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Although sanitation is a core element of healthy family and community life and an important indicator of social development, it has not received the sociological attention it deserves. Based on an analysis of both rural and urban areas cutting across diverse social groups, this article shows that the sanitation in India is not only a rural but also an urban problem, particularly in the context of growing industrialisation, coupled with concomitant rapid urbanisation and expansion of cities. The article unveils the link between poor sanitation, especially preference for open defecation among rural folks with peoples' practices and perceptions, which are deeply rooted in cultural norms. Ultimately, it is argued that it is not the resources but rather the beliefs, practices and customs of people related to health and environment that matter in improving the sanitary conditions in India

Shaj Mohan and Divya Dwivedi, Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theoretical Anti-politics. New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2019, ix + 272 pp., ₹799 (hardback). ISBN 978-93-88414-43-2.

This article draws on official sources to investigate how New Zealand interpreted its Women, Peace and Security obligations through the development and implementation of its first National Action Plan (NAP) in 2015. Existing beliefs that New Zealand was already a 'world leader' in this field yielded an unambitious document. Government agencies such as the New Zealand Police (NZ Police) and New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) have gone on to make some gains under the narrow remit of the NAP, but resourcing and accountability are lacking. Moreover, this focus on perceived existing strengths, and the drawing of objectives from these, meant that New Zealand missed an opportunity to initiate the kind of deeper structural changes initially envisaged by WPS advocates. This article therefore closes with a discussion of how two broader processes – 're-gendering' and 'de-othering' – could help New Zealand to better serve the original intent of the WPS agenda.

In recent years, research on the incumbency effect using a regression discontinuity design has flourished. Although the regression discontinuity design has allowed scholars to examine the incumbency effect in various electoral settings, previous studies have not measured what has traditionally been defined as the incumbency (dis)advantage. In this paper, I bring together methods from previous research, provide a consistent exposition thereof, and highlight some of the challenges of estimation and interpretation by applying these methods to election data from 10 different electoral settings.

In this study, I examine whether the effect of biased media can be reduced when voters have an alternative source of political information. Specifically, I investigate whether the introduction of television mitigated the effect of partisan press on U.S. presidential elections from 1944 to 1964. I first show that newspaper coverage of presidential campaigns during this period was affected by newspapers' party affiliations and their readers' political preferences. The main finding of this study is that television decreased the correlation between the circulation of partisan newspapers and parties' vote share. The results suggest that the existence of centrist media can make voters less susceptible to partisan media.

Satish Sharma, Quakerism, Its Legacy, and Its Relevance for Gandhian Research. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, xvi + 316 pp., £64.99 (hardback). ISBN (10): 1-5275-0010-1.