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How COVID‐19 economic aid should be distributed continues to be an important societal question, with relevance to current and future public health policy. We argue that religious identities condition the influence of broader political context on COVID‐19 policy preferences, serving as social conduits through which political attitudes are transmitted. We analyze original U.S. survey data (N = 989), to examine support for inclusive (i.e., including undocumented immigrants) COVID‐19 economic aid. We find that individuals' religious identities interact with county‐level political context to influence COVID‐19 policy preferences. Born‐Again Christian individuals are more strongly affected by conservative political climates compared to their religious and nonreligious peers, after controlling for individual political characteristics and a host of sociodemographic factors. Findings support the conceptualization of conservative religious identities as social conduits for political messaging and show the importance of religion to how policy opinions are shaped by the broader environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: How does context influence individuals’ misinformation about socially marginalized groups? Scholarship has long found that one’s geographical and social environment are important determinants for one’s political attitudes. But how these contexts shape individuals’ levels of misinformation about stigmatized groups remains an open and pressing question, especially given the swift rise of misinformation in recent years. Using three original surveys, we find that individuals who report more contact with a diverse group of individuals were significantly less likely to be misinformed. These findings are particularly pronounced among white Americans. Moreover, contrary to the popular belief that where one lives is a strong determinant of racial attitudes, we also find that partisan and racial context did not meaningfully shape misinformation. These findings shed light on the factors that helps us to understand the misinformation that exists about this sizable share of U.S. society.

The article discusses the political context of countering climate change in Southeast Asia, highlighting the region's vulnerability to climate change impacts. Despite acknowledging the importance of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, Southeast Asian states have been slow to respond effectively due to economic priorities and geopolitical complexities. The article argues that the region's focus on economic development and security concerns has hindered significant progress in addressing climate change, leading to a lack of robust investment in renewable energy resources. Additionally, the voluntary nature of climate targets within ASEAN member states further complicates coordinated efforts to combat climate change in the region. [Extracted from the article]

The political events of 1989 had reverberations throughout Europe and beyond. For research libraries, new horizons for researchers and new forms of co-operation opened up, enabled by technology, assisted by the European Commission and its programmes, and made possible above all through fresh human contacts between East and West in the "new Europe", with all the optimism and energies they brought. This article deals with the wider context of events in the UK in the period leading up to 1989 and afterwards, and personal reminiscences of this propitious period in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has witnessed a significant influx of foreign aid aimed at fostering development, particularly in rural areas, over recent decades. Despite these considerable investments, persistently high levels of poverty endure, and rural communities have not consistently witnessed improvements in livelihoods. Rural development initiatives frequently achieve their inherent objectives at the output level but less frequently attain the intended outcomes and are seldom successful in establishing the prerequisites for enduring impact over the long term. The existing literature on this topic is extensive but often fragmented, with some scholars examining the context through socio-economic and political lenses, others scrutinizing the intrinsic characteristics of projects, and still others emphasizing levels of empowerment and local participation. This paper synthesizes and critically evaluates key aspects that influence the sustained impact of rural development projects across these three analytical streams. Through an integrative compilation of insights from these disparate perspectives, this work lays the foundation for a comprehensive analysis, shedding light on crucial considerations that may have previously "fallen into the cracks" through an examination of the segmented discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractI want to address the political element in the pedagogical engagement. Too often the business of teaching is presented as somehow independent of political influence or implication. When ERO talked about ‘delivering the curriculum’, the terminology reflected a very neo-liberal view that the curriculum was something different from the process of teaching and that teachers should be regarded as functionaries putting out there something decided by others. In this paper I want to look at the political element of pedagogy, both as a question of Foucault’s ‘conduct of conduct’, and as a process inseparable from the very political elements of sexism, racism, classism that pervade our society and are therefore inescapable in our classrooms. In considering the element or racism or ethnicism I will look at the ontologies we bring to our work, and how they might