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This book provides an innovative theoretical and empirical exploration of the political participation and democratic capability of people living in authoritarian states. Merging perspectives from sociology and political science, the book demonstrates that despite autocratic restrictions on opposition, there is often still leeway for people to express themselves as political agents and to develop democratic capability. The first two chapters problematise political participation and develop an interdisciplinary three-domain framework that allows for critical engagement with and appreciation of the contexts and varied ways in which participatory activities occur. This framework is applied to analyse six country case studies: Singapore, Jordan, Belarus, Cuba, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Drawing on a range of data sources and different analytical entry points, the book investigates the substantive opportunities people have in exercising political agency and the implications for democratic capability. The book concludes by summarising the emergent themes and examining the potential of applying this method of inquiry in other political contexts. Encompassing both governmental and societal practices, the book offers insights into state-society relations and their role in constructing political values and goals for participation, which people negotiate and mediate to inform their choices, modes, and forms of civic engagement. These insights present a broad approach towards the study of participation, with relevance for understanding political participation in various societies under non-democratic and democratic rule alike. This book will be useful for researchers and students interested in political dynamics and intersections with economic, cultural, and social aspects of development. It will also be beneficial for practitioners interested in participatory actions and social change

Since the release of the first wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, the causes of the large euro area differences in private net wealth inequality have been at the forefront of the political debate. This paper assesses the quantitative importance of cross-country differences in labor market risks and social security institutions for euro area differences in private net wealth inequality. I document the empirical puzzle that euro area countries with the largest reduction in the income Gini coefficient through public transfers and with most generous welfare states, robustly show a higher inequality in private net wealth. Going back to the argument by Hubbard et al. (1995) that public insurance crowds out private savings especially of the poor, I construct a life cycle model with heterogeneous households and incomplete markets that features exogenous labor market risks, social transfers and public and occupational pensions. Calibrating the model to the actual euro area differences in the gross earnings process, unemployment dynamics and social security systems, it can account for 61.2% of the cross-country differences in the net wealth Gini coefficients for the bottom 95% of the wealth distribution. The model results suggest that welfare policies contribute with 47.3% to the wealth inequality differences across the euro area, while gross earnings inequality and unemployment can rationalize 13.9%.

This book provides an innovative theoretical and empirical exploration of the political participation and democratic capability of people living in authoritarian states. Merging perspectives from sociology and political science, the book demonstrates that despite autocratic restrictions on opposition, there is often still leeway for people to express themselves as political agents and to develop democratic capability. The first two chapters problematise political participation and develop an interdisciplinary three-domain framework that allows for critical engagement with and appreciation of the contexts and varied ways in which participatory activities occur. This framework is applied to analyse six country case studies: Singapore, Jordan, Belarus, Cuba, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Drawing on a range of data sources and different analytical entry points, the book investigates the substantive opportunities people have in exercising political agency and the implications for democratic capability. The book concludes by summarising the emergent themes and examining the potential of applying this method of inquiry in other political contexts. Encompassing both governmental and societal practices, the book offers insights into state-society relations and their role in constructing political values and goals for participation, which people negotiate and mediate to inform their choices, modes, and forms of civic engagement. These insights present a broad approach towards the study of participation, with relevance for understanding political participation in various societies under non-democratic and democratic rule alike. This book will be useful for researchers and students interested in political dynamics and intersections with economic, cultural, and social aspects of development. It will also bebeneficial for practitioners interested in participatory actions and social change.

