Gender and Gender-Role Orientation Differences on Adolescents' Coping with Peer Stressors

Gender and gender-role orientation differences were explored on adolescents' coping with peer stressors. Eighth-grade and ninth-grade public junior high school students (N = 285) completed the COPE, reporting the strategies they recently used to deal with a stressful peer-related situation. Measures of gender-role orientation (Bem Sex-Role Inventory) and demographic information also were obtained. Factor analysis of the COPE revealed 4 distinct coping factors: active, avoidant, acceptance, and emotion-focused. The most frequently reported stressful event was arguments/fights with same-sex friends. Girls reported more arguments/fights with opposite-sex friends. Boys reported more physical fights and threats. Students' ratings of how much the situation mattered were used as a covariate in a MANCOVA to compare coping by gender and gender-role orientation, to control for perceived stressfulness of situations. Significant gender-role orientation differences were found for active, acceptance, and emotion-focused coping.     

Mandates, Powers, and Policies

Elections provide a mandate to pursue a set of policies. Party label provides a concise ideological cue for voters to choose among candidates, and research on industrial democracies verifies a link between the parties voters elect and subsequent policy outcomes. The combination of inchoate party systems and economic vulnerability elsewhere may weaken the link between voter choice and policy. When examining economic policies in Latin America, there is some controversy as to whether governments carried out "reform by surprise"—promising one thing during a campaign while implementing another in office. We test whether the ideological reputations of executives' and legislators' parties explain whether they adopt market-oriented policies. We find that the future behavior of presidential candidates is difficult for voters to predict. However, the ideological reputation of legislators is a reliable predictor of policy outcomes, and the relationship is clarified by the prospects of collective action by legislative delegations.     

Bremse oder Gaspedal? Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Wirkung der direkten Demokratie auf den Steuerstaat

This article analyzes the relationship between the different forms of direct democratic participation and the size of the tax state in the Swiss cantons for the period from 1983 to 2000. The analysis distinguishes between the different effects of the financial referendum and the initiative. Theoretical arguments suppose that the financial referendum curb the tax state, whereas the initiative is expected to contribute to its growth. Pooled time series analyses show that legal conditions of direct democratic participation in general and especially the legislation on financial referenda are much more important than the frequency of plebiscites for the explanation of the different sizes of the tax states in the cantons. As an additional result of the analyses, the impact of direct democracy on the tax state turns out to be much larger in the 1990s compared to the decade before.     

Mobilisierung, Verstärkung, Konversion? Ergebnisse eines Experiments zur Wahrnehmung der Fernsehduelle im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2002

Based on an experimental study about the televised debates in the last German federal election campaign, the article analyses how the candidates — Schröder and Stoiber — were perceived by the audience. Based on real-time-response-data, the crucial role that already existing attitudes play in the process of debate perception is shown. Still, debates do have effects, although these vary among voters depending on their specific situations. Debates have a mobilizing effect on partisans, while there is a potential persuasive effect on independent voters.     

Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting: Has Its Time Really Come?

In April 1994 GASB released Concepts Statement No. 2, Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting , bringing required SEA external financial reporting a very large step closer to reality. Before long, public financial officials may be required to annually report measures of performance. We are now about halfway through the experimentation phase established in Statement 2. This article summarizes the status of GASB's SEA experimentation process. It then suggests important behavioral, auditing, and other issues which GASB ought to address before proceeding with any formal pronouncements regarding SEA reporting requirements.