differ. Ultimately I will bring Levinas into the story, to help to consider how our teaching can be politically and ethically aware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictatorships are established and strengthened by imposing themselves on society. One of the tools they use to do this is school, along with textbooks as a means of information and mass spiritual nourishment. This paper aims to analyse the period of communist dictatorship in Albania and its way to influence the individual with an ideology in the function of politics yet to the detriment of the individual as a personality. The research is focused on the primary school reading books of 1946-1986. The passages connected directly with the political content, the parts that had genuine political concepts in the title or in content, were selected to complete this research. A significant number of these short stories, the types, the tendencies of their extension, the object, the nature, and their possibilities of influence were examined as the main materials of the study. During the research, the way textbook readings can influence to paralyze the quest for inner freedom and finding individuality were outlined. Thus, the school as an educational institution can be used to depersonalize the individual in function of the interests of social and political groups. The results showed that any society, including contemporary, could carry ideological influences, so the following article might increase the awareness on the texts used in school and on their interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, oriented towards good practices in social action, is nourished by reflection on the marked inequalities and precariousness that characterise contemporary reality, focusing on how these dynamics undermine the equitable distribution of opportunities that are fundamental for a dignified existence. From this perspective, we seek to reflect on the dimensions of precariousness and inequality, allowing for the re-evaluation of interventions in different environments and critically addressing the possibility of new modalities of action. The proposed approach implies an ethical commitment to overcoming the dilemma between adhering to the logic of the market and adopting a more humane and supportive stance, challenging conventions and promoting socially responsible practices. In short, the aim is to analyse intervention, enabling the (re)understanding of inequality in the social context and questioning the social structures that generate suffering, with a view to reconstructing the essential concepts of solidarity and community in contemporary society, in a critical understanding of socio-educational action in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores the themes of conflict and peace in contemporary English and Iraqi drama. The paper analyzes several plays from both traditions to examine the portrayal of conflict and peace, as well as the cultural, political, and historical contexts that inform these portrayals. The paper argues that contemporary drama serves as a powerful means of artistic expression that reflects and responds to the complexities of the world around us. In English drama, conflict and peace are often portrayed as elusive and difficult to achieve. The plays examined in this paper depict a range of conflicts, including those arising from personal relationships, social injustice, and political upheaval. The paper analyzes the causes and effects of conflict in these plays, as well as the ways in which conflict is resolved or perpetuated. The examination of the challenges and benefits of achieving peace highlights the difficulties in achieving resolution and the toll that conflict takes on individuals and communities. In Iraqi drama, the potential for hope and reconciliation is emphasized, even in the most challenging circumstances. The paper examines the causes and effects of conflict in these plays, as well as the ways in which peace is achieved or lost. The examination of the cultural, political, and historical contexts that inform the portrayal of conflict and peace in Iraqi drama emphasizes the significance of Iraq's recent history of war and occupation and the ongoing struggle for social justice and human rights. The paper also identifies similarities and differences between the treatment of conflict and peace in the two traditions. While both English and Iraqi dramas address the complexities of conflict and the difficulties of achieving peace, they do so in different ways. The examination of the cultural, political, and historical contexts that inform the portrayal of conflict and peace in the two traditions highlights the diversity and richness of contemporary drama as a form of artistic expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protest behaviour has been conceptualized as a high-risk form of political engagement, and it tends to elicit a relatively lower engagement rate than other forms of political participation. In Africa, the risky nature of protests is often complicated by the predominant socio-cultural bias and masculine political norms that hinder women’s political agency. Many of these political systems in Africa are emerging democracies, where women are likely to be marginalized in the civic and political sphere. Using the Afrobarometer data of 2014/2015, this study seeks to examine the impact of the political context on the gender gap in protest behaviour. The study finds that the gender gap in protest behaviour is lower in countries that are politically free and higher in countries with more years of military regimes. These findings offer valuable insights into the political and institutional contexts in which women’s protest behaviour is accentuated and diminished.

