Who Runs at the Top of Party Lists? Determinants of Parties’ List Ranking in the 2013 German Bundestag Election

In mixed-member proportional systems with closed party lists, such as the German Bundestag election, candidates’ electoral fate is widely determined by their placement on party lists. Despite its importance for the final composition of parliaments, candidates’ list placement in such systems is still under-researched. The literature on political careers has revealed a number of prevalent recruitment factors, but how these factors actually affect candidates’ placement on party lists has rarely been tested. This paper puts forward the question of what recruitment factors affected candidates’ chances to be allocated viable list positions in the 2013 German Bundestag election. The findings suggest that in particular candidates’ incumbency status, their number of prior candidacies and district nominations play key roles in shaping candidates’ electoral viability.     

Supreme Court Justices’ Economic Behaviour: A Multilevel Model Analysis

Supreme Court justices are overlooked, but important, national policy‐making players who render final and consequential decisions in cases on economic conflicts. The research question asks what forces explain the decisional behaviour of Supreme Court justices in economic rights cases between a private and a public party. Theoretically, the decisional behaviour of an individual justice is a function of his or her notion as to what makes ‘good’ law, pursued in a cultural‐collegial setting that is oriented by majoritarian requirements, while constrained by the legal nature of the case being considered. Empirically, all economic decisions made by Norwegian Supreme Court justices in five‐justice panels from 1963 to 2012 are analyzed. Our multilevel model demonstrates that individual, collegial and case‐level forces all contribute to explain the justices’ votes. These results suggest that case‐related dynamics, such as who the plaintiff is or the amount of disagreement between justices, matter, but also that ideology – via appointment mechanisms – matters when a nation's high court justices decide economic cases. Understanding the foundational assumptions and the institutional procedures is vital when transporting judicial behaviour models across polities.     

Defining Asia Capabilities for Australia's Public Service

Twenty‐three years ago, questions posed in this journal asked whether and how the Australian public service was prepared to engage effectively in Asia. More recent meta‐analyses of public policy scholarship suggest that Western policy scholars and administrators continue to pay limited attention to Asian policymaking, despite the rise of Asia in the 21st century. This article contributes a research‐derived Asia capabilities framework for Australia's public service, distilled from a qualitative study with public administration leaders at Commonwealth, state, and local government levels. It taps scholarly literature in ‘cultural intelligence’, global leadership competencies, and training to provide a robust conceptual underpinning for the framework. The framework defines the knowledge, skills, capabilities, and experiences vital for Australia's public service to engage effectively with the region in a rapidly changing policy environment.     

The Effect of Microneighborhood Conditions on Adult Educational Attainment in a Subsidized Housing Intervention

The ACHIEVEability model of affordable housing aims to promote self-sufficiency by requiring enrollment in postsecondary education in exchange for subsidized housing. In this study, we exploit the quasi random assignment of ACHIEVEability participants (N = 84) to subsidized housing units to evaluate whether microneighborhood environments moderated participants’ progress in postsecondary education. Participants progressed in their educational pursuits in line with program requirements, earning about 12 college credits per year. Neighborhood block group characteristics moderated this progress. Participants who were assigned to housing located in poorer, more violent, and less educated block groups earned credits at a significantly slower rate than participants assigned housing in more advantaged block groups. Our results suggest that the micro environments immediately surrounding residents of subsidized housing matter, even if they are situated within broader contexts of spatial and personal disadvantage.     

‘We have not made anybody homeless’: regulation and control of urban life in Zimbabwe

In May and June 2005, thousands of Zimbabweans were brutally displaced from urban areas. But ‘Operation Murambatsvina’ was not simply an unpredictable ‘tsunami,’ rather it provides a moment in which long-held prejudices and assumptions which shaped the developmental state became visible, reflecting not just the internalisation of the Rhodesian, modernist world-view, but also its imbrication with local understandings of home and home-ness. To see Murambatsvina as simply a politically expedient move is to miss the deep resonance of the political rhetoric, the ways it was embedded in the state, and how it is shaped by norms of citizenship. Contextualised against Harare's urban politics, the clearances reveal a long-standing set of policies designed to regulate and control urban life, forming part of a broader crisis of the post-colonial developmental state.     

The “Syria traveller”: reintegration or legal sanctioning?

This article analyses discourses on Islamist radicalisation and threats of terrorism in Norway, with a focus on a new category of people known as “Syria travellers”, i.e. young Norwegians who go to Syria to fight for the Islamic State. Our analysis of debates in the media, policy documents and parliamentary discussions revealed two main narratives regarding the authorities’ response to Syria travellers: the first emphasises legal sanctions, and the second highlights the reintegration of returnees. We found that contentions about how to react to the new kind of people (the Syria travellers) are intertwined with the way these people are portrayed, understood or “made up”. In the political realm, there is also a striking consensus on the need for both reintegrative and legislative responses.     

Death Due to an Unusual Angio‐Seal‐Related Complication: Case Report and Literature Review

Angio‐SealTM is a vascular closure device (VCD) that can be applied to the femoral artery following cardiac catheterization to achieve hemostasis. Although it has been demonstrated to be superior to conventional manual pressure and to reduce time to hemostasis and patient ambulation, the use of this VCD is not without its complications. In this report, we describe the case of a 55‐year‐old man who died due to an extremely rare event that occurred several hours after the deployment of an Angio‐SealTM VCD: acute complete transverse laceration of the femoral artery that occurred because of the particular fragility of the vessel due to an unrecognized and asymptomatic arteriosclerotic disease. Few data are available in the literature about the incidence of such events, and much more remains to be done to determine how to prevent and manage its occurrence.     

Aggressive/intrusive behaviours,harassment and stalking of members of the United Kingdom parliament: a prevalence study and cross-national comparison

Politicians suffer intrusive and aggressive behaviours from members of the public, often lone actors fixated on personal grievances. Few explorations of intrusive behaviours towards politicians have been published; their results are not directly comparable. We surveyed intrusive/aggressive behaviours towards UK members of parliament (MPs); our survey instrument was then administered to MPs at three other parliaments (Queensland, New Zealand, and Norway), providing a cross-national, four-site comparison. 239 MPs completed the UK survey. This 38% response rate produced prevalence rates remarkably similar to the other sites, New Zealand having an 84% response rate. 81% of UK MPs had experienced one or more of the 12 behaviours specified, the mean being five. 18% had been subject to attack/attempted attack, 42% to threats to harm and 22% to property damage. In 53% of respondents, experiences met definitions of stalking or harassment. This has implications for the provision of risk assessment and management.     

Passengers of Memory: Constructions of British Immigrants in Post-Imperial Australia

Based on broad research investigating British immigrants in post-Second World War Australia, this article examines various impacts of the passing of imperialism on this group, tracing how they have been "passengers" both of national memory in Australia and more recently of their own narratives. Arguing also that British migrants have been subject on occasion to postimperial forgetting, it is emphasised here that British migrants display heterogenous constructions and negotiations of identity that may reflect new departures.