How do economic shocks and financial resilience shape civic engagement, especially for the economically insecure? I turn to the early months of the coronavirus pandemic for insights. In April 2020, ...with more than 23 million adults unemployed, the US government asked residents to participate in the constitutionally mandated decennial census. I test how variations in income shocks from the shutdown and sources of financial resilience predict disparities in census completion, a civic act designed to minimize participation barriers. First, I use nationally representative survey data to demonstrate that policies that protect the economically vulnerable from the full impacts of economic shocks also predict higher census completion rates. Then, I use Google Trends data to show that high unemployment search volume interacted with low resilience to predict depressed census completion. Findings shed light on how economic crises can widen participation gaps—with representation and resource consequences—and how policies that lessen acute economic shocks may reduce participation disparities.
Ethnicity and civil war Denny, Elaine K; Walter, Barbara F
Journal of peace research,
03/2014, Letnik:
51, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
If a civil war begins, it is more likely to be initiated by an ethnic group than any other type of group. We argue that ethnic groups, on average, are likely to have more grievances against the ...state, are likely to have an easier time organizing support and mobilizing a movement, and are more likely to face difficult-to-resolve bargaining problems. We further argue that each of these factors was likely due to three pre-existing patterns associated with ethnicity. First, when political power is divided along ethnic lines, ruling elites can disproportionately favor their own ethnic group at the expense of others. This creates grievances that fall along ethnic lines. Second, ethnic groups tend to live together in concentrated spaces, sharing the same language and customs, and enjoying deep ties with ethnic kin. This means that ethnic groups, if they are aggrieved, will have an easier time mobilizing support to demand change. Third, the fact that ethnic identity tends to be less elastic than other types of identity means that credible commitments to any bargain – before and during a conflict— will be more difficult to make. The result is that ethnic groups will have a greater number of reasons, opportunities, and incentives to mobilize and fight than non-ethnic groups.
BACKGROUND Endometriosis is a chronic condition affecting between 2 and 17% of women of reproductive age. Common symptoms are chronic pelvic pain, fatigue, congestive dysmenorrhoea, heavy menstrual ...bleeding and deep dyspareunia. Studies have demonstrated the considerable negative impact of this condition on women's quality of life (QoL), especially in the domains of pain and psychosocial functioning. The impact of endometriosis is likely to be exacerbated by the absence of an obvious cause and the likelihood of chronic, recurring symptoms. The aims of this paper are to review the current body of knowledge on the social and psychological impact of endometriosis on women's lives; to provide insights into women's experience of endometriosis; to provide a critical commentary on the current state of knowledge and to make recommendations for future psycho-social research. METHODS The review draws on a method of critical narrative synthesis to discuss a heterogeneous range of both quantitative and qualitative studies from several disciplines. This included a systematic search, a structured process for selecting and collecting data and a systematic thematic analysis of results. RESULTS A total of 42 papers were included in the review; 23 used quantitative methods, 16 used qualitative methods and 3 were mixed methods studies. The majority of papers came from just four countries: UK (10), Australia (8), Brazil (6) and the USA (5). Key categories of impact identified in the thematic analysis were diagnostic delay and uncertainty; 'QoL' and everyday activities; intimate relationships; planning for and having children; education and work; mental health and emotional wellbeing and medical management and self-management. CONCLUSIONS Endometriosis has a significant social and psychological impact on the lives of women across several domains. Many studies have methodological limitations and there are significant gaps in the literature especially in relation to a consideration of the impact on partners and children. We recommend additional prospective and longitudinal research utilizing mixed methods approaches and endometriosis-specific instruments to explore the impact of endometriosis in more diverse populations and settings. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to develop and evaluate interventions for supporting women and partners living with this chronic and often debilitating condition.
Some harmful practices are sustained by social norms—collective beliefs about what people expect from each other. Practitioners and researchers alike have been investigating the potential of social ...norms theory to inform the design of effective interventions addressing these practices in low- and middle-income countries. One approach commonly used to facilitate social norms change is community-based dialogs and trainings. This approach has often been criticized for not being cost-effective, as it usually includes a relatively small number of direct participants and does not allow for scaling-up strategies. In spite of some evidence (as for instance, the SASA! Program) that community dialogs can achieve social norms change, little exists in the literature about how exactly participants in community dialogs engage others in their networks to achieve change. In this paper, we look at the potential of “organized diffusion” as a cost-effective strategy to expand the positive effects of community-based interventions to participants’ networks, achieving sustainable normative shifts. We provide quantitative evidence from three case studies—Community Empowerment Program in Mali, Change Starts at Home in Nepal, and Voices for Change in Nigeria—showing that participants in community-based interventions can be effectively empowered to share their new knowledge and understandings systematically with others in their networks, eventually facilitating social norms change. Future community-based interventions intending to achieve social norms change would benefit from integrating ways to help participants engage others in their network in transformative conversations. Doing so has the potential to generate additional impact with little additional investment.
How do deported migrants engage in civic and political life after being forcibly returned to their home countries? Do experiences during the migration journey impact how deportees (re)engage? We ...explore how extortion experienced during migration alters political and civic engagement preferences. We utilize a multi-method approach combining original survey data of Guatemalans deported from the United States and a series of qualitative deportee interviews. We find that extortion during migration has a significant direct effect on increased citizen engagement. Economic hardship exacerbated by extortion may mediate this effect. Overall, extortion experienced while migrating has long-term financial consequences for deportees, with implications for their reintegration and the broader health of civic institutions in their home countries.
