A matter of timing: The religious factor and morality policies

The question of whether or not religion accounts for variance in the governance of moral issues, between and within countries over time, has long been debated but never conclusively answered. A novel data set encompassing innovative measurements of state regulation of “life‐and‐death” issues and of the religious stratification of society enables us to answer why previous studies reached contradictory results. The time‐series cross‐sectional analysis of 26 countries over 50 years reveals that dominant religious denominations in society indeed influence state governance approaches regarding the issues of abortion and euthanasia. This denominational effect is shown to be contingent on the religiosity of a country's population, but independent from the formal state–church relationship. Lastly, it is shown that the religious effect has an inverse U‐shaped relationship with time, exposing the timeframe of analysis as decisive for inferences drawn in the study of morality policy.     

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth,spaces of sociability,and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.     

Re‐electing the Culprits of the Crisis? Elections in the Aftermath of a Recession

Theories of economic voting and electoral accountability suggest that voters punish incumbent governments for poor economic conditions. Incumbents are thus expected to suffer substantially during significant economic crisis but their successor in office will face the difficult task of reviving the economy. The economic crisis may, therefore, negatively affect government parties in subsequent elections even though the economic conditions may, to a large degree, have been inherited from the previous government. It is argued in this article that economic conditions play an important role in such circumstances as they place specific issues on the agenda, which structure the strategies available to the parties. Therefore, the article studies the 2013 Icelandic parliamentary election in which the incumbent government parties suffered a big loss despite having steered the country through an economic recovery. While perceptions of competence and past performance influenced party support, three specific issues thrust on the agenda by the economic crisis – mortgage relief, Icesave and European Union accession/negotiations – help explain why the centre‐right parties were successful in returning to the cabinet.     

How does School Experience Relate to Adolescent Identity Formation Over Time? Cross-Lagged Associations between School Engagement,School Burnout and Identity Processing Styles

The existing research findings still do not provide a clear understanding of the links between adolescent school experience and their identity formation. To address this gap, we analyzed the dynamic links between adolescent school experiences and identity formation by exploring the cross-lagged associations between school engagement, school burnout and identity processing styles (information-oriented, normative and diffuse-avoidant) over a 2-year period during middle-to-late adolescence. The sample of this school-based study included 916 adolescents (51.4% females) in the 9th to 12th grades from diverse socio-economic and family backgrounds. The results from the cross-lagged analyses with three time points revealed that (a) school engagement positively predicted information-oriented identity processing over a 2-year period; (b) school burnout positively predicted the reliance on normative and diffuse-avoidant identity styles across the three measurements; (c) the effects were stable over the three time points and across different gender, grade, and socio-economic status groups. The unidirectional effects identified in our study support the general prediction that active engagement in learning at school can serve as a resource for adolescent identity formation, while school burnout, in contrast, can hinder the formation of adolescent identity. This points to the importance of taking developmental identity-related needs of adolescents into account when planning the school curriculum.     

The Slovak Greens: A complex story of a small party

This article is a case study of the Green Party in Slovakia. The line of explanation of the party's trajectory is chronological, from foundation to its present marginal status. The two main causes of repeated internal party splits identified by the article are the influence of nationalism and the party's relationship to the most important formation in Slovak politics during the 1990s, Vladimír Me?iar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. It, furthermore, points to the barrier of a relatively high clause in the electoral system to national parliament which determined the Greens' tendency to enter wider coalition partnerships. These partnerships, however, had a negative impact on the long-term perspective on the distinctiveness of the Greens from the point of view of voters. Other important factors in the party's lack of political success have been their isolation from the environmental movement and the public's low level of interest in ecological and other post-material issues.     

中国与东盟:加强未来关系

2009年10月17～18日,由中国社会科学院国际研究学部、广西社会科学院、东盟智库网络、广西国际博览事务局共同主办的第二届“中国-东盟智库战略对话2009”在广西南宁举行。会议主题是“全球环境变化中的中国与东南亚”,来自文莱、柬埔寨、印度尼西亚、老挝、马来西亚、菲律宾、新加坡、泰国、越南、中国、美国、韩国等国家的100多位专家学者在论坛上展开对话,专家学者就中国与东盟关系和东亚地区合作等问题进行深入探讨,形成了许多具有战略性的意见和建议。现将论坛部分专家的论文和会议报告刊登,以飨读者。     

The Adaptation of the FSLN: Daniel Ortega's Leadership and Democracy in Nicaragua

This article explores the capacity of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) to adapt to a changing Nicaraguan political environment over the last three decades. It focuses on the FSLN's transformation from the 1980s until its recent return to power. The analysis uses the tools offered by studies on the transformation and adaptation of political parties in adverse contexts. It concentrates on the four key stages of the FSLN's transformation: the 1980s, the five‐year period following the FSLN's defeat in the elections (1990–1995), the following decade in opposition (1996–2006), and the return to government. The key elements of the FSLN's adaptation relate to the centralization of party resources around the undisputed leadership of Daniel Ortega.     

Why Missing Data Matter in the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Development: Using the 4-H Study to Understand the Uses of Different Missing Data Methods

The study of adolescent development rests on methodologically appropriate collection and interpretation of longitudinal data. While all longitudinal studies of adolescent development involve missing data, the methods to treat missingness that have been recommended most often focus on missing data from cross-sectional studies. The problems of missing data in longitudinal studies are not described well, there are not many statistical software programs developed for researchers to use, and there are no longitudinal empirical examples involving adolescent development that show the extent to which different missing data procedures can yield different results. Data from the first three waves of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development were used to provide such an illustration. The sample contains 2,265 participants (56.7% females) who were in Grade 5 at Wave 1, in Grade 6 at Wave 2, and in Grade 7 at Wave 3, and varied in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, rural–urban location, and geographic region. The results showed that three missing data techniques, i.e., listwise deletion, direct maximum likelihood (DirML), and multiple imputation (MI), did not yield comparable results for research questions assessing different aspects of development (i.e., change over time or prediction effects). The results indicated also that listwise deletion should not be used. Instead, both DirML and MI methods should be used to determine if and how results change when these procedures are employed.