This is the second instalment in a series which aims to retrieve the unpublished interviews of Mircea Eliade in preparation for a future corpus of his “oral lore”. Here the first three interviews at Radio Free Europe, in 1967 and 1968, are presented and edited. The first is actually a round table organised by Mihai Cismărescu, with four more participants, on the occasion of Eliade’s 60th birthday. The other two are conversations with Monica Lovinescu which – for unknown reasons – were not included in the book of radio talks which she published in 1992. The interviews were transcribed and edited on the basis of the audio recordings retrieved from two different archives. The introductory article attempts to reconstruct their context – making use of entries from Eliade’s unpublished journal – and discusses the post-war political context which influenced Eliade’s own policy of public exposure.

Political context, community participation, principals' supports, and the implementation of e-learning, refer to the orientation of efforts in overcoming the pandemic pressures, where these factors must ensure that all school programs can run effectively and efficiently. This study aims to identify the relationship between political context, community participation, principals' supports, implementation of online learning and student achievement. Respondent in this research was the principal and elementary school teacher in East Java, Indonesia, 300 teachers and principals were respondents in this research. The Structural Equation Modeling method with the help of AMOS 24.0, is used in this study, while, mediation hypothesis testing is done with the Sobel Test. Based on the results of political context can significantly improve the achievement of students through community participation, principals' support and implementation of e-learning. Research contributions show that with an ideal political context, high community participation, adequate principal support, and implementation of quality e-learning can improve the achievement of students even in crisis conditions in this case under the pandemic pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article «International mediation - the art of resolving and managing international conflicts» examines the role of mediation in international conflict resolution. The authors analyse the principles and methods used in international mediation and examine examples of successful cases where mediation has facilitated an amicable agreement. The paper highlights the peculiarities of international conflicts, which are different from internal conflicts, and justifies the importance of the use of mediation in such situations. It also provides an overview of international organisations that are involved in mediation and mediation in different regions of the world. The paper emphasises that international mediation requires specific skills and approaches, taking into account different cultural, political and historical contexts. The authors discuss the importance of the involvement of independent mediators who have the necessary expertise and the trust of all parties to the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, oriented towards good practices in social action, is nourished by reflection on the marked inequalities and precariousness that characterise contemporary reality, focusing on how these dynamics undermine the equitable distribution of opportunities that are fundamental for a dignified existence. From this perspective, we seek to reflect on the dimensions of precariousness and inequality, allowing for the re-evaluation of interventions in different environments and critically addressing the possibility of new modalities of action. The proposed approach implies an ethical commitment to overcoming the dilemma between adhering to the logic of the market and adopting a more humane and supportive stance, challenging conventions and promoting socially responsible practices. In short, the aim is to analyse intervention, enabling the (re)understanding of inequality in the social context and questioning the social structures that generate suffering, with a view to reconstructing the essential concepts of solidarity and community in contemporary society, in a critical understanding of socio-educational action in society.

