Government officials and legal scholars broadly agree that the US-led war in Iraq had the blemish of being neither backed by a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) mandate nor by a broad multilateral coalition. As regards the offender, even legal scholars disagree, arguing either that a deadlocked UNSC failed and the US 'did indeed have all authority it needed' (Glennon, 2003), or that, in the absence of UNSC approval, US use of force amounted to 'a war of aggression' (International Commission of Jurists, 2003). Both conclusions are based on the assumption that the pursuit of power was the prime motivation for UNSC member states. In this article, I take a different stance.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) experience financial challenges that hinder efforts to promote social change and development. Revenue diversification is one adaptive response to these challenges, yet there is a lack of evidence concerning the relationship between revenue diversification and financial vulnerability among NGOs in SSA. Using data from an online survey of NGOs (N = 170), we hypothesized that a greater number of revenue sources is associated with lower probability of financial vulnerability, while a greater level of dependence on international funding is associated with higher probability of financial vulnerability. Results from probit regression models controlling for organizational characteristics indicated partial support for hypotheses. Having four or more types of revenue was associated with 87% lower probability of financial vulnerability compared to having one type of revenue (p < 0.001). Also, NGOs with up to half of their budgets covered by international sources had 17% lower probability of financial vulnerability compared to NGOs with no international funding (p < 0.05). Implications for future research to further explore these relationships are discussed.

Four theories for explaining public policy decisions are briefly presented. The theories are applied to the question of the location of Norwegian district colleges and universities (location by county, scope and timing). Eleven operational models provide the link between theory and data. The conclusion is that the legal-bureaucratic theory best explains the location decisions. This structural theory works better than the three behavioral ones. It is argued that this shows how norms of equity and justice constitute the main constraints on these decision processes.

The article analyzes how civil society is constructed in two Danish civil society strategies from 2010 to 2017, the governmental programmes of the governments in question and the role civil society plays in the proposed upcoming reform of the Danish public sector, the Cohesion Reform. The article approaches civil society from a Foucauldian perspective meaning that it on the one hand analyzes civil society as a transactional reality, something which does not exist as such, but must be continually produced as a given thing with certain values. On the other hand, it means analyzing civil society as a central part of a governmental rationality, or governmentality, which represents the natural movements of society and which government must respect and govern according to. This means that the natural, vital and originary processes of civil society becomes a measurement for good and right government in contradistinction to the artificial, cold and bureaucratic state and thereby posited as the rescuer of welfare society.

Approaches to linguistic areas have largely focused either on purely qualitative investigation of area-formation processes, on quantitative and qualitative exploration of synchronic distributions of linguistic features without considering time, or on theoretical issues related to the definition of the notion ‘linguistic area’. What is still missing are approaches that supplement qualitative research on area-formation processes with quantitative methods. Taking a bottom-up approach, we bypass notional issues and propose to quantify area-formation processes by (i) measuring the change in linguistic similarity given a geographical space, a sociocultural setting, a time span, a language sample, and a set of linguistic data, and (ii) testing the tendency and magnitude of the process using Bayesian inference. Applying this approach to the expression of reflexivity in a dense sample of languages in northwestern Europe from the early Middle Ages to the present, we show that the method yields robust quantitative evidence for a substantial gain in linguistic similarity that sets the languages of Britain and Ireland apart from languages spoken outside of Britain and Ireland and cross-cuts lines of linguistic ancestry.

This article contends that the creation of a legacy by students enables them to situate their time and experiences at university within their broader life goals and expectations. Legacy learning refers to the act of creating an archive or artefact for the benefit of posterity; collating, collecting and creating a virtual or tangible article, or objet, for successive cohorts to utilise as a learning resource. It is also a tangible product that students may use to demonstrate their skills to prospective employers; something to take away with them from the process of learning. At the heart of the concept are two key factors: collaboration and the process of self-reflection. This article illustrates legacy learning through the examination of a final year module on Asia for which small groups of students had to produce a documentary video and individual self-reflection paper. Although the putative goal of the endeavour was envisioned as the realisation of the documentary itself, the self-reflection exercise by students suggests that the underlying learning value of the exercise may in fact rest in the self-realisation of the learner.

The problem of the broadening of the European Parliament's powers was one of the main themes of the election campaign in several countries. Interviews carried out in April–May 1979, in the nine countries of the Community with a sample of candidates (N = 742, including 62% of those who were elected) reveals, among other things, their attitudes towards the role of the European Parliament during the next five years. The results weighted according to the numbers of seats obtained by each political group, give an image of the individual attitudes of the Members of Parliament which is probably very near to reality.

This study focuses on three specific aspects of the possible broadening of the European Parliament's powers, all of which are under current discussion: the power to select and dismiss members of the European Community; the power to elect the president of the Commission; the power to revise all budget proposals.

By and large the responses to these three topics by the candidates and members of the European Parliament show the same pattern: those from the original six countries are more supportive of these measures than those of the three new member countries. But there are two striking exceptions: the British delegation stands out as significantly more “pro-European’ than one would expect on the basis of public opinion data; the French delegation shows a suprisingly low level of support for these measures.

