Explaining the Reversed Gender Gap in Political Consumerism: Personality Traits as Significant Mediators

Research on political consumerism documents a persistent reversed gender gap, as women boycott and buycott products more often than men. Previous efforts to explain the reversed gender gap rely on classical theoretical models developed to illuminate gender differences in political participation in general. Accounting for socio‐economic and situational factors as well as socialization leaves a significant amount of the reversed gender gap unexplained, though. Adhering to recent empirical evidence of personality as an important factor influencing political behavior, we argue that gender differences in personality traits could provide an alternative explanation to account for gender disparities in political consumerism. We use original survey data specially designed to measure political consumerism in Switzerland, which also include the Big Five model of personality. We find empirical evidence that gender differences in personality traits, in particular agreeableness, explain a significant portion of the reversed gender gap in political consumerism.     

党的领导制度引领国家治理现代化的路径分析

新中国成立以来,我国逐步形成了以党的全面领导为核心的国家治理新模式.坚持和完善党的领导制度,有利于优化国家治理结构、提升国家治理能力、协调国家治理关系,是适应历史发展、坚持理论创新及顺应改革实践的必然选择.从治理主体、治理关系、治理模式三个维度入手,突出党的核心地位,优化党政职能结构,健全运行体制机制,是加快制度优势向...     

论日本自民党派阀政治回归的必然性

日本自民党前任总裁小泉纯一郎在其当政期间采用了一系列标新立异的政治手法,使该党传统派阀政治一时间似乎面临消亡的境地。但是,小泉刚离任不久,曾经红极一时的"小泉政治"即迅速走向终结,派阀政治随之卷土重来。究其原因,小泉政治其实只是特定时期的特殊产物,而自民党的派阀则由于建立在日本社会、历史和文化基础之上,不可能轻易消亡。不过,对于自民党来说,不管是小泉政治还是派阀政治,从根本上说一切都是为了权力。     

德国近五十年刑事立法述评

自1969年德国刑法大改革至今的五十年间,德国的刑事立法活动非常频繁。在此期间,德国立法机关不但对《刑法典》总则犯罪论部分的规定进行了彻底的修订,而且针对犯罪的法律后果以及刑法分则乃至附属刑法中的诸多罪名进行了持续的改革,在恐怖主义犯罪、妨害公务犯罪、毒品犯罪以及保安监禁等领域尤其如此。整体而言,德国立法者在过往半个世纪中日趋侧重功能主义的积极刑事立法观,导致德国刑法逐步从传统法治国背景下的法益保护法和市民防御法转向以社会控制为主导的国家干预法和社会防卫法,造成了诸多难以与现有法律体系和学说理论相协调的象征性立法。我国应当从德国近五十年的刑事立法中吸收其先进经验,对其中的弊端也要引以为戒。     

Early Adolescents’ Social Standing in Peer Groups: Behavioral Correlates of Stability and Change

Sociometric nominations, social cognitive maps, and self-report questionnaires were completed in consecutive years by 327 students (56% girls) followed longitudinally from grade 7 to grade 8 to examine the stability of social standing in peer groups and correlates of changes in social standing. Social preference, perceived popularity, network centrality, and leadership were moderately stable from grade 7 to grade 8. Alcohol use and relational aggression in grade 7 predicted changes in social preference and centrality, respectively, between grade 7 and grade 8, but these effects were moderated by gender and ethnicity. Changes in social standing from grade 7 to grade 8 were unrelated to grade 8 physical aggression, relational aggression, and alcohol use after controlling for the grade 7 corollaries of these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding links between social standing and problem behaviors during adolescence.

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.     

The relative weight of character traits in political candidate evaluations: Warmth is more important than competence,leadership and integrity

Decades of research has found that voters’ electoral decisions to a significant degree are affected by character evaluations of candidates. Yet it remains unresolved which specific candidate traits voters find most important. In political science it is often argued that competence-related traits are most influential, whereas work in social psychology suggests that warmth-related traits are more influential. Here we test which character trait is the more influential in global candidate evaluations and vote choice using observational data from the ANES 1984–2008 and an original experiment conducted on a representative sample of English partisan respondents. Across the two studies we find that warmth is more influential than competence, leadership and integrity. Importantly, results hold across a wide range of alternative specifications and robustness analyses. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of the results.     

EU Simulations and Engagement: Motivating Greater Interest in European Union Politics

While the effects of simulation-based courses on the knowledge of participating students may be marginal in relation to standard lecture and discussion-based courses, this article argues that the greatest leverage is gained by increasing participating students’ level of interest in the subject of study and in politics more broadly. Participants tend to become increasingly absorbed in their roles and in the politics of the institutions at the center of the simulation. To better consider this possibility, we conducted a survey of students participating in the 2015 Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation and of appropriate control populations. The survey results indeed suggest that, much more than simply acquiring knowledge about the EU, the simulation experience serves to generate more robust interest in the subject of study.     

泰国民主政治的怪圈

泰国实行宪政以来经历了多次军人政权和民选政权的交替,形成了政治循环的怪圈,而且每个周期的更替多伴随着暴力冲突和政治动乱.近两年来,泰国政治进入了新一轮循环周期,政治动荡更是此起彼伏.本文重点回顾了2008年的政治危机,分析了危机的根源,并对泰国政治制度发展前景作出预测.     

Development and Consequences of Referendum Campaigns in Switzerland, 1981-1999

Since the early 1990s, new forms of referendum campaigns have emerged in the Swiss political arena. In this paper, we examine how referendum campaigns have transformed in Switzerland, focusing on a number of features: their intensity, duration and inclusiveness (i.e., the variety of actors involved). These features are assumed to change in the long run in response to societal changes and in the short run as a function of variations in elite support. We further argue that public knowledge of ballot issues depends on the characteristics of campaigns. To formally test our hypotheses, we draw on advertisement campaigns in six major Swiss newspapers in the four weeks preceding each ballot from 1981 to 1999 and develop a structural equation model. We indeed find that the duration of referendum campaigns has increased over time, while their inclusiveness has decreased. Most importantly, we find that pub­lic knowledge is strongly related to the characteristics of campaigns.