Determinants of young people’s civic and political participation in Turkey

This special section provides a timely reflection on current debates that are of extreme relevance in order to gain a better understanding of the concepts of citizenship and active citizenship in Turkey, by looking at the determinants of civic and political participation, at the patterns of political and civic mobilization and at the orientations of political behaviour. Its originality stands on the specific focus on young people in comparison to other age groups. The different papers remark upon the importance that the reframing of the notions of citizenship and active citizenship have in the Turkish context along with the determinants that make this remark more relevant than ever.     

The political psychology of participation in Turkey: civic engagement,basic values,political sophistication and the young

This article aims to understand the recent heightened levels of mobilization and unconventional political participation in Turkey. We use a political psychology model that highlights the impact of civic engagement, political sophistication, and values on conventional and unconventional participation. We argue that these factors will be significant predictors of unconventional participation setting it apart from conventional political behaviour, which will be driven by simpler considerations. We expect these qualitative differences in the drivers of conventional and unconventional participation to go beyond age and gender differences and highlight the complexity of political decision-making in Turkey’s electoral authoritarian system. We use the 2012 World Value Survey to test our hypotheses, with a nationally representative sample of Turkish citizens. We find significant variations in the role of values, sophistication and levels of civic engagement for conventional and unconventional participation when controlling for age, gender and left–right ideological orientations. Our findings confirm the complex considerations that drive citizens’ engagement with politics and can be useful to explaining recent political developments in Turkey involving youth, public mobilization and protests, but also mainstream voting choices.     

Reflections on law and impact in the light of Brexit

ABSTRACT

The impact agenda in academic research affords rich opportunities – to inform the media, policymakers and the general public; to co-produce research with third sector organisations. In the context of Brexit, the prevailing ignorance of politicians and other stakeholders has been so profound, and the falsehoods that have had popular purchase so baseless, as to make the need for impact and public engagement all the more acute. This is not simply about fact-checking, but about making the case for the very worth of expertise, and reasserting the basic, core scientific values that drive academic work – values that have been trashed by the precepts of a postmodern nihilism, in which all positions are equally (in)valid and only your own gut can be trusted. But challenging these precepts in public arenas has personal and professional costs: significant workload implications, the acquisition of new skills and often a torrent of abuse. As such, this work needs institutional support. Departments need to value it appropriately, to promote equal access to impact opportunities and to confront the discriminatory barriers to (and consequences of) taking up the impact gauntlet. Throughout the Brexit process, expertise and experts have been dismissed and denigrated. The task now is to restore public faith in the value of the pursuit of truth.     

清末民初民间订婚婚书习惯研究--基于东北地区与直隶省的比较

民间订婚婚书不同于官方婚书，在清代被称为“私约”。清末民初，民间往往不遵循官婚书，甚至将官婚书与私约相混淆，将清代律例规定的“务要两家明白通知”的关于身体、身份内容的官婚书，逐渐演变成不同地区、不同形式、内容各异的订婚婚书。这种以凭媒妁、交割财礼为主要内容的订婚婚书，在民间百姓眼中被视为婚姻成立的必要条件。媒证与婚书是双方发生纠纷，裁断财礼的退与还的主要证据。司法机关认定订婚婚书具有法律效力。对这一时期的订婚婚书深入研究，对当今订婚财礼纠纷返还机制的建立有启示意义。     

传承与变异:浙江慈溪蒋村的订婚习惯法

在浙江省慈溪市附海镇蒋村,订婚通常称为"过书",为婚姻成立的必要程序,村民较为严格的遵守这一历史上一直有效并传承至今的习惯法。通过对2010年11月13日蒋村戚周订婚的田野考察和访谈,可以发现,固有的订婚习惯法在蒋村仍然客观存在,仍然有其现实功能和特殊价值。蒋村订婚有自愿、必要、协商三个基本原则,相识与媒人规范、订婚程序规范、彩礼规范等为订婚的主要规范。在订婚习惯法的发展中,经济因素日益突出。     

