Citizens Of Countries Research Articles

National identity, cosmopolitanism, and attitudes toward immigrants

This study examines the effects of national and cosmopolitan self-identity on xenophobic attitudes across 33 countries with a multilevel analysis of data from the National Identity Module III of the International Social Survey Programme. Of primary interest is how country contexts are intertwined with the sense of national belonging to predict individuals’ anti-immigrant attitudes. The study finds that individuals with a stronger ethnicity-based national identity tend to evidence stronger xenophobia. Net of the individual-level effect of ethnic national identity, citizens of countries with a higher average of ethnic national identity also tend to be more xenophobic. Interestingly, the link between ethnic national identity and xenophobia is stronger in countries where this perspective is not shared as strongly. In the seemingly more ‘open’ country context, individuals’ belief in the requirement of ancestral roots for national membership may entail stronger exclusivism as a fringe ideology.

National pride, social trust, and cultural nativism: Findings from East and Southeast Asia

Using the latest (fourth) wave of Asian Barometer Survey (2014–2016), this study examines how national pride and two types of trust (general and particular) are related to nativist preference (cultural nativism), independent of anti-immigration attitudes, among citizens in East and Southeast Asian countries. Findings from multilevel models show that, at the individual level, national pride and particular trust are positively related to cultural nativism, while general trust is negatively related. At the subnational-regional level, we also find significant contextual effects. Living in geographic areas with greater national pride is positively associated with nativist preference, as is residency in places with higher levels of particular trust. In contrast, residency in subnational contexts with higher levels of general trust is negatively associated. Finally, the association between national pride and cultural nativism is stronger in regions with greater contextual national pride.

Cyber4Dev‐Q: Calibrating cyber awareness in the developing country context

AbstractCitizens of the hyper‐connected world face tremendous challenges in managing their personal online risks; that is to preserve their cyber safety, cyber security and cyber privacy. Governments allocate significant resources to raising awareness about these three areas among their citizens to equip them to manage their online risks. To ensure maximum efficacy, these endeavors must be able to gauge existing levels of awareness to ensure that awareness‐creation drives target population‐level awareness gaps. A number of excellent and rigorously developed questionnaires exist for this purpose. However, these may not be as accurate in revealing awareness gaps and issues in developing countries. Developing country citizens face a range of context‐specific challenges, distinct from those faced by developed country citizens. These are likely to impact their cyber awareness development and maintenance. A context‐sensitive cyber awareness measurement instrument designed for such a context has a better chance of revealing particular awareness aspects requiring attention. To meet this need, we developed and validated a cyber awareness questionnaire, the cyber awareness calibration instrument for developing countries (Cyber4Dev‐Q), for use in developing countries to measure the cyber awareness of their citizens in all three core cyber areas in a context‐sensitive fashion.

Mental health and discrimination among migrants from Africa: An Italian cross-sectional study.

This study aimed to assess depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and discrimination in African migrants and investigate determinants. A cross‐sectional study was conducted in Italy (July 2019–February 2020). Inclusion criteria: being a citizen of an African country or having parents who are citizens of an African country. Questionnaires included tests for depression, anxiety, PTSD, discrimination. Multivariable regressions were performed. Participants were 293. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and PTSD was: 12.1%, 12.1%, and 24.4%. Only 7.2% declared not to be discriminated. Among significantly associated factors, waiting for/being in possession of temporary permits and discrimination were associated with all mental outcomes. Being (or having parents from) Sub‐Saharan Africa increased the likelihood of discrimination. A relevant prevalence of mental illnesses was reported. Particularly, Sub‐Saharan Africans potentially offer a unique point of view. Migrants' mental health should be a priority for national and international programs of health monitoring.

Post-communist Burden Influence on the Perception of Crea-tive Identities: Consequences for Managers and Leaders

Purpose: Communism, being one of the most repressive systems, influences the whole spec-trum of behaviors of individuals, groups, and society. Countries that changed their politi-cal system start a journey of external (economic, social) and internal (personal, interper-sonal, group) changes. The post-communist burden determines human behavior, and man-agers and leaders should pay attention to these consequences. The research deals with the perception of creative identities (a creator, artist, manager, entrepreneur, and leader) by the society of post-communist countries compared to countries without communist history. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitive research (n = 160) among people from a dozen nations; chi-square test of independence used; qualitative analysis of feature differences. Findings: There are no statistical differences in the perception of the creative identities of a creator, artist, manager, entrepreneur, and leader between citizens of post-communist and non-communist countries. Practical implications: The study in perception of the particular creative identities might have practical implications for managers and leaders of groups, and business organiza-tions dominated or not by creative individuals. These differences are shown in detail, and links between this research results and the literature are built. Originality value: The originality of the research lies in the conclusion that societies that finished their intercourse with communism more than one generation ago (ca. 30 years) should be perceived similarly to non-communist societies. Perception of the creative indi-viduals' social capital by these societies does not show essential discrepancies.

