Diversity in one dimension alongside greater similarity in others: evidence from FP7 cooperative research teams

Although diversity between team members may bring benefits of new perspectives, nevertheless, what holds a team together is some degree of similarity. We theorise that diversity in one dimension is traded off against diversity in another. Our analysis of collaborative research teams that received FP7 funding presents robust results that indicators of diversity in several dimensions—diversity of organizational form (universities, firms, etc.), diversity in nationality, and inequality in project funding share—are negatively correlated with each other.     

Eroding Germany’s Commitment to Data Protection: Policy Entrepreneurs and Coalition Politics in EU Passenger Name Records

A history of totalitarian governments and state surveillance appear to have made Germans sensitive towards the uses of personal data. Because of such concerns, Germany often acted as an obstacle to security measures requiring personal data at the EU level. However, there has been a recent sea-change in Germany over EU Passenger Name Records (EU-PNR), a measure that requires the personal data of airline passengers for security purposes. Many in Berlin have moved from lukewarm at the time of the first EU-PNR proposal in 2007 to advocating it in 2014. The article draws on Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to examine this change in position, comparing two government coalitions – the CDU/CSU–FDP (2009–13) with the CDU/CSU–SPD (2013–) – to show how actors within the CDU/CSU have acted as policy entrepreneurs to ensure agreement on EU-PNR. It is argued that the composition of governmental coalitions can act as a central condition that facilitates or hinders the success of policy entrepreneurs. While the position of the FDP blocked any progress on EU-PNR in the former coalition, policy entrepreneurs used the willingness of the SPD to show voters their support for tougher security measures, thereby ensuring Germany’s support for EU-PNR.     

The Moderating Effects of Informal Social Control in the Sanctions-Compliance Nexus

Deterrence researchers have abandoned a one-size-fits-all approach and identified a wide range of individual characteristics (e.g., low self-control, emotional arousal) associated with the decision to offend. Comparatively less attention has been given to the moderating effects of purely situational factors on intentions to break the law. Drawing on social control and rational choice literatures, we utilized a vignette-based survey and asked a sample of young adults to report on their likelihood of driving drunk under conditions of high and low informal social control. We then explored the effects of certainty and severity of punishment on offending likelihood across both conditions. Among deterrable offenders, we found that the relationship between severity and compliance manifested only in the presence of high informal social control. Certainty was significantly and inversely associated with offending likelihood in both high and low informal social control conditions—among both deterrables and the full sample. Implications for deterrence theory are discussed.     

Neo-liberalism,big business and the evolution of interest group activity in Latin America

In the 1980s and 1990s, the confluence of the third wave of democracy, neo-liberal economic reforms and economic crises in Latin America, produced several significant consequences for the region's underdeveloped interest group systems. By using an international political economy approach, this article examines these developments and particularly how neo-liberal policies affected the political fortunes of big business plus the broader political fall-out from neo-liberal policies. In essence, we make the argument that, for three reasons, the consequences of the confluence of these three developments for Latin America's emerging interest group system are mixed in terms of a more pluralist, open-access system. First, the influence of big business persists and in many ways has been enhanced as the economically and politically privileged position of large private companies since the 1980s has given way to economic concentration, transnationalization and the rise of multilatinas (Latin American multinational companies, which primarily operate across the region). Second, political opportunities have been opened for a range of interests, many from the left, that likely would not otherwise have emerged so early in the region. Third, the election of leaders opposed to neo-liberal policies may transform Latin America's political economy and aid in the democratization of its interest group system. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Safeguarding development aid against climate change: evaluating progress and identifying best practice

Official development assistance currently totals around US$130 billion per year, an order of magnitude greater than international climate finance. To safeguard development progress and secure the long-term effectiveness of these investments, projects must be designed to be resilient to climate change. This article reviews 250 projects for three countries from two development organisations and finds that between 2% and 30% of these may require action now to “future-proof” investments and policies. Both organisations show improvements in the recognition of climate change in projects, but many projects are still not future-proof.     

Review panel consensus and post-decision commercial performance: a study of early stage technologies

We examine the ability of review panels to predict commercial success when evaluating early-stage technologies from small business. Specifically we examined whether a screening process resulted in greater consensus among grant panel members, to what extent certain panel members “stuck” to their evaluations, and whether information sharing and panel consensus resulted in better predictions of commercial success. In general, we found that expert panel members tend to move toward consensus after discussion, with technical experts being the most “sticky”. While information sharing does not lead to better prediction, increasing consensus among panel members does indicate a slight improvement in prediction accuracy.     

Creative appropriation: academic knowledge and interventions against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT

Recent academic research has questioned assumptions about sexual violence in (post-) conflict contexts. Gender norms rather than military decision-making have been found to constitute a major underlying reason for wartime sexual violence. In this contribution, we investigate whether international organisations seeking to prevent sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo have accordingly changed their analytical perspectives and modified policies and programming. We find that many, but not all, such organisations creatively appropriate new academic work in their policy and project documents. However, incentives for continuity in the humanitarian field have slackened the pace of any substantive practical changes.     

Gender equity, traditional masculine culture, and female homicide victimization

Several prior studies of gender equity and female violent victimization showed a positive relationship between the two, with some scholars defining this as a backlash effect due to increasing gender equity in the context of conservative gender role expectations. This assertion was tested here under a more general set of theories about real and perceived threats to White male dominance in the United States that suggested that the positive relationship between gender equity and female victimization was conditioned by the strength of traditional masculine culture. Using cross-sectional data and employing a commonly tested baseline model to control for other structural covariates of homicide rates, variables were introduced to represent gender income equity and different components of traditional masculine culture. Results confirmed a positive cross-sectional relationship between gender income equality and White non-Hispanic female homicide victimization rates, but did not show the expected interaction effects, leading the authors to conclude that other structural or cultural factors were the source of the positive relationship.