Differences in Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender*

Objective. The literature on gender and technology use finds that women and men differ significantly in their attitudes toward their technological abilities. Concurrently, existing work on science and math abilities of students suggests that such perceived differences do not always translate into actual disparities. We examine the yet‐neglected area concerning gender differences with respect to Internet‐use ability. In particular, we test how self‐perceived abilities are related to actual abilities and how these may differ by gender. Methods. We use new data on web‐use skill to test empirically whether there are differences in men's and women's abilities to navigate online content. We draw on a diverse sample of adult Internet users to investigate the questions raised. Results. Findings suggest that men and women do not differ greatly in their online abilities. However, we find that women's self‐assessed skill is significantly lower than that of men. Conclusions. Women's lower self‐assessment regarding their web‐use skills may affect significantly the extent of their online behavior and the types of uses to which they put the medium. We discuss the implications of these findings for social inequality.     

Determinants of presidential position taking in Congress, 1949–1995

In this paper we seek to explain the activity presidential position taking on roll call votes in the House. Position taking may help presidents pursue their policy agendas, but time and available resources constrain their ability to take positions. Even though position taking is a discretionary presidential action, it occurs in the legislative arena and, thus, presidents must consider elements in both institutions as well as outside conditions when making this decision. Accordingly, we posit a multiple perspectives approach to explain the number of presidential positions on votes in the House. Our multivariate two-stage least squares regression reveals that variables from all three environments (executive, legislative and exogenous) within our multiple perspectives approach are necessary to adequately explain presidential position taking overall and when divided according to domestic and foreign policy positions.     

Surveying the European Public Space - A Political and Research Agenda

This paper examines the reasons why it is justified to talk about a European 'democratic deficit'. The creation and consolidation of a European public space necessitates conceptual clarification at the normative theoretical level - as liberal democracy is historically closely bound to the nation-state - and action at the policy and political levels. A Union of European Citizens is a step towards, but not equivalent to, a democratic Union based on European citizenship. Formal announcements, normative convictions, or even institutional reforms are not enough to guarantee openness or support contestation. European democracy is de facto a process to be observed but it is also a project to be defined. The article outlines an agenda for European democracy both with regard to political deliberation and empirical research.     

The Political Role of Service Delivery in State‐Building: Exploring the Relevance of European History for Developing Countries

Concerns about failed and fragile states have put state‐ and nation‐building firmly on the academic and policy agenda, but the crucial role of public services in this process has remained underexplored. The 1960s and ‘70s generated a substantial set of literature that is largely missing from current writing. It identified state penetration, standardisation and accommodation as key processes in the state‐ and nation‐building sequence. This article analyses these three processes in Western Europe in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, and the role of public services therein, to explore how they may help us to understand the success and failure of state‐ and nation‐building in developing countries and fragile states.     

MODERN TIMES: RELIGION,CONSECRATION AND THE STATE IN BOURDIEU

Bourdieu held that the state in modernity has become the primary agent of consecration, ‘the legitimation and naturalization of social difference’, a function formerly performed largely by religion. After clarifying the role of ‘religion’ in Bourdieu's work, this paper brings two empirical issues into dialogue with his ideas: social fragmentation in late-modernity, and the relation between temporalization and social structures in medieval and early-modern charity. His view that religion is anachronistic, that it was left behind by modernization misses its continuing, even increasing, importance. He overemphasized the centrality and authority of the state in modernity and distinguished too sharply between pre-modern gifting and modern market relations. Once these limitations are mitigated, Bourdieu's analysis can be redirected to account for the importance of religion as an agent of consecration globally today.     

A general method of constructing E(s2)-optimal supersaturated designs

There has been much recent interest in supersaturated designs and their application in factor screening experiments. Supersaturated designs have mainly been constructed by using the E ( s ²)-optimality criterion originally proposed by Booth and Cox in 1962. However, until now E ( s ²)-optimal designs have only been established with certainty for n experimental runs when the number of factors m is a multiple of n-1 , and in adjacent cases where m = q ( n -1) + r (| r | 2, q an integer). A method of constructing E ( s ²)-optimal designs is presented which allows a reasonably complete solution to be found for various numbers of runs n including n ,=8 12, 16, 20, 24, 32, 40, 48, 64.     

