Poly-Victimization as a Life Condition: Correlates of Poly-Victimization among Finnish Children

According to criminological literature, victimization tends to cluster among the same adolescents. Recent American studies have shown that the poly-victimized youth are different in terms of their whole victimization profile than those children with fewer or no victimization experiences. In this article poly-victimization is studied among Finnish sixth and ninth graders (n = 13,459) based on the Finnish Child Victim Survey 2008. The article will answer questions with regard to accumulation of victimization and its associations with children's psycho-social well-being. The study examines the individual and family level background characteristics which are related to poly-victimization. The accumulations of these risk factors are analysed with poly-victimized children compared with less or non-victimized children. According to the analysis, poly-victimization exists among Finnish children and adolescents. In addition, the characteristics indicated as risk factors of victimization seem to accumulate among poly-victims. With cross-sectional data, no causal conclusions can be made, but poly-victimization is related to higher levels of psycho-social problems. The results confirm earlier findings of poly-victimization as a life condition.     

The Convention Experience: Between Rhetoric and Participation

Abstract

This article investigates the participation of interest groups in the EU's Constituional Convention and their contribution to the debate on participatory democracy and EU governance. I argue that the constitutional moment prompted interest groups to define their priorities beyond focused policy issues to include wider principles of governance. While the Convention process was more inclusive that any previous treaty reform procedure, its institutional set up was a constraint to improving citizen participation either directly or via interest groups. The Convention reproduced a model of closed elitist politics which did not communicate sufficiently with the citizens, while the role of interest groups was restricted by a Convention designed as a drafting phase in preparation for the real decisive phase during the IGC. Despite the impact of specific domestic contexts, the ‘no’ votes in France and the Netherlands proved that civil society and participation were rhetorical devices deployed during the Convention to gain legitimacy rather than a genuine move towards a more pluralistic EU democracy capable of deploying effective mechanisms of active citizen participation.     

Fragile States: A Donor-serving Concept? Issues with Interpretations of Fragile Statehood in Afghanistan

Abstract

The paradox of attempting to (re)construct state institutions without considering the socio-political cohesion of societies recurs throughout the world, most notably today in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. This essay tries to shed some light on the debate around the concepts of state and nation-building. Drawing on a sociological understanding of the modern nation-state, it contends that it is impossible to conceive of statebuilding as a process separate from nation-building. This essay identifies two different schools of thought in the discussion concerning the statebuilding process, each of which reflects different sociological understandings of the state. The first one, an ‘institutional approach’ closely related to the Weberian conception of the state, focuses on the importance of institutional reconstruction and postulates that statebuilding activities do not necessarily require a concomitant nation-building effort. The second, a ‘legitimacy approach’ influenced by Durkheimian sociology, recognizes the need to consolidate central state institutions, but puts more emphasis on the importance of socio-political cohesion in the process. Building on this second approach and demonstrating its relevance in contemporary statebuilding, this article concludes with a discussion of recent statebuilding attempts and the ways external actors can effectively contribute to statebuilding processes.     

Community-Partnered Needs Assessment: A Strategy to Teach College Students About Health Disparities

Partnering with communities to provide service-learning opportunities for undergraduates can be an effective strategy to teach college students about health disparities. In the current study, undergraduates partnered with a public K–8 school to conduct a participatory needs assessment. College students worked directly with teachers, parents, public school students, and key stakeholders to identify and prioritize health needs, and they awarded the partnership school a grant to address physical activity and bullying. Undergraduates rated the class highly favorably and reported a deeper understanding of health disparities resulting from the service-learning activity. Health disparities research is increasingly becoming a national priority and service learning can attract future talent by providing undergraduates with the opportunity to engage in the material in a meaningful way with clear community benefit.     

Life Imitates (and Informs) Meta-Analysis

SUMMARY

Mentoring programs for youth have become immensely popular in recent years. Evaluations of their effectiveness, however, have yielded mixed results. These findings underscore a need for more careful and in-depth scrutiny of programmatic features that are necessary for mentoring relationships to provide intended benefits to youth. Utilizing a novel, participatory research perspective, this paper considers the author's own experiences as a mentor of a 9-year-old boy and their relation to a set of program best practices identified in a recent meta-analysis of the literature (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, & Cooper, in press). A framework for efforts to enhance mentoring program effectiveness is described.     

