Contextualization in cross-national comparative research

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110101
Author(s):  
Xheni Simaku

The global society which we live in nowadays makes us rethink about media system, global dynamics, and the operation of the influences that these dynamics have on national media systems. Starting from the book by Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, and under the Polarized Pluralist Model they proposed, the aim of this work is to compare Turkish and Italian journalists’ professionalization. This research has been conducted under the concept of professionalization that these authors suggested in their work and, more specifically, under the Polarized Pluralist Model, in which Hallin and Mancini recognize countries like Italy have the main characteristics described by the model; Turkey can also be included. The main goal of this work is to underline not only the similarities but also the differences that are encountered in these two countries in the journalistic professionalization. The methodology used is in-depth interviews with 10 journalists: five Italian and five Turkish journalists chosen from the biggest journals in their respective countries. Main topics taken into consideration were autonomy, clientelism, and professionalization in journalism based on ethics values. Even if the Polarized Pluralist Model seems to fit in both countries from a macro perspective, with the in-depth interviews, it is clearly seen that different cross-national nuances come out.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Van Teijlingen ◽  
Cecilia Benoit ◽  
Ivy Bourgeault ◽  
Raymond DeVries ◽  
Jane Sandall ◽  
...  

It is widely accepted that policy-makers (in Nepal and elsewhere) can learn valuable lessons from the way other countries run their health and social services. We highlight some of the specific contributions the discipline of sociology can make to cross-national comparative research in the public health field. Sociologists call attention to often unnoticed social and cultural factors that influence the way national reproductive health care systems are created and operated. In this paper we address questions such as: ‘Why do these health services appear to be operating successfully in one country, but not another?’; ‘What is it in one country that makes a particular public health intervention successful and how is the cultural context different in a neighbouring country?’ The key examples in this paper focus on maternity care and sex education in the Netherlands and the UK, as examples to highlight the power of cross-national research. Our key messages are: a) Cross-national comparative research can help us to understand the design and running of health services in one country, say Nepal, by learning from a comparison with other countries, for example Sri Lanka or India. b) Cultural factors unique to a country affect the way that reproductive health care systems operate. c) Therefore,we need to understand why and how services work in a certain cultural context before we start trying to implement them in another cultural context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C Mubangizi

ABSTRACT This article focuses on corruption in Uganda and South Africa. It begins with a brief analysis of the effects of corruption on the two countries before looking comparatively at their anti-corruption legal frameworks by analysing the relevant constitutional and legislative anti-corruption provisions. The choice of Uganda and South Africa for comparison is based on several factors. The two countries have much in common. They are both transitional societies with disturbing histories characterised by apartheid, oppression and repression in South Africa , and colonialism and military dictatorships in Uganda. In the mid-1990s, the two countries adopted new constitutions that contained Bills of Rights. Such similarities justify comparison for purposes of shared perspectives, approaches and good practices. Moreover, there are many benefits to be gained from comparative research involving cross-national studies - including a deeper understanding of how different countries do things in the context of differing political, cultural and socio-economic circumstances. The choice of the two countries is also based on the research interests of the author who, besides comparing Ugandan and South African ant-corruption approaches, also calls for a human rights based approach that empowers ordinary people to demand transparency, accountability and responsibility from elected representatives and public officials. Keywords: Corruption, human rights, constitution, legislation, South Africa, Uganda.


2020 ◽  
pp. 095968012092913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Hughes ◽  
Tony Dobbins

Few contemporary studies of change in industrial relations use Carter Goodrich’s classic concept of the ‘frontier of control’ (FoC), especially in cross-national comparative research. Our study maps FoC struggles in two public transport organizations in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Qualitative methods generate significant insights into complex day-to-day workplace control patterns in these two cases. Despite changes in the frontier of control in both organizations over time, it is observed that employment relations in the Irish case are more cooperative than in the British. The frontier of control still matters, because workplace control regimes shape managerial ability to secure worker consent and are always potentially contestable terrains.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edda Humprecht ◽  
Frank Esser ◽  
Peter Van Aelst

Online disinformation is considered a major challenge for modern democracies. It is widely understood as misleading content produced to generate profits, pursue political goals, or maliciously deceive. Our starting point is the assumption that some countries are more resilient to online disinformation than others. To understand what conditions influence this resilience, we choose a comparative cross-national approach. In the first step, we develop a theoretical framework that presents these country conditions as theoretical dimensions. In the second step, we translate the dimensions into quantifiable indicators that allow us to measure their significance on a comparative cross-country basis. In the third part of the study, we empirically examine eighteen Western democracies. A cluster analysis yields three country groups: one group with high resilience to online disinformation (including the Northern European systems, for instance) and two country groups with low resilience (including the polarized Southern European countries and the United States). In the final part, we discuss the heuristic value of the framework for comparative political communication research in the age of information pollution.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stegmueller

Researchers in comparative research are increasingly relying on individual level data to test theories involving unobservable constructs like attitudes and preferences. Estimation is carried out using large-scale cross-national survey data providing responses from individuals living in widely varying contexts. This strategy rests on the assumption of equivalence, that is, no systematic distortion in response behavior of individuals from different countries exists. However, this assumption is frequently violated with rather grave consequences for comparability and interpretation. I present a multilevel mixture ordinal item response model with item bias effects that is able to establish equivalence. It corrects for systematic measurement error induced by unobserved country heterogeneity, and it allows for the simultaneous estimation of structural parameters of interest.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lo ◽  
Sven-Oliver Proksch ◽  
Thomas Gschwend

This article presents a scaling approach to jointly estimate the locations of voters, parties, and European political groups on a common left-right scale. Although most comparative research assumes that cross-national comparisons of voters and parties are possible, few correct for systematic biases commonly known to exist in surveys or examine whether survey data are comparable across countries. Our scaling method addresses scale perception in surveys and links cross-national surveys through new bridging observations. We apply our approach to the 2009 European Election Survey and demonstrate that the improvement in party estimates that one gains from fixing various survey bias issues is significant. Our scaling strategy provides left-right positions of voters and of 162 political parties, and we demonstrate that variables based on rescaled voter and party positions on the left-right dimension significantly improve the fit of a cross-national vote choice model.


2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Gardner ◽  
Keiko Katagiri ◽  
John Parsons ◽  
Jeonghwa Lee ◽  
Radha Thevannoor

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