Linkages between Children's Beliefs about the Legitimacy of Aggression and Their Behavior

The purposes of this study were to learn whether children's beliefs about the legitimacy of aggression can be reliably assessed and whether these beliefs relate to children's everyday social behavior with peers, as well as their responses to hypothetical ambiguous provocation situations. Fourth- and fifth-grade students ( n = 781) responded to a 16-item questionnaire designed to measure children's beliefs about the legitimacy of aggression. Children's behavioral orientation was assessed using two methods: (1) children's responses to ten hypothetical situations involving ambiguous provocation, and (2) peer evaluations of children's aggressive, withdrawn, and prosocial behavior. Results indicated that children's beliefs about the legitimacy of aggression were reliably measured. Furthermore, results from both measures of behavioral style showed that children who believed strongly in the legitimacy of aggression were more aggressive, less withdrawn, and less prosocial. The findings suggest that one focus of efforts to decrease children's aggression should be the modification of their beliefs about the legitimacy of aggressive actions.     

Backward Induction Is Not Robust: The Parity Problem and the Uncertainty Problem

A cornerstone of game theory is backward induction, whereby players reason backward from the end of a game in extensive form to the beginning in order to determine what choices are rational at each stage of play. Truels, or three-person duels, are used to illustrate how the outcome can depend on (1) the evenness/oddness of the number of rounds (the parity problem) and (2) uncertainty about the endpoint of the game (the uncertainty problem). Since there is no known endpoint in the latter case, an extension of the idea of backward induction is used to determine the possible outcomes. The parity problem highlights the lack of robustness of backward induction, but it poses no conflict between foundational principles. On the other hand, two conflicting views of the future underlie the uncertainty problem, depending on whether the number of rounds is bounded (the players invariably shoot from the start) or unbounded (they may all cooperate and never shoot, despite the fact that the truel will end with certainty and therefore be effectively bounded). Some real-life examples, in which destructive behavior sometimes occurred and sometimes did not, are used to illustrate these differences, and some ethical implications of the analysis are discussed.     

Commentary on “Economic Preferences or Attitude Expressions?: An Analysis of Dollar Responses to Public Issues” by Kahneman,Ritov and Schkade

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty -     

The particularity of the universal: critical reflections on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power and the state

A critical review of Bourdieu’s theory of the state is developed here against the backdrop of both his wider theoretical project and empirical studies. Elaborating the concepts of symbolic capital, symbolic violence, and symbolic domination, the centrality that Bourdieu accords to symbolic forms is compared to benchmark Weberian accounts that start with the state monopoly of violence. Reviewing also some of the burgeoning secondary literature discussing his theory of the state, Bourdieu’s writings, which encompass various antinomies, are shown to vacillate between two distinct perspectives—a strong and a weak theory of the state. His rejection of the “physicalist” approaches of Marx, Elias, and Tilly is elaborated and subject to a counter-critique, particularly in relation to the notion of symbolic “violence.” Bourdieu’s account of the state is shown to be as much a political as theoretical intervention. His antagonism towards Marxist accounts in particular is shown to be rooted in a pragmatic interest in the role of the “left hand of the state” in progressive reform; and this perspective is traced back to the twin influences of Durkheim and Hegel, French republicanism, and in particular the potential of the state to express a universal interest. At the same time, compared with sophisticated Marxist and Weberian accounts and the work of Norbert Elias and Gramsci, Bourdieu’s theory is shown to be severely lacking in the way that he deals with violence and coercion. His “expanded materialism,” particularly with the “strong theory,” bends the stick too far and overplays the symbolic basis of consent. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s insights with regard to the pervasive influences of state practices of classification, taxonomy, delegation, and naming are shown to have real utility with regard to focused empirical investigations of the state in modern societies.