When Does Sexuality-Based Discrimination Motivate Political Participation?

The established consensus in political behavior research is that discrimination by political institutions motivates marginalized groups to vote and protest their conditions. However, existing studies miss a comparison between states with high and low levels of political discrimination, and they miss a comparison between states before and after the development of opportunities for groups to mobilize. In particular, a growing body of research shows that sexual-minority groups face discrimination to varying degrees across Europe. Sexual minorities in states with high levels of discrimination lack the support of other minority-group members, which encourages political participation. The analysis is based on surveys of 30 European countries, conducted before and after the 2004 European Union enlargement, which provided a stronger political-opportunity structure for sexual minorities in Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe and Western Europe provided contexts with relatively high and low levels of sexuality-based discrimination, respectively. In Western Europe, those who report sexuality-based discrimination exhibited higher levels of participation, in comparison to those who did not report discrimination. In Eastern Europe, those who report sexuality-based discrimination exhibited lower levels of participation before the 2004 enlargement, but they did not exhibit these lower levels after the 2004 enlargement

Beyond Keeping the Peace: Can Peacekeepers Reduce Ethnic Divisions After Violence?

Existing research suggests that international peacekeeping contributes to conflict resolution and helps sustain peace, often in locations with hostile ethnic divisions. However, it is unclear whether the presence of peacekeepers actually reduces underlying ethnocentric views and parochial behaviors that sustain those divisions. We examine the effects of NATO peacekeeper deployments on ethnocentrism in postwar Bosnia. While peacekeepers were not randomly deployed in Bosnia, we find that highly ethnocentric attitudes were common across Bosnia at the onset of peacekeeper deployments, reducing endogeneity concerns. To measure ethnocentrism, we employ a variety of survey instruments as well as a behavioral experiment (the dictator game) with ethnic treatments across time. We find that regions with peacekeepers exhibit lower levels of ethnocentrism in comparison to regions without peacekeepers, and this effect persists even after peacekeepers have departed. The peacekeeping effect is also robust to a sub-sample of ethnic Bosnian Serbs, suggesting that peacekeeper deployments can have positive effects on diminishing ethnocentrism, even when local communities are especially hostile to their presence. Our results speak to the potential long-term role of peacekeepers in reducing tensions among groups in conflict

Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support for Survivors in Bosnia

Existing research on conflict-related sexual violence focuses on the motivations of perpetrators and effects on survivors. What remains less clear is how postconflict societies respond to the hardships survivors face. In survey experiments in Bosnia, we examine public support for financial aid, legal aid, and public recognition for survivors. First, we find a persistent ethnocentric view of sexual violence, where respondents are less supportive when the perpetrator is identified as co-ethnic and survivors are perceived as out-groups. Second, respondents are less supportive of male survivors than female survivors, which we attribute to social stigmas surrounding same-gender sexual activity. Consistent with our argument, those who are intolerant of homosexuality are especially averse to providing aid to male survivors. This study points to the long-term challenges survivors face due to ethnic divisions and social stigmatization from sexual violence

Magnetic Field Decay in Neutron Stars. Analysis of General Relativistic Effects

An analysis of the role of general relativistic effects on the decay of neutron star's magnetic field is presented. At first, a generalized induction equation on an arbitrary static background geometry has been derived and, secondly, by a combination of analytical and numerical techniques, a comparison of the time scales for the decay of an initial dipole magnetic field in flat and curved spacetime is discussed. For the case of very simple neutron star models, rotation not accounted for and in the absence of cooling effects, we find that the inclusion of general relativistic effects result, on the average, in an enlargement of the decay time of the field in comparison to the flat spacetime case. Via numerical techniques we show that, the enlargement factor depends upon the dimensionless compactness ratio ${\epsilon}={2GM \over c^{2}R}$, and for ${\epsilon}$ in the range $(0.3~,~0.5)$, corresponding to compactness ratio of realistic neutron star models, this factor is between 1.2 to 1.3. The present analysis shows that general relativistic effects on the magnetic field decay ought to be examined more carefully than hitherto. A brief discussion of our findings on the impact of neutron stars physics is also presented.Comment: 35 pages, 4 figures, In press Phys. Rev. D1

When Do Opponents of Gay Rights Mobilize? Explaining Political Participation in Times of Backlash against Liberalism

Existing research suggests that supporters of gay rights have outmobilized their opponents, leading to policy changes in advanced industrialized democracies. At the same time, we observe the diffusion of state-sponsored homophobia in many parts of the world. The emergence of gay rights as a salient political issue in global politics leads us to ask, “Who is empowered to be politically active in various societies?” What current research misses is a comparison of levels of participation (voting and protesting) between states that make stronger and weaker appeals to homophobia. Voters face contrasting appeals from politicians in favor of and against gay rights globally. In an analysis of survey data from Europe and Latin America, we argue that the alignment between the norms of sexuality a state promotes and an individual’s personal attitudes on sexuality increases felt political efficacy. We find that individuals who are tolerant of homosexuality are more likely to participate in states with gay-friendly policies in comparison with intolerant individuals. The reverse also holds: individuals with low education levels that are intolerant of homosexuality are more likely to participate in states espousing political homophobia

[Review of] Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. Race and the City: Work, Community, and Protest in Cincinnati, 1820-1970

This collection of essays offers diverse perspectives on the social, political, and economic currents that shaped racial and ethnic geography of Cincinnati from the antebellum period through the post-World War II era. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. offers a unique and instructive collection of works that contribute to a clear understanding of the impact of city-building, economic transition and social-political transformation on the residents of Cincinnati between 1820 and 1970. Throughout the book, the spatial character of the city is the focus while the influence of site and situation of the ”Queen City” proscribe its economic fortunes and quality of urban life, especially for Black Cincinnatians

Biodiversity informatics: the challenge of linking data and the role of shared identifiers

A major challenge facing biodiversity informatics is integrating data stored in widely distributed databases. Initial efforts have relied on taxonomic names as the shared identifier linking records in different databases. However, taxonomic names have limitations as identifiers, being neither stable nor globally unique, and the pace of molecular taxonomic and phylogenetic research means that a lot of information in public sequence databases is not linked to formal taxonomic names. This review explores the use of other identifiers, such as specimen codes and GenBank accession numbers, to link otherwise disconnected facts in different databases. The structure of these links can also be exploited using the PageRank algorithm to rank the results of searches on biodiversity databases. The key to rich integration is a commitment to deploy and reuse globally unique, shared identifiers (such as DOIs and LSIDs), and the implementation of services that link those identifiers

Evaluation of management measures of software development. Volume 1: Analysis summary

The conceptual model, the data classification scheme, and the analytic procedures are explained. The analytic results are summarized and specific software measures for collection and monitoring are recommended