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In recent years, there has been a fast-growing body of literature on the sources of social trust. However, empirical studies focusing on non-Western societies are rare. To fill the gap, this study is intended to explore both the individual and contextual sources of social trust in rural China. This study uses hierarchical linear models to analyze the multilevel foundations of social trust based upon a unique two-level data set from the China General Social Survey (CGSS) conducted nationwide at both the individual and village level in rural China. The results indicate that Chinese villagers markedly differentiate between the particularized and generalized forms of trust. While particularized trust is strongly influenced by both personal experiences and subjective orientations, generalized trust is closely associated with one's basic values (i.e., norms of civility). Moreover, both types of trust are very unevenly distributed in rural China, and geographically dispersed villages tend to strongly constrain the development of social trust. Given the complex nature of social trust, these results suggest that more sophisticated studies should be introduced to map how its forms and magnitudes vary across localities. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the effectiveness of political parties in relation to political finance and intra-party democracy in Pakistan. The aim of the article is to offer an objective understanding of these variables and suggest a model for the effectiveness of political parties. Primary data was collected from a sample of 1000 respondents from eight different but politically relevant parties. The respondents have diverse socio-political backgrounds and positions in parties hailing from all the provinces of Pakistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir – a semi-autonomous territory under the administration of Pakistan. The instrument was developed and its validity and reliability were ensured. For empirical verification, extensive statistical tests were carried out, including validity and reliability analysis, standard regression and correlation, to test the assumptions of the research. Statistical analysis established that the independent variables are very significant in explaining the relationship with the dependent variable. Overall, most of the political parties are not internally democratic as they do not follow laid-down democratic processes in electing leadership and candidate selection, the findings revealed. Political parties are monopolized by personalities with weak organization and are institutionally fragile and compromise on their ideological foundation by preferring political expediency while decision making. Likewise, parties also rank poor in political finance as they rarely follow legal and administrative requirements laid down by the Election Commission of Pakistan on political finance. This has a direct bearing upon party effectiveness, as poor intraparty and weak political finance hinder party development as effective institutions aiming to aggregate the interests of the masses. The parties must ensure inclusiveness in choice making, build formal democratic decision-making structures and reinforce the key procedures for political financing. Moreover, political parties should be transparent and responsive towards democratic values and institutional practices to increase their effectiveness.

Ersan, Nilufer/0000-0001-7039-7099 ; WOS:000413923600006 ; PubMed: 28161969 ; The aims of this study were to identify sources of stress among clinical students and to evaluate the students' perceived levels of stress, general self-efficacy and effective coping strategies in a private dental school environment. The study group consisted of 130 undergraduate clinical dental students in a Turkish private dental school, during the academic year 2014-2015. The students were surveyed using modified version of the dental environment stress (DES) survey, the perceived stress scale, the general self-efficacy scale (G-SES) and the brief coping scale. Age, sex, year of study, history of psychiatric treatment and factors that affected the choice of dentistry were also recorded. Final year and female clinical dental students, who were found to be the most stressful students, had moderate to high perceived stress scores. Total and Faculty and administration' related DES scores increased with the year of study. Stressors related to Workload' and Clinical training' affected females more than males. G-SES scores were higher in male students and students, who had no history of psychiatric treatment. The most and the least common coping strategies were Planning' and Substance abuse', respectively. Religion' was found to be one of the main coping strategies. Stress factors affecting Turkish clinical dental students studying at private dental school differed from the previously reported stress factors affecting students studying at a governmental dental school. Advanced year and female students experienced more stress than the other students.

This study examines how socially-conscious Bengali filmmakers in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India used cinema as a means of political action and came to grips with urgent social and political issues in films made between 1970 and 2002. It focuses on alternative, non-commercial and off-beat feature films because Bengali films that appear to be strong indictments of social and political injustices are produced by directors working outside the commercial film industry. Bengali films produced outside the dominant film industry depart from the conventions and values associated with the entertainment-driven cinema. Bengali alternative filmmakers often employ innovative c1nemabc techniques to convey political criticisms. These Bengali films marked by formal experimentation and political commitment are recognised as politically critical in form and content. This study specifically asks the following questions: how do these serious Bengali filmmakers use cinema as a means of political action? How do these films intervene in a crisis situation? A key follow-up question is: Do these films deal with the actual causes of social injustice, or merely show the effects of social problems? Through the detailed analysis of four specific films, my thesis seeks to discuss and analyse the above questions in order to gain an understanding of Bengali politically critical films. The study also examines how these filmmakers make overt political statements and use cinema language to indict contemporary problems. Another question that is germane to my thesis is: how do these Bengali filmmakers employ strategies of Third Cinema in their political films? In my thesis, Third Cinema theory is used as the main conceptual framework to examine Bengali politically oriented films. The study also draws on various theoretical concepts of political cinema in order to analyse these Bengali films. Using case studies from West Bengal and Bangladesh, the study argues that these Bengali films retain Third Cinema characteristics and they fit within the ...

