Murder,cruelty and sexual assaults

As more and more political institutions stress the significance of gender equality policies, it becomes important to investigate the different interpretations and meanings attached to the concept of gender equality in diverse policy contexts. In this article we are interested in problematizing visions of gender equality by studying the challenges that the growing amount of paid domestic work performed within European households poses for gender equality policies and practices in two European countries. The aim is to reveal normative assumptions and silences in relation to gender equality by comparing how “paid domestic work” has been framed in policy debates in Sweden and Spain. As welfare states, Sweden and Spain are generally considered to be very different, and in policies on care for children and the elderly the differences are perhaps most apparent. In both countries, however, paid domestic work in the home has become more and more common in the last two decades. The rise of paid domestic services in European households has been interpreted as due to the limitations or decline of welfare states, the ageing populations, and the increasing numbers of dual-earner families. These services are most often provided by women, predominantly of immigrant background, and involve a wide range of tasks, including care work. The phenomenon of an increasing sector of domestic (care) work poses a theoretical and methodological challenge to gender and welfare studies. This article argues that the analysis of debates surrounding domestic service in private households is a useful starting-point for an intersectional analysis by means of revealing the normative assumptions and marginalization embedded in gender equality policies. It uses a comparative frame analysis in combination with intersectional analysis to assess how interactions between gender, class, race, and sexuality have been articulated in the policy debates on domestic services in Spain and Sweden.     

Value-Based Collaboration Between Leaders at Schools of Music and Performing Arts and Leaders at Compulsory Schools

In this study, we investigate collaboration efforts between leaders at schools of music and performing arts and leaders at compulsory schools, as well as the drivers behind the initiation and maintenance of such collaborative work. One driver is an existing concern about the lack of qualified music teachers at compulsory schools. We argue, however, that the real force behind such collaboration is a strong belief in the pure value of music and art among the collaborating leaders. Our findings indicate that value congruence and social exchanges across the organizations in question, provides the core basis for an effective collaboration.     

The Fulfillment of Parties’ Election Pledges: A Comparative Study on the Impact of Power Sharing

Why are some parties more likely than others to keep the promises they made during previous election campaigns? This study provides the first large‐scale comparative analysis of pledge fulfillment with common definitions. We study the fulfillment of over 20,000 pledges made in 57 election campaigns in 12 countries, and our findings challenge the common view of parties as promise breakers. Many parties that enter government executives are highly likely to fulfill their pledges, and significantly more so than parties that do not enter government executives. We explain variation in the fulfillment of governing parties’ pledges by the extent to which parties share power in government. Parties in single‐party executives, both with and without legislative majorities, have the highest fulfillment rates. Within coalition governments, the likelihood of pledge fulfillment is highest when the party receives the chief executive post and when another governing party made a similar pledge.     

An anatomy of dispossession: post-apartheid land rights and farm dweller relocation in the context of a private game reserve initiative,northern KwaZulu-Natal

This article is a detailed examination of the impact that the development of a private game reserve initiative in northern KwaZulu-Natal had on the lives of farm dwellers in the late 1990s. The reshaping of this landscape for ecotourism purposes – a decision taken by a group of private landowners – meant that the residents of the former cattle farms were relocated, a process which had serious consequences for them. The outcomes of relocation from the farms are explored through conversations with the relocated farm dwellers. In an attempt to convey the texture of the emotional geography of dispossession, we document both the tangible and the less tangible losses suffered from the farm dwellers' point of view, as well as their experience with the state bureaucracy. The legal and bureaucratic process leading up to the relocation is then retraced through court documents and other archival evidence. At one level, this case raises questions about the capacity of the post-apartheid South African land reform programme to secure the land rights of marginalised groups such as farm dwellers, despite legislation passed to protect them. At a deeper level, this article is about the conceptual inadequacies of the law. While the law finds it easy to render visible and to protect (saleable) private property, it struggles to fully recognise more complex land relationships. The people whose experience is described in this article felt disempowered, their lives effectively invisible. We problematise the continuing primacy of private property in post-apartheid South Africa and argue that the voices of those with other histories on the land should receive more serious attention.     

