were treated unfairly in a laboratory situation dealing with competition and achievement behavior. Two justice principles were violated: the equality of chances principle and the equity principle. Four weeks later (Time 3), 32 subjects evaluated the unfair treatment in retrospect. All three occasions were presented as independent studies with the subjects perceiving no connection between them. In line with our hypotheses, we found that immediate and delayed reactions to the unjust treatments depended to a considerable degree on SBI. For example, the combined score of the SBI questionnaire predicted, with a beta weight of .71, a combined rating of three experts who used various sources of objective information (e.g., tape-recorded interactions between subject and experimenter) to estimate the degree to which the subject displayed emotional, verbal, and behavioral resentment against the unfair treatment. At the same time, measures for other constructs (e.g., assertiveness, trait anger, anger expression), which can also be linked theoretically to the criteria, explained either none or a much smaller proportion of variance in reactions to unjust treatment.     

Der Fall Bautzen: Eine Netzwerkanalyse zur Entstehung digitaler Öffentlichkeiten

In autumn 2016, refugees and followers of the political right were caught up in a violent conflict in the Saxon town of Bautzen. The paper analyses how this event was discussed in the digital public. On the basis of Bruno Latour’s relational sociology it carries out a quantitative network analysis in order to understand the structural dynamics of Twitter as a discursive arena. It appears that the political debate of the event develops from unconnected partial publics via antagonistic battles of opinion up to closed echo chambers. In the case of Bautzen, Twitter works like a megaphone: the technology doesn’t contribute to intersubjective understanding but facilitates the distribution of personal constructions of reality.     

非对称战争与国际人道法

一、引言 在过去的十年里，“军事事务变革”的观念引起了军事思想家们的注意，“不对称”已成为当前的流行用语。但是，不对称很难表示一种本质上新的行动模式，因为在战争的某些特性方面，