Who Says “It’s the Economy”? Cross-National and Cross-Individual Variat…

Theories of government approval usually assume that voters care about economic outcomes. This assumption frequently does not hold. Data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems demonstrate that although the economy is often the most important issue in an election, its place on the issue agenda varies across individuals and electoral contexts. The economy is more likely to dominate other …

Voting for Our Story : A Narrative Model of Electoral Choice in Multiparty Sy…

Edition

Vol. 44 no. 3, March 2011.pp. 313-338

ISBN/ISSN

00104140

Collation

-

Series Title

Comparative Political Studies

Call Number

-

Clarity of Responsibility Beyond the Pocketbook : How Political Institutions …

One of the most influential findings of the voting behavior literature of the past two decades was the realization that the clarity of the domestic institutional context influences the relationship between economic perceptions and incumbent vote. This article extends this �clarity of responsibility� argument beyond economics to another policy field�European integration. To what extent do nation…

A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Reduce Adolescent Cannabis Use

Objective: This meta-analytic review assesses the effectiveness of substance abuse interventions to reduce adolescent cannabis use. Method: A systematic search identified 15 randomized controlled evaluations of interventions to reduce adolescent cannabis use published between 1960 and 2008. The primary outcome variables, frequency of cannabis use, and quantity of cannabis use, were measured bet…

A Controlled Trial of the Making Choices Program : Six-Month Follow-Up

Objective: Six-month follow-up outcomes from a controlled trial of a program designed to prevent aggressive behavior in childhood are described. Method: Data were collected from three sequential cohorts of third graders in two public elementary schools (N =443). The Year 1 cohort received a routine health curriculum. The Year 2 cohort received the Making Choices program. The Year 3 cohort recei…

Outcomes of Group Care for Youth : A Review of Comparative Studies

Objective: The purpose of this study was to review empirical evidence of the effects of placement in group care compared to other interventions. Method: Two-group empirical studies were identified and effect sizes for all reported outcomes were calculated. Results: Nineteen two-group studies were found that compared group care with family foster care, treatment foster care, no placement, and di…

Providing Competency Training to Clinical Supervisors Through an Interactiona…

Training in supervisory competencies is essential to effective clinical practice and helps address the current national crisis in the behavioral health workforce. Interactional supervision, the approach used in the current study, is well established in clinical social work and focuses the task of the supervisee on the interpersonal exchanges encountered in clinical practice. This study examines…

Validation of the Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale-Short Version

Objective: This report describes the reliability and validity of the Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale (EBPPAS)� Short Version, validated with three disciplines (Social Work, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs), and Psychologists), that assesses practitioners� perceived familiarity with, attitudes about, and implementation of the evidence-based practice (EBP) process.…

Validation of the Cultural Influence on Helping Scale Among Chinese Adolescents

The influence of culture on adolescent prosocial behavior is a neglected aspect in existing studies. Objectives: This study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Cultural Influence on Helping Scale (CIHS) among Chinese adolescents. CIHS is an instrument that assesses Chinese cultural influence on helping other people. Method: The CIHS was administered to 5,812 high school students in Hon…

Evaluating Journal Quality : Is the H-Index a Better Measure Than Impact Fact…

Objectives: This study evaluates the utility of a new measure�the h-index�that may provide a more valid approach to evaluating journal quality in the social work profession. Method: H-index values are compared with Thomson ISI 5-year impact factors and expert opinion. Results: As hypothesized, the h-index correlates highly with ISI 5-year impact factors; but exhibits closer agreement with exper…

Simulating the Effects of the Alternative Vote in the 2010 UK General Election

The Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government has announced its intention to hold a referendum on the possible introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV) for future elections to the House of Commons. This paper uses survey data from the 2010 British Election Study to simulate what the effects on the seat distribution in the House of Commons would have been if AV had operated in May 2010…

Britain's First Live Televised Party Leaders’ Debate : From the News Cycle …

Britain's first ever live, televised, party leaders� debate took place on 15 April 2010, during one of the most intriguing and closely fought general election campaigns in living memory. Arguably the most important single development in the media's treatment of politics since the arrival of television during the 1959 campaign, the leaders� debate and its aftermath provide a unique window on the…

French Electoral Reform and the Abstention Rate

In France, more than other mature democracies, the election rules undergo reform. Our concern is how these reforms influence mass electoral behaviour, namely voter turnout. We gather an extended national data set on the abstention rate, across the republics of France, and subject it to an interrupted time-series analysis. Two sets of hypotheses are explored: structural and tactical. The structu…

Political Conduct and Misconduct : Probing Public Opinion

The media and public responses to the expenses scandal of 2009 demonstrated the enduring importance of standards of conduct in British public life. This article addresses some basic questions concerning citizens' attitudes towards political wrongdoing, including how much notice people actually take of politicians' misbehaviour, how much importance citizens attach to politicians' integrity and h…

The Australian Parliament : A Gendered Organisation

This study, drawing on interviews with 13 male and 15 female members of the Australian parliament, has two aims. The first is to contribute to knowledge about the nature of the Australian parliament, an institution which has seldom been subjected to gender analysis. This is particularly pertinent given the significant increase in women's representative status over the past decade. The second of…

The Quality of Discussion on the Economy in UK Political Blogs in 2008

In the early years of the twenty-first century, things look bleak for the political journalists of large newspapers�squeezed by the demands of celebrity culture, bullied by politicians and their aides, untrusted by the public and, now, displaced by a horde of amateur bloggers�or do they? This study is based upon an in-depth, comparative analysis of the quality of debate, on economic issues, in …

The Michael Marsh Question : How do Finns do Constituency Service?

Work on the representational focus of Finnish parliamentarians has been largely conspicuous by its absence and the notion of �constituency service� is neither familiar to Finns, nor does it translate into Finnish. Based on interviews with MPs and their personal assistants, data from the Finnish leg of the Comparative Candidate Survey and official statistical material, this article makes a first…

Answering Questions in Parliament During Budget Debates : Deliberative Recipr…

Much time is spent asking questions during parliamentary debates. To what extent are they answered? This paper investigates this question by examining budget debates in post-1945 France, Sweden, and the UK as well as in the European Parliament from 1996 to 2001. The purpose is to introduce an empirical approach to a theoretical discussion of whether globalisation weakens deliberative democracy …

Between Military Efficiency and Democratic Legitimacy : Mapping Parliamentary…

Parliamentary approval can be of crucial importance to ensure the democratic legitimacy of military operations as it can establish public consent to the executive's use of force. But involving parliament in decisions to deploy military forces may have negative repercussions on the efficiency of operations, e.g. by slowing down decision-making. As the military activity of democracies has been on…

‘Boom and Bust’ in Women's Representation : Lessons to be Learnt from a D…

A commitment to equality was firmly established as a key principle when the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were founded a decade ago. In the intervening years both have become international beacons of progress in establishing higher levels of representation for women in politics. But at the 2007 elections there was a decline in the number of women elected to both legisl…