EU issue voting and the 2014 European Parliament elections: a dynamic perspective

EU issue voting in European Parliament elections has been shown to be highly conditional upon levels of EU politicization. The present study analyzes this conditionality over time, hypothesizing that the effect of EU attitudes on EP vote preferences is catalyzed as EP elections draw closer. In contrast to extant cross-sectional post-election studies, we use a four-wave panel study covering the six months leading up to the Dutch EP elections of 2014, differentiating between party groups (pro, anti, mixed) and five EU attitude dimensions. We find that EU issue voting occurs for both anti- and pro-EU parties, but only increases for the latter. For mixed parties we find no effect of EU attitudes, yet their support base shifts in the anti-EU direction as the elections draw closer. The overarching image, however, is one of surprising stability: EU attitudes form a consistent part of EP voting motivations even outside EP election times.     

Militarism,states and resistance in Africa: exploring colonial patterns in stabilisation missions

ABSTRACT

The article explores how stabilisation missions reproduce the patterns that constituted colonial states. Following African historiography, the article argues that stabilisation’s militarised approach to neutralising resistance, its racialisation of targets and its aim to constitute and reform state authority evoke how colonial states were forged by the inseparable relationship between authority, force, race, production and resistance. However, it will be shown that those patterns cannot be fully understood without an account of the broader structure of coloniality and imperialism. In so doing, the article aims to contribute to bring together different literatures on contemporary peace-building interventions and contemporary militarism by examining the relation between militarism, coloniality and imperialism. It focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo to show how an intensified use of force against resistance, added to frames that see Congolese politics as deviant, has guided the goal of restoration of state authority, and with it, different economic reforms, all of which have reinforced the military and economic power of national and international elites, without reporting significant benefits to the population at large.     

L'offre active de services de santé mentale en français en Ontario et au Manitoba : les rôles clés des instruments et des outils

This article is based on the results of a survey carried out in 2019 to document health managers and professionals’ knowledge concerning their linguistic obligations and the tools promoting active offer in the field of mental health in French, in Ontario and Manitoba. The working hypothesis is that knowledge of the obligations and available tools can contribute to a successful offer of services in French. The more professionals and managers understand their obligations, the more tools they can use to fulfill them. The study shows that there is indeed a link between knowledge of obligations and the use of tools to provide an active offer of mental health services in French. It also highlights the key role of tools to provide French services actively.     

‘The time of storms’: managing bourgeois girls’ puberty in France, 1800–1870

This article examines the medical literature published in France in the period 1800–1870 on the subject of puberty and menstruation to argue that, in conjunction with the extension of school life for bourgeois girls, the period saw the emergence of a distinctive conception of feminine adolescence that pre-dates the better-known concepts articulated in the late nineteenth century. It goes on to look beyond the scientific discourse to ask what impact this new medical understanding had on the management of girls’ puberty, examining first the way it affected school practice, before using a detailed case-study of the life of Solange Dudevant to highlight the ways in which medicalised understandings of puberty and menstruation co-existed with other forms of knowledge.     

Where Did All of the Fields Go?

The loss of farmland each year due to development in New York State is astounding. Yet, agriculture remains an important part of the local economy and is essential in providing local food to New York residents. Many land-use protective measures that have been put in place such as large minimal lot-size zoning and agricultural districts have failed to slow down the rate of farmland lost each year. Conservation easements are a vital protective tool, but they require lots of private and public funding. This funding is necessary in order to ensure farmland for future generations. Before it is too late, New York needs to follow the lead of states such as Pennsylvania, which has shown an overwhelming commitment to protecting vital farmland.     

Marx as an a-Ricardian: value,money and price at the beginning of Capital

The fundamental distinction between Ricardo and Marx is once more examined, chiefly with reference to the current spread, among some leftwing economists, of a neo-Ricardian school. So a crucial point seems to be the particular meaning, which is quite a-Ricardian, of the first section of the Capital. Anyhow, this section is often misunderstood, because of its difficulty, and its philosophical form.