Empowering New Agents of Civil Society or Fostering Good Citizens? Framing Youth Participation in Finnish Youth Organizations

This article investigates how nationwide Finnish youth civil society organizations frame their approaches to youth participation. By analyzing data from interviews, websites, and annual reports, five frames are identified. The frames differ in how they define the purpose of participation, whom they see as the main actors, and what kind of member, volunteer, or other participant roles they provide to young people. Three frames are used as master frames that see young people as agents, learners, or targets of support; two subordinate frames expand the scopes of the organizations. Only some of the frames include any concept of integrating young people into the civil society.     

Temporal trends in US counterterrorism sting operations, 1989–2014

How has the US government’s use of counterterrorism sting operations changed over the past quarter-century? Have major terrorist attacks led to more frequent sting operations and/or more frequent entrapment – and if so, have such changes been temporary or long-lasting? Have different types of terrorism provoked different reactions? This study answers these questions using a database of US terrorism prosecutions occurring between 1989 and 2014, each coded for 20 indicators of entrapment. We analyse temporal trends, and in particular, compare the government’s responses to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terror attacks. Results indicate that after the Oklahoma City bombing, the number of sting operations against right-wing extremists doubled, while the average number of entrapment indicators dropped. This suggests that authorities in the 1990s responded to the growing threat of right-wing terrorism appropriately: conducting more investigations while avoiding entrapment. After 9/11, sting operations against suspected jihadi terrorists rapidly increased, but in this case, they featured high numbers of entrapment indicators through the end of the study period, suggesting widespread and persistent entrapment. Reasons for this difference, and for the government’s failure to reduce entrapment in response to widespread criticism over the past decade, are analysed.     

Choice as Everyday Politics: Female Palestinian Citizens of Israel in Mixed Cities

The paper analyzes everyday life as an arena of politics and choice as a form of everyday power. The paper discusses the theoretical debate on choice and everyday life as depoliticization mechanisms and claims, as opposed to the prevailing theory, that choices made in everyday life form politics of small things. In the various choices that women make and the way they conduct their everyday lives, they offer an alternative sociopolitical order based on a conscious, intentional choice. The experience of Palestinian woman citizens of Israel living in cities of mixed Jewish and Palestinian populations serves as the field of study. I argue that the choice to live in a mixed city and everyday life in this city constitutes an alternative life space for Arab–Palestinian women that allows them to express their opposition to both their own society and the larger Jewish society and, at the same time, serves as a setting for social change. Arab–Palestinian women utilize the space of the mixed city to forge new ways for themselves and their families to structure gender relations, feminine identity, class identity, and Palestinian national identity in a largely ethnonational and gendered unequal society.

PTSD and female military returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan： What does the evidence tell us？

In the United States of America, women make up almost 15% of active duty forces, while they form 11% of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also the first time in history that women have been directly involved in torturing men, with sexual identity and gender being used as instruments of torture. This paper focuses on post-traumatic stress disorder （PTSD） and female veterans by reviewing the available literature. Studies examining the psychological and physical health of women veterans as well as women＇s working and living conditions in the army are presented. The paper highlights the psychological processes women marines go through to establish themselves in the male dominated army environment and the implications such processes may have on their perception of female identity and on their psychological well-being. Studies on deployment experiences in relation to the emergence of PTSD in female military personnel are presented. Finally, the effects of veterans＇ PTSD on their familial relationships and psychological adjustment of family members are also considered, stressing the lack of relevant research with female veterans. In this new historical reality and as these women are called on, upon their return home, to resume female care giver roles, to become the primary caregivers to children, the elderly and those who are ill, we conclude by highlighting the urgent need for further research into the emergence of PTSD in female military returnees from and on their families. Iraq and Afghanistan and the effects this may have on them and on their families.     

Consensus Arbitration: A Negotiation‐Based Decision‐Making Process for Arbitrators

In reaching their decisions, arbitrators are currently expected to act like judges by listening fully to both sides and then withdrawing to write the final and complete decision. But because of some key differences between their roles, I argue, arbitrators and judges should exercise completely different styles of decision making. Unlike judges, who make decisive rulings in order to enforce the law, arbitrators are empowered and chosen by the parties themselves to handle specific disputes or govern continuing relationships. Instead of shifting a negotiated process into an authoritative one, arbitrators have the capacity to solicit input from parties as they craft the award. Under a new model of arbitration that I call “consensus arbitration,” arbitrators would facilitate negotiation between the parties but retain the power to break impasses with partial, incomplete decisions, behaving more like facilitators than judges.     

From Well-Having to Well-Being

To raise the notion of frugality in the midst of the greatest consumer boom in economic history may seem wildly out of place. But if globalization only half succeeds in lifting many more millions into the middle class in this century, by necessity frugality will become a virtue.     

Fiscal Federalism and International Capital: The Effects of Fiscal Federalism on Foreign Direct Investment and Sovereign Dept Ratings

Although the study of federalism has become one of the most intensely studied areas in economics and political science, no consensus has emerged on the impact of fiscal federalism on macroeconomic performance. I focus on one specific element of the debate‐ the role of fiscally federal institutions in allowing a country access to international capital markets. In an empirical analysis of 60 countries from 1975‐1995 I find fiscal federalism has no clear impact on inflows of foreign direct investment. In an examination of the impact of federalism on sovereign debt ratings for 40 countries from 1980‐1998, I find that fiscal federalism is associated with lower levels of sovereign debt risk.