Drawing on Amartya Sen's concept of agency and capability, this article explores political participation in three dimensions: individual dispositions, opportunities for participation, and processes of participation. It presents an analytical approach that examines these dimensions in relation to practices of participation as interactions between the State and citizens within and outside of political institutions. Two examples are used to illustrate the utility of this approach in states where democratic institutions are deficient. The first example historically traces the evolution of tribal informal institutions in Jordan to demonstrate how and why they mediate people's participation in the public sphere. The second example uses narrative inquiry to explore community activists' aspiration for and commitment to political expression through social media in Vietnam. Both examples suggest that a country's political institutions and its rule of law may shape political cultures and societal values of participation, but it is the individuals' recognition and response to these structures that ultimately create their motivations and the opportunities for them to participate. The article emphasises the importance of understanding the contexts in which the respective tradition of political participation takes place in order to understand the outcomes as well as the conditions for participation, especially in contexts that theoretically qualify as authoritarian.

This paper examines the influence of personal values and social norms on sustainable lifestyles in the Vietnamese context, a transition country. We built an integrated research model by combining social norms with personal values to test their effect on two sustainable behaviors, including water and energy use and sustainable mobility. A self-administration online survey was conducted to collect data. After four months, 385 valid responses were received. Structural equation modeling analysis was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings reveal that water and energy use is positively influenced by biospheric values, egoistic values, and social norms. Moreover, sustainable mobility is positively affected by egoistic values and social norms. Notably, hedonic values have no impact on both water and energy use and sustainable mobility. As a result, this present study sheds light on the sustainable lifestyles of people in a transition economy and highlights the quest for more research on this topic in Vietnam. It is suggested that the government, policymakers, and other institutions should collaborate to implement social campaigns to promote sustainable lifestyles in Vietnam. Furthermore, the traditional cultural values should be notified to encourage young Vietnamese people to take action to protect the environment for our future generations.

Background: Vietnam has achieved great improvements in maternal healthcare outcomes, but there is evidence of increasing inequity. Disadvantaged groups, predominantly ethnic minorities and people living in remote mountainous areas, do not gain access to maternal health improvements despite targeted efforts from policymakers. Objective: This study identifies underlying structural barriers to equitable maternal health care in Nghe An province, Vietnam. Experiences of social inequity and limited access among child-bearing ethnic and minority women are explored in relation to barriers of care provision experienced by maternal health professionals to gain deeper understanding on health outcomes. Design: In 2012, 11 focus group discussions with women and medical care professionals at local community health centers and district hospitals were conducted using a hermeneutic-dialectic method and analyzed for interpretation using framework analysis. Results: The social determinants 'limited negotiation power' and 'limited autonomy' orchestrate cyclical effects of shared marginalization for both women and care professionals within the provincial health system's infrastructure. Under-staffed and poorly equipped community health facilities referwomen and create overload at receiving health centers. Limited resources appear diverted away from local community centers as compensation to the district for overloaded facilities. Poor reputation for low care quality exists, and professionals are held in low repute for causing overload and resulting adverse outcomes. Country-wide reforms force women to bear responsibility for limited treatment adherence and health insight, but overlook providers' limited professional development. Ethnic minority women are hindered by relatives from accessing care choices and costs, despite having advanced insight about government reforms to alleviate poverty. Communication challenges are worsened by non-existent interpretation systems. Conclusions: For maternal health policy outcomes to become effective, it is important to understand that limited negotiation power and limited autonomy simultaneously confront childbearing women and health professionals. These two determinants underlie the inequitable economic, social, and political forces in Vietnam's disadvantaged communities, and result in marginalized status shared by both in the poorest sectors.

Pesticide residues in vegetables (watercress, mustard green, choy sum, daikon, okra, and yam) from Mekong Delta, Vietnam were analysed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS). QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, Safe) extraction, matrix-matched calibration, and dynamic multiple reaction monitoring methods were used. The linear range used was 5 - 200 ng/mL, resulting in R2 > 0.99. The recovery was satisfactory with values within 74.47 - 116.93%, and the RSD was < 15% for most compounds. The percentage of samples with residues above the maximum residue levels (MRLs) was 59%. Pesticide residues were detected above their MRLs in samples of watercress (47%), mustard green (80%), choy sum (83%), daikon (87%), and yam (60%). The results indicated the prevalence of pesticide residues in commonly consumed vegetables in Vietnam, and emphasised the urgent need to develop comprehensive intervention measures to reduce the potential health risk to consumers.