Health Impact Assessment (HIA), an inherently trans-disciplinary approach, is used to help evaluate and improve projects or programmes in sectors such as transportation, where new infrastructure is likely to have effects on health. This article describes the screening, scoping, appraisal, and recommendation steps of an HIA on a new 24 km highway around the conurbation of Strasbourg, France. Methods included a literature review and quantitative estimates of the health effects of air pollution and noise. Although planned, interviews and focus groups proved impossible due to political and administrative difficulties. In replacement, answers to a related public inquiry were submitted to a secondary, thematic analysis. The new infrastructure is likely to create or help maintain some jobs in the short term and might accelerate certain journeys, but it does not seem able to improve local mobility and air quality issues. It crystallises the dissatisfaction of a part of the local population and raises the question of the transparency of the design and validation processes of major infrastructure projects. Despite an unfavourable political context, the HIA approach described in this article was able to overcome methodological difficulties and obstacles thanks to creative research methods and trans-disciplinarity to finally yield relevant information and suggestions for urban health promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Reflexão & Ação is the property of Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Debates is the property of Revista Debates and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Social accountability is a concept and a practi- ce that has been institutionalized in Colombia. However, it is preferable to understand the concept as societal accountability, because, contrary to prevailing frameworks, it is not a civil crusade to purify the State, but rather an instrument operated by social and state actors to influence public management. Considering the veedurías ciudadanas as a proxy of this type of control, becomes important to view institutionalization over twenty years of expansion in the country. With the use of official registers and a carefully designed sample, I analyze societal interactions, processes and a mechanisms in the stimuli and development of the veedurías, comparing two municipalities with diverse characteristics. Contrary to their exogenous image, it becomes clear that the veedurías are an expression of societal activity related with the political system, which itself is the principal source of threats to their legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polis (07176554) is the property of Polis - Revista Academica Universidad Bolivariana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Protest behaviour has been conceptualized as a high-risk form of political engagement, and it tends to elicit a relatively lower engagement rate than other forms of political participation. In Africa, the risky nature of protests is often complicated by the predominant socio-cultural bias and masculine political norms that hinder women's political agency. Many of these political systems in Africa are emerging democracies, where women are likely to be marginalized in the civic and political sphere. Using the Afrobarometer data of 2014/2015, this study seeks to examine the impact of the political context on the gender gap in protest behaviour. The study finds that the gender gap in protest behaviour is lower in countries that are politically free and higher in countries with more years of military regimes. These findings offer valuable insights into the political and institutional contexts in which women's protest behaviour is accentuated and diminished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After gaining its independence in 1991, Georgia faced significant challenges on all levels like all other post-communist countries. Therefore, against this background, care for urban historical and cultural heritage, and ecological health was less visible on the agenda. As a result of the Rose Revolution of 2003, various reforms were carried out. After strengthening state institutions, the re-urbanization of cities was gradually included on the agenda. At the same time, growing urbanization resulted in an acute shortage of green space and an uprising of the urban grassroots movements in Georgia. We have selected three cases of urban movement developed in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. “Save Gudiashvili Square,” “Defend Vake Park,”and “No to Panorama Tbilisi!”. Even though these cases occurred almost simultaneously, and the activists involved were quite the same, their achievements are different. The presented research attempts to determine the challenges that arose during the formation of the urban movement agenda and study the activism strategy and how it influenced the results of the movements. By triangulation of multiple methods – analyzing primary and secondary sources and interviews of involved actors –, we argue that the strategy of the movements played an important role, while not crucial, with regard to the studied civic activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International lawyers have finally turned their attention to cities. However, the emerging interdisciplinary literature on International Law and Cities has largely overlooked Chinese cities cultivating in a distinct political context. Such neglect may further contribute to a crude understanding of China's growing ambition in its international legal strategy in general and Chinese cities' practice of international law in particular. This article aims to fill that gap by reflecting upon the relationship between China's central government and local governments in dealing with international legal affairs and elucidating how Chinese cities engage with international law in global politics and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art (08687692) is the property of Logos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuestiones Políticas is the property of Revista Cuestiones Politicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An important mechanism of mass political polarization involves citizens' social networks: how politically homogeneous are they, how has this changed over recent years, and which individual and contextual variables predict the degree of homogeneity in social networks? Moreover, what are the consequences of network homophily on political preferences and in and out-group perceptions? In this paper, we address these questions by combining data from the 2000 American National Election Study and original data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. Both surveys ask respondents a battery of questions about the individuals with whom they most frequently discuss politics, including perceived vote choice and level of political knowledge. Using these data, we offer an updated empirical assessment of how polarization is influencing—and is influenced by—social network homophily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes grass-roots originated citizen oversight organizations (COO’s). This study engages in a dialogue between the literature on watchdog organizations and on participative institutions. COO’s combine delegation of control over public policy to independent watchdog government agencies with a strong involvement of ordinary citizens. In this text the case is made that the consolidation or weakening of the COO is dependent to a large degree on the ability of their leaders to achieve public recognition. This capability- in turn- depends on the way in which they go about performing in Government positions and on the wider political context. The present article is based on a case study of citizen watchdog organizations, which appeared in Ecuador between 2000 and 2017, as part of social and political efforts to fight corruption in the country. The study examines press releases, reports, interviews and survey data from the following sources: Barómetro de las Américas, Latinobarómetro y Perfiles de Opinión. The scrutinized data provides valuable insights about how the capacity of leaders to achieve public recognition and expedite institutional consolidation is related to the ways in which ordinary citizens gain access to oversight organizations in three different political contexts. The article arrives at the conclusion that facilitating the involvement of grass-roots social organizations helps the consolidation of COO’s, especially in contexts of widespread political fragmentation, while, on the other hand, meritocracy by itself fails to promote recognition, particularly in settings where close and bitter political competition is prevalent.