The scientific issues that face society today are increasingly complex, open-ended and tentative (Sadler, 2004). Finding solutions to these issues, not only requires an understanding of the science, but also, concurrently dealing with political, social, and economic dimensions that exist (Hodson, 2003). For example, 40 years after the first congressional hearing on climate change held by Al Gore in 1976, the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that climate change is still getting worse, despite efforts by governments, businesses, social actors such as Non-Government Organizations, and scientists. With the top minds in the world, across all disciplines, backed with government and corporate funding pursuing the same goal of resolving human impact on climate change, why haven't we resolved the situation? What strategies might be employed to increase effective action?

Since field experiments in democratic politics influence citizens and the relationships among citizens, they are freighted with normative significance. Yet the distinctively democratic concerns that bear upon such field experiments have not yet been systematically examined. In this paper, we taxonomize such democratic concerns. Our goal is not to justify any of them, but rather to reveal their basic structure, so that they can be scrutinized at further length. We argue that field experiments could be democratically objectionable even if they are not decisive – even if they do not swing the results of elections or other political decisions. Rather, if a class of campaign experiments is objectionable, one reason for this is that they undermine citizens' equal standing. The ideal of equal standing affords nuanced judgments about the permissibility of field experiments in democratic politics.

Social scientists should seek greater involvement in interdisciplinary scientific committees, which often play important roles in natural resource management. In addition to our acknowledged areas of expertise, we have the ability to educate other disciplines about social sciences &, importantly, about the realities of biophysical science input into policy processes. Two examples are worth noting. First, the asymmetry of scientific challenge can mean that biophysical science views/interpretations with favorable implications for organized groups' interests may have been "accepted" with little scrutiny, relative to work having unfavorable implications. Second & paradoxically, the structure of decision making can mean that preferences for "scientific caution" will result in resource management decisions that are anything but cautious. These & other observations need to be tested through participant observation by a greater number of social scientists on scientific committees in the future. 41 References. Adapted from the source document.

"Léon Brunschvicg's contribution to philosophical thought in fin-de-siècle France receives full explication in the first English-language study on his work. Arguing that Brunschvicg is crucial to understanding the philosophical schools which took root in 20th-century France, Pietro Terzi locates Brunschvicg alongside his contemporary Henri Bergson, as well as the range of thinkers he taught and influenced, including Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Brunschvicg's deep engagement with debates concerning spiritualism and rationalism, neo-Kantian philosophy, and the role of mathematics in philosophy made him the perfect supervisor for a whole host of nascent philosophical ideas which were forming in the work of his students. Terzi outlines Brunchvicg's defence of neo-Kantian judgement, historical analysis and the inextricability of the natural and humanist sciences to any rigorous system of philosophy, with wide-ranging implications for contemporary scholarship"--

"This volume of essays provides a comprehensive overview of nuclear disarmament and a critical assessment of the way forward. Comprising essays by leading scholars on nuclear disarmament, the book highlights arguments in favour and against a world without nuclear weapons (Global Zero). In doing so, it proposes a new baseline from which an everchanging nuclear arms control and disarmament agenda can be assessed. Numerous paths to nuclear disarmament have been proposed and scrutinized, and with an increasing number of countries signing off on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, it is vital to ask which path is most the most likely and realistic to succeed. The essays here also address the rapid pace of technological, political and climatic developments, in relation to nuclear disarmament, and how they add to the complexity of the issue. Taking care to unite the different tribes in the debate, this book provides a community of dissent at a time when academic tribalism all too often prevent genuine debates from taking place. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, arms control, security studies and International Relations"--

The article investigates the political mechanisms specific to contemporary Romanian politics and political parties, as well as those social representations related to gender roles and the
definition of family that have contributed to maintaining a low level of women participation in
Romanian politics after 1989. In a first part, it sets the conceptual context through a review of the
main theoretical approaches for the political representation of women, with an emphasis on
gender studies' cognitive dimension. Second, it connects a quantitative evaluation of women's
presence in the Romanian post communist parliament with a qualitative analysis of public (i.e.
mass media) discourse of the rejected legislative proposal to introduce gender quotas in various
political and social processes. The author finds that, beyond the dynamics of political elites'
recruitment and the functioning of the political "game", the ideological options and social
representations that emphasize the differences between men and women, as well the central role
of family in building gender roles play an essential part in maintaining a low number of women
within the Parliament.