Die politisierte Sozialstruktur als mittelfristig stabile Basis einer deutschen Normalwahl

A normal vote is a hypothetical election result following exclusively from predispositions of voters towards political parties which result from long-term or middle-term influences. The influence of short-term factors like attractive candidates or issues from the recent campaign have to be eliminated within the abstract model. As an operationalization for German Bundestag elections for this purpose the average vote intentions of population groups are used which are part of the politicized German social structures such as catholics, especially when they attend church frequently, or employees (Arbeitnehmer) and union members who have formed enduring coalitions with a political party. This operationalization is compared with a model originally developed for the United States. According to this model, the long-term factor is measured by party identification. All Bundestag elections of the Kohl era are analyzed, for which the Politbarometer surveys of the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Mannheim, immediately before the Bundestag elections are used as a data basis. The vote intentions which can be derived from the politicized social structure are shown to be a stabile basis for a German normal vote so that it makes sense to compute normal vote results from 1983 to 1998.     

朝鲜洪大容《乾净会友录》与清代文人

燕行录是研究前近代中韩关系的重要史料,其中18世纪朝鲜文人洪大容所著《乾净笔谭》的价值尤为贵重。洪大容于1765年随朝鲜使节团来到北京,与数名中国文人进行笔谈,回国后将这一经历写成《乾净衕会友录》,两年之后改编为《乾净笔谭》,主要内容均为笔谈记录。前后两个版本之间进行的删改修订,反映出当时两国文人在不同的大环境下有着政治、学术、女性观等认知上的差异。     

Major arms imports and the onset of civil and ethnic wars in the postcolonial world, 1956–1998: A preliminary reassessment

This study examines the effects of states’ major arms imports from major powers on the likelihood of civil and ethnic wars in the postcolonial world. Focusing on civil and ethnic wars, respectively, in postcolonial states from 1956 through 1998, this investigation reveals that major arms imports from major powers have no statistically significant effect on either civil or ethnic war onset, considering political, economic, demographic, and geographic factors. The results also demonstrate that there are some different causal mechanisms between the onset of civil and ethnic wars. Finally, this article discusses policy implications and suggests some directions of the further research.     

Collective choice rules and collective rationality: a unified method of characterizations

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between collective rationality and permissible collective choice rules using a unified approach inspired by Bossert and Suzumura (J Econ Theory 138:311–320, 2008). We consider collective choice rules satisfying four axioms: unrestricted domain, strong Pareto, anonymity, and neutrality. A number of new classes of collective choice rules as well as the Pareto and Pareto extension rules are characterized under various concepts of collective rationality: acyclicity, transitivity, quasi-transitivity, semi-transitivity, and the interval order property. Further, new concepts of collective rationality, K-term acyclicity and K-term consistency, are proposed and the corresponding characterizations are provided.     

Motherhood status and union formation in Moshi,Tanzania 2002–2003

Age at first union is increasing throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa at the same time that not all couples are waiting for marriage before their first sexual intercourse. We assessed the effect of a premarital first birth on entrance into a first union in an urban area in East Africa—Moshi, Tanzania. The data come from the Moshi Infertility Survey of 2002–2003. Women who spent less than a year in single motherhood were significantly more likely than childless women to enter into a first union, although the magnitude of this relationship was weaker for more recent cohorts. Women who had been single mothers for 5 or more years (about two-thirds of women with a premarital birth) were significantly less likely than women without children to enter into a first union.     

Demographic change and response: Social context and the practice of birth control in six countries

This paper expands on Kingsley Davis’s demographic thesis of change and response. Specifically, we consider the social context that accounts for the primacy of particular birth control methods that bring about fertility change during specific time periods. We examine the relevance of state policy (including national family planning programs), the international population establishment, the medical profession, organized religion, and women’s groups using case studies from Japan, Russia, Puerto Rico, China, India, and Cameroon. Some of these countries are undergoing the second demographic transition, others the first. Despite variations in context, heavy reliance on sterilization and/or, abortion as a means of birth control is a major response in most of these countries. The key roles of the medical profession and state policy are discussed, along with the general lack of influence of religion and of women’s groups in these countries.     

Motherhood status and union formation in Moshi, Tanzania 2002-2003

Age at first union is increasing throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa at the same time that not all couples are waiting for marriage before their first sexual intercourse. We assessed the effect of a premarital first birth on entrance into a first union in an urban area in East Africa -- Moshi, Tanzania. The data come from the Moshi Infertility Survey of 2002-2003. Women who spent less than a year in single motherhood were significantly more likely than childless women to enter into a first union, although the magnitude of this relationship was weaker for more recent cohorts. Women who had been single mothers for 5 or more years (about two-thirds of women with a premarital birth) were significantly less likely than women without children to enter into a first union.     

Brief proofs of Arrovian impossibility theorems

Since Kenneth Arrow showed the general possibility theorem, a number of social choice theorists have provided alternative proofs of it. In a recent article, Geanakoplos (Econ Theory 26:211–215, 2005) has constructed a new proof of the theorem. The present article provides alternative proofs of various Arrovian impossibility results from the 1960s to the 1970s by utilizing Geanakoplos’s method. We prove semi-order impossibility theorems, the quasi-transitive veto theorem, the quasi-transitive dictatorship theorem, the triple acyclic veto theorem, and the impossibility theorem without the Pareto principle.     

Causes of Civil War in Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Comparison*

Objectives. This article explores the extent to which economic development, ethnic and religious fractionalization, domestic governance, and international trade openness affect civil war in postcolonial Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1950 through 1992. Methods. We estimate a set of multivariate logit models with the generalized estimating equation (GEE) method for time‐series cross‐sectional (TSCS) data. Results. Both in Asia and in SSA, civil war is less likely with increased economic development and trade openness, while mixed autocratic‐democratic regimes raise the likelihood that states will experience civil war. Although neither ethnic nor religious fractionalization has any statistically significant effect on civil war in SSA, civil war in Asia is more likely with greater ethnic fractionalization. Conclusions. Despite cross‐regional variation in causes of civil war, economic development and trade openness seem to play a consistent role in reducing civil war.     

Regression Diagnostics of the Semiparametric Proportional Rate Model for Irregularly Spaced Repeated Measurements

Counting process techniques have been successfully introduced to semiparametric inference of repeated measurements. Cheng and Wei (2000 Cheng , S. C. , Wei , L. J. ( 2000 ). Inference for a semiparametric model with panel data . Biometrika 87 : 89 – 97 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) proposed a simple inference procedure for the semiparametric proportional rate model, which reduces to relative risk regression models for binary data. While the baseline mean functions are completely unspecified, it still requires several assumptions for valid inference. In this article, a goodness-of-fit test for it is proposed based on cumulative residuals. Theoretical justification is provided and an illustration with a dataset from a clinical trial is given. Results of simulation studies to evaluate finite sample performance are also provided.