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This article examines the impact of the two world wars on welfare legislation in 16 western countries. We use Poisson regressions to test our hypothesis that war was a catalyst of welfare legislation, especially in countries that were heavily exposed to the dreadful effects of war. By welfare legislation, we mean the inaugural adoption and major reforms across four programmes (old age and disability benefits, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment compensation and family allowances). Our findings suggest that both world wars are key factors for explaining the timing of comprehensive welfare reforms and outweigh the significance of other factors such as regime type or level of economic development.

Empirical studies over the past decades have repeatedly shown the limited usefulness of harsh punishment in reducing crime. In response to these research results, historical approaches to crime reduction, such as mediation and restorative justice, have regained prominence, especially in Germany and other western European countries. The women's movement and the growing role of victimology have contributed to the increased use of these methods as alternatives to incarceration. The debates across these countries vary depending on the historical background of the penal climate in these states, which particularly explains the differences between Eastern and Western European countries in this regard. Empirical studies show the positive impact of mediation on offenders as well as victims. Yet in spite of these results, in most countries, including Germany, the use of mediation remains limited, especially in regard to adult offenders. At the same time, the uses of mediation in non-criminal conflict settings, such as schools, family or work disputes have increased significantly with positive results.

There is wide recognition that in the non-Western world profound social and cultural changes are taking place as traditional societies have been exposed to the ideas and the ways of the West. There is also general agreement that new political patterns and relationships are evolving in these countries. However, with respect to most non-Western countries, it remains difficult to foresee whether the consequences of social change are to be stable, viable political practices or endemic instabilities in government. In many cases, it is still an open question whether the future will bring them a liberal democratic form of politics or some type of authoritarian rule such as communism.This state of affairs can be a challenge to the comparative method of political analysis. This is particularly so because most of the non-Western political systems have many features in common. They are generally the product of a traditional past in which the administration of government was the preserve of a select few. Many show the influence of a previous colonial rule, some even that of the same country. More important, they are often quite self-conscious about the problem of moving from a definite past to an idealized future.

A long standing area of debate in Western countries is that of the appropriate philosophy for facilitating large scale immigration; should immigrants preserve their traditions and culture while living in the host country (integration/multiculturalism) or should they assimilate themselves into the ways and manners of their hosts? The ways that nations go about resolving this issue goes to the heart of internal policy formulation on immigration but is also influential to the image that the country projects overseas. Countries are often labeled according to the official views of their Governments. For example, France might be classed as essentially assimilationist and Britain as multi-cultural, whereas the Netherlands and Germany might be seen as somewhere between the two, but how did these policy differences come about and do they accurately reflect the views of the majority of residents of the various countries? This paper addresses part of this issue by seeking to identify and analyse the characteristics of those people in Western countries who think that immigrants should assimilate culturally and how they differ from those who think that immigrants should preserve a separate cultural existence? By doing so, it seeks to explain why these inter-country differences in views exist and whether they are caused primarily by attribute effects (the composition of the population) or by coefficient effects (the strength of the views they hold). This study exploits a unique set of data provided by The Human Beliefs and Values Survey to identify and to estimate the strength of those factors which lead people to favour cultural integration over multiculturalism for immigrants. In doing so, it provides Governments with a snapshot of contemporary views on this increasingly important issue and how these views may shift as demographic characteristics alter.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of both directions of work‐family conflict (WFC), work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW) in an Eastern culture. Findings are compared with those of 14 other Western studies and the relationships among WIF, FIW and job, family, community and life satisfaction are explored.Design/methodology/approachThis study is conducted in Malaysia, a country with Islam as the official religion. Data are obtained from 506 employees in three public and three private sector organizations. Questionnaires are distributed via human resource managers.FindingsResults show that similar to Western studies, WIF scores are higher than FIW scores. Malaysians are significantly lower on WIF than Westerners. Nevertheless, Malaysians score significantly higher on FIW than all Western samples. Within the Malaysian sample, FIW also has a stronger negative relationship with all facets of satisfaction and WIF has a positive relationship with family satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsCross‐sectional data are presented which could result in common method bias.Practical implicationsOrganizations can assist in minimizing WIF and FIW by providing family‐friendly policies and parenting related programmes. The importance of family in an individual's life in Eastern cultures is different than in Western cultures. Therefore multi‐national companies operating in Eastern settings would be well‐advised to take cultural aspects such as collectivism into consideration.Originality/valueThe study provides insights into Eastern experiences of WIF and FIW compared with Western experiences. The study expands previous studies by measuring both directions of WFC and employing a heterogeneous sample (e.g. not just female, those married, those with children).