Modernity,Pluralism, and Catholicism

Over the past century and a quarter, the Catholic Church has passed through four phases in its response to modernity: rejection; the search for a modus vivendi; accommodation; and a critique of modernity from within. The net result of this development has been the recovery of the Church’s understanding of itself as an evangelical or missionary enterprise.     

Schools or Pools of Democracy? A Longitudinal Test of the Relation Between Civic Participation and Political Socialization

In this contribution we demonstrate how the usage of panel data offers possibilities for testing new hypotheses in a research tradition with a long history in political science. Focusing on citizens’ transitions in and out of voluntary associations, we tested four possible explanations for the well-documented correlation between civic engagement and political socialization. Two are due to self-selection effects (pools of democracy), and two are due to socialization effects (schools of democracy). Our analyses offer little support for the idea of voluntary associations playing a major role in political socialization processes: our latent growth curve models showed no or very little increase of political discussion, interest, efficacy, and action among those who became actively involved in voluntary associations. In contrast, we found convincing evidence for our pools-of-democracy hypotheses, and the self-selection turns out to be a double-edged sword: politically engaged citizens are more likely to join voluntary associations and less likely to leave them. These findings challenge the conclusions of many studies based on cross-sectional data.     

You’re Not Alone: Mental Health Outcomes in Therapy Groups for Abused Women

Few evaluations have assessed the outcomes of group therapy for women abused by intimate partners. Most group programs emphasize support rather than offering therapy, although women abused by partners often present with significant clinical mental health issues. This paper describes, “You’re Not Alone,” a 14-week therapy group model for women abused by intimate partners informed by a narrative approach Jenkins (The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 12 (4), 186-195 1991). The results present the demographic characteristics of the 379 women who began group, and a comparison of those who completed treatment (N?=?214) versus those who dropped out (N?=?165). Women with less income and a psychiatric history were less likely to complete group, as were women with higher depression, clinical stress, and mental health symptoms. The pretest/posttest outcome evaluation for the completers used measures of mental health symptoms, self-esteem, depression, and clinical stress, finding statistically significant improvements on most measures with moderate effect sizes. Practice implications and suggestions are presented.     

Does context matter in academic entrepreneurship? The role of barriers and drivers in the regional and national context

With pressure on universities to better contribute to society, academic entrepreneurship is an increasingly recognised source of new knowledge and technologies as well as being a driver of the movement to a knowledge society. However, whilst growing, the level of academic entrepreneurship in Europe is still relatively low. Two reasons that are factors influencing this are inhibitors (barriers) and facilitators (drivers), however the understanding of how their interplay influences academic entrepreneurship, particularly across different context is lacking. For this reason, this study focussed on two environmental settings, European regions and countries, seeking to understand if it is the hurdle (barrier) or (and/or) tail-wind (drivers) that most impacts academic entrepreneurship and how does the regional or national context influence this. An online survey was translated into 22 languages and undertaken in 33 countries in Europe and the European Economic Area. From the original data set, 12 countries in four European regions provided a sample of 2925 responses, with a second step to focus on four ‘lead’ countries within those regions. The results show that there is a significant difference in the university-business cooperation barriers and drivers that effect academic entrepreneurship in the European regions. Furthermore, different barriers and drivers were found to significantly affect the four lead countries with barriers and drivers being able to provide a good explanation of the extent of academic entrepreneurship in the UK and Germany, and a limited explanation of entrepreneurial activity by Spanish and Polish academics. Overall the article contributes to the literature of resource-based theory and also the understanding of factors influencing European academic entrepreneurship.     

Cybercrime Tendencies and Legislation in the Republic of Macedonia

The advancement of information and communication technologies opens new venues and ways for cybercriminals to commit crime. There are several different types of cybercrime offences that need to be treated in a separate and different manner. The major international source that provides guidelines for treatment of cybercrime is the Convention on Cybercrime adopted by the Council of Europe and the European Commission Action Plan. The purpose of the paper is to present, discuss and analyze the Macedonian legislation treating cybercrime, with respect to the specific cases typically encountered in practice and the international guidelines concerning cybercrime. The major source of cybercrime legislation in Macedonia is the Criminal Code with provisions thereof in ten of its articles; it addresses cybercrimes such as personal data abuse, copyright and piracy issues, production and distribution of child pornography, computer viruses, intrusions into computer systems, computer fraud and computer forgery. We also present and analyze reports on cybercrime complaints and victims from Macedonia, issued by the Internet Crime Complaint Center and the Macedonian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The reports reveal the unusually high number of complaints for perpetrators and victims originating from Macedonia. Furthermore, we highlight several recent cybercrime cases reported in Macedonia. All things considered, the Macedonian penal legislation is modern and it follows the current European and world standards. It provides guidelines for successful resolution of cybercrime committed in the Republic of Macedonia. However, it could be improved by a more active inclusion of Macedonian authorities in the global response to cybercrime and by stronger enforcement of cybercrime prevention measures and strategies.     

Consumer education: why the market doesn’t work

A growing literature studies the interactions between fully rational profit maximizing firms, on one side, and biased consumers, on the other side. Along these lines, this paper focuses on the consequences of quality misperception on the market equilibrium, by raising the following question: when quality bias affects consumer choice, do firms have incentives to educate their competitor’s customers in order to attract them? To tackle this issue, I incorporate consumer misperception in a Cournot-type duopoly model and consider the consequences on the market outcome. I focus on the two polar cases, when both firms either exploit consumer misperception, or educate completely their rival’s customers. I show that the market exerts conflicting forces on the firms’ incentives, such as a curse of debiasing might occur even in the presence of substitute goods. Consequently, the opportunity of a legal intervention to trigger consumer education is a key issue.     

Displacing Marginalized Bodies: How Human Rights Discourses Function in the Law and in Communities

In this article, we examine disability and eugenics discourses and the ways they function in spaces where vulnerable persons have been historically excluded by the state and blamed for their own “immiseration.” We ask how queer theories of repudiation, abjection, and vulnerability lend insight into the ways that people with intellectual disabilities are discursively located outside normative discourses of home, care, and quality of life, and whether these discourses shifted to serve this vulnerable population when historically the very places in question repudiated them, infringed on their human rights, and questioned their sexuality. To address these questions, we focus on the recent and impending closures of Virginia’s Training Centers, residential institutions for persons with intellectual disabilities now scheduled for staggered closures before 2020.     

Once Again on the *Hetucakraḍamaru: Rotating the Wheels

The little versified treatise on the elements of Buddhist logic, often referred to as the Hetucakra?amaru, is usually attributed to Dignāga. It is only available in a Tibetan translation and quotations from a few of its verses are extant in Sanskrit sources. On the basis of a novel interpretation that is based on a critical edition of the text, we argue that there is a good reason why its title was Hetucakra?amaru - a ?amaru is a two-headed drum. The “heads” of the drum are circular and they refer to the sapak?a and vipak?a conditions of the logical reason (hetu). These “wheels” can be turned clock-wise and counter clock-wise. The nine positions that are located on the wheels do remind one of a dharmacakra, which has a center and eight positions that are placed around it as if it were a compass. We illustrate our interpretation of the text by means of various diagrams.