Resilience in Adolescents: Protective Role of Social Support,Coping Strategies,Self-Esteem,and Social Activities on Experience of Stress and Depression

In this study, 297 adolescents (141 eighth graders and 156 eleventh graders) were classified into 3 groups created from crossing scores of depressive symptoms and frequency of daily hassles: well adjusted, resilient, and vulnerable. A discriminant function analysis was performed to investigate group differences on self-esteem, social support, different strategies of coping, and different aspects of social life. The analysis revealed that self-esteem, problem-solving coping strategies, and antisocial and illegal activities with peers helped to discriminate groups: Well-adjusted adolescents had higher self-esteem than adolescents in the 2 other groups; in addition, resilient adolescents had higher self-esteem than vulnerable adolescents. For the second significant discriminating variables, antisocial and illegal activities with peers, both resilient and vulnerable adolescents had higher scores than well-adjusted adolescents. Finally, resilient adolescents had higher scores on problem-solving coping strategies than adolescents in the 2 other groups.     

Negotiation: The Chinese Concept

It is no understatement to say that negotiation activity has skyrocketed in China in recent years; however, these negotiations are frequently unsatisfactory. Part of the reason for this lack of success is that Chinese people have a conception of negotiation that is fundamentally different from that of people in the West. Based on extensive interviews with Chinese and non-Chinese negotiators over a period of five years, the author explains the Chinese approach by using two metaphors: mobile warfare and the joint quest. Understanding this approach has significant implications for negotiation practice.     

Interpersonal Environment Effects on Political Preferences: The “Middle Path” for Conceptualizing Social Structure in New Zealand and Japan

The effect of interpersonal environment, as measured by the degree of heterogeneity or homogeneity of political party preferences among important others in an individual's social network, was investigated using a national probability sample in Japan and regional sample in New Zealand. In both cultures, the interpersonal environment exerted significant and consistent effects on individual voting preferences. Those who reported inhabiting relatively homogeneous interpersonal political environments (IPEs) displayed a strong tendency to vote for the same political party as the important others in their social network. This effect was robust even after controlling for party identification, attitudes, media exposure, and objectively defined group memberships. Importantly, this tendency was not predicated on the frequency of talk about politics with significant others. Implications are discussed for both micro-level and macro-level theories of social structure and political behavior; an argument is made for the importance of a middle path—the psychology of enduring relationships between people.     

Past the saturation point: Why voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice-versa

When do voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice-versa? To understand these switches, we focus on the saturation of the party system. We theorize that when a party system is oversaturated – i.e. when a higher effective number of parties contests elections than predicted based on socio-political contextual characteristics (the system's ‘carrying capacity’) – it becomes increasingly likely that: (1) mainstream party voters defect to niche parties; and (2) niche party voters refrain from switching to mainstream parties. Based on vote-switching patterns in 15 countries and 53 elections, we find that oversaturation increases shifts from mainstream to niche parties. Further analyses show that this holds for shifts from mainstream to radical left and right parties, but not for shifts to green parties. This has important consequences for research on vote switching, the electoral consequences of policy differentiation and the competition between niche and mainstream parties.     

Policy Styles and the Swiss Executive Federalism: Comparing Diverging Styles of Cantonal Implementation of the Federal Law on Unemployment

This article focuses on the implementation of the federal law on unemployment insurance (LACI) by the Swiss cantons. Starting in the mid 90s, the second revision of the LACI reformed the Swiss labour market policy. Resulting from a political compromise at the federal parliament between left and right wing parties, this law juxtaposes instruments of reinsertion of the unemployed into the labour market with instruments of control of the unemployed. Thus, the implementation of this federal law varies not only by the degree of application but also by the orientation of application. Some cantons implement the reinsertion instruments and neglect the control instruments, others make intensive use of the control instruments and neglect the reinsertion instruments. Some cantons make an intensive use of both types of instruments while a last group of cantons implements the law in a very sketchy way. The second part of this article deals with the concept of policy style, operationalised around four variables, as an explanation of the diversity of LACI cantonal implementation modes. One quantitative variable—the scope of state intervention—is statistically tested in the entire range of Swiss cantons. The other variables—style of state intervention, co‐ordination and interaction modes of social actors and the main traits of the regional political culture—are examined in six cantonal case studies of the LACI implementation process.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Stress in African American Youth: Predictors and Outcomes of Stress Trajectories

