This article reports on the results of a broad crosslinguistic study on the semantics of quantity words such as many in the superlative (e.g. most). While some languages use such a form to express both a relative reading (as in Gloria has visited the most continents) and a proportional reading (as in Gloria has visited most continents), the vast majority do not allow the latter, though all allow the former. It is argued that a degree-quantifier analysis of quantity words is best suited to explain why proportional readings typically do not arise for quantity superlatives. Based on morphosyntactic evidence, two alternative diachronic pathways through which proportional quantifiers may develop from quantity superlatives are identified.

What contributes toward academic productivity and impact in political science research publications? To consider this issue, Part I of this article describes the core concepts and their operationalization, using the h-index. The study theorizes that variations in this measure may plausibly be influenced by personal characteristics (like gender, career longevity, and formal qualifications), working conditions (academic rank, type of department, and job security), as well as subjective role perceptions (exemplified by the perceived importance of scholarly research or teaching). Part II sets out new evidence used for exploring these issues, drawing upon the ECPR-IPSA World of Political Science survey. This study gathered information from 2446 political scientists in 102 countries around the globe. Part III presents the distribution and analysis of the results, as well as several robustness tests. Part IV summarizes the key findings and considers their broader implications. In general, several personal characteristics and structural working conditions prove significant predictors of h-index scores, whereas motivational goals and role perceptions add little, if anything, to the models. Thus, who you are and where you work seems to predict productivity and impact more than career ambitions and social psychological orientations toward academic work.

Considering that the members of the International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO) Accountability Charter played a prominent role in initiating the first sector supplement of the Global Reporting Initiative for non-governmental organizations (NGO), the purpose of the paper is to investigate their sustainability reporting (SR) practices in order to evaluate to what extent INGO Charter members comply with this voluntary accountability standard for SR. The empirical analysis is based on a content analysis of sustainability reports. The findings indicate that most of the INGO Charter members are far away from a comprehensive reporting practice. Hence, critical voices could assert that their reporting behavior seems to be more in line with facade building than the idea of providing a comprehensive account. By adapting a multiperspective theoretical discourse about the potential and shortcomings of SR to the NGO context, the study contributes to a field-specific theory-based pluralistic critical evaluation of SR as a major cross-sectoral innovation in voluntary accountability initiatives.

The formation of social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) is a topic that attracts scholars’ attention recently. Previous studies in the literature mention the importance of personal background on the formation of such intentions (Mair and Noboa, in: Social entrepreneurship: How intentions to create a social venture are formed. In “social entrepreneurship” (pp. 121–135). Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006); Dorado in Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 11:1–24, 2006; Scheiber in VOLUNTAS International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 27:1694–1717, 2016; Bacq and Alt in Journal of Business Venturing 33:333–350, 2018; Hockerts in Journal of Social Entrepreneurship 9:234–256, 2018). However, these studies often use samples from a limited number of countries and/or regions. The aim of this study is twofold. First, this study aims to examine whether the main antecedents of SEI (major hardship, radical change, encountering others’ hardship, and role model) offered in our previous study (Asarkaya and Keles Taysir in Nonprofit Management and Leadership 30:155–166, 2019 based on a sample from a specific country, is applicable within a global context and across different fields. Second, various functions of the main antecedents that lead to the formation of SEI are explored. The list of Ashoka fellows is utilized, and the personal details of 255 social entrepreneurs are analyzed. There are some common patterns in these narratives, supporting the potential influence of the main antecedents. In addition, the weights of these antecedents vary across different fields; and they have distinct functions through which SEI is formed.

From Duverger onward, students of party organization have failed to address systematically the question of what party members actually do for ‘mass’ parties. This article argues that a clearer understanding of the particular reasons why parties want to have members can help us better interpret ongoing changes in relations between specific party organizations and individual party members. This article lists a wide range of arguments that parties are most likely to make concerning the costs and benefits of memberships. Which of these types of arguments a specific party highlights has implications about the types of members it is looking to attract, and about what the party will be willing to offer to attract such members. The article concludes with a discussion showing how the perspective developed here can be used to illuminate recent changes in several German and British political party organizations, changes which, by themselves, may appear to be isolated and meaningless organizational details.

