Introduction to special issue on ‘professional insecurities’

Introduction

Introduction to special issue on professional insecurities     

Commentaries on Brunner and Willard’s ‘professional insecurities’

Commentary

Commentaries on Brunner and Willards professional insecurities     

Integrating Voting Theory and Roll Call Analysis: A Framework

Scholars of legislative studies typically use ideal point estimatesfrom scaling procedures to test theories of legislative politics.We contend that theory and methods may be better integratedby directly incorporating maintained and to be tested hypothesesin the statistical model used to estimate legislator preferences.In this view of theory and estimation, formal modeling (1) providesauxiliary assumptions that serve as constraints in the estimationprocess, and (2) generates testable predictions. The estimationand hypothesis testing procedure uses roll call data to evaluatethe validity of theoretically derived to be tested hypothesesin a world where maintained hypotheses are presumed true. Wearticulate the approach using the language of statistical inference(both frequentist and Bayesian). The approach is demonstratedin analyses of the well-studied Powell amendment to the federalaid-to-education bill in the 84th House and the Compromise of1790 in the 1st House.     

Prostitute for a good reason: stars and morality in Egypt

“Prostitute for a Good Reason. Stars and Morality in Egypt” introduces briefly the history of Egyptian film industry, its current star system and the general evaluation of stars on the artistic and moral level. It examines whether and to what extent Egyptian stars may attain a quasi-mythical power and the kind of moral concepts that are conveyed through them. Hence, it touches on the process of how Egyptian audiences are inclined to read mass-mediated messages. In this context the study refers to the phenomenon of veiling that spread among actresses during the early 1990s and tries to relate it to relevant ideological tensions at work. Consequently, the study investigates the position of actresses, primarily top star Nadia al-Gindi. Her image and film persona seem to indicate a very specific interaction between prevalent ideological and moral concepts of different origins including Islamism and modernism on the one hand and cultural taboos of sexuality and power on the other.     

Sex differences in suicidal ideation in a community sample from China

In a large sample of over 4,000 Chinese residents in the Wuling and Sino-Vietnamese border regions of China, females had a higher incidence of ever wishing that they were dead. This sex difference was found regardless of marital status, age, and occupation.