The relationship between psychological buffers, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation: identification of protective factors

In this study we examined the role of psychological buffers (life satisfaction, self-esteem, perception of family cohesion, and perception of social support) in the development of hopelessness and suicidal ideation. The participants were 314 university students, 71 males and 243 females, who were asked to complete a battery of instruments measuring the psychological buffers mentioned above. The results of a set of hierarchical multiple regression analyses suggested that life satisfaction and self-esteem are independent predictors of lower levels of hopelessness, while perception of social support seems to be the major predictor of lower levels of suicidal ideation independent of depression and hopelessness severity. Thus, hopelessness seems to be minimized by the level of life satisfaction and level of self-esteem exhibited by the individuals, while the key factor to the mitigation of suicidal ideas seems to be perception of social support.     

The victim as expert: Active and captive 1

The article presents a study of the Danish YWCA from 1883 to 1940. The approach adopted is that of cultural analysis, drawing on inspiration from several fields, not least cultural anthropology and so‐called empowerment research (Habermas 1968). The YWCA building in Copenhagen is used as the starting‐point for exploring the YWCA as a culture and for a discussion of the religious, social and feminist issues of the YWCA.     

Encounters With Irregular Migrants in Social Work—“Collateral Damage” and Reframing of Recognizability in Swedish Public Social Services

The aim is to explore experiences and considerations of social workers regarding irregular migrants, understood as being prone to be “collateral damage.” It is revealed that some social workers approve assistance exceeding that which can find support in the national legislation. They are hereby addressing the normative conditions for recognition and installing new frames for apprehending irregular migrants. This process is referred to as a reframing of recognizability. By exceeding the limits of “belonging,” social workers question their profession's national link as well as the inability of a nationally anchored understanding of social work to deal with irregular migrants.     

Why do military dictatorships become presidential democracies? Mapping the democratic interests of autocratic regimes

Public Choice - Recent data show that virtually all military dictatorships that democratize become presidential democracies. I hypothesize that the reason is that military interests are able to...     

The bigger the better? Evidence of the effect of government size on life satisfaction around the world

This paper empirically analyzes whether government size is conducive or detrimental to life satisfaction in a cross-section of 74 countries. We thus provide a test of the longstanding dispute between standard neoclassical economic theory and public choice theory. According to the neoclassical view, governments play unambiguously positive roles for individuals' quality of life, while the theory of public choice has been developed to understand why governments often choose excessive involvement in – and regulation of – the economy, thereby harming their citizens' quality of life. Our results show that life satisfaction decreases with higher government consumption. For low, middle income, and male people, this result is stronger when the government is leftwing, while government consumption appears to be less harmful for women when the government is perceived to be effective. Government capital formation and social spending have no significant impact on life satisfaction.     

An extension of Black's theorem on voting orders to the successive procedure

Duncan Black (1958) stated his voting order theorem — ‘the later any motion enters the voting order, the greater its chance of adoption’ — exclusively for the amendment procedure. Niemi and Gretlein's (1985) extension is similarly limited. Here we show that with a change in the focus from social preferences to individual preferences, both Black's theorem and that proved by Niemi and Gretlein apply as well to the successive procedure.     

Fatal outcome of poisoning with the benzodiazepines flunitrazepam and diazepam

On a wintry day a 29-year-old woman was found dead beside her car showing head injuries and signs of hypothermia. Several empty packets of sedative and hypnotic drugs were lying inside the car. Toxicological analysis revealed the presence of flunitrazepam (heart blood of the left and right chamber 0.033 mg/L each), norflunitrazepam (left heart blood 0.029 mg/L, right heart blood 0.027 mg/L), 7-amino-flunitrazepam (left heart blood 0.090 mg/L, right heart blood 0.104 mg/L), diazepam (left heart blood 0.395 mg/L, right heart blood 0.386 mg/L), nordazepam (left heart blood 0.112 mg/L, right heart blood 0.115 mg/L) and temazepam (left heart blood 0.034 mg/L, right heart blood 0.033 mg/L). Neither alcohol nor other drugs were found. It was concluded that benzodiazepine intake led to a disturbance of consciousness. Whether the woman died in this situation due to the icy temperature as a result of hypothermia or whether she died or would have died solely due to benzodiazepine overdosage could not be clarified.     

Central-Local Government Relations in Transition: The Case of Swedish Child Care

The provision of subsidized child care has grown to become asizeable economic activity in Sweden during recent decades.This paper examines the changed financial relation betweencentral and local governments and the impact of child-caregrants on local government behaviour. We find that during anearlier regime, with a system of matching grants, localgovernments responded strongly to the incentives of the rules.This resulted in both intended and unintended outcomes, aswell as a distortion of information to the central government.Experiences from a recent transition of regime towards a kindof closed block grant system, illustrates new types ofadaptive behaviour but also the problem of finding a formulafor a fair allocation of resources among local governments.When designing a block grant system a distinction must be madebetween expenditures and resource needs; cost expenditure datado not necessarily reflect resource needs in cases where thereare national categorical equity goals related to socialservices of a merit-want character.