Beim PHF Scientific Use File (SUF) Welle 2 Version 4.0 handelt es sich um die dritte aktualisierte Version des PHF Datensatzes der zweiten Welle. Er besteht aus den folgenden fünf Sata-Dateien: PHF_h_wave2_v4_0.dta, PHF_p_wave2_v4_0.dta, PHF_m_wave2_v4_0.dta, PHF_d_wave2_v4_0.dta und PHF_w_wave2_v4_0.dta.
Die wichtigsten Änderungen im PHF SUF Welle 2 Version 4.0 im Vergleich zur Vorgängerversion PHF SUF Welle 2 Version 3.0 sind wie folgt:

Editieren und Korrektur einiger Werte.
Die Definition der Derived Variables wurde soweit möglich über alle Wellen vereinheitlicht.

Weiter Informationen finden Sie im PHF User Guide auf den Webseiten der Deutsche Bundesbank.

The PHF scientific use file Wave 2 Version 3.0 data set is the second updated version of the wave 2 PHF data set and consists of the following five Stata files: PHF_h_wave2_v3_0.dta, PHF_p_wave2_v3_0.dta, PHF_m_wave2_v3_0.dta, PHF_d_wave2_v3_0.dta and PHF_w_wave2_v3_0.dta.
The major changes in SUF Wave 2 Version 3.0 compared to SUF Wave 2 Version 2.0 are as follows:

Editing and correction of some values.

For more details, see the PHF User Guide on website of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

The PHF scientific use file Wave 2 Version 2.0 data set is the first updated version of the wave 2 PHF data set and consists of the following five Stata files: PHF_h_wave2_v2_0.dta, PHF_p_wave2_v2_0.dta, PHF_m_wave2_v2_0.dta, PHF_d_wave2_v2_0.dta and PHF_w_wave2_v2_0.dta.
The major changes in SUF Wave 2 Version 2.0 compared to SUF Wave 2 Version 1.0 are as follows:

A set of derived variables has been included (PHF_d_wave2_v2_0.dta)
An improved imputation algorithm (especially with regard to the gross/net income conversion) was used to update the data
The replicate weights (PHF_w_wave2_v2_0.dta) and cross-sectional household weights (in PHF_h_wave2_v2_0.dta) were newly calibrated using updated population statistics
Additional editing and correction of some values.

For more details, see the PHF User Guide on website of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Beim PHF Scientific Use File (SUF) Welle 3 Version 2.0 handelt es sich um die erste aktualisierte Version des PHF Datensatzes der dritten Welle. Er besteht aus den folgenden fünf Sata-Dateien: PHF_h_wave3_v2_0.dta, PHF_p_wave3_v2_0.dta, PHF_m_wave3_v2_0.dta, PHF_d_wave3_v2_0.dta und PHF_w_wave3_v2_0.dta.
Die wichtigsten Änderungen im PHF SUF Welle 3 Version 2.0 im Vergleich zur Vorgängerversion PHF SUF Welle 3 Version 1.0 sind:

Editieren und Korrektur einiger Werte.
Der Datensatz enthält zusätzliche Variablen.
Die Definition der Derived Variables wurde soweit möglich über alle Wellen vereinheitlicht.

Weiter Informationen finden Sie im PHF User Guide auf den Webseiten der Deutsche Bundesbank.

The PHF scientific use file Wave 3 Version 1.0 data set is the first version of the wave 3 PHF data set and consists of the following five Stata files: PHF_h_wave3_v1_0.dta, PHF_p_wave3_v1_0.dta, PHF_m_wave3_v1_0.dta, PHF_d_wave3_v1_0.dta and PHF_w_wave3_v1_0.dta.
For more details, see the PHF User Guide on website of the Deutsche Bundesbank.