Grundzüge kausaler Analyse in Tocquevilles <Emphasis Type="Italic">Über die Demokratie in Amerika</Emphasis>

Zusammenfassung Alexis de Tocqueville schrieb über die Demokratie in Amerika, um seine franz?sischen Landsleute davon zu überzeugen, dass ihre ?ngste vor einer Demokratie nach amerikanischer Art unbegründet seien. Zu diesem Zweck nutzte Tocqueville sowohl Modelle aus der politischen Psychologie wie solche sozialer Kausalit?t. Letzteren widmet sich der folgende Beitrag, und es sind diese Modelle kausaler Mechanismen, die über die Demokratie in Amerika auch heute noch lesenswert machen.

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Summary Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America was written to persuade his French compatriots that their fears of Americanstyle democracy were ungrounded. In pursuing this end, Tocqueville used a number of models of political psychology and social causality. His marshalling of models of causal mechanisms to persuade his readers is analyzed, the claim being that such an analysis is the primary reason for reading Democracy in America today.

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Résumé Alexis de Tocqueville a écrit De la démocratie en Amérique pour convaincre ses compatriotes fran?ais que leurs craintes à l’égard d’une démocratie d’inspiration américaine étaient infondées. A cette fin, Tocqueville a eu recours aussi bien à des modèles issus de la psychologie politique qu’à des modèles de causalité sociale. Le présent article se penche sur ces derniers. Ce sont en effet ces modèles d’explication des mécanismes causaux qui font aujourd’hui encore l’intérêt de De la démocratie en Amérique.

     

Effective Counter‐Terrorism: Rockets,Iron Dome,and the Israeli Housing Market

How effective is counter‐terrorism and what are the underlying mechanisms? Relying on a unique experiment and detailed micro data from Israel, we show that the deployment of the Iron Dome anti‐rocket system mitigated the negative effect of rocket attacks on house prices and lowered the price premium associated with in‐house shelters. Analysis of surveys and data on purchases of anti‐anxiety drugs yields evidence consistent with a psychological mechanism: by reducing the negative effects on daily routine, subjective well‐being, and psychological distress, Iron Dome lowered the disamenity associated with living under the shadow of the rocket threat.     

Fragmented citizenship in a religious-national democracy: homosexuals in Israel

Fragmented citizenship has been a concept describing a deficit in the rights granted to citizens, which may be subject to fluctuations. This paper suggests that the expansion of citizenship is connected to an ideational shift while fragmentation occurs when institutional structures and core values inhibit change in certain areas. The case under discussion is the status of homosexuals in Israel. The country has been described as a gay-friendly society where homosexuals enjoy a plethora of socio-economic rights on the one hand, but are denied marital rights on the other. Expansion of citizenship was made possible owing to a gradual process of liberalization and growing institutional receptivity. This however, did not conclude with the full social inclusion of Israeli homosexuals but rather with citizenship fragmentation. Granting full citizenship rights would have been incompatible with Jewish national core values backed by the institutional autonomy utilized by resistant veto actors.     

Accuracy of Investigators' Verbatim Notes of Their Forensic Interviews with Alleged Child Abuse Victims

Verbatim contemporaneous accounts of 20 investigative interviews were compared with audiotaped recordings thereof. More than half (57%) of the interviewers' utterances along with 25% of the incident-relevant details provided by the children were not reported in the verbatim notes. The structure of the interviews was also represented inaccurately in these accounts. Fewer than half (44%) of the details provided by the children were attributed to the correct eliciting utterance type. Investigators systematically misattributed details to more open rather than more focused prompts. These results underscore the superiority of electronic recording when the content and structure of investigative interviews must be preserved.     

Characteristics of married and unmarried adolescent mothers and their partners

In a middle-class, urban-clinic sample of 275, mostly Caucasian, adolescent mothers and their partners living in Utah, three groups were identified and their psychosocial characteristics were compared. Couples married at the time of conception (N=22) enjoyed more positive responses from prospective grandparents and earned more than couples not married at the time of conception. On the other hand, these initially married youths were much more likely to be high-school dropouts, which suggests limits in their lifetime earning capacities, and they were not more likely to identify one another as sources of emotional support. Couples who married between conception and delivery (N=110) reported that prospective grandparents responded less favorably to news of the pregnancy than did relatives of the initially married couples, but while their current salaries were lower, they were much more likely to be continuing with their education. Those who married after conception also had fewer antisocial and conduct disorders than young men and women who chose to continue in a dating relationship (N=29). Overall, the couples who married after conception appeared to face less severe problems than either the initially-married couples or the steady daters.This research was supported by grant number APR 000922-02-0 from the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs to Drs. Elster and Lamb.where he and Dr. Lamb conduct research on pregnant teens, teenaged parents, and their children. Ms. Peters and Mr. Kahn are graduate students in School of Education at the University of Utah, while Ms. Tavare is a biostatistician at the University of Utah Medical Center.     

Legislators and interest groups: Some observations on the Israeli scene

Public administration in Britain is expected to operate according to the principles of good administration. However, in a climate of efficiency and value‐for‐money, agreement as to what these principles require can no longer be assumed. In particular, there may be differences between the principles supported by those engaged in the administrative process and the requirements that an increasingly interventionist judiciary see as appropriate. These differences would seem best resolved by a Code of Good Administration, the drawing up of which could be undertaken by the Select Committee on Public Administration and represent parliament's response to judicial/executive tension. Such a code would prevent the erosion of the principles of good administration, act as an authoritative document for the courts and provide select committees with a further mechanism by which to hold government to account.