The initial hearings of the criminal justice system are a space where, when deciding on the legality of detention, the police power to arrest people can be evaluated. This study analyses the control of detention in the criminal justice system of Mexico City based on two dimensions that have an impact on the better or worse protection of the rights of detainees by the police. The first, an informative dimension about the reconstruction of the "facts", the second, a political-normative dimension derived from the punitive context in which the justice system is questioned for releasing "criminals". Based on the observation of 776 initial hearings in criminal courts in Mexico City and interviews with judicial officials, we analyze 1. the balance of the information entered regarding detention; and 2. the difference in the result of detention control between priority crimes of public security policy versus other crimes. The results indicate that: a) the facts of a detention are reconstructed with a clear bias towards the views of police and prosecutors; and b) when dealing with crimes that are a priority for the city's crime policies, a detention is less likely to be declared illegality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to draw on elements related to the successful implementation of school-based management (SBM). Many studies show the success of governance but the objective is to examine whether SBM is tested to account for improving school effectiveness (SE) and student achievement (SA). A survey method design was used to know how the upper stream including political context, principal leadership and teacher performance (TP) contributes directly and indirectly to improve school quality and academic achievement. Questionnaires were given and were responded by teachers produced a model of direct and indirect structural relationships among the factors. The findings proved that there was a direct and indirect relationship between the upper stream factors that lead to TP to improve SE and SA as a lower stream. This shows how strong the role of a teacher as the central point of the innovation and education reform in schools. This study is limited to the secondary public schools in a marginal district. Furthermore, this study does not investigate deeply into facilitative factors within the implementation process. It focuses on factors that enable schools to bring the SA to scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade in the context of collapsing trust in major public and private institutions, Chilean society has engaged in massive social mobilizations culminating in 2019 with widespread rioting in rebellion against the neoliberal model. This socio‐political crisis raises the general question which this article addresses: How does such a fluid political, highly mobilized, and polarized social context influence school citizenship education? Focusing on features of curriculum and teacher‐held beliefs regarding democratic principles and forms of political participation, a mixed‐methods approach produces evidence which makes visible a consistent pattern of influence. First, we find evidence of an orientation in the curriculum towards critical active citizenship with a parallel silencing of key democratic processes and skills, like voting and deliberation. Second, we reveal a complex and ambivalent set of beliefs among teachers which combine both community and contentious—even illegal—forms of political participation, on the one hand, and formal political participation through voting as key, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the first wave of COVID-19 primarily impacted urban areas, subsequent waves were more widespread. Most analysis of Covid-19 rates examine state or metropolitan areas, ignoring potential heterogeneity within states and metro areas, over time, and between populations with differing contextual and compositional features. In this study, we compare spatial and temporal trends in Covid-19 cases and deaths in Louisiana, USA, over time and across populations and geographies (New Orleans, other urban areas, suburban, rural) and parish-level political lean. We employ publicly available longitudinal census tract and parish-level Covid-19 data reported from February 27th, 2020 to October 27th, 2021. We find that incidence and mortality rates were initially highest in New Orleans and Democratic areas and higher in other geographies and more conservative areas during subsequent waves. We also find wide relative disparities during the first wave, where increased social vulnerability was associated with increased positivity and incidence across geographies and political contexts. However, relative disparities diverged by geography and political lean and outcome across the remaining waves. This work draws attention to the differential rates of Covid-19 cases and deaths by geography, time, and population throughout the pandemic, and importance of political and geographic boundaries for rates of Covid-19.