Community policing, and citizen cooperation with law enforcement more broadly, can improve local security outcomes by providing decentralized mechanisms for police accountability to local citizens. ...We hypothesize that five factors—alignment of citizen/police interests, relative costs of cooperation, costs of crime, prevalence of others’ cooperation, and perceived police efficacy—comprise a decision framework that guides citizens’ choices regarding whether to share information with law enforcement. We find evidence for this framework using rich survey and survey experimental data from a large nation-wide survey of Guatemalans and municipal administrative data. Our results indicate that increasing police efficacy, witness protection, and neighborhood trust boost the odds of cooperation with police by up to 55%. At a time when conversations about the relationship between community and police are widespread, this research offers insights into conditions under which cooperation between community members and law enforcement is most likely to occur.
There is growing affinity for audits as a tool to promote political accountability and reduce corruption. Nevertheless, knowledge about the mechanisms through which audits work remains limited. While ...most work on audits shows that they can work via citizen sanctions of bad performers, we emphasize that audit effects can also run through prospective incentives, that is, the desire to avoid poor audit results in the first place. We distinguish audits' impact on prospective incentives and sanctions using a field experiment in Ghana; districts were randomized into audit treatment conditions targeting district procurement and oversight of development projects. We assess the effect of audits on political officials using survey experimental data and show that officials respond powerfully to prospective incentives. In districts treated with top‐down audits, in‐party favoritism falls from 60 percent at baseline to 20 percent at midline, and rates remain at 19 percent at endline. This suggests that the audit's main effect occurred before the audit results were made public, and that prospective mechanisms play an important role in audit efficacy.
Pregnant women with epilepsy on antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) may experience a reduction in serum AED levels. This has the potential to worsen seizure control.
To determine if, in pregnant women with ...epilepsy on AEDs, additional therapeutic drug monitoring reduces seizure deterioration compared with clinical features monitoring after a reduction in serum AED levels.
A double-blind, randomised trial nested within a cohort study was conducted and a qualitative study of acceptability of the two strategies was undertaken. Stratified block randomisation with a 1 : 1 allocation method was carried out.
Fifty obstetric and epilepsy clinics in secondary and tertiary care units in the UK.
Pregnant women with epilepsy on one or more of the following AEDs: lamotrigine, carbamazepine, phenytoin or levetiracetam. Women with a ≥ 25% decrease in serum AED level from baseline were randomised to therapeutic drug monitoring or clinical features monitoring strategies.
In the therapeutic drug monitoring group, clinicians had access to clinical findings and monthly serum AED levels to guide AED dosage adjustment for seizure control. In the clinical features monitoring group, AED dosage adjustment was based only on clinical features.
Primary outcome - seizure deterioration, defined as time to first seizure and to all seizures after randomisation per woman until 6 weeks post partum. Secondary outcomes - pregnancy complications in mother and offspring, maternal quality of life, seizure rates in cohorts with stable serum AED level, AED dose exposure and adverse events related to AEDs.
Analysis of time to first and to all seizures after randomisation was performed using a Cox proportional hazards model, and multivariate failure time analysis by the Andersen-Gill model. The effects were reported as hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Secondary outcomes were reported as mean differences (MDs) or odds ratios.
A total of 130 women were randomised to the therapeutic drug monitoring group and 133 to the clinical features monitoring group; 294 women did not have a reduction in serum AED level. A total of 127 women in the therapeutic drug monitoring group and 130 women in the clinical features monitoring group (98% of complete data) were included in the primary analysis. There were no significant differences in the time to first seizure (HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.55 to 1.2) or timing of all seizures after randomisation (HR 1.3, 95% CI 0.7 to 2.5) between both trial groups. In comparison with the group with stable serum AED levels, there were no significant increases in seizures in the clinical features monitoring (odds ratio 0.93, 95% CI 0.56 to 1.5) or therapeutic drug monitoring group (odds ratio 0.93, 95% CI 0.56 to 1.5) associated with a reduction in serum AED levels. Maternal and neonatal outcomes were similar in both groups, except for higher cord blood levels of lamotrigine (MD 0.55 mg/l, 95% CI 0.11 to 1 mg/l) or levetiracetam (MD 7.8 mg/l, 95% CI 0.86 to 14.8 mg/l) in the therapeutic drug monitoring group than in the clinical features monitoring group. There were no differences between the groups on daily AED exposure or quality of life. An increase in exposure to lamotrigine, levetiracetam and carbamazepine significantly increased the cord blood levels of the AEDs, but not maternal or fetal complications. Women with epilepsy perceived the need for weighing up their increased vulnerability to seizures during pregnancy against the side effects of AEDs.
Fewer women than the original target were recruited.
There is no evidence to suggest that regular monitoring of serum AED levels in pregnancy improves seizure control or affects maternal or fetal outcomes.
Further evaluation of the risks of seizure deterioration for various threshold levels of reduction in AEDs and the long-term neurodevelopment of infants born to mothers in both randomised groups is needed. An individualised prediction model will help to identify those women who need close monitoring in pregnancy.
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN01253916.
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in
; Vol. 22, No. 23. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.
How does the fear of anarchy affect telephone survey behaviors? A survey experiment administered to a sample of Mogadishu residents—validated with a natural experiment—is used to assess this ...question. Randomly assigned reminders of anarchic violence conditioned differential effects on survey participation depending on subjects’ background level of security and welfare. Vulnerable subjects were more likely than non-vulnerable subjects to refuse to provide sensitive survey information after reminders of anarchy.
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