Cosmopolitan militaries and dialogic peacekeeping: Danish and Swedish women soldiers in Afghanistan

Feminist security studies (FSS) scholarship advocates the analysis of women’s war experiences and narratives to understand conflict and military intervention. Here we add a non-great power focus to FSS debates on the gendered discourses of military interventionism. We zoom in on Danish and Swedish women soldiers’ reflections on their involvement in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. Their stories are deconstructed against the backdrop of their states’ adoption of a cosmopolitan-minded ethic on military obligation. Both states employed women soldiers in dialogic peacekeeping in Afghanistan to establish links with local women and to gather intelligence, tasks that were less frequently afforded to male soldiers. However, feminist FSS scholarship locates military intelligence gathering within racial, gendered and imperialist power relations that assign victimhood to local women. This feminist critique is pertinent, but the gendered and racial logics governing international operations vary across national contexts. While such gender binaries were present in Danish and Swedish military practice in Afghanistan, our article shows that dialogical peacekeeping offered an alternative to stereotypical constructions of women as victims and men as protectors. Dialogical peacekeeping helped to disrupt such gendering processes, giving women soldiers an opportunity to rethink their gender identities while instilling dialogical relations with local women.     

When does an imperfect sampling frame produce more efficient estimators than a perfect frame?

The issue of when imperfect sampling frames can result in more efficient estimators of population totals than perfect frames is explored. Our analysis is based on an expression we call the difference score. We show how, when properly expanded it provides an illuminating basis for comparing a weighted estimator under an imperfect frame with that of a conventional estimator assuming the frame has been corrected. Specifically, the circumstances (i.e., population and frame characteristics) under which an imperfect frame results in estimates of population totals that are more precise than those from a perfect frame can in many cases be discerned by analytically examining the terms in the expansion of this difference score. In addition, a classification tree methodology was used to further explore circumstances under which imperfect frames result in more precise estimators. The results of this analytical study complement, strengthen, and in many cases explain those discovered in an earlier empirical investigation that lead to recommendations as to when to correct a frame or when to adjust for imperfection using a weighting methodology called the arc weight estimator.     

Does the composition of financial services in a community relate to an Individual’s savings account ownership?

This study extends research on financial inclusion by exploring the composition of financial services within communities. Using propensity-score-adjusted probit regression, we explored associations with savings account ownership using restriscted-access, cross-sectional data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study with merged financial services and community demographic data. Living in communities where the density of banks and credit unions outnumbered that of alternative financial services was associated with lower-income households’ greater probability of owning a savings account, all else being equal. These results have implications for efforts aiming to improve financial inclusion.     

From the manifestations of culture to the underlying sensemaking process. The contribution of semiotic cultural psychology theory to the interpretation of socio-political scenario

Several explanations of the current syndrome affecting advanced democracies make reference to a process of cultural change that has been triggered by the complex and interrelated phenomena known as globalization. The rise of populist-authoritarian parties, the advent of post-truth politics and the increasing dissatisfaction with democracy are seen by many political scientists as rather direct consequences of social and economic transformations which had changed the context in which the democratic process takes place. The main limitation of this literature is that it treats culture as a black box receiving inputs from the social context and translate them into political consequences. By doing so it cannot explain why the same conditions produce different consequences in different contexts and it is silent on the criteria to develop anti-crisis policies. This article argues that some of the insights offered by the Semiotic Cultural Psychology Theory, most notably the idea that cultural evolution is moved by the need to find affect-laden, simplified interpretations of the reality to restore the capacity of making sense on an uncertain socio-political context, can enhance the ability of political scientists to understand the current political phenomena and to develop methodological criteria to counteract the current scenario of democratic crisis.     