Social Coping by Masking? Parental Support and Peer Victimization as Mediators of the Relationship Between Depressive Symptoms and Expressive Suppression in Adolescents

Expressive suppression is regarded as a generally ineffective emotion regulation strategy and appears to be associated with the development of depressive symptoms among adolescents. However, the mechanisms linking suppression to depressive symptoms are not well understood. The main aim of this study was to examine two potential mediators of the prospective relationship from depressive symptoms to expressive suppression among adolescents: parental support and peer victimization. Structural equation modelling was used to construct a three-wave cross-lagged model (n?=?2,051 adolescents, 48.5?% female, at baseline; 1,465 with data at all three time points) with all possible longitudinal linkages. Depressive symptoms preceded decreases in perceived parental support 1?year later. Decreases in parental support mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and increases in expressive suppression over a 2-year period. Multi-group analyses show that the mediation model tested was significant for girls, but not for boys. No evidence for other mediating models was found. Although initial suppression preceded increases in depressive symptoms 1?year later, we did not find any evidence for the reversed link from suppression to depressive symptoms. Clear evidence for a reciprocal relationship between depressive symptoms and parental support was found. However, only limited and inconsistent support was found for a reciprocal relationship between depressive symptoms and peer victimization. Finally, although some evidence for a unidirectional relationship from parental support to increases in suppression was found, no significant prospective relationship was found between peer victimization and suppression. The implications of our clear results for parental support, and mostly lacking results for peer victimization, are discussed.     

Stages of PPP and Principal–Agent Conflicts: The Swedish Water and Sewerage Sector

The focus of this article is on public–private partnerships (PPPs). The aim is to both theoretically and empirically illustrate PPP agency problems in four PPP stages, as well as to identify potentially relevant solutions to the agency problems. The study employed a longitudinal case study of one PPP in a municipality in southern Sweden. Through an analysis based on interviews, observations, and documents, the study illustrates a number of agency problems faced by PPPs and highlights the importance of resource allocation, stakeholder management, and the creation of a common identity in reducing these problems.     

Introduction: the accountability function of the courts in new democracies

Much of the literature on ‘democratic consolidation’ has adopted a forward‐looking, future‐oriented perspective. Rather than studying past regimes, it tries to assess the life expectancies of contemporary ’third wave’ democracies. The article contends that authors have usually been unaware of the methodological complexities this choice of time perspective involves. If we want to reach reasonable judgements about the chances of democratic survival in a given country we have to be conscious of the probabilistic nature of such a prospective exercise. And we have to make (and justify) some basic analytical decisions. We have to explain the time horizons we are adopting as well as the future conditions we are assuming. We have to make clear how we construct the binary opposition between ‘consolidated’ and ‘non‐consolidated’ democracies. We have to decide whose expectations of democratic stability we take into account. And we have to cope with conflicting and unstable perceptions. Unless we ‘consolidologists’ heed these methodological ground rules, it is unlikely that we will ever reach shared judgements, or else, intelligible disagreements, about empirical states of democratic consolidation.     

The Contemporary Relationship of ‘New Left’ and ‘New Right’ Parties with Interest Groups: Exceptional or Mainstream? The Case of Norway's Socialist Left and Progress Party

Allegedly, the new green and left parties that were established in Western Europe during or after the 1960s tend to be characterized by informal but significant links with social movement organizations. In contrast, weak links or virtual lack of such connections is often seen as one of the enduring characteristics of the new populist (radical) right parties. However, there are both empirical and theoretical reasons for examining these conventional wisdom(s) more closely. To date, only limited evidence is available on this aspect of new European parties in general. Examining Norway's successful new left and populist right party, and based on rich original data, this case study adds to our knowledge in several ways. The analysis reveals that the socialist left has even closer and more wide‐ranging relationships with interest groups than traditionally suggested and that the Progress Party enjoys organized contact with various interest groups. Since these parties are only two, and not necessarily quintessential examples of the party families in question, the results cannot overturn the conventional wisdom, but they nonetheless question and supplement it by throwing light on the conditions favouring the development of stronger, and more varied, links to interest groups. Together with other presumably ‘atypical’ party examples mentioned in scholarly literature, the case of Norway calls for further empirical investigation. Finally, with an eye to future comparative research, the possible explanations for these findings are briefly discussed.     

Legal development and human rights in Uruguay: 1985–2002

This article attempts to explain why Uruguayan judges have lagged behind judges in Chile and Argentina in the prosecution of the military for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship period in the 1970s and 1980s. By tracing judicial human rights activity in Uruguay from the transition to democratic rule in 1985 until the end of 2002, I argue that Uruguayan judges have been actively restricted by an aggressive anti-human rights policy expressed through a national amnesty law and explicit executive interference in judicial matters. Structural changes to the judiciary might have aided Uruguayan judges to overcome these barriers. Instead, failure to reform the judiciary has prolonged its conservative nature and made judges slow in responding to international legal development in the human rights field.