Few researchers have studied trajectories of stress over time in relation to psychosocial outcomes and behaviors among adolescents. A sample of African American adolescents were assessed longitudinally on perceived stress, psychological well-being, support, antisocial behaviors, and academic success. Patterns of stress over 4 time points were developed using a cluster-analytic approach. Differences among the trajectory clusters were examined using psychosocial outcomes and behaviors. Adolescents with chronic levels of stress reported more anxiety and depression, engaged in antisocial behaviors, and reported less active coping than youth in other trajectories. Adolescents with low levels of stress over time reported fewer psychological problems, perceived more social support, and were more likely to graduate from high school than those with higher stress levels over time. We also found that an increase in stress coincided with a lack of support and more psychological problems over time.     

The need for protection and punishment in victims of violent and nonviolent crime in the Netherlands: The effect of relational distance

A crime victim’s relationship to the offender is widely recognized as an important variable in the study of victims and the criminal justice system. However, studies concerning comparisons of the needs of victims at various relational distances to the offender are lacking. The authors studied how the victim’s need for protection and punishment correlated to the victim’s relational distance to the offender. The authors distinguished more than the usual two victim-offender relationships (known vs. stranger offender), so that the needs of victims at intermediate relational distance (offender is known to the victim, but not an intimate) to the offender might become visible. A total of 370 victims were interviewed about their reasons for reporting the crime. Respondents were divided into three groups: small (intimates), intermediate (nonintimates), and large (strangers) relational distance. While controlling for gender of the victim and type of crime, the needs of victims were found to vary with the relational distance to the offender.     

Party Competition and Government Formation in Germany: Business as Usual or New Patterns?

The process of coalition formation following the 2017 Bundestag election was the most difficult in German post-war history. For the first time, Germany saw negotiations fail, a minority government being discussed as a real possibility, and the federal president involved as formateur in coalition politics. The aim of this contribution is to explain why government formation was so intricate after the 2017 election. To this end, we trace patterns of party politics and the development of the German party system since 2013. We then study general patterns of government formation at the regional and national levels since the 1990s and evaluate whether these have changed with the advent of the right-wing populist party, Alternative for Germany. Our analysis of the 2017–2018 government formation is based on a novel expert survey of the policy profiles of German parties on various issue dimensions, conducted in 2017. The results show that the continuation of the incumbent coalition government of Christian and Social Democrats was the most likely outcome, and that the Social Democrats were indeed able to enforce a surpassing share of their policy positions in the final negotiation rounds.     

Information Dilemmas and Blame‐Avoidance Strategies: From Secrecy to Lightning Rods in Chinese Health Crises

China and other authoritarian states notoriously keep mum about disasters. Yet two recent but dissimilar Chinese responses to infectious disease epidemics show that authoritarian crisis management can shift from secrecy to openness. China maintained prolonged secrecy during 2003 SARS, yet was open from day one about 2009 H1N1 flu. To explore why, this article links crisis information dilemmas to blame avoidance concepts from democratic political theories. We argue that greater Chinese transparency about infectious disease response reflects evolution in blame avoidance, from heavy reliance on information control to insulating leaders by using technical experts and agencies as “lightning rods.” In 2003, the Chinese strategy of information containment and secrecy backfired, and the Chinese leadership eventually received blame at home and internationally for crisis mismanagement. In 2009, China put in place public health specialists and institutions as responsible for H1N1 information and responses, thereby insulating the top‐tier leadership.