Metropolitan challenges and reform pressures across Europe – the perspectives of city mayors

Metropolitan governance arrangements and their policy purposes have been a matter of debate among researchers and practitioners around the globe. While we may trace three broad schools of metropolitan governance – reform school, public choice theory and new regionalism – with each still having its proponents, we are interested to learn whether there are assumptions on metropolitan governance that have today become general knowledge among urban political elites. By investigating the attitudes and perceptions of city mayors across Europe, we show that functional multipurpose governance bodies are indeed more generally associated with equitable service distribution, whereas the preconditions for cost-efficiency and sustainable development are more equivocally placed at different modes of governance. Moreover, we show that a perceived general lack of problem-solving capacities does not automatically translate into pressures for metropolitan reform, but it is only in combination with a general disaffection with the governance structures currently in place.     

Adult roles and the gender gap in political knowledge: a comparative study

The unusual size and persistence of the gender gap in political knowledge is perplexing in comparison to other dimensions of politics. Building on situational explanations of political engagement, this article claims that women’s and men’s specific adult roles lead to an enlargement of the gender gap in knowledge. The present study analyses men and women’s levels of political knowledge at different life stages by means of two unique datasets specifically collected to measure what people know about politics. Findings show that adult roles provide more opportunities for men to gain political knowledge than for women. Furthermore, the comparison of levels of political knowledge in two such dissimilar countries as Finland and Spain suggests that while gender equality policies are successful in tearing down some of the obstacles that hinder women’s contact with the political world, they are still insufficient to completely bridge the gender gap in political knowledge during adulthood.     

Who's Afraid of… Ethical Dilemmas in Qualitative Research

In the light of her latest study the author investigates ethical challenges of qualitative research connected to the issue of privacy and publicity. The value of any research is that its findings are recognizable to the informants. This is the presupposition of a dialogue and of a possible change of practice. This is, however, also the dilemma of anonymity. To make the analysis recognizable it is important that the steps are transparent, so that it is possible to follow the reasoning of the researcher. Visiting various researchers the author maintains that any research takes colour, not only of the researcher and the subjects, but also by the power games played on the scene. She underlines the responsibility of all parts to participate in an on‐going discussion of the result.     

The (im)plausibility of racism in Europe: policy frameworks on discrimination and integration

ABSTRACT

Rodríguez Maeso and Araújo analyse the reproduction of a dominant understanding of racism in policy discourses of integration and discrimination used by monitoring agencies in Portuguese and European Union (EU) institutional contexts. More specifically, they question the political concern over racism and discrimination vis-à-vis the idea of Europe ‘becoming increasingly diverse’ and the need to gather ‘evidence’ of discrimination. To that end, they examine periodic reports issued by EU monitoring agencies since the 1990s—paying specific attention to reporting on school segregation of Roma pupils in Portugal—and national integration policies and initiatives that, since the 2000s, have targeted mainly Roma and black families and youth. They argue that the dominant discourse of integration and cultural diversity conceives of racism as external to European political culture, and as a ‘factor’ of the ‘conflictive nature’ of social interactions in ethnoracially heterogeneous settings. This paves the way for calls for the ‘strengthening of social cohesion’—on the assumption that policy initiatives need to act on the ‘characteristics’ of so-called ‘vulnerable’ populations—whereas institutional arrangements and everyday practices remain unchallenged.     

First record of Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) on human corpses in Iberian Peninsula

This article presents the first record of Hermetia illucens larvae on a human corpse in Spain (the second case report in Europe). Prepupae of H. illucens, and other insects, were recovered from the dead body of a 72-year-old man in an advanced stage of decomposition. The body was located in Reus (NE Spain), in October 1998. This article provides additional biological data on experimental studies and an update on the geographic distribution of this species in the Iberian Peninsula.     

Economic vote instability: Endogeneity or restricted variance? Spanish panel evidence from 2008 and 2011

While the economic vote exists in Western democracies, the question of its stability remains a subject of controversy. This article focuses on two possible factors behind the instability observed: the endogeneity problem and the restricted variance problem. The former concerns the influence of partisan thinking on economic perception, while the latter concerns the influence of economic crisis, when virtually all voters may perceive a bad economy. These problems are examined using panel data from the Spanish national elections of 2008 and 2011. After various causality tests, it is concluded that the economic vote was influential in both contests, but apparently less so in 2011. It is shown in the article that the initial 2011 result misleads because of the statistical artifact presented by the restricted variance problem. Thus, an alternative strategy for exogenising economic perceptions is developed using aggregate economic measures in a pooled cross‐sectional design whereby it is demonstrated that the economy mattered greatly under the economic crisis of 2011. This estimation strategy could be applicable to other Western democracies experiencing such economic crisis.     

Young adults and civic behavior: the psychosocial variables determining it

The present work has a two-fold aim: (a) to verify the difference in civic behavior enacted by socially engaged young people in a lasting and structured form, sealed by membership in an organization, on the one hand, and in non-engaged young people, on the other hand; (b) to identify a pattern of characteristics (personal, social, and familial) able to explain civic behavior. Participants, 577 young adults from ages 19 to 29, filled out a self-report questionnaire. The results of the t test for independent samples confirm the presence of the difference between means of scores on the civic behavior. Moreover, data confirm a model in which civic behavior is predicted by personal identity, engagement values, family discussion of current events, the quality of previous membership experiences in socially oriented groups (membership), and finally, in a mediator position, by sense of community. The present study has many implications for researchers and practitioners.