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Nationality laws always cover birthplace & bloodline & usually include marital status & residence. Each nation-state mixes these features & specifies techniques by which to acquire citizenship in particular ways. Differences & similarities in nationality law among 25 states (EU states, Australia, Canada, the US, Israel, Mexico, Russian, & South Africa) are analyzed, taking legal tradition & disconnection between territory & constituted population into consideration. Over the last two centuries, historical traditions were modified when contradictions occurred in the application of traditional law. Convergences in nationality laws have occurred because of the need to stabilize borders, pursue democratic values, & deal with immigration. More inclusive (jus soli) regimes have become slightly more restrictive & blood-based descent (jus sanguinis) regimes less restrictive. Four state types are described. 14 References. M. Pflum

Objectives. Despite the emergence of environmental concern worldwide, the social forces underlying its expression are not well understood. This research extends previous cross‐national studies by employing multi‐item indicators of environmental concern in order to more accurately portray concern for the environment as a multifaceted concept and to determine whether the sources of environmental concern are similar among industrialized countries.Methods. Survey data from the ISSP 2000 Environment data set are analyzed for 19 countries.Results. The findings are threefold. First, there are some remarkably consistent influences on both measures of concern for the environment. Second, some differences remain, which are linked with measuring environmental concern. Third, these results suggest that models explaining environmental concerns appear to operate similarly in this sample of industrialized countries.Conclusions. This investigation provides a baseline for future research to introduce additional cases and correlates to empirically test explanations regarding environmental concern's global reach.

The European Parliament (EP) has one of the highest proportions of women in its ranks, with over a third in 2009. Although previous research has pointed to the use of proportional representation (PR) in European elections as 'friendlier' to women, few have looked at differences in the types of PR rules in use in each country. In this article, we argue that the conventional wisdom according to which institutional design—the choice of electoral rules—should shape the composition of the EP does not hold, and suggest that the well-documented empirical connection between electoral rules and descriptive representation might in fact be an endogenous rather than a causal relationship.

It has been shown that there is an association between low intelligence and unemployment among individuals within nations. We explore the question of whether this relationship is present across nations. We find that national rates of unemployment for 107 nations, averaged for the years 2001 and 2008, are correlated with national IQs at r = -0.66, and national IQ therefore explains 43.5% of the national variance in unemployment. Corrected for unreliability of both variables, the correlation between national IQ and rates of unemployment is r = -0.756 and national IQ explains 57.2% of the national differences in unemployment. Variations in economic freedom independently account for another 12.9% of national rates of unemployment. Adapted from the source document.

A comparison of Japan's & Switzerland's immigration policies disclaims both globalist & public choice explanations that would predict a similar increase in immigrant numbers & an expansion of immigrant rights in liberal democracies. Although both countries have traditionally espoused a rather exclusionary approach toward immigration, Japan is unique in having hitherto succeeded in pre-empting large numbers of immigrants from entering the country & in having avoided the legal & societal integration of those migrants already present in its territory. In seeking to explain the different trajectories followed by immigration politics in Japan & Switzerland, despite their similar internal & external economic constellations, this article highlights the role of domestic institutions & norms in filtering economic pressure for immigration. Whereas these internal determinants explain to a large degree why Switzerland has become a country of immigration while Japan has not, the central factor explaining the recent expansion of foreign residents' rights in Switzerland lies not so much in internal determinants but in the country's progressing approximation to the European Union & its single market. Notwithstanding these differences, the article concludes that Japan's greater resistance to change might now have reached a critical juncture, where demographic pressure & economic demand will make an opening up to increased labor migration unavoidable. 63 References. Adapted from the source document.