Citizens' candidates? Labour market experiences and radical right-wing candidates in the 2014 Swedish municipal elections

This article uses Swedish register data to study the labour market experiences of radical right-wing candidates. We look at different measures of economic insecurity (labour market participation trajectories, experience of unemployment in social networks, relative decline of men’s income and relative growth of jobs for foreign-born workers vis-a-vis natives) and examine whether they are predictors of candidates running for the Sweden Democrats, the main radical right-wing party in Sweden, as opposed to another mainstream political party. We find some confirmation for the notion that radical right-wing candidates are citizens’ candidates (Bó, Finan, Folke, Persson and Rickne, 2018) as far as labour market experiences of radical right-wing candidates are markedly different from mainstream party candidates. Those with turbulent or out-of-labour market labour market trajectories are much more likely to run for the Sweden Democrats, as opposed to other parties. Additionally, the same is true for candidates embedded in social networks with higher levels of unemployment, while working in high skilled industry markedly lowers probability of running for the Sweden Democrats, especially for male candidates with low educational attainment. We find no confirmation for decline in relative status of men and mixed results for ethnic threat hypothesis.

Do Relative Status of Women and Marriage Characteristics Matter for the Intimate Partner Violence?

This article analyzes intimate partner violence (IPV) in a developing country context, namely, Turkey, which faces an enormous increase in femicide cases over the last decade. Analyzing a very rich nationwide representative survey on IPV, we show that it is not only the absolute status of women but also their relative status in terms of income and education that affects different types of domestic violence, ranging from emotional abuse to physical and sexual violence. Besides, factors related to marriage setting are found to have a significant role in the effect of women’s superior status on IPV. Overall, we provide evidence to support the relative resource theory and invalidate the intra-household bargaining model in the Turkish case.

“A Style of Chinese Respect”: Lord Macartney’s Reply to the Imperial Edicts of Emperor Qianlong in 1793

In 1793, King George III of Great Britain sent an official embassy led by Lord George Macartney to China in the hope of getting more favourable trading terms. However, all the requests made by Lord Macartney were rejected flatly in two imperial edicts issued by the Chinese Emperor Qianlong when the embassy was about to leave China. The present paper focuses on Lord Macartney’s response to the two imperial edicts, in particular the official reply Macartney made to the Qing court in the form of a “note” to Heshen before the embassy left China. In the note, Macartney touched upon several important issues, including the sensitive one about the relative status of the two countries. To Macartney, these issues were so crucial that he felt obliged to make a response promptly. The tactful way adopted by Macartney to handle them deserves our special attention.

Economic persistence despite adverse policies: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

We study the long-run persistence of relative economic well-being under adverse government policies using a combination of historical and contemporaneous data from Kyrgyzstan. After controlling for unobservable local effects, the economic well-being of Kyrgyz households in the 2010s correlates with the early 20th-century average wealth of their tribes. Inequality at the tribe level in the 2010s correlates with wealth inequality in the early 20th century. The likely channels of persistence are the inter-generational transmission of human capital, relative status, political power, and cultural traits. Transmission of material wealth, differences in natural endowments, or geographic sorting cannot explain persistence.

Danmarks status ved FN i New York

Denne artikel analyserer Danmarks status relativt til de tre største nordiske konkurrenter ved FN i New York: Norge, Sverige og Finland. FN er siden 2001 blevet nedprioriteret af gentagne danske regeringer, og undersøgelsen forsøger vha. en statusteoretisk analyseramme at afdække, om disse ændringer har haft konsekvenser for Danmarks status internt i den nordiske kreds. Fra et dansk perspektiv er status særligt relevant i øjeblikket, da Danmark i 2024 planmæssigt skal vejes på FN’s mest markante statusvægt: Valget til FN’s Sikkerhedsråd. Analysen konkluderer, at Danmarks relative status siden 2001 overordnet er faldet på de to undersøgte felter – det udviklingspolitiske og militære område. Der er derfor brug for en ændret strategi og et fornyet fokus såfremt sandsynligheden for at blive valgt til Sikkerhedsrådet i tilfælde af kampvalg skal højnes.

A sociological study of Howard Goldblatt’s English translations of the ideological markers in Mo Yan’s three Chinese novels

Over the last two decades, ideology has evolved into a major issue in translation studies. In terms of the ideological explorations of translation, previous studies focused on the explicit or implicit ideological manifestations in translated texts, or how translation was used to serve ideology. Studies on the diachronic changes of translator’s ideology, however, remain scarce. This study of Howard Goldblatt’s English translations of three Chinese novels over three different periods finds that translators’ ideology is dynamic rather than static. In their translations, translators may follow the ideology of the source culture or that of the target culture, depending on the relative status of the source culture and the target culture as well as the capital possessed by the author and the translator. A sociological account is provided to explain the changes in translators’ ideology over time.

Competitive Elections, Status Anxieties, and the Relative Strength of Ethnic versus National Identification in Africa

Research shows that ethnic identification increases on the eve of competitive elections in Africa, but does it do so at the expense of national solidarities? Do competitive elections exacerbate the negative expressions of strong ethnic attachments-coethnic favoritism, relative status concerns, and social distance to other groups? These questions are important because the latter attitudes and perceptions are linked to a host of ills in democracies. In this paper, I examine how the proximity and competitiveness of national elections influence ingroup favoritism, ethnic groups’ status anxieties, perceived discrimination, and trust in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on six rounds of survey data for seventeen countries over 14 years, I find that national identities diminish in salience relative to ethnic ones as political competition increases, and that this is accompanied by heightened perceptions of ethnically-motivated discrimination, increased status anxieties, and lower levels of both inter-ethnic and generalized trust closer to nationally-competitive elections. Therefore, the electoral cycle strongly influences group anxieties in plural societies where political competition is high, and should be taken into account when designing measures to mitigate ethnic polarization in multi-ethnic states.