Social Capital and Political Support: A Reassessment of the Putnam Thesis in East and West Germany

A sizeable scholarly literature has generally uncovered weak, statistically trivial connections between social capital and political support, in spite of its logical appeal. Much of this research, however, has adopted an overly restrictive research design. It has overwhelmingly focused on the impact of social trust on political trust, from which broad inferences about the utility of the social capital perspective have been made. Rarely, however, has the impact of social capital been systematically assessed on indicators of political support which are more diffuse in character. Using data drawn from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), the present study analyses the impact of different measures of social capital on political support in the Federal Republic of Germany. The results strongly support the conclusion that social capital influences diffuse support.     

Executive overstretch: South African broadcasting independence and accountability under Thabo Mbeki

Abstract

In this article I examine the extent of the South African broadcasting sector's independence and accountability since Thabo Mbeki became president in 1999. I trace how the independence of two institutions – the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) – has been eroded over this period. While initially the government justified this erosion as being necessary to attain developmental objectives in the context of a globalising economy, more lately there have been attempts to justify greater state control of content. Icasa has been subjected to greater direct executive control, and there are attempts to intensify this control, while the executive exercises indirect control over the SABC. Greater accountability to the state has been accompanied by a decline in public accountability. I conclude by arguing that the experiences with Icasa and the SABC give credence to the argument made by several international NGOs that media freedom in South Africa is declining, in spite of official protestations to the contrary. I also argue that this control has damaged the integrity of these institutions, and that this integrity must be restored now that Mbeki's presidency is coming to an end.     

Democracy's Effect on Terrorist Organizations: Regime Type and Armed Group Behavior in Chile

How does democracy influence terrorism? The regime-responsive school argues that lack of representation in autocracies motivates violence; the regime-permissive school posits that individual liberty in democracies allows it. The schools thus disagree about the democratic feature to which violence responds—representation or individual liberty. These arguments are problematic in two ways. First, neither accounts for the potentially competing effects of different democratic features. Second, treating terrorism as a set response to operating context ignores the operational processes behind violence, described in organizational theories of terrorism. This article develops a bridge between the regime-responsive and regime-permissive schools by applying organizational theories of terrorism to their key arguments. I argue that representation and individual liberty have independent, and sometimes competing, effects on armed groups' missions, hierarchies, and membership—collectively organizational capacity, the ability to survive and influence the environment. This explains the mixed effects of democracy on terrorism: both high-functioning democracy and repressive autocracy weaken organizational capacity, but decreased representation in a democracy or higher individual liberty in an autocracy removes organizational stresses. New research on Chile between 1965 and 1995—representing five government periods, with four armed groups operating—acts as an initial test of these relationships.     

Using a Five-Stage Model to Evaluate Workplace Discrimination Injuries

Psychological assessment for workplace discrimination injuries is often complex, as each complainant has a particular personal history and context, including different coping skills, psychopathologies and unique life circumstances. A five-stage model based on best practice guidelines can assist forensic assessment practitioners in determining compensatory damages for psychological or psychiatric injuries and in formulating defensible, evidence-based reports that meet legal standards. The model incorporates legally relevant theories of causation to guide the evaluating psychologist to discern the nature and extent of any injury, and whether discrimination was the likely proximate cause. The focus is not on diagnosis but on functional performance (cognitive, affective, interpersonal and physical) in four key contexts: activities of daily living, relationships, the workplace and hedonic pursuits. This assessment method compares functioning in the complainant’s life until the “day before” the alleged discrimination event with the complainant’s condition at the time of the alleged discrimination, and any symptoms or reactions experienced subsequently. The five-stage model provides a systematic method to examine compensatory damages claims and increase the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the forensic evaluation.     

The Effects of California's Paid Family Leave Program on Mothers’ Leave‐Taking and Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes

This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences‐in‐differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave‐taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers—with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1‐ to 3‐year‐old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.     

Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues

Abstract

This paper considers China's state capacity and changing governance as revealed through its policies to tackle unemployment. Despite high levels of growth, economic restructuring has resulted in rising unemployment over the last decade. The Chinese state has been able to manage job losses from state enterprises, demonstrating some state capacity in relation to this sector and some persistent command economy governance mechanisms. However both design and implementation of policies to compensate and assist particular groups among the unemployed have been shaped by weak state capacity in several other areas. First, capacity to gather accurate employment data is limited, meaning local and central governments do not have a good understanding of the extent and nature of unemployment. Second, the sustainability of supposedly mandatory unemployment insurance schemes is threatened by poor capacity to enforce participation. Third, poor central state capacity to ensure local governments implement policies effectively leads to poor unemployment insurance fund capacity, resulting in provision for only a narrow segment of the unemployed and low quality employment services. Although the adoption of unemployment insurance (and its extension to employers and employees in the private sector), the introduction of a Labour Contract Law in 2007, and the delivery of employment services by private businesses indicate a shift towards the use of new governance mechanisms based on entitlement, contract and private sector delivery of public-sector goods, that shift is undermined by poor state capacity in relation to some of these new mechanisms.     

Expert Interpretation of Bitemark Injuries—A Contemporary Qualitative Study

This study attempts to characterize the nature of disagreement among odontologists in determining the fundamental properties of suspected bitemark injuries. Fifteen odontologists were asked to freely comment on six images of supposed bitemarks. Qualitative analysis using a grounded theory approach revealed that practitioner agreement was at best fair, with wide‐ranging opinions on the origin, circumstance, and characteristics of the wound given for all six images. More experienced practitioners (>10 years) tended to agree with each other less than those who had 10 years or less experience in forensic odontology. The differences in opinions can be at least partly accounted for by the inconsistent nature of approaches used by different practitioners in assessing bitemark evidence. The results of this study indicate that more definitive guidelines as to the assessment of bitemarks as patterned injuries should be developed to ensure the highest possible level of practitioner agreement.