Explaining global governance—a complexity perspective

As patterns of global governance have undergone significant changes over time, there is a need for new theoretical concepts that are less oriented towards formal hierarchies and give more emphasis to social processes. A framework, however, that takes account of complex interactions and tangling relations bears the danger of losing analytical power. The article addresses the question of the extent to which complexity theory can overcome this problem by combining scientific rigour with contextual sensitivity. A dynamic mechanistic approach is explored that addresses the underlying processes that generate new collective patterns based on changed actor constellations and relational orders. An activator–inhibitor interaction model is introduced as a framework for analysing the multi-level processes that drive international change, using the example of climate protection. Global governance is theorized as it grows within the system fleshing out a new logic of collective action based on decentralization and clustering.     

Immigration,Globalization, and Unemployment Benefits in Developed EU States

At a time of mounting concern about how traditional welfare states will react to globalization, there has been increasing interest in specifying how global economic forces affect welfare policies in industrialized states. Building on theories from the political economy and comparative institutional literatures, we analyze the influence of an important aspect of globalization—the flow of immigration. Focusing on states in the European Union, we present a theoretical model that illustrates the interactive relationships between immigration, EU labor market integration, and domestic institutions. Our findings highlight how immigration in conjunction with domestic political institutions affects unemployment provisions, while labor market integrative forces remain in the background. The story of immigration and unemployment compensation in the EU is less about the opening of borders and the market forces of integration and more about the domestic political pressures.     

The sexual assault of undergraduate women at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

Although research has shown that undergraduate women are at high risk for experiencing sexual assault, little research has been conducted with undergraduate women who are attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU). The purpose of this research is to document the prevalence of different types of sexual assault among undergraduate women at HBCUs and make comparisons to data collected from undergraduate women at non-HBCUs. Data on sexual assault victimization were collected from 3,951 undergraduate women at HBCUs using a cross-sectional, web-based survey. These data are compared to data collected from 5,446 undergraduate women at non-HBCUs using the same research methods. Findings indicate that approximately 9.7% of undergraduate women at HBCUs report experiencing a completed sexual assault since entering college. This rate is considerably lower than the comparable rate obtained from undergraduate women at non-HBCUs (13.7%). This difference seems to be associated with differences in alcohol-use frequency. Perhaps undergraduate women at HBCUs drink alcohol much less frequently and are thus less likely to be sexually assaulted when they are incapacitated and unable to provide consent. Alcohol use frequency, while controlling for other factors, seems to have an independent association with the likelihood of an undergraduate woman being sexually assaulted. Implications for the creation and delivery of sexual assault risk reduction and prevention policies and programs are discussed.