This article examines why the late-industrializing Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden over the long nineteenth century developed civil societies and political parties with an ability to compromise. Based on comparisons with contemporary Prussia and within-case evidence, it traces the explanation to Scandinavia’s impartial state administrations, forged before the French Revolution and the era of modern mass politics and democracy. This emphasizes the importance of a penetrative bureaucracy in forging auspicious state-society relations and downplays the separate impact of peaceful agrarian reforms for Scandinavia’s stable democratization.

Knowledge of Antarctic permafrost is mainly derived from the Antarctic Peninsula and Victoria Land. This study examines the 2019–2023 temperature and humidity conditions, distribution and development of polygonal terrain and the origin of ground ice in soils of the Untersee Oasis. In this region, the surface offset (MAAT ≅ MAGST) and the thermal offset (MAGST ≤ TTIT) reflect the lack of vegetation, absence of persistent snow and a dry soil above the ice table. The mean annual vapour pressure at the ground surface is approximately ~2× higher than in the air but is ~0.67× lower than at the ice table. The size of polygons appears to be in equilibrium with the ice-table depth, and numerical modelling suggests that the depth of the ice table is in turn in equilibrium with the ground surface temperature and humidity. The ground ice at the ice table probably originates from the partial evaporation of snowmelt that infiltrated the dry soil column. As such, the depth of the ice table in this region is set by the water vapour density gradient between the ground surface and the ice-bearing ground, but it is recharged periodically by evaporating snowmelt.

Why was the route to democracy in Scandinavia extraordinarily stable? This paper answers this question by studying Scandinavia’s eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century peaceful agrarian reforms, which contributed to auspicious state–society relations that made democracy progress relatively smoothly. Based on comparisons with contemporary France and Prussia and process-tracing evidence, the paper shows that Scandinavia achieved relatively extensive and peaceful agrarian reforms because of relatively high levels of meritocratic recruitment to the central administration and state control over local administration, which ensured impartial policymaking and implementation. These findings challenge prevailing theories of democratization, demonstrating that the Scandinavian countries represent an alternative, amicable path to democracy led by civil servants who attempt to transform their country socioeconomically. Thus, strong state-cum-weak society countries likely have better odds of achieving stable democracy than weak state-cum-weak society countries. However, building bureaucratic state administrations alongside autonomous political societies is probably a safer road to democracy.

Do economic experiences early in life affect regime support later in life? Effects of recent economic performance on regime support are extensively studied, but lasting effects of individual-level economic experiences across the lifespan remain unexplored. We argue that in democracies and autocracies alike, economic experiences in early adulthood (that is, age eighteen to twenty-eight) are wired into people's memories and become important cues for their democratic support later in life. Having lived in a well-performing economy in a democracy increases democratic support throughout most of people's lives, whereas having lived in a well-performing economy in an autocracy decreases democratic support throughout most of people's lives. Using extensive survey data on support for democracy covering ninety-seven countries from 1994 to 2015, we find support for these propositions, demonstrating that economic experiences in early adulthood, conditional on the regime in place at the time, have strong, robust and lasting effects on democratic support.

Following the landmark essay of T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and the Social Class (1949), it has conventionally been assumed that the introduction and expansion of social rights in Europe happened as the final stage of a long process of democratization that included the granting of first civil and then political rights. We present a radically different perspective on the relationship between the extension of suffrage (under meaningful competition for government power) and social rights, that is state-financed entitlements that make citizens’ livelihood independent from the labor market in the instance of events such as unemployment or sickness. First, some countries institutionalized a state-financed poor relief system much before mass democratization. In these countries, the primary effect of suffrage extension was to reduce public social spending, not expand it. Second, the way this retrenchment occurred was partly by creating a negative link between social rights, on the one hand, and civil and political rights, on the other. We test our argument with case studies of nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century England, Denmark, Norway, and Prussia, all of which are paradigmatic cases that represent the variation in welfare state types.

