Accountability from the perspective of the forum: citizens’ attitudes towards accountability in Europe

The aim of this article is to analyse citizens’ attitudes towards governmental accountability in 24 European countries and to examine the influence of contextual and individual factors on perceptions of accountability. Using as a dataset the 2012 European Social Survey, the results show that citizens respond positively when the media provides reliable information on which to judge the government, when individuals perceive that governments perform well, when individuals live in more extensive and generous welfare states and when they live in countries where the rule of law is firmly established. In addition, the findings also provide evidence that compared to politically left-wing citizens, right-wing supporters have, on average, a higher perception of governmental accountability. In particular, the findings show strong positive evaluations of right-wing governments by right-wing voters in comparison with left-wing governments by left-wing voters.     

How Language Can Influence Political Marketing Strategy and a Candidate's Image: Effect of Presidential Candidates' Language Intensity and Experience on College Students' Ratings of Source Credibility

The present study examines the effects of language intensity on presidential candidates' credibility. We manipulated language intensity levels and experience levels for hypothetical candidates for president of the United States. Manipulation checks confirmed the effectiveness of the experimental conditions. The dimensions of source credibility, character, and authoritativeness were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Analysis of variance indicated that candidates using low-intensity language received higher scores on character than did candidates using high-intensity language. Experienced candidates received higher scores on authoritativeness than did inexperienced candidates. Implications for political marketing of candidates are discussed.     

Ethnographic filmmaking as narrative capital enhancement among Atauro diverwomen: a theoretical exploration

This article reports on a project involving the development and release of an ethnographic film about the women divers of Atauro Island, Timor-Leste, and suggests a theoretical framework to interpret its outcomes. It describes the project aims and the filmmaking process, and reports on its results. In doing so, the paper explores the potential use of an agent-based concept of narrative capital focused on collective agents. The article suggests that the ideas of narrative capital and transformations of capital by collective agents can provide a valuable interpretative framework for the design, implementation, and analyses of results of development interventions involving filmmaking.     

Who wants to pay more? The European Union's military operations and the dispute over financial burden sharing

In 2014, the European Union (EU) launched the sixth review of the Athena mechanism that finances the common costs of military operations launched in the framework of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In the run up to the review, there were expectations that it would improve financial burden sharing in CSDP operations by expanding common funding for them. However, these hopes were disappointed; the review became a diplomatic tug of war between France, the strongest supporter of expanded common funding, and the UK, its strongest opponent. In the end, France agreed to the UK's terms to ensure that the existing level of common funding would not decrease. This article analyses the Athena review from a neoclassical realist perspective. It argues that the review's outcome was due to the imbalance of influence among EU member states and the diverging preferences of their Foreign Policy Executives (FPEs). These factors caused the Athena review to remain in the hands of a small group of member states that had diverging utility expectations and ideological preferences. Thus, the article shows that a surprisingly intense burden-sharing dispute has emerged within CSDP.     

Public confidence in the judiciary: the interaction between political awareness and level of democracy

Apart from the studies that focus on public attitudes toward higher courts in advanced democracies, we know little about the factors that can explain public confidence in the judiciary in a comparative setting. In this regard, the goal of this study is to explain whether, and to what extent, the country's level of democracy moderates the impact of political awareness on public confidence in the judiciary. This study uses hierarchical linear models to analyse the interaction between individual and country level factors by using the World Values Survey (2005–2009) data for 49 countries and various other data sources. Our empirical results show that in advanced democracies political awareness variables like education and political participation have a positive impact on public confidence in the judiciary, whereas in countries with weak levels of democracy higher political awareness leads to increased cynicism about the judiciary. These results suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to explain confidence in the judiciary is not possible when we are dealing with a wide range of societies that vary in terms of many characteristics, both institutional and cultural.     

European perspectives towards the rise of Asia: contextualising the debate

To what extent can we speak of a distinctively ‘European’ security approach towards the Asia-Pacific region? In order to address that timely question, this article examines how Britain, France, Germany and the European Union (EU) are framing their evolving security roles in the Asia-Pacific region, and how those individual perspectives intersect with each other. The article identifies a number of important common features in Europe’s approaches towards security in the Asia-Pacific, namely the tendency of most European actors to emphasize the economic and diplomatic nature of their contribution to regional security, their promotion of regional multilateral security fora, their rejection of the notion that China’s rise is inherently challenging for regional and global security, and their willingness to signal their differences towards Washington’s emphasis on military power and alliance-based approach. However, and despite the existence of common traits, individual European actors show different degrees of closeness vis-à-vis the US and China and feature different perspectives regarding which security relationships they should prioritize in the region (if any), or the appropriate balance between diplomacy and security and defence cooperation. Such divergences prevent Europeans from developing a coherent security profile in the region and preclude us from speaking of a distinctively European security approach towards the Asia-Pacific.     

Partner Violence Entrapment Scale: Development and Psychometric Testing

This article describes the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the Partner Violence Entrapment Scale (PVES), an instrument that evaluates the women’s perceived reasons for staying in violent partner relationships. After initial pilot testing, the scale was administered to 213 Spanish women who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). An exploratory factor analysis identified six factors: Socio-Economic Problems, Attachment and Fear of Loneliness, Blaming Oneself and Resignation, Impact on Children, Fear of Harm and Worry for the Partner, and Feelings of Confusion. Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating associations between PVES factors and socio-demographic, clinical and abuse variables. The scale appears to be a useful assessment tool for social and clinical settings. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity need to be replicated in other populations and samples.