Cohabitation and commitment: partnership plans of young men and women

Popular commentators on marriage and the family often interpret the increase in heterosexual couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and honour life‐long partnerships. Survey and in‐depth interviews with samples of 20–29 year olds living in an urban area of Scotland finds little support for the postulated link between growing cohabitation and a weakened sense of commitment to long‐term arrangements. Most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their ‘commitment’. Socially acceptable vocabularies of motive undoubtedly influenced answers but interviews helped to explore deeper meanings. Many respondents’ views were consistent with previous research predictions of a weakening sense of any added value of marriage. At the same time, some respondents continued to stress the social significance of the distinction between marriage and cohabitation, consistent with research interpreting cohabitation as a ‘try and see’ strategy part‐way to the perceived full commitment of marriage. The notion that ‘marriage is better for children’ continued to have support among respondents. While, on average, cohabiting couples had lower incomes and poorer employment situations than married couples, only very extreme adverse circumstances were presented as making marriage ‘too risky’. Pregnancy‐provoked cohabitation was not always in this category. Cohabitation was maintained because marriage would ‘make no difference’ or because they ‘had not yet got round to’ marriage. Most respondents were more wary of attempting to schedule or plan in their personal life than in other domains and cohabitees’ attitudes to partnership, including their generally ‘committed’ approach, do not explain the known greater vulnerability of this group to dissolution.     

The Electoral College and Conflict in American History and Politics

The historical relationship between the electoral college and controversial U.S. presidential elections, specifically with respect to conflict, is examined. The elections of 1800, 1824, 1860, 1876, 1888, 1968, and 2000 are examined. Aside from the 2000 election, there has been essentially no conflict in American history due to the electoral college. The constitutional structure and thinking behind the form of the electoral college is given, with emphasis on the federal aspects of the structure. The current movement to abolish the electoral college in favor of direct popular vote is depicted, along with the arguments against making that change. The conclusion is that we as a nation are far better off to retain the status quo than to make the called-for change.     

Nichts genaues weiss man nicht!?

What do voters really know about party platforms and how do they perceive the contents? Are there any relationships between party election platforms and electoral behavior? Despite of much research on parties, there are hardly any answers to these questions. If political parties devise programmes in order to influence political attitudes or electoral behavior, it will be necessary that these programmes are read by people. But it seems to be unclear if and how people do so. This article shows clearly that voters don’t know much about party manifestoes. Still, programmes are more important for voters than many people believe. Programmes are also an important factor for electoral behavior. But there is still a lack of data to get evident results.     

THE DISTRIBUTION SECTOR AND THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: ARE THERE PATTERNS? YES

Using an increasing returns specification for distribution, an inverted U pattern between the share of distribution in gross domestic product and the level of development is shown to arise. A cross-section time-series data set is constructed and merged with one used to analyze the service sector. In contrast to the rising pattern found for services, an average time-series relation that exhibits an inverted U pattern is established. The empirical results are robust, for example, to choice of functional form and country and time period coverage. A similar pattern is found in the average cross-section (country) relation between distribution and development.     

Institutional Constraints and Deforestation: An Application to Mexico

Following North (1990), this article hypothesizes that effective rural institutions may impose additional costs on tropical deforestation through agricultural conversion. This allows a formal agricultural household analysis of institutional constraints on deforestation and therefore a method of empirically testing whether there is any significant difference in the actual level of forest land conversion under institutional constraints compared to the level of conversion under pure open access. A dynamic panel analysis for agricultural planted area in Mexico at state level and over the 1960–85 period confirms that institutional constraints on land clearing affected deforestation during the pre-NAFTA era.     

Time and Postmodernism

In this essay we discuss changes in the cultural meaning and significance of time in postmodernism. We begin by examining the experience of time and space in the Middle Ages and its radical alteration following the Renaissance. After a relatively brief period of optimism during the Enlightenment regarding the scientific control over time and space, a new crisis beginning in the mid‐nineteenth century emphasized the increasing disjuncture between external, objective notions of time and the way time was experienced subjectively. We argue that the current literature on time and post‐modernity is best understood in this context, where earlier disequilibriating effects brought about by modern technologies are exacerbated by new developments in transportation and communications technology. Here we discuss the particular effects on topics of interest to social scientists such as changes in notions of personal identity and the effacement of historical time. We conclude with a call for more empirically grounded work on questions concerning time in postmodernism. We lament the paucity of concrete data as well as the excess of useless polemics and recommend several researchers already conducting work in this field.     

The Relationship Between Sense of Coherence and Career Thoughts

The authors examined the impact of sense of coherence on the career thought processes of a sample of college students. A. Antonovsky (1987) defined sense of coherence as the global orientation that the world is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. Study participants completed the Sense of Coherence Scale (A. Antonovsky, 1987) and the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1996). Multivariate tests indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and CTI Total and subscale scores; sense of coherence accounted for 14% of the variance. Univariate tests also indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and each subscale.