Bet Out the Vote: Prediction Markets as a Tool to Promote Undergraduate Political Engagement

ABSTRACT

Over the course of three semesters spanning the 2016 primary and general elections, we conducted a series of quasi-experiments to evaluate the effects of prediction markets on undergraduate interest in the political process. We gave several classes in our institution’s core American politics course the opportunity to collectively invest in election-related markets on PredictIt.org, and over two-thirds of our students reported that the exercise stimulated their interest in the elections and political process. Roughly half also reported reading more news articles because of their participation in the market. While our treatment group did not demonstrate statistically-significant improvement in tangential political awareness, knowledge, or engagement, our findings do challenge previous conclusions that prediction markets have limited capacity to motivate students in an introductory learning context.     

Protecting the living: Managerialism and professional turf wars in risk regulatory death investigations

This paper demonstrates how general trends in the management of public institutions, and a specific turf war between the doctors and lawyers in Ontario, Canada, have combined to shape an important risk regulatory decisionmaking process: the coroner's inquest. Drawing on ethnographic evidence, I show how the priorities of managerialism, and the collateral effects of physician coroners battling with lawyers, have reduced the number of public inquests convened in Ontario by 80 per cent over a 20‐year period. Where many public safety decisions affecting the province's legal, policy, and physical environments were once made at public inquests, they appear now more likely to be made in private. The paper examines the implications of reduced public participation in the analysis of, and response to, death.     

A Big Idea for the Big Society? The Advent of National Citizen Service

The proposed introduction of National Citizen Service (NCS) by the Conservative party survived the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats and forms part of the coalition's policy agenda. The idea forms part of the concern of Cameronian Conservatives to create a big society, based primarily upon volunteering and civil engagement. Drawing upon comparisons with state and private sector‐led models of citizen volunteering in Germany and the United States, this article explores the evolving rationale for the introduction of NCS and evaluates the issues and pitfalls which may arise.     

Introduction: In Defence of Politics

In a world that is increasingly dominated by literary hyperbole there can be no doubt that Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics remains a classic text. Classic not just in the sense that it provides a masterly account of the essence, meaning and fragility of democratic politics but classic in the sense that it is written with a style, verve and passion that is rarely found within political science. If the test of pretensions to ‘a classic’ status is that a book defies the passage of time in terms of significance and argument then Crick's Defence would also make the grade for the simple fact that its arguments remain arguably far more important today than they were when they were first published exactly fifty years ago. This article reflects on the contemporary significance of Crick's Defence by defending politics against an updated set of adversaries in the form of: public expectations, marketisation, depoliticisation, the media, and crises before locating the book within the contours of current debates about public disengagement, the rise of ‘disaffected democrats’ and questions concerning the future and relevance of political science.     

WHEN THE COST IS TOO GREAT: THE EMOTIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT ON CHILDREN OF INCARCERATING THEIR PARENTS FOR DRUG OFFENCES1

The advent of the modern “war on drugs” and its accompanying “lock 'em up and throw away the key” crime policies largely explain the evolution of mass incarceration in the U.S. and account for much of the emotional and psychological pain caused to children who have lost their parents to long prison sentences. It is by reducing reliance on incarceration to tackle the “drug problem” in the United States that there will be a positive impact on reducing the number of parents being separated from their children for inordinate amounts of time, thereby potentially reducing the negative emotional and psychological impact on children. Aiding parents combat their addiction outside of prison walls is perhaps to most sensible criminal justice policy in addressing the needs of children who are caught in the cross‐fire of the war on drugs. In the meantime, as policy makers review, assess, and, eventually, reform draconian drug laws and sentencing policies, it is imperative that front‐line service providers who work with children and family and juvenile court judges be mindful of the emotional and psychological impact that parental incarceration has on youth. A more in‐depth understanding of the complexities of these young people's life experiences will hopefully enable the development of appropriate support services.