National Minorities and the International System

National minorities are collectivities who possess that trait which is the current normative underpinning of states, namely nationhood, and yet for practical purposes cannot enjoy outright political independence. Because national minorities bear these normatively significant characteristics they may be deemed to have legitimate international claims to certain special rights even if these fall short of statehood. Yet although this rationale may be logically sound and morally justified, pursuing it nevertheless raises serious problems with regard to state sovereignty.     

Integrating Rigor and Relevance in Public Administration Scholarship: The Contribution of Narrative Inquiry

A traditional view of scholarly quality defines rigor as the application of method and assumes an implicit connection with relevance. But as an applied field, public administration requires explicit attention to both rigor and relevance. Interpretive scholars' notions of rigor demand an explicit inclusion of relevance as an integral aspect of quality. As one form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry illuminates how this can be done. Appreciating this contribution requires a deeper knowledge of the logic of narrative inquiry, an acknowledgement of the diversity of narrative approaches, and attention to the implications for judging its quality. We use our story about community-based leadership research to develop and illustrate this argument.     

The Structure of Censorship Attitudes

Research about censorship attitudes across disciplines shares the normative goal of predicting and modifying attitudes perceived as either too permissive or too restrictive. Understanding attitude structure is important to achieving this goal. This study explores the intra-attitudinal structure of public censorship attitudes, specifically the general tendency to endorse particular government actions. For twenty-one scenarios, respondents indicated their agreement with each of five possible government reactions: prior restraint; subsequent punishment; time, place, manner restrictions; allow, and protect. Scale scores were computed for each government response. There are strong correlations between the two punitive restriction options and between the two permissive government responses. The time, place, manner response option related moderately to the other scales. Additional structural information is provided by examining scale relationships with other variables: gender, liberal-conservative self-rank, religiosity, need for cognition, authoritarianism, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion.     

Rethinking measures of democracy and welfare state universalism: Lessons from subnational research

ABSTRACT

Democracy and the welfare state are two of the most extensively studied concepts and themes in the field of comparative politics. Debate about how to best measure the two concepts has failed to contemplate the extent to which political and social rights are uniformly present across distinct regions of the national territory, despite the presence of substantial subnational research that underscores wide variation inside countries. We argue that this omission hampers our understanding of the two phenomena and we propose a new measure of democracy and healthcare universalism, which we call the Adjusted Measures of Democracy and Welfare Universalism. The new measures integrate territorial inequality into existing national-level indicators, providing a more accurate picture of country performance and opening the door to new, multi-level theory building.     

Early Adolescents’ Social Standing in Peer Groups: Behavioral Correlates of Stability and Change

Sociometric nominations, social cognitive maps, and self-report questionnaires were completed in consecutive years by 327 students (56% girls) followed longitudinally from grade 7 to grade 8 to examine the stability of social standing in peer groups and correlates of changes in social standing. Social preference, perceived popularity, network centrality, and leadership were moderately stable from grade 7 to grade 8. Alcohol use and relational aggression in grade 7 predicted changes in social preference and centrality, respectively, between grade 7 and grade 8, but these effects were moderated by gender and ethnicity. Changes in social standing from grade 7 to grade 8 were unrelated to grade 8 physical aggression, relational aggression, and alcohol use after controlling for the grade 7 corollaries of these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding links between social standing and problem behaviors during adolescence.

Physiologic Responses to Racial Rejection Images Among Young Adults from African-American Backgrounds

Physiologic reactivity to racially rejecting images was assessed in 35 young adults (10 males, 25 female) from African-American backgrounds using the startle probe paradigm. In a laboratory setting, participants viewed 16 images depicting racial rejection, racial acceptance, nonracial negative, and nonracial positive themes. While viewing these images, startling bursts of noise were presented and the magnitude of the eyeblink responses were measured. Results supported an attentional mechanism which suggests that, while viewing both racially rejecting and nonracial positive images, individuals may be so absorbed in processing the images that they appear less distracted by the startling noise. However, these patterns were only found for participants low in racial regard. Young adults who felt positively about their racial background did not exhibit differential processing of startle stimuli as a function of slide themes. Race-rejection sensitivity did not moderate startle reactivity. Developmental implications, particularly in light of coping with racial discrimination, are discussed.