Search

Personalization of politics describes a process in which the power of individual politicians rises, ostensibly at the expense of the parties. This is manifested, among other ways, by the manner in which politicians use parliamentary tools. In this study, we focus on one such tool, the private member bill, assessing whether its use necessarily expresses personal behavior, which weakens the party, as suggested in the literature—or not. To test this, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the way Israeli legislators use private member bills in the Knesset, which is regarded as an indicator of personalized politics. We found that partisan-oriented behavior can be found even when using such a highly personal tool. This suggests that personalized politics does not always weaken the party. We also examined under which conditions Knesset members demonstrate partisan-oriented behavior while using private member bills. Testing institutional party-level variables revealed that MKs from parties with exclusive candidate selection methods, opposition parties, and small parties are more likely to exhibit such behavior.

A prominent finding in coalition formation literature is that the underlying political rationale at the subnational level largely follows that of the one revealed by the classic literature on national coalitions. The Israeli political system is extremely centralized, with a local government that is highly dependent on its national counterpart. One could expect such a setting to result in local party behaviour that closely resembles the national one. However, as we show, this is far from being the case. We analyze 34 municipal coalitions in the 17 largest Israeli cities. After establishing that Israeli municipal politics fly in the face of classical coalition formation theories, we turn to explain this discrepancy with a qualitative analysis of interviews with 5 formatuers and 8 councillors. We conclude that mayors face low costs of adding surplus coalition partners, while standing to gain from wider legitimacy, weaker opposition, and constrained future competition. At the same time, municipal lists have strong resource- and policy-related incentives to join the coalition while compromise is met with low political costs. The result is an overwhelming predominance of oversized coalitions and partnerships which would be highly improbable at the national arena.

Information on the distribution and predictors of obesity in Africa is needed to identify populations at risk and explore intervention options. Our objectives were to (a) examine the prevalence and geographic distribution of overweight and obesity among Cameroonian women; (b) evaluate change in anthropometric indicators among urban women between 2009 and 2012; (c) examine associations between household and individual characteristics and overweight and obesity; and (d) examine relationships between body mass index (BMI), abdominal obesity, and inflammation. We analysed data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 3 geographic strata (North, South, and Yaoundé/Douala) in Cameroon in 2009 and a survey in Yaoundé/Douala in 2012. Participants selected for this analysis were nonpregnant women, ages 15–49 years (n = 704 in 2009; n = 243 in 2012). In 2009, ~8% of women were underweight (BMI 0.85) to 73% (waist circumference > 80 cm) had abdominal obesity. Body mass index was positively associated with abdominal obesity and inflammation. Though causal inferences cannot be drawn, these findings indicate population subgroups at greatest risk for overweight and associated health consequences in Cameroon.

Vitamin A (VA) fortification of cooking oil is considered a cost-effective strategy for increasing VA status, but few large-scale programs have been evaluated. We conducted representative surveys in Yaoundé and Douala, Cameroon, 2 years before and 1 year after the introduction of a mandatory national program to fortify cooking oil with VA. In each survey, 10 different households were selected within each of the same 30 clusters (n = ~300). Malaria infection and plasma indicators of inflammation and VA (retinol-binding protein, pRBP) status were assessed among women aged 15–49 years and children aged 12–59 months, and casual breast milk samples were collected for VA and fat measurements. Refined oil intake was measured by a food frequency questionnaire, and VA was measured in household oil samples post-fortification. Pre-fortification, low inflammation-adjusted pRBP was common among children (33% 80% of participants in the past week. Post-fortification, only 44% of oil samples were fortified, but fortified samples contained VA concentrations close to the target values. Controlling for age, inflammation, and other covariates, there was no difference in the mean pRBP, mean breast milk VA, prevalence of low pRBP, or prevalence of low milk VA between the pre- and post-fortification surveys. The frequency of refined oil intake was not associated with VA status indicators post-fortification. In sum, after a year of cooking oil fortification with VA, we did not detect evidence of increased plasma RBP or milk VA among urban women and preschool children, possibly because less than half of the refined oil was fortified. The enforcement of norms should be strengthened, and the program should be evaluated in other regions where the prevalence of VA deficiency was greater pre-fortification.

We examined the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and associated household and dietary risk factors, in a national sample of Cameroonian women and children, and the change in these values withi...

Few data are available on the effectiveness of mass food fortification programs. We conducted representative surveys 2 y before and 1 y after introduction of vitamin A (VA)-fortified cooking oil an...