In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Good Governance for Medicines (GGM) initiative, with the aim of fighting corruption in the pharmaceutical sector. In the case of Zimbabwe, implementation of the initiative slowed down after the development phase. Often, lack of funding and technical considerations are cited as major reasons for issue de-prioritization whilst ignoring the influence of politics in mediating policy diffusion. Between June and August 2021, we conducted an in-depth document review and interviewed individuals involved with GGM in Zimbabwe to understand the political determinants of GGM prioritization in Zimbabwe. To guide and direct our analysis, we used the Shiffman and Smith framework. We found that the inception of GGM was facilitated by capable leaders, effective guiding institutions and resonance of the idea with the political environment. Prioritization from inception to implementation was constrained by limited citizen engagement, restriction of the issue to the pharmaceutical domain and a political transition that re-oriented policy priorities and reconfigured individual actor power. The portrayal of corruption as a priority problem requiring policy action has been hampered by the political sensitivity of the issue, lack of credible indicators on the prevalence and severity of the problem and challenges to measure the effectiveness of interventions such as the GGM. Despite the slowdown, from 2018 GGM actors have taken advantage of momentous policy windows to reconstitute their power by opportunistically framing GGM within the broader framework of access to essential medicines leading to the creation of new policy alliances and establishment of strategic political structures. To sustain the political prioritization, actors need to lobby for the institutionalization of GGM within the Ministry of Health strategy, sensitize citizens on the initiative, involve multiple stakeholders and frame the issue as a strategic intervention that underpins pharmaceutical sector performance within the national developmental framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mülkiye Dergisi is the property of Mulkiye Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Voters usually differ in their assessment of the regime's legitimacy, depending on their status as winners or losers. However, how wide or narrow the winner–loser gap is also depends on the quality of democratic institutions. Using survey data from 18 Latin American countries, this research provides evidence that winners and losers respond differently to the quality of democracy. While most research is concerned with the losers' consent, this study shows that the winners express more favorable assessments of the supply of freedoms, even in regimes where democracy is weak or undermined by the deliberate efforts of the political authorities. Instead, in their perception of freedoms, losers are more willing to acknowledge if the quality of democracy improves or declines. These results suggest that the potential consequences of the winner–loser gap for regime stability are highly dependent on the democratic attributes of the political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research scrutinizes the content, spread, and implications of disinformation in Brazil's 2018 pre-election period. It focuses specifically on the most widely shared fake news about Lula da Silva and links these with the preexisting polarization and political radicalization, ascertaining the role of context. The research relied on a case study and mixed-methods approach that combined an online data collection of content, spread, propagators, and interactions' analyses, with in-depth analysis of the meaning of such fake news. The results show that the most successful fake news about Lula capitalized on prior hostility toward him, several originated or were spread by conservative right-wing politicians and mainstream journalists, and that the pro-Lula fake news circulated in smaller networks and had overall less global reach. Facebook and WhatsApp were the main dissemination platforms of these contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how contracting decisions can be influenced by organizational contexts, managerial strategies, and the interaction between the environment and strategies, building on Miles and Snow's strategy typology—prospectors, defenders, and reactors. Our empirical evidence shows that the fragmented political context affects contracting decisions and only the reactor strategy leads to less contracting. Moreover, the impact of top-level managers' particular strategic stances on contracting decisions becomes greater as fiscal power is centralized within a relatively simpler intergovernmental political setting. Likewise, a higher level of financial deficiency can ameliorate the negative effect of a defender strategy on contracting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]