Social Networks of Homeless Youth in Emerging Adulthood

Little is known about the social networks of homeless youth in emerging adulthood despite the importance of this information for interventions to reduce health risks. This study examined the composition of social networks, and the risks and supports present within them, in a random sample of 349 homeless youth (33.4% female, 23.9% African American, 17.7% Hispanic) between the ages of 18 and 24. Social network members who were met on the street were among the most likely to be perceived as engaging in risky sex, as well as to engage in substance use with the youth. Youth were more likely to count on relatives and sex partners for support compared to other network members, but they also were more likely to use substances with sex partners and perceived them as engaging in risky sex. Interventions may need to recognize the importance of intimate relationships during the developmental stage of emerging adulthood by enhancing supportive bonds and reducing substance use and risky sex in these relationships.     

Die Konstitutionalisierung Europas zwischen Konvent,Regierungskonferenz und Verfassungsvertrag

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons

In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a survey that was conducted among all Swiss cantonal parliaments in 2014. Our multi‐level analysis shows that parliamentarians who run for office at the national level spend significantly more time for their parliamentary mandate than their colleagues. This effect decreases with the parliamentarians’ age. This finding could be relevant in order to understand the career paths of Swiss parliamentarians. In addition, the study contributes to the discussion of the future development of the militia system in Switzerland.     

Left–Right Categorization and Perceptions of Party Ideologies

Political Behavior - Political similarities and differences are often described in terms of left and right. However, while scholars have long focused on their substantive policy content,...     

The IMF's Rethink of Global Banks: Critical in Theory,Orthodox in Practice

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) new financial interconnectedness agenda, developed in response to postcrisis calls from G20 to better understand systemic financial institutions, deploys a critical approach that stresses the spatial, political, and institutional dimensions of cross‐border financial networks. It portrays global banks as key nodes in those networks, “super‐spreaders” of systemic risk through complex business models that involve yield search, regulatory and tax arbitrage. Yet this critical view does not translate into its policy advice at country level. In regular surveillance of developing countries, the IMF remains committed to a benign view of transnational banking, even when confronted with growing cross‐border fragilities. During crises of cross‐border banking, the IMF tailors its conditionality to minimize domestic regulatory challenges to cross‐border banking models and to propose crisis measures that create new profit opportunities for transnational banks.     

The Return of Political Risk: Foreign-Owned Banks in Emerging Europe

Political risk—risk that investments are damaged by policy action of authorities—increased during the financial crisis due to controversies about the distribution of accumulated losses among stakeholders. Authorities interconnected by cross-border banks considered unilateral policies that minimised losses for domestic stakeholders at the expense of their foreign counterparts. This is at odds both with the assumption behind financial integration which presumes multilateral responses to cross-border shocks and with the typical definition of political risks that ignores the fact that not only host-country, but also home-country authorities can create such risks. This paper recasts the definition of political risk and reviews instances when political risk materialised within the EU banking market between 2007 and 2011. The analysis reveals that the EU regulatory framework needs to be enhanced to contain resurgent political risks systematically rather than through ad hoc interventions of the EU and international bodies.