“Wisdom of crowds”? A decentralised election forecasting model that uses citizens’ local expectations

Many studies report the “wonders of aggregation” and that groups (often) yield better decisions than individuals. Can this “wisdom of crowds”-effect be used to forecast elections? Forecasting models in first-past-the-post systems need to translate vote shares into seat shares by some formula; however, the seat–vote ratio alters from election to election. To circumvent this problem, this paper proposes citizen forecasting, which aggregates citizens’ local expectations to directly forecast constituencies. Using data from the 2010 British Election Study, this paper finds (1) that groups are better forecasters than individuals, (2) that citizen forecasting correctly predicts a hung parliament, and (3) that marginality and group size are important predictors for “getting it right”.     

Party contestation and Europe on the news agenda: The 2009 European Parliamentary Elections

In this article we analyse the news coverage of the 2009 EP elections in all 27 EU member states (N = 52,009). We propose that the extent to which these second-order elections are salient to the media depends on political parties contesting the elections. Consistent with expectations, the findings suggest that the saliency of EP elections is increasing and that the degree of political contestation over Europe contributes to this development in a non-linear fashion so that only when contestation develops beyond a certain point, does media coverage increase.     

Judgment of age and attractiveness in a paired comparison task: Testing a picture set developed for diagnosing paedophilia

Purpose. The Not‐Real‐People picture set serves as stimulus material for assessing paedophilic sexual interest. The pictures were generated according to five stages of sexual maturation from infancy to adulthood. While experts seem to be able to discern between the pictures based on maturity levels for a nude variant of the stimuli, it remained unclear whether lay persons would be able to reliably distinguish between picture of clothed individuals from various maturity levels. Methods. Heterosexual university students (52 females, 50 males) participated in a paired comparison task, deciding which of the persons shown on two pictures was younger and which one was more attractive. Additionally, reaction times were recorded. Results. Both male and female judges were able to differentiate between stimuli from the opposite sex with regard to age: the perception of the stages of pubertal development conformed to a measurement on a ratio scale. Similarly, the decisions on attractiveness of the categories were in accordance with a ratio scale. Male participants favoured adolescent and adult female stimuli. Contrary to expectation, female participants did not show a preference for any single age category. Conclusions. The stimuli appear suitable for diagnostic purposes. The participants' decisions reflect the inherent maturity levels of the persons depicted. Reaction times in the paired comparison paradigm increase with task difficulty (i.e., similitude of pictures). The implications for indirect measures of sexual interest, based on reaction times, are discussed.     

Finanzm?rkte und ihre Sinnformen: Handlungskoordination und Signalkommunikation

The article explores theoretical arguments that help understand the specificity of financial forms of meaning as well as their dissemination beyond financial markets. It revaluates the argument, discussed in the Social Studies of Finance, that financial operations and knowledge practices are characterized by a performative logic. While this argument suggests that financial forms of meaning ought to be conceptualized as a mode of knowledge, the article proposes an alternative. Proceeding from Jürgen Habermas??s distinction between life-world and systemic rationality, it argues that financial markets rely on a distinctive mode of action coordination: actors orient their actions not at the possible motives of others but at the cumulating consequences of their action (prices). The prevalent mode of meaning in financial markets, thus, can be conceptualized as action coordination through signal communication. This mode of meaning has been institutionally and technologically fostered in the course of the twentieth century, spreading across the financial economy and beyond. As an example the article refers to current political debates about the stabilization of the Euro, which significantly evoke the idea of political signals vis-à-vis the financial markets.     

