Differentiated Distributive Justice Preferences? Configurations of Preferences for Equality,Equity and Need in Three Welfare Domains

Social Justice Research - Empirical public opinion research on distributive justice often does not acknowledge that individuals’ social justice preferences may strongly depend on the...     

Identity Processes and Coping Strategies in College Students: Short-Term Longitudinal Dynamics and the Role of Personality

Coping strategies and identity processes are hypothesized to influence one another over time. This three-wave longitudinal study (N?=?458; 84.9% women) examined, for the first time, how and to what extent identity processes (i.e., commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration) and coping strategies (i.e., problem solving, social support seeking, and avoidance) predicted one another over time. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that processes of identity exploration seemed especially to be intertwined with different coping strategies over time, suggesting that identity exploration may resemble problem-solving behavior on the pathway to an achieved identity. Commitment processes were found to be influenced by certain coping strategies, although identification with commitment also negatively influenced avoidance coping. These temporal sequences remained significant when controlling for baseline levels of Big Five personality traits. Hence, evidence was obtained for reciprocal pathways indicating that coping strategies and identity processes reinforce one another over time in college students.     

Personality Traits, Interpersonal Identity, and Relationship Stability: Longitudinal Linkages in Late Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Adolescence and young adulthood are characterized by important changes in personality, changes toward a more stable identity, and the establishment of intimate relationships. We examined the role of personality traits in establishing intimate relationships, the interplay between personality traits and interpersonal identity processes during these relationships, and the role of interpersonal identity processes and personality traits in the dissolution thereof. For this purpose, we used longitudinal data on 424 female college students (mean age at T1 = 18.6 years; Sample 1) and 390 late adolescents drawn from a community sample (56.7 % female; mean age at T1 = 19.7 years; Sample 2). Especially highly extraverted individuals were likely to become involved in a relationship. Neuroticism was associated negatively, and Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were associated positively with a stronger sense of interpersonal identity within intimate relationships. Finally, the importance of interpersonal identity processes was underscored by the fact that these processes, and not so much personality traits, predicted relational breakups. Overall, the present study provides important insights into the role of personality and identity in the initiation, maintenance, and dissolution of intimate relationships in late adolescence and young adulthood.     

Daily Identity Processes and Emotions in Young Adulthood: a Five-Day Daily-Diary Method

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - The process of exploring and committing to one’s identity for the sake of a future-oriented goal is important for young adults’ psychosocial...     

“The Big Society,” Public Expenditure,and Volunteering

The debate on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to the relationship between public spending and volunteering. The importance of this relationship is highlighted by the British government's “Big Society” plan, which asserts that an increase in volunteering will compensate for the withdrawal of public agencies and spending. This idea is based on the widely held belief that a high degree of government intervention decreases voluntary activities. This article uses a multidisciplinary approach to improve understanding of how public spending affects the decision to volunteer. A theoretical model conceptualizes this relationship in terms of time donation by employed individuals. The model is tested empirically through an econometric analysis of two survey data sets and interpretative analysis of narratives of local volunteers and public professionals. The results suggest that volunteering is likely to decline when government intervention decreases and that a collaborative approach to sustaining volunteering is needed.     

Images of Coordination: How Implementing Organizations Perceive Coordination Arrangements

A crucial challenge for the coordination of horizontal policy programs—those designed to tackle crosscutting issues—is how to motivate government organizations to contribute to such programs. Hence, it is crucial to study how practitioners in implementing organizations view and appreciate the coordination of such programs. Assisted by Q-methodology, this inductive study reveals three significantly different “images”: central frame setting, networking via boundary spanners, and coordination beyond window dressing. Most surprisingly, different images show up among respondents within the same organizations and horizontal programs. The authors find that the images reflect elements of the literature: the resistance to hierarchical central control, the need for local differentiation and increased incentives, and a collaboration-oriented culture. Most importantly, practitioners of implementing organizations perceive top-down mechanisms as ineffective to achieve coordination and ask for adaptive arrangements, involvement, and deliberative processes when designing coordination arrangements and during the collaboration.     

When Will Public Officials Listen? A Vignette Experiment on the Effects of Input Legitimacy on Public Officials’ Willingness to Use Public Participation

Public officials can be reluctant to use citizens’ input in decision-making, especially when turnout is low and participants are unrepresentative of the wider population. Using Fritz Scharpf's democratic legitimacy approach, the authors conducted a survey-based vignette experiment to examine how the input legitimacy of participatory processes affects (1) public officials’ willingness to use public participation in administrative decision-making, (2) their assessment of the quality of the policy decision, and (3) their anticipation of popular support for the policy outcome. The study shows that turnout and participants’ representativeness have a positive and significant effect on public officials’ attitudes toward public participation. Specifically, participants’ representativeness influences public officials’ willingness to use citizens’ inputs more than turnout.     

Keeping a watchful eye in times of turmoil? How repeated structural reform leads to more attention to political signals

An important rationale for the creation of semi-autonomous agencies is to create some distance between politics and administration. As such, agencies are expected to shield policy implementation from the daily concerns of political life. However, political actors and politically controlled ministries still influence agencies in various intended and unintended ways. This article focuses on intensive long-term series of structural reforms and how they may undermine the original design philosophy underpinning agencification. We utilize a dataset combining staff surveys and a structural reform database to perform multilevel analyses of employees nested in organizations. We find that the frequency with which agencies have experienced structural reform affects the weight that employees attach to signals from political and ministerial principals. Frequent structural reform may lead to heightened perceptions of the importance of political signals. Hence, frequent structural reforms may increase the risk of political influence on agencies that were designed to operate impartially.     

The Antwerp COR*-database: A unique Flemish source for historical-demographic research

This note describes the origin, the history, structure and characteristics of a recently constructed Flemish (the Northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) historical-demographic database. The so-called Antwerp COR*-database offers a unique combination of features: it spans nearly seven decades (1846 to 1920) and consists of information drawn from the population registers and the vital registration records (birth, marriage, and death) of the whole district of Antwerp. Every person whose family name starts with the letter combination COR* is selected in the database. The database covers three linked generations and contains micro-data on the individual level (life courses), intermediary data on family patterns, and macro-data on ecological characteristics.