Theories connecting meritocracy and democratic stability are heavily understudied, and there are few attempts to empirically disentangle the potential mechanisms. This article proposes a novel explanation, emphasizing that bureaucratic impartiality and effectiveness provide separate shields that stabilize democracies. Impartiality protects the opposition from unlawful discrimination, which raises support for democracy among the (potential) losers of elections and reduces the incentives to rebel or stage coups d’état, whereas effectiveness serves incumbent policies, which raises support among the (potential) winners and reduces the likelihood of incumbent takeovers. I find support for these propositions in comparative-historical analyses of a few paradigmatic cases—interwar Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany—with similar levels of economic development, imperial-autocratic legacies, and meritocratic types of administration but different regime outcomes. The results show that both impartial and effective bureaucratic behavior rather than meritocratic recruitment norms as such are important stabilizers of democracy. Yet they emphasize the importance of bureaucratic effectiveness in raising the perception that votes count to change outcomes on the ground and thus that democracy makes a difference. I argue that this should have a wider significance for the study of contemporary processes of democratic recession.

Antibiotics are among the most common medications prescribed in nursing homes. The annual prevalence of antibiotic use in residents of nursing homes ranges from 47% to 79%, and more than half of antibiotic courses initiated in nursing-home settings are unnecessary or prescribed inappropriately (wrong drug, dose, or duration). Inappropriate antibiotic use is associated with a variety of negative consequences including Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), adverse drug effects, drug–drug interactions, and antimicrobial resistance. In response to this problem, public health authorities have called for efforts to improve the quality of antibiotic prescribing in nursing homes.

This letter is the first to systematically scrutinize the multifaceted claim that a strong state promotes democratic development. It analyzes new Varieties of Democracy data from 1789 to 2015 to specify and examine eight different versions of this ‘state-first’ argument in analyses that span the entire era of modern democracy. The authors document that high levels of bureaucratic quality at the time of the first democratic transition and during democratic spells are positively associated with democratic survival and deepening. By contrast, state capacity has no robust effects on democratic survival or deepening and does not condition the impact of bureaucratic quality. These findings underline the importance of particular features of a strong state as well as the importance of a disaggregated approach. They imply that democratic development is better aided by strengthening the impartiality of bureaucratic organizations than by building capacity for territorial control.

Lake Untersee is one of the largest perennially ice-covered lakes in Dronning Maud Land. We investigated the energy and water mass balance of Lake Untersee to understand its state of equilibrium. The thickness of the ice cover is strongly correlated with sublimation rates; variations in sublimation rates across the ice cover are largely determined by wind-driven turbulent heat fluxes and the number of snow-covered days. Lake extent and water level have remained stable for the past 20 years, indicating that the water mass balance is in equilibrium. The lake is damned by the Anuchin Glacier and mass balance calculation suggest that subaqueous melting of terminus ice contributes 40–45% of the annual water budget; since there is no evidence of streams flowing into the lake, the lake must be connected to a groundwater system that contributes 55–60% in order to maintain the lake budget in balance. The groundwater likely flows at a rate of ~8.8 × 10−2 m3 s−1, a reasonable estimate given the range of subglacial water flux in the region. The fate of its well-sealed ice cover is likely tied to changes in wind regime, whereas changes in water budget are more closely linked to the response of surrounding glaciers to climate change.

The IAU was founded in 1919 “to facilitate the relations between astronomers of different countries where international co-operation is necessary or useful” and “to promote the study of astronomy in all its departments”. These aims have led the IAU throughout the century of its existence, but the way it has tried to fulfil them has changed. We have tried to trace the changing role of the IAU in the international astronomical community through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The IAU has striven – occasionally struggled – to protect international scientific cooperation across the deep political divides that characterized the 20th century, while maintaining an important function in the context of the rapidly evolving science itself and the changing fabric of institutions involved in astronomy. We especially argue how the emphasis of the IAU’s activities has shifted from the first aim – facilitating collaboration by organizing meetings and defining common standards – to the second aim: promoting astronomy by outreach and development programs.

This article examines how the presentation of information during a laboratory experiment can alter a study’s findings. We compare four possible ways to present information about hypothetical candidates in a laboratory experiment. First, we manipulate whether subjects experience a low-information or a high-information campaign. Second, we manipulate whether the information is presented statically or dynamically. We find that the design of a study can produce very different conclusions. Using candidate’s gender as our manipulation, we find significant effects on a variety of candidate evaluation measures in low-information conditions, but almost no significant effects in high-information conditions. We also find that subjects in high-information settings tend to seek out more information in dynamic environments than static, though their ultimate candidate evaluations do not differ. Implications and recommendations for future avenues of study are discussed.

