This article investigates the distribution of the negative polarity item (NPI) syn leven (lit. ‘his life’) ‘ever’ between 1550 and 1800 in West Frisian using the Frisian Language Corpus. Phonological and syntactic evidence is presented in order to argue that the expression was borrowed from Dutch. An overview of the syntactic contexts in which it is found is presented, and these contexts are characteristic of those in which NPIs are found. The distribution of syn leven is shown to conform only partly to Haspelmath's (1997) theory of the semantic map. Furthermore, the extent to which the original expression syn leven was grammaticalized as an NPI is investigated. Its distribution is compared to that of the near synonyms and rival expressions ea and oait ‘ever’, which turn out to have a broader context of usage. It is argued that syn leven failed to become the unmarked way of expressing the semantic content ‘ever’ for syntactic, semantic, and sociolinguistic reasons.

This review article is an attempt to analyze the econometric approach to the question of mathematical arms race models. It tries to show that the major contributions of this perspective are its data analysis techniques which lead to the estimation of the relevant parameters in the arms interaction equations. Some weaknesses of these statistical procedures are exposed. The most important one is the inability of these methods to give reliable estimates for parameters of unstable arms race systems.

Its reliance on social media and television to mobilise supporters and popularise the figure of its charismatic leader, political science lecturer Pablo Iglesias, is one of the main characteristic features of Podemos, a new, left-leaning populist party that has shaken the political establishment of Spain since its irruption as a decisive political force in the 2014 European elections. Podemos could actually be defined as a ‘transmedia party’, as it combines the use of social media to reach young constituents with traditional TV talk show appearances to reach a wider, and also older, audience. This dualism (traditionalism and innovation) is also present in Podemos’ own configuration as a blend of a social movement and a vertically ruled political party, with a simultaneous presence outside and inside representative structures like parliaments and local governments. Far from hiding from recurrent accusations of populism, Podemos takes pride in being considered a populist movement. Actually, their leaders see their party-cum-movement as a practical implementation of the theories of the Argentinean philosopher Ernesto Laclau: their left-leaning populist formation is the necessary vanguard of a new democratic majority that will replace the current neoliberal hegemony. This unusual reflexivity is studied through a critical discourse analysis of published interviews with Podemos’ leaders.

As part of a social change agenda, nonprofit organisations engage in activities that contribute to debate and influence the development of public policy. This article presents the initial findings from a study investigating whether nonprofit organisations do participate in advocacy activities and if they do, how are they advocating and engaging in public debate without risking their current and future sources of funding. The key findings from the research have identified that the extent of advocacy by the nonprofit organisations studied has not diminished. A model, built on the findings from the literature on how nonprofit organisations approach advocacy, is applied to explain the advocacy activities by the case study organisations. These nonprofit organisations are identifying what they see to be the appropriate advocacy strategies to fit their organisational objectives, policies, funding sources and resources.

Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.

Usually the aggregate over-time relationship between economics and politics is empirically reduced to a simple one equation regression model which specifies political support as the dependent, and several economic indicators as independent variables. Here more comprehensive causal model is tested for West Germany. Economic aspirations, personal well-being, fear of the direct effects of economic crisis and political demands are introduced as intervening causal structures between the state of the economy and political support. It is demonstrated that the strength of the relationship between the economy and political support is quite different in recession and boom periods, depending on the subjective importance of economic concerns and the degree of fear of losing one's job. As the analysis of four different economic periods reveals, the effects of inflation and unemployment on political support are strongest when these indicators have an upward tendency. If they are stationary at a low or a higher level, their influences disappear.

This article outlines a theoretical framework for interpreting the meaning and function of political protest in modern democracies and develops normative criteria for assessing its democratic quality. To allow for a better understanding of how social structures, legal institutions, and political engagement interact in protest, I combine analytical perspectives from social theory and democratic theory. A useful first distinction, I argue, is between reformist and transformative forms of protest. While reformist protest does not challenge the given framework of the modern democratic order, transformative protest politicizes the basic principles of that order. Finally, I develop four criteria to identify emancipatory traits within protest movements: 1) expanding the circle of those who benefit from the fulfillment of democracy's promises; 2) the establishment of discursive democratic spaces; 3) a balance between dramatization and exchange; and 4) a willingness to become someone else.

The purpose of the paper is to (i) analyze how different users of social media (Twitter) interact and spread cause-related communication and (ii) explore how people search for cause-related marketing campaigns online, allowing a comparison between individualist and collectivist cultures. A social network analysis was used to map the different types of networks created by online users. A second in-depth study on how online users search for cause-related marketing campaigns used a 5-year analysis. Online users in individualist countries are more engaged with a broader community than those in collectivist countries who focus their attention on a narrower set of CRM messages. These findings are useful insights for companies and charities, which should adopt different strategies depending on the culture.

During the last two decades, there have been various attempts at measuring and assessing the health of civil society. Some have focused almost exclusively on ‘counting’ the nonprofit, while others have assessed the strength of nongovernmental organizations. Yet, these sectors are just a small part of a much larger environment. Moreover, they are the result of Western conceptualizations of civil society, thus not very helpful for one to understand civic participation in non-Western settings. Taking stock of these fundamental issues, this article presents the conceptual framework and methodology of a new global index to measure the ‘enabling environment’ of civil society, rather than its forms and institutional contours. Given the inherent diversity of civil societies worldwide, which defies any attempt at developing predetermined definitions, understanding the conditions that support civic participation becomes the most important objective for those interested in promoting a strong civil society arena. The index was launched by CIVICUS in late 2013 with the name of enabling environment index and covers over 200 countries and territories, making it the most ambitious attempt ever made at measuring civil society worldwide.

Nonprofit brand strength is conceptualized as the degree to which a nonprofit brand is well known to a target group, is perceived favorably by a target group, and is perceived to be remarkable by a target group. Hence, the authors conceptualize nonprofit brand strength as a priori having three dimensions: familiarity, remarkability, and attitude. The authors report the development of a nonprofit brand strength scale, using a series of charity brands, in three separate studies, supporting the scale’s reliability and validity. The scale’s ability to differentiate charities based on their respective nonprofit brand strength levels is demonstrated. Moreover, nonprofit brand strength is shown to be antecedent to a target group’s affective dispositions and behavioral intentions toward the nonprofit brand.

Grassroots organizations have a central place in service provision within many urban communities, particularly as they work with young people. Enhancing the potential of youth serving organizations is vital as many of these small groups lack infrastructure and resources. One organization has gone beyond grant making to organizations to include providing technical assistance, then moving to a model of capacity building to improve their ability to fulfill their mission. This paper describes the efforts of New Detroit to improve the infrastructure of youth serving grassroots organizations through a multi-faceted model and the outcomes evidenced from the first cohort. In addition we explore the contradictions inherent in working with small groups. How do you improve effectiveness without destroying the “homegrown” character these groups possess? The model presented here shows the value of empowering small grassroots groups to build capacity.