Problem-based learning and international commercial dispute resolution in the Indian Ocean

One of the primary challenges for a law lecturer is to take students beyond their own assumptions about the parameters of a subject and provide them with new opportunities for exploration and a broader vision to enhance learning. A significant feature of law as a discipline of study in higher education that has the potential to impact on the curriculum and the way in which it is taught is the academic/vocational divide. Problem-based learning (PBL) activities make classroom settings unpredictable and surprising, and learning to deal with such uncertainty prepares students for one of the most crucial aspects of professional life: the ability to make judgements in a context of uncertainty. This article analyses the integration of PBL within an LLM module on International Commercial Dispute Resolution. The logic of using PBL in this module is to ensure that the more abstract and less engaging aspects of the course are learned in relation to a close involvement with problems that are highly relevant to students’ more concrete ideas of what the course is about and what competence would mean within it. The experience of the students with the PBL activities, captured in reflective narratives and anonymous questionnaires, is also discussed.     

A Low Turnout Landslide: Abstention at the British General Election of 1997

Turnout at the 1997 British General Election fell to a post-war low of 71 percent, raising worried speculation about long term decline in political participation. On closer analysis, however, this judgement seems premature. Most of the post-war decline in British turnout occurred between 1950 and 1970, and there is no evidence of long term decline in general election turnout between 1974 and 1997. The closeness of the electoral competition is a better predictor of national turnout than a secular trend. Close elections produce high turnout, but widely anticipated landslides (as in 1997) produce low turnouts. The 1997 election was also notable for the small ideological gap between the main parties. Analysis of individual voter abstention in 1992 and 1997 reveals that changes from one year to the other in the perceived difference between Labour and the Conservatives is crucial to accounting for the fall in turnout between the two contests. Turnout in 1997 was low because the result was widely anticipated and because relatively few saw important policy differences between the parties, not because British democracy is in crisis.     

Local Context, Retrospective Economic Evaluations, and Voting: The 1997 General Election in England and Wales

Local context is widely believed to influence voting behavior with, for example, the voters' evaluation of the state of their local economy affecting whether they choose to reward or punish the incumbent government. Such reward-punish models apply in the United Kingdom at the national scale: those who believe that the government has delivered prosperity vote for its return, whereas those who believe that its policies have produced a worsening economic situation vote against it. This article shows that the operation of this calculus varies spatially, according to the level of unemployment in the voter's home area: the higher the local level of unemployment the lower the probability of someone who thought that government polices had delivered national prosperity voting for the incumbent government. It also shows that this is a consequence of cross-pressured situations. Those who thought that the government's policies had delivered both national and local prosperity were very likely to vote for it; those who thought that the policies had delivered national but not local prosperity were less likely to vote for it—especially in areas of high unemployment.     

Was the 2016 United States’ presidential contest a deviating election? Continuity and change in the electoral map – or “Plus ça change,plus ç’est la mème géographie”

Several commentators before and after the 2016 US presidential election claimed that it involved a “redrawing of the country’s electoral map”, which in the context of the Key/Pomper classification of elections suggested that it was a deviating election, and potentially a critical election heralding a realignment. Analysis of the geography of the result of the 2016 contest, however, indicates considerable continuity at the county scale: the main trend was an increase in the spatial polarization of the US electorate. Trump not only performed best in 2016 in those counties where Republican party candidates had done well at the previous nine elections, he also increased the Republican share of the votes cast in many of them relative to his performance in counties where the Democratic party candidates were strong then. The main deviations from this trend were in counties with large Black and/or Hispanic populations and those with relatively large numbers of well-qualified, well-paid adults. It was not a potential critical election, therefore, but a continuation of a sequence now nearly four decades old.     

Sticking to the Union? Nationalism,inequality and political disaffection and the geography of Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum

Scotland’s 2014 Independence Referendum affords a rare opportunity to examine public support for the break-up of a long-established, stable democracy. Analyses of support for Scottish independence reveal that while issues of national identity loomed large in the vote, they were not the only factors involved. Questions around the economic and political direction of the state, and around uneven development, ideology and trust in established politicians also influenced voters’ decisions. Partisanship also mattered, as voters were more likely than not to follow the lead of their party in what had become a highly partisan contest. But some parties – especially Labour – saw large minorities of their supporters vote against the party’s line to support independence.     

Divergence in Self- and Peer-Reported Victimization and its Association to Concurrent and Prospective Adjustment

Previous studies on victimization have either used self-reports of peer-reports, but correspondence between these measures is low, implying that types of victims may exist that differ in convergence between self- and peer-reported victimization. Importantly, the very few studies that do exist on such types were cross-sectional, and did not address the stability nor predictive validity in terms of adjustment of these types. Using a person-centered approach, the present study identified types of victims that were either convergent or divergent in self- and peer-reported victimization, and examined how these types differed in concurrent and prospective adjustment. Participants were 1,346 adolescents (50 % girls, mean age 14.2) who were followed for 1 year. Using Latent Profile Analysis, we identified two convergent types (self-peer identified victims and non-victims) and two divergent types (self-identified and peer-identified) of victims. The types were highly stable over time. Self-peer identified victims were not only concurrently but also prospectively the least well adjusted. Self-identified victims showed lower levels of emotional adjustment but did not show problems on social adjustment. On the other hand, peer-identified victims were at risk for social but not emotional maladjustment. The findings corroborate previous studies that suggest that self-reported victimization is related to emotional problems, while peer-reported victimization is more indicative of social problems. The findings also suggest that using self-reports or peer-reports only may lead to incomplete conclusions about victims’ adjustment on different domains.     

Bullying and Victimization Among Adolescents: The Role of Ethnicity and Ethnic Composition of School Class

The present study examined the relationships between ethnicity, peer-reported bullying and victimization, and whether these relationships were moderated by the ethnic composition of the school classes. Participants were 2386 adolescents (mean age: 13 years and 10 months; 51.9% boys) from 117 school classes in the Netherlands. Multilevel analyses showed that, after controlling for the ethnic composition of school class, ethnic minority adolescents were less victimized, but did not differ from the ethnic majority group members on bullying. Victimization was more prevalent in ethnically heterogeneous classes. Furthermore, the results revealed that ethnic minority adolescents bully more in ethnically heterogeneous classes. Our findings suggest that, in order to understand bullying and victimization in schools in ethnically diverse cultures, the ethnic background of adolescents and the ethnic composition of school classes should be taken into account.     

Participation in the Budgetary Process in Local Government

Direct democracy is seen as a means of reengaging citizens in the political process. However, it is a contested concept that requires further development by being grounded in a specific context. This article reports on research undertaken in Victorian local government where the New Public Management (NPM) has been in evidence for a number of decades which according to the literature has impacted on accountability to the broader community. The possibility of consultation and citizen participation in the local government budgetary process was examined. The results reported suggest that participation in the budgetary decisions in local government is possible.