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.

Conditioned Networking: Swiss–EU Relations in Transport

This article addresses the structural characteristics of the interactions between Switzerland and the EU in the transport sector, i.e. transport by air and land. More precisely, it is focused on two different aspects of this relationship: first the modes of coordination between Switzerland and the EU according to the concept of external governance and, second, those conditions that make inclusive patterns of interaction more likely. The central finding of this case study is an expansion of both the regulatory and organisational boundary in both cases. This shift finds expression in the incorporation of Swiss actors into a variety of networks that, at least in some cases, allow Swiss actors to shape EU policy making. The actual patterns of interaction are influenced by a number of factors, including the type of governance inside the EU that facilitates the inclusion of third parties in EU external governance and the problem structure that is characterized by coordination rather than enforcement problems.     

Political Trust,Ideology, and Public Support in the United States for Government Spending on Health Care

The U.S. health-care costs have increased at a rapid rate over the last several decades. How much responsibility the government should bear with the increase in health-care costs is one of the main questions that lack consensus among the American people. Utilizing the 2016 General Social Survey data, this study shows that over two-thirds of Americans want to see more or much more spending on health care by the government. An ordered logit regression model shows that political trust and ideology are significant correlates in predicting attitudes toward government spending on health care. The policy implications of the findings are discussed in the “Conclusion” section.     

Political attitude estimation through Facebook like: a South Korean case study

Recently numerous studies are conducted to estimate the human personality from the online social activities. This paper develops a comprehensive model for political attitude estimation leveraging the Facebook Like information of the users. We designed a Facebook Crawler that efficiently collects data overcoming the difficulties in crawling Ajax enabled Facebook pages. We show that the category level selection can reduce the data analysis complexity utilizing the sparsity of the huge like-attitude matrix. In the Korean Facebook users’ context, only 28 criteria (3% of the total) can estimate the political polarity of the user with high accuracy (AUC of 0.82).     

东亚生产网络中的两岸产业合作

两岸产业合作目前的形态与模式形成的根本原因,除了两岸间密切的经贸关系外,更是由两岸共同处于的东亚生产网络所驱动的。在全球金融危机之后,两岸间产业合作开始共同面对亚太区域经济整合、全球价值链重新布局的外部压力,同时由于两岸经济实力和比较优势的变迁,两岸间产业开始逐渐由互补走向竞争。当外部与内部经济环境同时发生变化时,两岸产业合作的传统模式面临挑战和选择。     

Gettin’ Down Home With the Neelys: gastro-porn and televisual performances of gender,race, and sexuality

This article illuminates how performances of gender, race, and sexuality are integrated with representations of food and food performance in contemporary American cooking television. Interrogating the intersections of food, gender, race, sexuality, and performance, this essay explores how the cable-television show, Down Home with the Neelys, depicts a nouveau gastro-porn anchored in the perceived pornographic level of blackness itself. The author reveals the ways that food and performances of food become a medium of gendering and racialization employed by American popular media. Through the lens of reality television, shows like Down Home (re)produce a certain type of black heterosexuality and gendered enactments of domesticity and space, while challenging dominant televisual reflections of black love and labor. The author argues that the Neelys self-consciously employ a vernacular aesthetic performative of “down home” (a uniquely classed, temporally–spatially situated, and sexualized blackness) to exploit the phenomenon of gastro-porn in a highly lucrative performance that signals the entangled artifice of gender, race, and sexuality. More than offering culinary expertise and education, such cooking instruction reveals the pedagogy of gender, race, and sexuality as visual lessons of a complex and contradictory authenticity. This essay reveals television cooking shows as critical sites for considering the domestic laboring of gendered and racialized sexualities. In particular, shows like Down Home evince the ways that race continues to be rendered in visual terms and the enduring edibility of blackness.     

Is a Federal European Constitution for an Enlarged European Union Necessary? Some Preliminary Suggestions using Public Choice Analysis

In order to guarantee a further successful functioning of the enlarged European Union a Federal European Constitution is proposed. Six basic elements of a future European federal constitution are developed: the European commission should be turned into a European government and the European legislation should consist of a two chamber system with full responsibility over all federal items. Three further key elements are the subsidiarity principle, federalism and the secession right, which are best suited to limiting the domain of the central European authority to which certain tasks are given, such as defense, foreign and environmental policy. Another important feature is direct democracy, which provides the possibility for European voters to participate actively in political decision making, to break political and interest group cartels, and to prevent an unwanted shifting of responsibilities from EU member states to the European federal level.     

绩效问责与乡镇政府回应行为——基于Y乡案例的分析

以Y乡为案例,从问责的主客体关系、问责机制的定位与内容、问责机制的流程与方式等方面对绩效问责机制的分析表明,目标责任制这种绩效问责机制并不具备较高的问责质量;正式的问责机制会导致乡镇政府从事于非正式行为,而问责客体特征则可能是解释其正式行为的主要因素。     

美国的“网络自由”战略及其对策

为了操控国际互联网政治传播，关国政府制定和执行一整套“网络自由”战略。所谓的关式“网络自由”是美国国家利益的网络延伸，是美式民主、人权和美国霸权主义在虚拟世界的扩张和体现。美国的“网络自由”战略由理念输出、资金支持、技术研发和组织运作等几个方面构成。要深入揭示美式“网络自由”的虚伪和危害，加强应对美式“网络自由”的综合能力，不断提升对互联网和虚拟社会的管理水平。     

上海市"十二五"期间完善政府绩效评估体系的对策思考

完善政府绩效评估体系是实现两高一少目标的重要途径,是上海市十二五期间政府自身建设的重要内容。以科学发展观为指导,通过在评估对象的分类、评估内容的设计、评估指标的设置、评估方法的选择、评估过程的强化、评估结果的运用等方面进行全方位的大胆创新,形成目标、责任、督查、考核、结果运用五位一体、有机结合的政府绩效评估体系。