Mechanical Turk has become an important source of subjects for social science experiments, providing a low-cost alternative to the convenience of using undergraduates while avoiding the expense of drawing fully representative samples. However, we know little about how the rates we pay to “Turkers” for participating in social science experiments affects their participation. This study examines subject performance using two experiments – a short survey experiment and a longer dynamic process tracing study of political campaigns – that recruited Turkers at different rates of pay. Looking at demographics and using measures of attention, engagement and evaluation of the candidates, we find no effects of pay rates upon subject recruitment or participation. We conclude by discussing implications and ethical standards of pay.

Why do economic crises sometimes lead to democratic breakdown and sometimes not? To answer this question, we bring in a new conditioning factor. We propose that bureaucracies of higher quality – implying more competent, efficient and autonomous employees – to a greater extent shield the masses from impoverishment and unjust distribution of resources. This dampens anti-regime mass mobilization, which decreases elite incentives and opportunities for toppling the democratic regime. Statistical analyses of democracies globally from 1903 to 2010 corroborate that the impact of economic crises on the risk of democratic breakdown is suppressed when democracies have a bureaucracy of higher quality. The results are robust to alternative model specifications, including a battery of ‘good governance’ indicators. The effect of bureaucratic quality is not driven by bureaucracies’ ability to hinder crisis onset or shorten crisis duration but rather their ability to decrease domestic upheavals during crises.

How do state bureaucracies become high-quality organizations? Leading comparative politics studies assume that bureaucratic quality is forged by the introduction of meritocratic personnel systems because meritocracies, in contrast to politicized bureaucracies, select the most competent applicants for the jobs at hand. However, in line with principal-agent theory I propose that without a certain level of responsiveness of bureaucrats to the government in place and its policies, the positive consequences of meritocracy for bureaucratic quality are drastically reduced. Meritocracy is likewise essential to bureaucratic quality but, given that it demands some bureaucratic autonomy, meritocracy also creates a control problem. To study the consequences of meritocracy for bureaucratic quality, I revisit bureaucratic developments in the paradigmatically important historical cases of Prussia as well as Imperial and Weimar Germany. Based on extant scholarship of Prussian and German bureaucratic history, the analysis shows that bureaucratic quality varies over time with responsiveness even when meritocraticness is constant at high and low levels, and that governments knowing this hesitate to adopt meritocratic systems despite their advantages if they believe the bureaucracy will be unresponsive. Studying Prussia and Germany historically helps distinguish between the consequences for bureaucratic quality of meritocracy from those of responsiveness. On this basis, I identify where comparative politics studies may benefit from adding, in a comparative historical perspective, responsiveness to the explanation of bureaucratic quality.

Simulated rainfall less than 8 hr after postemergence application of bentazon (3-isopropyl-1H-2,1,3-benzothiadiazin-(4)3H-one 2, 2-dioxide) reduced its activity on velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti Medic.) and common cocklebur (Xanthium pensylvanicum Wallr.) in greenhouse studies. In field studies, simulated rainfall less than 24 hr after application reduced bentazon's activity on velvetleaf. on common cocklebur, bentazon's activity was reduced even if simulated rainfall was delayed for more than 24 hr after application. In greenhouse studies, spray adjuvants (vegetable or petroleum oil) were helpful in overcoming the detrimental effects of simulated rainfall. Greenhouse and field studies indicated that soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] could tolerate bentazon-oil adjuvant combinations.

Bentazon [3-isopropyl-1H-2,1,3-benzothiadiazin-(4) 3H-one 2, 2-dioxide] was applied postemergence to common cocklebur (Xanthium pensylvanicum Wallr.) and velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti Medic.) at various times of the day in growth chamber and field studies and to soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] in field studies. Soybeans were tolerant of bentazon regardless of time of day when treated. Results with common cocklebur and velvetleaf suggest that the time of day when bentazon is applied can be of practical importance. Poor control might occur following application in late evening, night, or early morning.