Science governance and the politics of proper talk: governmental bioethics as a new technology of reflexive government

Abstract

The article examines the emergence of governmental bioethics in Great Britain, France and Germany, i.e. bodies, discourses and procedures meant to guide policy-making in terms of ethical considerations. It argues that governmental bioethics, marked by openness, transparency and participation, can be understood as a form of reflexive government in the realm of science governance. It grew out of the problematization of older forms of science governance based on ideas of effectiveness, scientific expertise and system stability, and operates through structuring and managing proper talk rather than intervening in processes of techno-scientific development. Yet, rather than challenging the commitment to techno-scientific ‘progress’, it stabilizes it through mechanisms of inclusion, involvement and mobilization: within the framework of proper ethical talk, participation can be employed to pursue rather than oppose system stability.     

Ideological and pedagogical tensions in an environmental sustainability education project: A review of adult education practices around Lake Fundudzi,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Research in poor communities in South Africa faces intellectual challenges and tensions which offer lessons for evaluating environmental education (EE). This article illuminates five such tensions that emerged during the course of an adult environmental education programme, implemented from 1999 to 2002, in communities surrounding the catchment of Lake Fundudzi in South Africa: tensions arose between traditional and modern concepts of community; between traditional and post-apartheid structures of local governance; between liberal empowerment and traditional conservationist ideologies; and also within and between environmental ideologies and research paradigms. Paramount among the lessons learned is the need to develop multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary (MIT) practices that are sensitive to local community and environmental needs, and to solutions expressed through local residents, community workers and academics – in other words, the recognition and affirmation of local indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs).     

Citizens’ Initiatives: How Local Governments Fill their Facilitative Role

In the context of drastic cutbacks many Dutch municipalities consider citizens’ initiatives (CIs) as an attractive alternative for municipal policies aimed at improving the livability and safety in neighbourhoods, simultaneously building responsible citizenship. In this paper we combine different theoretical perspectives to analyse the institutional settings in which CIs are being realised, and how municipalities try to facilitate such initiatives. Municipalities can do this by either trying to structure the relevant networks or by various forms of process management. This analysis sheds light on how municipalities use a variety of instruments to mobilise citizens to participate in CIs. In using such instruments they can influence various factors (like motivations, personal resources, social capital and expected responsiveness; cf. Lowndes et al.’s CLEAR model) that increase the likelihood of civic engagement.     

Anti-Immigrant Parties,Local Presence and Electoral Success

Abstract

Does the local organisational presence of anti-immigrant parties affect their chances for electoral success? In order to answer this question, the article explores the potential of a supply-oriented explanation to anti-immigrant party success by examining the electoral advancements the Sweden Democrats (SD) made in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Our results indicate that traditional demand-side explanations to anti-immigrant party success can be successfully complemented by an ‘internal supply-side argument’ to make the electoral fates of these parties more intelligible. Whether the SD had a local organisational presence had a substantial effect on its results in the national election and on the probability of gaining representation in local councils. Thus, the party’s fate in the national as well as local elections was largely determined by whether or not it had a local organisational presence in Swedish municipalities.     

Local Politics Online: The Influence of Presumed Influence on Local Politicians’ Online Communication Activities in Germany

Abstract

How extensively local politicians use online media to communicate with others and the factors that influence their online activities have rarely been examined. In particular, it is unknown whether local politicians use online media more extensively when they believe that online media has a strong political influence on others. To examine this, a standardised survey among German local politicians was conducted (n = 608). The results showed the following: The stronger the politicians perceive the influence of facebook and Twitter on journalists to be, the more extensively they spread information via these social media networks. However, the presumed influences on the public or on other politicians do not affect those online activities. Thus, local politicians apparently do not pursue a disintermediation strategy – they do not try to bypass journalism by directly addressing the public. Rather, journalists seem to be an important target group for local politicians’ online communication efforts.