Schweizerische Aussenpolitik im Wandel: Internationalisierung,Globalisierung und Multilateralisierung

Ausgehend von den drei Entwicklungen, wie sie sich in den Schlagworten Globalisierung, Internationalisierung und Multilateralisierung ausdrücken, geht der Artikel der Frage nach, inwiefern sich die genannten Prozesse auch in der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik identifizieren lassen. In der Untersuchung, die sich auf Staatsverträge beschränkt, wird diese Frage mit einer quantitativen Vollerhebung der aussenpolitischen Geschäfte für je vier Jahre in den 80er und 90er Jahren untersucht. Die empirische Analyse, die auf insgesamt 821 Fällen beruht, führt zu teilweise überraschenden Ergebnissen. Die Hypothesen zur Internationalisierung und zur Globalisierung liessen sich zumindest teilweise bestätigen. Punkto Multilateralisierung weisen unsere Auswertungen jedoch darauf hin, dass es in der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik, was die Zahl der Staatsverträge betrifft, von den 80er zu den 90er Jahren zu keiner Verschiebung von der bi- zur multilateralen Zusammenarbeit gekommen ist.     

The Politics of Participation: Mobilization and Turnout over Time

Recent studies have argued that mobilization is not only an important determinant of individual participation, but that it can explain the mystery of declining voter turnout in the United States over the past 40 years. We identify and evaluate three possible ways in which mobilization might have affected levels of turnout over time: (a) aggregate rates of mobilization may have declined, (b) the effectiveness of mobilization contacts may have declined, and (c) the targeting of mobilization may have changed. The first two theories have been well articulated in the literature; the third has not. We find no evidence of a decline in mobilizing activity, nor do we find that mobilizing techniques have become less effective. Although we find that campaigns are more likely to target habitual voters in recent years, this pattern of behavior can only explain a small amount of the overall decline in turnout.     

The Victimization of LGBTQ Students at School: A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT

Although research suggests that LGBTQ youth are at risk for victimization at school, it remains unclear just how much more likely they are to be victimized relative to heterosexual or cisgender youth, or the conditions under which their risks for victimization are highest. Accordingly, we conducted a meta-analysis on the relationship between LGBTQ identification and school victimization. Multilevel analysis of 276 effect size estimates, from 55 studies, revealed a moderate overall mean effect size (r = .155). Moderator analyses indicated the relationship was stronger for transgender youth, homophobic victimization, and students in the Western United States; and weaker for questioning youth. We conclude with recommendations for policy and future research, and suggest that theories of victimization be broadened to better explain the risks that LGBTQ students face.     

Rawls on agreeing to disagree: How democracies differ from non-democracies in justifying war

We use Rawls’s account of public reason and the Law of Peoples to test two hypotheses: democracies are more likely to invoke self-defense in justifications than non-democracies, and democracies are more likely to invoke human rights in justifications than non-democracies. Through an analysis of war justifications since 1875, we find that although democracies and non-democracies are similarly likely to use self-defense as a justification, democracies are more likely to justify war through human rights. Institutions and values centering on rights that promote domestic public justification also promote justifications compatible with those values and institutions at the international level.     

Junior high school students’ use of their afterschool hours in Ghana: The role of household assets

Studies have examined a broad range of factors for how students use their time, but few attempts have been made to explore the nuanced link between different types of asset ownership and students' use of study time, particularly in resource-limited countries. This study uses data from junior high school students in Ghana to examine how students spend their time after school hours, the predictive influence of different types of household assets, and the extent to which these trends and relationships vary by gender. Polynomial quantile regression models were fitted across three quantiles (24th, 53rd, and 76th percentiles) to align with one hour, one and half hours, and two hours of study time. Results show that the average student spends well above the recommended 90 minutes on their schoolwork during afterschool hours, regardless of gender. Multivariate results indicate that owning limited assets tends to have a negative relationship with use of study time, but higher levels tend to be positively related to use of study time. Also, the predictive influence of asset ownership varies by asset type, and higher levels of asset ownership favor girls more than boys. Given this study's realtively small sample size, caution must be exercised in generalizing the study findings to the general population of junior high school students in Ghana. In light of the study's limitations, the finding of varying asset effect may have practical implications for asset development programs designed to enhance the well-being of low-income families.     

Conceptualizing the Landscape of Decision Making for Complex Problem Solving

Complex problem resolution often involves the need for a pragmatic integration of knowledge from stakeholders with competing epistemic claims. The decision-making process regarding complex problem resolution is characterized by four basic sources of knowledge: disciplines, societies, organizations, and individuals. From the perspective of the public administration, we conceptualize the structure of the interactions between the disciplines and other sources of knowledge potentially relevant to the resolution of a public problem. To aid this exercise we examine a series of cases that we believe represent relevant aspects of complex problem resolution. We describe these basic interactions as collaborative, agnostic, or adversarial. This is a reorientation to the knowledge at play in the problem at hand. The study of public administration is well suited as a body of knowledge to address complex problems because it has a rich history of cooperation with other disciplines, practitioners, and stakeholders in the public.     

Sex offender notification and fear of victimization

Research on sex offender notification statutes was limited, and what did exist suggested notification resulted in increasing fear of victimization (Phillips, D. M. (1998). Zevitz, R. G. & Farkas, M. A. (2000c). Nonetheless, existing research failed to provide a direct measure of fear of victimization, or a comparison group to determine whether community members receiving notification were more fearful of victimization than community members, residing in the same neighborhood, who had not received notification. Additionally, existing research did not differentiate between fear of victimization for self (personal fear) and fear of victimization for others (altruistic fear). Warr (Warr, M. (2000) argued that the “strongest indictment” of the fear-crime literature was the failure to consider altruistic fear. By comparing emotional responses to specific types of victimization between groups of notified and not-notified community members, at the multivariate level, notification was significantly related to personal fear, but not altruistic fear. At the bivariate level, however, notification was related to one type of altruistic fear—sexual victimization.     

A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance

ABSTRACT

Specialty courts—such as drug courts, mental health courts, or domestic violence courts—tend to assume, either implicitly or explicitly, that particular groups of offenders have unique problems that can be best met with specialized case processing. Put simply, specialty courts assume that offenders themselves are specialists when it comes to offending. There is, however, a criminological fly in the ointment. The problem is that criminological theory and research have long demonstrated that offenders tend to be generalists and that they rarely specialize in any given form of misbehavior. Accordingly, the authors argue here that the notion of the “generality of deviance” presents a problem for the potential effectiveness of specialty courts because they are likely operating on a faulty set of ideas about offending behavior. The authors offer strategies for moving forward to better integrate the notion of the generality of deviance into specialty courts: in particular, embracing a rehabilitative philosophy and adopting well-documented correctional treatment approaches such as cognitive-behavioral interventions and the risk-need-responsivity model. They conclude by highlighting the risks associated with granting system efficiency a position of privilege among the multiple goals of corrections.