More Participation,Happier Society? A Comparative Study of Civil Society and the Quality of Life

A ‘good society’ has recently been portrayed as one in which citizens engage in voluntary associations to foster democratic processes. Arguably, such a good society is considered as one where people are content with their own lives as well as public life. We consider whether participation in civil society leads to more satisfied individuals on the one hand and a better evaluation of society at a country level on the other. With data from the first round of the European Social Survey, we illustrate that participation in voluntary associations not only depends on individual characteristics, but that there is a clear country-level effect on civil society. This can be explained with measures of quality of society after socio-demographic determinants have been controlled for. Nonetheless, it remains difficult to say what comes first: a ‘good society’ or a thriving civil society.

Self-report to self-control? A note

This note establishes that escalating penalty regimes with the option to self-report crimes may allow present-biased offenders to obligate themselves to refrain from committing future crimes. Self-reporting of a committed crime increases the expected costs of future criminal opportunities, possibly allowing offenders to deter their future selves from seeking immediate gratification.     

How to Spend Public Money Efficiently: A Cost-Effectiveness Model Illustrated Using the EU’s “Youth”-Program

Since it is crucial for public entities to spend the taxpayer’s money effectively and efficiently, we have analyzed the methods used to check for the two criteria in the European Union’s “Youth”-program. We find that the currently applied method is not theoretically sound and hardly politically justifiable. Therefore, we present a new approach which includes the important aspects that a public organization needs to respect. It is theoretically correct and fulfills economic standards; it is valid in political standards; it is feasible; and it is easily understandable for a large public. We singled out two factors which are readily observable and a good proxy for the decision if a project is worthy to be supported by public funds: the number of people reached and the quality of the program proposed.     

Teil-autonome Arbeitsteams oder tayloristische Produktionslinie? Welche Erkenntnisgewinne bieten simulationsbasierte Work Design Trainings

Digitalisation, flexible job markets, new technologies and innovative forms of collaboration constitute increasing challenges for employers and the design of modern work. But how can we deal with these challenges and what do we know about the effect of good versus bad work design? Based on the job demands-resources model (JRM), we present a simulation-based training during which participants experience the effects of different work characteristics. We focus on the moderating effects of job control and job demands: The JRM assumes that job demands and job control interactively affect employee exhaustion and work engagement: Jobs with high control can buffer the strain-enhancing effect of job demands (buffer hypothesis) and increase work engagement (active learning hypothesis). We test these hypotheses in a workplace simulation during which participants have to produce ice-cream. Our results support the buffer hypothesis but not the active learning hypothesis. We discuss the added value of work design simulations for organisations, practitioners, and HR professionals.     

Touch in residential child care: staff’s bodies and children’s agency

This paper concerns the significance of touch in the everyday life of those living and working in residential child care. Public and professional awareness about child abuse has focused attention on the bodies of children and their vulnerability – but the same cannot be said of the bodies of staff members who touch children. This ethnographic study of a Scottish residential child care unit shows such touch to be central to the everyday participation of children and young people in care. On the basis of participant observation, the paper analyses how care workers influence the agency of children and young people by bringing their own bodies into their relationships with them. Based on a relational understanding of care, the paper elaborates on how tender and restraining forms of touch form part of care workers’ professional repertoire of actions. The analysis of various instances of touch in terms of sociology of the body shows how staff members can help to shape children and young people’s opportunities for participation with their own bodies. In conclusion, the paper therefore argues for a professional and reflexive engagement with bodies rather than a general avoidance of touch between care workers and young people.     

Hybrids,materiality, and black boxes: Concepts of actor‐network theory in data journalism research

Actor‐Network Theory (ANT) vocabulary offers meaningful sensibilities for explorations of data‐driven newswork. Concepts of hybrids, materiality, and black boxes are increasingly mentioned across digital journalism studies and appear to be particularly constructive to examine the relations between data, computation, and journalism practice, epistemology, reflexivity, and journalistic artefacts. After outlining central concepts of ANT, this literature review provides an overview of research agendas that propose sociotechnical dimensions, followed by a structured review of findings generated through ANT‐informed explorations of data journalism. In a closing summary, presented findings and limitations of ANT are discussed.     

Multiple Hypothesis Testing for Variable Selection

We propose two new procedures based on multiple hypothesis testing for correct support estimation in high‐dimensional sparse linear models. We conclusively prove that both procedures are powerful and do not require the sample size to be large. The first procedure tackles the atypical setting of ordered variable selection through an extension of a testing procedure previously developed in the context of a linear hypothesis. The second procedure is the main contribution of this paper. It enables data analysts to perform support estimation in the general high‐dimensional framework of non‐ordered variable selection. A thorough simulation study and applications to real datasets using the R package mht shows that our non‐ordered variable procedure produces excellent results in terms of correct support estimation as well as in terms of mean square errors and false discovery rate, when compared to common methods such as the Lasso, the SCAD penalty, forward regression or the false discovery rate procedure (FDR).     

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IMAGE AND MISREPORTING

In this paper we analyze how image utility can lead to misreporting of private information in contexts where truthful reports maximize monetary outcomes. In a controlled experiment, subjects go through a series of quiz questions and subsequently report a performance measure. We vary whether reports are made to an audience or not. In an additional feedback treatment, reports are also stated to an audience and afterwards the experimenter publicly verifies whether reports were correct. We find that in the audience treatment, stated reports are significantly higher relative to the private treatment as well as the feedback treatment. Our findings suggest that overconfident appearance might be a consequence of social approval seeking.     

Gentrifizierung in Wien, Chicago und Mexiko Stadt

The lack of comparative gentrification research is regularly addressed by the scientific community. Despite the vast amount of isolated case-studies from different urban contexts, there are only few comparisons of gentrified neighborhoods on a global level. It is hypothesized that to a large extent the lack of international comparisons is based on the limits of quantitative secondary data. Therefore, a qualitative research project was designed to develop an analytical scheme of categories. An actor-analysis was conducted in three neighborhoods in Vienna, Chicago and Mexico City. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed in a qualitative content analysis and then linked to the theoretical gentrification-framework. The result, an analytical scheme of 14 categories, provides a new approach to face the significant lack of international comparisons.