Examining the attitudes of the major political groups elected to the European Parliament, one finds that the Socialists and the Christian Democrats are the most favorable to the measures (82%) under study; but the cleavage between supporters and opponents does not coincide with the Left/Right dimension: 62% of the Communist candidates, for instance, have declared themselves in favor of these measures, against only 57% of the Liberals.

But it would be highly misleading to view the respective cross-national parliamentary groups as monolithic on such questions; the Communists show the largest Standard deviations on all three questions. On the whole, the differences between parties belonging to the same cross-national group are larger than the differences between rival parties in the same nation. In other words, the political context of a given nation seems to be a more important influence on the attitudes of its representatives than are their party groupings.

Despite such cleavages, a strong majority of the European Parliament seems to support all three measures analyzed here. Moreover, their behavior seems consistent with their attitudes. In December 1979 the Parliament rejected the proposed EC budget. Virtually without exception, those supporting increased budgetary powers voted to reject the current budget.

In this commentary, we argue that examining the topic of language endangerment and loss requires close attention to culturally specific local factors that influence patterns of language choice and that shifting the emphasis of investigation from language endangerment to language vitality can yield significant research insights. Drawing largely on lessons from the investigation of patterns of multilingualism in rural Africa, we also suggest that examination of language ideologies and the use of ethnographic methods in language documentation can play an important role in understanding global patterns of language vitality.

Credit unions are voluntary cooperative financial institutions. At present there are 621 credit unions in Ireland serving two million members. Credit unions espouse the principle of gender inclusiveness, which is viewed as a fundamental cooperative concept. Based on a survey of 500 Irish credit unions, this study explores the role of women in credit unions. Judged against participation rates for women in the labor market and in specific organizations such as trade unions, the study suggests that gender balance in credit unions is superior to that elsewhere in Irish society. There is, however, some evidence of gender imbalance in the composition of credit union boards with this being most visible for key decision-making positions such as Chair and Vice-Chair. It also emerges that gender imbalance becomes more pronounced for larger credit unions supporting the contention that women are found in greater numbers on small and less well-connected not-for-profit boards.

Political science with its rich history, but varying national traditions and contexts, deals with a multi-dimensional and ever-changing subject matter of which we are, inevitably, a part. This poses specific epistemological problems, but also offers the opportunity to contribute to the shaping of political reality by insights and actions. This lecture gives a brief outline of this problematique and then presents, by way of illustration, the findings of a major international research project on the political effects of the Great Depression in Europe in the interwar period. Based on this experience, some (tentative and personal) lessons will be drawn for the state of political science and its potential contributions facing the present world economic crisis.

Transport services provided by voluntary organisations have grown dramatically in recent years. However, little systematic research has been undertaken on the functioning of these organisations. The aim of the research on which this paper is based was to rectify the lack of information on how decisions relating to service provision are made by such organisations - often called ‘community transport’ (CT) operators. Three organisations were selected for a comparative case study approach. The results show that the leadership approach of their key staff was of particular significance. Each organisation is moving in the direction of greater professionalism and away from its community roots. This cultural change can be attributed to responses to external forces, especially those affecting resources. Evidence suggests they are being forced towards adopting practices of the private sector, but that this need not be the case. Community transport provision is in a period of transition, the outcome of which may radically alter both its structure and its survival capacities.

Despite the growing research interest in co-production, some important gaps in our knowledge remain. Current literature is mainly concerned with either the citizens or professionals being involved in co-production, leaving unanswered the question how co-producers and professionals perceive each other’s engagement, and how this is reflected in their collaboration. This study aims to answer that question, conducting an exploratory case study on neighborhood watch schemes in a Dutch municipality. Empirical data are collected through group/individual interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. The results show that the perceptions citizens and professionals hold on their co-production partner’s engagement indeed impact on the collaboration. Moreover, for actual collaboration to occur, citizens and professionals not only need to be engaged but also to make this engagement visible to their co-production partner. The article concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of these findings.

How do volunteers interpret what their service means to them? Is it based on the values the program instills, or on their experiences before volunteering? To answer these questions, I investigate service interpretation in the AmeriCorps program, a US-based social service agency. I conduct 22 in-depth interviews with AmeriCorps members to highlight how they use their cultural capital—rooted in their raised-class background—to interact differently with those they serve and to interpret different benefits of AmeriCorps. I find members from lower-income backgrounds use their past as a form of cultural capital to connect with their service population. On the other hand, members from more privileged backgrounds see the program as beneficial in the context of future work, yet have more difficulty connecting with those they serve. I conclude that the cultural capital learned from different social classes fosters different service interpretations for AmeriCorps members.

This article addresses and observes the crisis of Western democracy through the lens of the weakness of parties and party government, especially at the European Union (EU) level. Social stratification changes, global trends and ultimately the sustained economic crisis have placed political parties atthe national and the EU level under enormous strain. Moreover, demands posed by the crisis on national governments by the EU have generated conflicting interests of different member states. The resulting development of Horizontal Euroscepticism has made intergovernmental decision making, which has represented the backbone of the EU legitimacy up to now, extremely problematic and has posed the need for rethinking democracy in multi-level Europe, ultimately by strengthening supranational democracy through the creation of a form of party government at the EU level as well.