Analysis of Three Commonly Used Tibia Length Measurement Techniques

This study analyzes three tibia length measurement techniques on a sample of 107 tibiae. Two of the techniques meet published criteria by resting the tibia on its posterior surface with the longitudinal axis parallel to an osteometric board. The third technique does not adequately keep the longitudinal axis parallel to the board. Statistical analyses show low levels of interobserver error for all techniques and statistically significant differences between the third technique and the other two techniques. Results report a maximum difference of 6 mm between measurement techniques with the third technique having greater than 95% directional bias. A survey sent out to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences forensic anthropology community reported more than 50% of respondents having been taught the third technique when an osteometric board with a slot/hole is not available. The intermixing of the third technique with the other two has likely contributed to higher levels of interobserver error in tibia length measurements.     

Predicting presence of offender's criminal record from antisocial lifestyle indicators of homicide victims

The aim of the present study is to explore the possibility of predicting the presence of a criminal record in the background of a homicide offender on the basis of victim characteristics. Eight victim characteristics, as well as the presence or absence of offender criminal record and offender violent criminal record, were coded for 502 Finnish homicides. A configural frequency analysis (CFA) showed that it was possible to predict the presence of a criminal record on the basis of the victim variables. The practical significance of the results for police investigations is discussed.     

Homo Nationis: The Psycho-social Infrastructure of the Nation-state Order

The central argument of this article is that the global expansion of sovereign nation- states has been accompanied by the emergence of a particular type of modern individual, homo nationis. The general significance of this argument lies in the fact that this personality type, which is either taken for granted (untheorised) or ignored, constitutes an integral component of modern social order. That is, in addition to the constitutional and institutional foundations of the state and its political economy, the nation-state has a psycho-social foundation--a "national habitus". The concepts of homo nationis and national habitus underscore the notion that modern individuals are historical individuals, i.e. they have personality structures that are unlike those of individuals in other historical epochs, and that they should be explicitly conceptualised as such, rather than as a transhistorical homo oeconomicus or homo sociologicus. Many fundamental social processes, including those discussed under globalisation, can be better explained with such a conception. The historical- structural context for homo nationis is the world order of nation-states that has only recently finished formally incorporating all other social formations from tribes to the remnants of empires, as well as the specific state-society to which the individual belongs. The article notes the interest that Durkheim and Weber had in habitual behaviour and draws on the exemplary work of Norbert Elias on national habitus to sketch its conception of homo nationis. The article then assembles further evidence for the existence and significance of national habitus by perusing a diverse set of scholarly literatures, including national culture in business studies, national economies and economic nations, nationalism, comparative sociology, and normative political theory.     

Konjunktur und Krise des Europäischen Sozialmodells. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Präexplantationsdiagnostik

The article sheds light upon the political and scientific career of the conception of a “European Social Model”. In a first step, it gives a comprehensive review of the literature to answer the question for the common characteristics of the European societies. The authors claim that the European Social Model as realised in these societies is characterised by structures and processes of ordered diversity and social compensation. In a second step, the development of the political integration project which is also referred to as the “European Social Model” is lined out. The authors focus on the idea of a regulated capitalism by Jacques Delors, which in the 1990s has been reformulated into a eurokeynesian strategy, as well as on the discussion about a “Third Way” which finally led to the promotion of a ‘new’ European Social Model. It is shown that the principles of the ‘new’ European integration model conflict with and indeed contradict the old structures of the European Social Model, i.e. the shared characteristics of the European societies.     

Die Schweizer Gemeinden im Wandel: Konvergenz oder Divergenz?

Switzerland is currently going through a phase of political restructuring. The numerous reform activities at the beginning of the twenty‐first century leave almost no area of political life untouched. The reforms are particularly abundant in the 2′867 municipalities, spanning from amalgamations, intermunicipal co‐operation, New Public Management, to reforms of the political systems. Accounting for the fact that there are big socio‐economic differences between the municipalities as well as their political systems, we investigate whether the municipalities are headed for divergence or convergence as a result of these reforms. The empirical results are derived from three surveys of the local authorities conducted in 1988, 1994, and 1998. The results indicate that the communes do convergence in regard to their administrative and political structure. However, the convergence appears to be limited to the single cantons and observable only among certain types of municipalities.