How Neighborhood Features Affect Quality of Life

In this paper we report on the development ofthree conceptual models that explain howsatisfaction with neighborhood features affectresidents' quality of life (life satisfaction). The first model posits that satisfaction withsocial, economic, and physical features of theneighborhood affects life satisfaction throughthe mediation effect of one's overall feelingstoward the neighborhood. That is, satisfactionwith the social, economic, and physicalfeatures tend to contribute to one's overallsatisfaction with the neighborhood(neighborhood satisfaction), which in turnplays a positive role in overall feelingstoward life (life satisfaction). Survey datafrom a variety of communities located insouthwest Virginia were collected, and the datafailed to provide support to this model. The second model posits that satisfaction withthe neighborhood features (social, economic,and physical) does affect life satisfactionthrough a hierarchy-of-satisfaction effects –satisfaction with the neighborhood featuresimpacts neighborhood satisfaction, which inturn affects community satisfaction and housingsatisfaction. Housing satisfaction, in turn,affects home satisfaction. Both homesatisfaction and community satisfaction, inturn, affect life satisfaction. The surveydata failed to support this model too. The third model posits that satisfaction withdifferent features of the neighborhood (social,economic, and physical) affect different domainsatisfactions, which in turn affect lifesatisfaction. Specifically, the model arguesthat satisfaction with the physical featuresaffects both neighborhood satisfaction andhousing satisfaction. Neighborhoodsatisfaction plays a role in communitysatisfaction, whereas housing satisfactionplays a role in home satisfaction. Bothcommunity satisfaction and home satisfaction,in turn, play a role in life satisfaction. Satisfaction with the social features of theneighborhood plays a role in the satisfactionwith the neighborhood and the community – thelatter feeds into life satisfaction. Satisfaction with the economic features of theneighborhood plays a role in the satisfactionwith the house and home – the latter feeds intolife satisfaction. The data were mostly supportive of this model.     

Cultures have consequences: A configural approach to leadership across two cultures

This research compares the influence of country membership and cultural values (power distance and individualism/collectivism) in a model of LMX and organizational change. The results reveal cultural differences in the relationships among LMX, consultation and affective commitment to organizational change, supporting prior studies. However, there are substantial differences in the moderation of the cultural values in the relationships among the research constructs at the individual level. Our results suggest that understanding national culture and its influence on leadership may be incomplete when we focus only on mean differences at the country level to examine cross-cultural differences. To address this concern, we offer a configural approach to examine the role of culture in a leadership model across two cultures (the U.S. and Korea).     

Further Validation of the Sirgy et al.'s Measure of Community Quality of Life

Sirgy et al. (2000) have developed a measure ofcommunity quality of life (QOL). This measurecaptures residents' satisfaction withcommunity-based services in the way that theseservices contribute to global satisfaction withthe community and overall life satisfaction. The measure was validated nomologically bytesting hypotheses directly deduced from atheoretical model that relates residents'satisfaction with community-based services withglobal community satisfaction and global lifesatisfaction. The study reported in this paperreplicates and extends Sirgy et al.'s (2000)study. Specifically, the conceptual model thatwas used to test the nomological (predictive)validity of the community QOL measure wasfurther expanded and refined. The modifiedmeasure is based on the theoretical notion thatsatisfaction with the community at large(global community satisfaction) is mostlydetermined by satisfaction with governmentservices (police, fire/rescue, library, etc.),business services (banking/savings, insurance,department stores, etc.), nonprofit services(alcohol/drug abuse services, crisisintervention, religious services, etc.), aswell as satisfaction with other aspects of thecommunity such as quality of the environment,rate of change to the natural landscape, racerelations, cost of living, crime, ties withpeople, neighborhood, and housing. In turn,global community satisfaction together withsatisfaction with other overall life domains(work, family, leisure, etc.) affect globallife satisfaction. Survey data from a varietyof communities located in southwest Virginiawere collected to further test the nomologicalvalidity of the measure. The results providedadditional nomological validation support tothe community QOL measure.     

Consanguineous Marriage and Early Childhood Mortality in an Amish Settlement

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of inbreeding as a direct measure of consanguinity on early childhood mortality. Data are from a church directory of the Old Order Amish of the Lancaster, PA, settlement. The sample includes all infant deaths and a probability sample of survivors (total N = 1,823).

We find that inbreeding has a net positive effect on neonatal and infant deaths and on the instantaneous hazard rate. However, we also find socioeconomic and other explanations, even in this population, likely to experience certain genetically transmitted defects associated with infant mortality.