The Political Economy of Supranational Institutions: Two Recent Contrary Standpoints

Book reviewed in this article: Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg and Marc A. Stern, Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21^st Century Lloyd Gruber, Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions     

Identification in organizational contexts: linking theory and research from social and organizational psychology

Research in organizational psychology has shown that commitment to the organization correlates with different criteria of work effectiveness. This paper argues that social psychology and, particularly, the Social Identity Approach to intergroup relations extend the concept of commitment theoretically. Above that, it provides a broader conceptual framework for the understanding of underlying processes in the relation between organizational identification and job-related attitudes and behaviours. This theoretical analysis is completed with a review of empirical findings in different fields of application (group performance, work-related attitudes, group norms).     

Acculturation and Prejudice in Germany: Majority and Minority Perspectives

This article explores the connections between prejudice and specific attitudes toward acculturation in Germany. Results of surveys confirm the hypothesis that prejudice is related to ideologies of assimilation and segregation among majority- group members. Moreover, experimental and correlational studies indicate that these attitudes are linked to discriminatory behavior. Further analyses of studies with ethnic minorities prove that prejudice and acculturation are linked within minority groups as well. Additionally it is shown that prejudice is functional in order for minorities to acculturate. These studies confirm the impression that there is a close link between macrosocial and microsocial levels of coping with migration.     

Multivariate Calibration — Direct and Indirect Regression Methodology

This paper tries first to introduce and motivate the methodology of multivariate calibration. Next a review is given, mostly avoiding technicalities, of the somewhat messy theory of the subject. Two approaches are distinguished: the estimation approach (controlled calibration) and the prediction approach (natural calibration). Among problems discussed are the choice of estimator, the choice of confidence region, methodology for handling situations with more variables than observations, near-collinearities (with counter-measures like ridge type regression, principal components regression, partial least squares regression and continuum regression), pretreatment of data, and cross-validation vs true prediction. Examples discussed in detail concern estimation of the age of a rhinoceros from its horn lengths (low-dimensional), and nitrate prediction in waste-water from high-dimensional spectroscopic measurements.     

Empirical rules of thumb for choice under uncertainty

A substantial body of empirical evidence shows that individuals overweight extreme events and act in conflict with the expected utility theory. These findings were the primary motivation behind the development of a rank-dependent utility theory for choice under uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that some simple empirical rules of thumb for choice under uncertainty are consistent with the rank-dependent utility theory.     

Strategies for survival: users' experience of child welfare in three welfare regimes

This paper draws on research into child welfare services in France, Germany and England which compares the subjective experience of mothers who have been in contact with family support and child protection agencies in the three countries. The mothers' stories suggest that successful help‐achieving strategies differ according to the nature of the child welfare regime, and that behaviour which is effective in getting a good response in one country may work less well elsewhere. The stories of two mothers in each of the countries have been chosen to demonstrate how the structures of different social welfare regimes affect the efforts of welfare users to get the help they need.