In this impressive volume, GREGORY MATOESIAN and KRISTIN ENOLA GILBERT provide the field of law-and-language studies with an important set of analytic tools, insisting that systematic study of multimodal conduct be integrated into research on legal communication. In particular, M&G focus on modes of communication such as gesture, gaze, posture, movement, and speakers' interactions with physical objects—modes that have not received as much attention within language-and-law research as has legal language in a more traditional conception. For scholars who are unfamiliar with studies of multimodal conduct, the book offers a rigorous but accessible introduction to the field, along with sophisticated analyses of legal interactions demonstrating the value of the authors' approach. For linguists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists more generally, the volume offers an inventive entry in the growing literature integrating multimodal analysis into microanalysis of linguistic exchanges—and the macroanalysis of language within institutions. For those interested in research on legal language, this study advances the field through its comprehensive vision of how we can incorporate multimodal analysis into existing paradigms.

This article seeks to show empirically the importance of cultural aspects in the understanding of political events and the impact of cultural structures on the development of political life in contemporary societies. It uses as a case study the democratization process that has been taking place in Spain for the last 25 years. The Spanish case is especially interesting because of the powerful cultural framework established around the process of transition to democracy; a framework from which most political symbols and meanings of the new Spanish democracy emanate. After analyzing the basic categories of this cultural structure and the main consequences for the functioning of political life, the article goes on to argue that these cultural elements have shaped a special relationship between citizens and politics.

In response to the lack of culturally sustaining pedagogies for Black students in linguistics, we created an online Introduction to Linguistics course designed as part of a specially funded research program that serves Black undergraduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as well as Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). In recognition of the fact that conventional introductory linguistics courses often alienate Black students, the course was designed to center Black language and culture in every lesson. We describe the rationale for and implementation of the course, as well as the impact of the model on students and instructors. The course's Black-centered content as well as its online synchronous and asynchronous teaching model can be adapted for other teaching contexts as a way to recruit Black students into linguistics and to offer linguistics courses to students at universities, especially HBCUs, that do not have linguistics programs. The work is particularly relevant as linguists seek to be inclusive in their teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and work toward the greater inclusion of Black people in every aspect of linguistics due to the heightened awareness of anti-Blackness in higher education and specifically in language studies.

This article introduces a framework for systematically evaluating and comparing language rights across national contexts. We develop an index to assess the range of language freedoms, focusing on areas such as government services, education, healthcare, and media. The index compiles multiple variables into a single indicator, offering a concise measure of linguistic freedom. Our analysis shows that larger language communities typically enjoy more language rights, though this relationship is influenced by civil liberties. We argue that this index is both descriptive and normative, providing a tool for comparing language policy and advocating for linguistic justice.

This article reviews two decades of survey evidence regarding the attitudes of Italian industrial workers towards labour politics. Convention has it that, whereas Italian industrial workers were probably the most radical in western Europe at the time of the hot autumn (1969), they have since then become progressively more disenchanted with trade union involvement in politics and increasingly more cynical and apolitical. Using the numerous sample surveys conducted since the hot autumn, I show that there is no evidence to support this view. Rather, industrial workers in Italy have always been highly differentiated in their views of union politics and it is the politically-relevant behaviour of union elites that is more important than the attitudes of the rank and file in shaping union interaction with the political sphere. Theoretical context is provided by a discussion of trade unions as institutions, and by attention to the analytic distinction between preferences, behaviour, and context.

Parents of small deaf children need guidance on constructing home and school environments that affect normal language acquisition. They often turn to physicians and spiritual leaders and, increasingly, the internet. These sources can be underinformed about crucial issues, such as matters of brain plasticity connected to the risk of linguistic deprivation, and delay or disruption in the development of cognitive skills interwoven with linguistic ability. We have formed a team of specialists in education, linguistics, pediatric medicine, and psychology, and at times specialists in theology and in law have joined our group. We argue that deaf children should be taught a sign language in the early years. This does not preclude oral-aural training and assistive technology. With a strong first language (a sign language), the child can become bilingual (with the written form of the ambient spoken language and, perhaps, the spoken form), accruing the benefits of bilingualism. We have published in medical journals, addressing primary care physicians, in a journal with a spiritual-leader readership, and in a health-law journal. Articles in progress address medical educators and practitioners. Team members present findings at conferences, work on lobbying and legislative efforts with the National Association of the Deaf, and spread the word at conferences of target audiences. We share our work in Word format, so that anyone can easily appropriate it for our common interests. One of our articles has been downloaded over 27,000 times (as of April 2014), and we are asked to consult with committees in other countries as they draft national policies.

