Bad for Men,Better for Women: The Impact of Stereotypes During Negative Campaigns

In this paper, we examine whether the impact of negative advertising on citizens’ evaluations of candidates depends on the gender of the candidates. Given common gender stereotypes, we expect negative campaigning aimed at women candidates will affect citizens differently than negative campaigning against male candidates. The results of our study, derived from a survey experiment conducted on a nationwide sample of more than 700 citizens, demonstrate that negative commercials are less effective at depressing evaluations of woman candidates, compared to male candidates. The findings are consistent and strong, across a range of forces that people use to assess competing candidates (i.e., affect and trait evaluations, people’s beliefs about issues, anticipated vote choice). The tight control of the experimental design, including randomization of respondents into different conditions that vary in only one way, demonstrates that the gender of the candidate influences people’s reactions to different types of negative commercials.

Towards global relational theorizing: a dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relationalism

Abstract

What is ‘relational theorizing’ in International Relations and what can it offer? This article introduces a thematic section that responds to these questions by showing two things. First, relational theorizing is not a doctrine or a method, but a set of analyses that begin with relations rather than the putative essences of constitutively autonomous actors. Second, relational theorizing has emerged from different geo-linguistic traditions, and a relational approach to International Relations (IR) can offer the language and space for increased and productive engagement beyond Anglophone scholarship. This thematic section takes a significant step in this direction by staging a dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relational IR theorizing. Such an engagement shows points of comparison and contrast, convergence and divergence. In this way, the essays presented here contribute to developing a more ‘global’ IR.     

The Catalytic Effect of IMF Lending: Evidence from Sectoral FDI Data

Our study contributes to the search for the elusive catalytic effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending on inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). Recent scholarship has found that the catalytic effect is conditional on political regime and program stringency. We contribute to this literature by developing and testing a theory which describes how the catalytic effect also varies by economic sector. This is a departure from existing studies, which have tended to focus on aggregate FDI flows after crises. Our findings corroborate previous research, which finds that in general IMF lending has a substantial and negative effect on FDI. However, we find that the negative effect is concentrated in sectors that are highly dependent on external capital and have low sunk costs in the host country. Our findings are robust to several alternative explanations common in IMF literature, namely the importance of IMF program design and the ability of governments to make credible commitments to reform. Substantively, our findings suggest that investors are more likely to use IMF lending as an escape hatch in countries where FDI is dependent on external capital and has low sunk costs.     

“I’m totally transariffic”: Exploring how Transgender and Gender-expansive Youth and Young Adults Make Sense of their Challenges and Successes

As transgender and gender-expansive (TGE) youth and young adults (YYA) navigate challenging environments, they often seek spaces for safety and acceptance. This study explores ways in which a group of TGE YYA who were engaged with a community-based service organization make sense of their experiences, challenges, and successes in ways that illuminate the factors and processes associated with resilience. Secondary data analysis was conducted on qualitative responses from 85 TGE YYA ages 13–24. The themes that emerged provide insight into the ways community-based programs and providers can understand and support the resilience of TGE YYA.     

Accountability mechanisms in community-driven reconstruction in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

A lack of accountability is often considered a root cause of conflict. Many post-conflict reconstruction efforts therefore aim to enhance accountability between authorities and the population through community-driven reconstruction programmes. This article examines the accountability mechanisms in the Tushiriki community-driven reconstruction programme in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The ethnographic research found little impact of formal programme accountability. Rather, accountability was shaped differently and had its own context-specific meaning. To make accountability more sustainable, stronger embeddedness in local institutions and more appropriate translations of abstract concepts into the local context are needed.     

Reflections on mentoring experiences for evidence-informed decision-making in South Africa and Malawi

This article is based on the consensus that the availability and utilisation of research enhances policy discussions. The article reflects on the experiences within one approach: capacity building through mentoring. The UJ-BCURE programme aimed to increase the capacity of decision-makers to use evidence in decision-making via mentoring models. Mentoring is described as an interactive, facilitated process that promotes learning. The features of the models that have contributed to the programme’s success are orientation workshops with mentees combined with participatory, needs-led, and flexible approaches. UJ-BCURE experiences are relevant to the field of evidence-informed decision-making in an African government context.     

Foreign threat and political party change: Russia and changes in party manifestos

How do political parties react to foreign security threats? There has been very little attention paid in the literature generally to how parties react to international events, particularly how parties react to foreign policy threats. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, we examine how political parties in countries in Europe have reacted to Russian actions in terms of their emphasis on security issues. Based upon our analysis of the manifestoes from 331 parties in 36 countries we find that, generally, interstate threats have no significant effect on the military position adopted by political parties, although these effects vary by party type and by the type of threat. Russian based threats appear to be associated with the Far Left becoming more dovish (which is consistent with what would be expected by the literature) and the Far Right becoming significantly less hawkish.