Disability,social groups,and political citizenship

The problem raised in this article is whether disabled people can and should be considered as a social group with respect to political representation. The question is first discussed on the basis of theories of social and status groups. Next, the article examines how the topic is reflected empirically at the local political level in Norway, expressed by party political leaders and elected disabled representatives. The authors suggest that disabled people can and should be considered as a social group in relation to political representation. Not doing so, they argue, will in effect delay the process towards full recognition and active political citizenship.     

Placement disruption in long-term kinship and nonkinship foster care

The purpose of this study was to explore factors related to placement disruption in long-term kinship and nonkinship foster care in a Nordic country.     

Weighted modified first order regression procedures for estimation in linear models with missingX-observations

This paper considers the estimation of coefficients in a linear regression model with missing observations in the independent variables and introduces a modification of the standard first order regression method for imputation of missing values. The modification provides stochastic values for imputation and, as an extension, makes use of the principle of weighted mixed regression. The proposed procedures are compared with two popular procedures—one which utilizes only the complete observations and the other which employs the standard first order regression imputation method for missing values. A simulation experiment to evaluate the gain in efficiency and to examine interesting issues like the impact of varying degree of multicollinearity in explanatory variables is proceeded. Some work on the case of discrete regressor variables is in progress and will be reported in a future article to follow.     

A class of shrinkage estimators in linear regression

We consider the problem of using shrinkage estimators that shrink towards subspaces in linear regression, in particular subspaces spanned by principal components. This is especially important when multicollinearity is present and the number of predictors is not small compared to the sample size. New theoretical results about Stein estimation are used to get estimators with lower theoretical risk than standard Stein estimators used by Oman (1991). Application of the techniques to real data is largely successful.     

Demography of Conflict and Violence: An Emerging Field

This introductory article focuses on a new field in demography, the Demography of Conflict and Violence. A research programme on this field is proposed as a result of activities of the IUSSP Working Group on Demography of Conflict and Violence, in particular the Group’s seminar in Norway in November 2003. The articles in this special issue of EJP are a selection of papers presented at the seminar. The first article presents new estimates of combat deaths in the world since 1946, whereas the second article looks at the role of demographic estimates in war crime proceedings at international criminal courts. The rest of the articles are concerned with the mortality consequences of political conflict in various settings. Another set of articles from the seminar is published in a special issue of the Journal of Peace Research. The articles are summarised and reviewed using the broader framework of issues inherent in the Demography of Conflict and Violence.     

Compliance and Non-Compliance with a Superordinate Directive Document

We report a study of how a Norwegian regional health care agency directive document was complied with at the subordinate hospital level. We found tight coupling for the activity and budget requirements and loose coupling and decoupling for the other requirements in the document. Furthermore, rather than pursuing their own self- and group interests the hospital actors held an overall effectiveness logic.     

Social functioning and mental health among children who have been living in kinship and non‐kinship foster care: results from an 8‐year follow‐up with a Norwegian sample

Studies have shown relatively high rates of emotional and behavioural problems among children living in out‐of‐home care. This study reports the prevalence of social problems at an 8‐year follow‐up for a group of children/young adults. Predictors for prevalence and change in emotional and behavioural problems at the follow‐up are examined. A prospective cohort design with 233 children who had been living in foster care was used. Forty‐eight per cent (n = 111) of those interviewed at baseline were located and interviewed at follow‐up. Mean age was 17.4 (standard deviation = 2.9) years. Mental health symptomatology was measured with Child Behaviour Checklist and Adult Self‐Report. Linear and generalized mixed model analyses were used. Changes in internalizing and externalizing problems from baseline to follow‐up was associated with gender. Boys showed more problems at a young age, whereas girls developed more problems later. Predictors for social problems at follow‐up were mental health at baseline, kinship care and care placement away from the local community.     

Partisan effects and policy entrepreneurs. New Labour’s impact on British law and order policy

Under successive New Labour administrations British law and order policy experienced a significant shift. The literature, however, falls short to empirically substantiate whether this change can be attributed to the ideological preferences of the party in power – neither on the aggregate-level nor in terms of a causal mechanism. This study develops a novel partisan effects mechanism linking the notion of policy-seeking party elites with the notion of policy entrepreneurship. The applied mixed-method research design confirms a partisan link in two ways: On the aggregate-level, the first systematic analysis of the complete law and order legislation from 1990 to 2014 allows to assess the significant policy change as well as its correlation with partisan effects. On the micro-level, a qualitative analysis traces these effects within the political process of a single piece of legislation highlighting policy entrepreneurs as a causal mechanism of partisan effects.