Research problems are crucial in the sense that they provide new research with purpose and justification. So why, despite the abundance of guidance available from an extensive methods literature, do graduate students often struggle to develop compelling research problems? This article argues that the process of developing research problems epitomises the insecurity of doing research. We focus in particular on the anxiety that graduate students often seek to avoid or alleviate through a range of counterproductive coping strategies. The existing literature on research problems focuses predominantly on the technical aspects of doing research while neglecting how anxiety might affect the research process. This article seeks to rectify this shortcoming by providing advice on how graduate students can face such anxiety, and how professors can assist them in this endeavour. Drawing on theories about identity and anxiety, the article explains the allure of coping strategies such as gap-filling, while arguing that anxiety is not necessarily a negative emotion to be avoided at all costs, but integral to learning and creativity. It concludes by suggesting that compelling research problems can be constructed through the formulation of narratives that try to embrace anxiety, instead of seeking premature resolutions.

This paper presents results from a study of turnout in the 1994 European Parliament elections which inserted several new questions into the post–election Eurobarometer, including some open–ended questions. It distinguishes between circumstantial and voluntary abstention and shows how each type varies depending on the institutional arrangements for the election. Using both the subjective reasons given for abstention and a range of more objective measures of attitudes, it makes the case that conventional views as to the impact of Sunday–voting and the proportionality of the electoral system and as to the non–impact of attitudes to the European Union need to be modified. It concludes by identifying some practical institutional and political measures that could encourage higher levels of participation.

Two new studies challenge the prevailing consensus that proportional representation (PR) systems produce greater ideological congruence between governments and their citizens than majoritarian ones. This has led to what has become known as the ‘ideological congruence controversy’. G. Bingham Powell claims to resolve this controversy in favour of PR systems. Specifically, he argues that the results from the two new studies are based on an anomalous decade and that PR systems generally do produce greater government congruence. In addition, he also asserts that PR systems exhibit less variability in government congruence. In this article, the empirical evidence for these two claims is re‐evaluated using exactly the same data as employed by Powell. The analysis indicates that although PR systems produce better and more consistent representation in the legislature, they do not hold an advantage when it comes to representation at the governmental level.

This paper presents an analysis of the relationships between intergenerational transmission of philanthropic values and prosocial behavior in three areas: monetary donation of money, volunteering, and civic engagement. Using a multivariable analysis for each area, while controlling for socio-demographic and social environment variables, this study found that the main intergenerational transmission variables are the family as the nuclear unit, the parents as role models, and discourse in the parents’ home. Together these create a family environment that supports philanthropic values of donating money and volunteering and at the same time engaging in civic activities. The relationships between the three areas reflecting prosocial behavior are complementary rather than substitutional. Explanations of these relationships are provided and discussed.

In the present study we investigate the relevance of the concept of underspecified inflection markers for the processing of language in the human brain. Underspecification is recognized as the main source of syncretism in many current morphological theories. However, relatively little is known about its cognitive status. In underspecification-based theories, a competition among morphological exponents arises systematically. In order to win such a competition, an inflection marker has to meet two requirements: compatibility and specificity. If underspecification is real, these two principles should also be an inherent part of the language processing system. One should therefore be able to observe separable effects for the violation of each of the criteria. We used the event-related potential (ERP) violation paradigm to test this hypothesis in the domain of strong adjective inflection in German. We expected differences in brain potentials between two incorrect conditions whenever they represented different types of violation (of compatibility and specificity). Our findings strongly support underspecification: an ERP-component related to morphosyntactic integration (viz. left anterior negativity; LAN) was modulated by violations of specificity versus compatibility. Furthermore, the neurophysiological evidence helps to distinguish between two kinds of morphological underspecification that have been proposed: it argues for maximal rather than minimal underspecification. Finally, the observed brain responses indicate increased processing demands for highly specific markers, which suggests that LAN effects may be sensitive not only to morphosyntactic violations but also to the degree of processing effort.

The following transcript from an interview with the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso (conducted in July 2007), illustrates how bridge-building between the academic and policy worlds can bring profit to both sides. Barroso discusses his time as a student and teacher of political science at the University of Geneva, Georgetown University, and in his native Portugal, as well as his active membership of the European Consortium for Political Research, and how his academic experience shaped both his world view and political career.