Agents of past principals: The lasting effects of incumbents on the political ideology of bureaucrats

AbstractUnderstanding representation is central to politics. Numerous studies assess under which conditions politicians share citizens’ ideological preferences. However, under which conditions bureaucrats share citizens’ ideological preferences has not been systematically studied. Yet, bureaucratic preferences shape policy outcomes. Our paper thus studies why bureaucrats are more right or left‐wing than citizens in some countries and points of time, yet not others. We theorize that political ideologies of past incumbents shape this variation. Incumbents can select ideologically aligned bureaucrats and socialize bureaucrats into ideological preferences; moreover, prospective bureaucrats may self‐select into ideologically aligned governments. As bureaucratic tenure exceeds political tenure, this politicization has lasting effects. Survey data from 87 countries supports this argument: bureaucrats are more left‐leaning than citizens in countries with longer prior rule by economically left‐wing governments, and more right‐wing in countries with more authoritarian pasts. This suggests that incumbents continue to shape the ideological preferences of bureaucrats after leaving office.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s desire for liberal democracy: civil society to the rescue?

In the context of the global recession of democracy, this article engages with sub-Saharan Africa’s so-called ‘democratic’ deficit. Three arguments are presented. First, sub-Saharan Africa’s challenge is less a democratic deficit than it is a liberal deficit. The political elite are content to use the electoral mechanism to gain access to power but are thereafter resistant to restraints on that power. Second, organised civil society can contribute to addressing this deficit by contending for civil liberties and holding political authority accountable. Third, sub-Saharan Africa’s deeply religious society can contribute towards the development of such a civil society. The study engages with secondary data analysis using survey data from Afrobarometer to determine sub-Saharan Africa’s ‘deficit’ and whether religion can contribute to the development of civil society in the region. From the survey data it was found that citizens of sub-Saharan African countries understand democracy in its liberal form – ensuring civil liberties and personal freedoms. Furthermore, it was noted that those who are religious are more likely to be civically engaged than those who are unaffiliated, and in time, this can contribute to addressing the liberal deficit.

What defines quality of care for older people in aged care? A comprehensive literature review.

The quality of the care provided to frail older people in aged care is a concern for all Australians and for the citizens of many other countries internationally. This paper summarizes the methods and findings from an Australian study commissioned by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety to identify and synthesize international literature relating to the quality of care in aged care. A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to search and identify the literature (grey and peer reviewed) relating to quality of care and/or person-centered care in aged care. The review identified nine key themes as salient to the quality of care experience, which include treating the older person with respect and dignity; acknowledging and supporting their spiritual, cultural, religious and sexual identity; the skills and training of the aged care staff providing care; relationships between the older person and the aged care staff; social relationships and the community; supporting the older person to make informed choices; supporting the older person's health and well-being; ensuring the delivery of safe care in a comfortable service environment; and the ability to make complaints and provide feedback to the aged care organization. In practice, particularly in the context of residential care, quality of care has traditionally been measured using clinical indicators of care quality. These findings highlight the central importance of person-centered care and care experience as fundamental tenets of the quality of aged care service delivery in Australia and internationally. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2021; 21: 765-778.

National Injustice, Caring Institutions and Cosmopolitan Motivation

This paper examines the relationship between strategies of cosmopolitan education intended to motivate citizens of affluent countries to care about distant others facing injustice, and injustices within the borders of these affluent countries. I argue that promoting justice within affluent countries and motivating citizens to act to address global injustices, are potentially complementary rather than competing projects. I make two claims. (i) Injustices within national borders can undermine the development of cosmopolitan concern. (ii) National institutions delivering health and social care play a vital role in developing and sustaining affective dispositions necessary to care about the fate of distant others.

Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in the Arab world: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe Arab region is highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Local governments have already started to act against the disease. However, only a few countries provided COVID-19 vaccination. Compliance with vaccination is a major topic affecting proper coverage. Thus, we aim to explore vaccine acceptance among Arab populations, and compare it with the global numbers.MethodsAn internet-based survey using social media platforms was conducted, targeting adults who were able to read and understand Arabic, had access to the internet, and from all 22 Arab league countries. Due to the response rate variation between participants, the countries were grouped into four categories based on their income: Low income, Lower-middle income, Upper-middle income, and High-income economies. Data about demographics, previous COVID-19 infection, and vaccine acceptance tendency were collected and analyzed using Chi-squared (χ2) test and Logistic regression.ResultsA total of 870 participants completed the survey. 59.3% of the participants were male, 53.3% were between 25 and 44 years, and 69.9% were Arabs who live inside of their home country. The COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate was 62.4%. A significant higher tendency toward vaccination was identified in males (65.4%, P = 0.04) and people living outside their home countries (67.9%, P = 0.02). However, age group, level of education, and previous COVID-19 infection were all factors with insignificant effect. Citizens of High-income countries were more likely to accept the vaccine (70.2%).ConclusionsLess than two-thirds of Arabs are compliant with COVID-19 vaccination. This proportion is relatively lower than the global rate. It is important to develop strategies to promote vaccine acceptance and reach the ideal coverage needed to achieve efficient immunization.

Last Aid Courses as measure for public palliative care education for adults and children-a narrative review.

To provide a narrative overview of the current knowledge on Last Aid Courses (LAC) and experiences from the implementation process in different countries. Major challenges for public health palliative care include supporting all people who wish to die at home and educating the public about death, dying and palliative care. LAC commenced in 2015 in order to educate and empower citizens to participate in end-of-life care and to improve the public debate about death and dying. The International Last Aid project and the International Last Aid working group were established to provide and evaluate public palliative care education (PPCE) using LAC. A literature search in PubMed/Medline was performed and a narrative overview of the existing literature on LAC and PPCE is provided. In addition, experiences from the implementation process are presented. An International Last Aid working group was established with representatives from different countries and national organisations. This group revises the curriculum and contents of LAC in regular intervals with the latest revision in October 2020. Scientific evaluation of LAC is coordinated by the international Last Aid Research Group Europe (LARGE). Work on LAC has commenced in 18 countries. The overall results show that LAC are feasible and very well accepted in many different countries and cultures. Adults, children, and other groups, such as hospital employees and police officers, have participated in LAC. LAC for citizens is also possible in an online course format that was established and tested during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific work on the effects of LAC and cultural issues connected to LAC are ongoing in a number of countries. LAC are feasible and well accepted by citizens in different countries. The courses can contribute to a public debate on death, dying and palliative care and may contribute to empowering citizens in providing end-of-life care.

The Formation of the Anglo-American Law and the Power of Judges

Dichotomous explanations of “Civil Law = Statutory Law” and “Common Law = Case Law” are widely used. Still, it is difficult for lawyers and citizens in Civil Law countries to understand case law accurately. How can a case, a resolution for a particular party to a dispute, be a law generally applied to everyone? Although there exists some legal part in the court decision, how can such judgment be called a “law”? When the court interprets statutory law, is it correct to call the court ruling “the law itself,” not the “authoritative interpretation” of the law? While there is a historical background behind the formation of case law, how do judges maintain the tradition of making laws? Is it right to describe the distinctive characteristic of Anglo-American law as “judge-made law” in the present day when the legislative body enacts numerous statutory laws? The article examines judges’ high authority and mighty power in the Common Law tradition to answer these questions. In the birth and development of Anglo-American law, judges exercised strong powers that were difficult to justify with legal theories. The author’s view is that one cannot accurately understand the Common Law system and case law without understanding this unique history and cultural traditions. From this perspective, the article first looks at how Common Law judges historically have acquired and maintained more substantial power than continental law judges. British and American judges can issue a writ of mandamus to direct officials in the executive branch to specific tasks, often order litigants to prohibit certain acts, and severely punish civil contempt with broad discretion. Lawyers in the Anglo-American legal tradition continue to believe that the law does not exist in abstract legislation but concrete court rulings. Therefore, even in modern times, when the legislature actively enacts statutes, Anglo-American lawyers never abandon the belief in “judge-made law.” Whether to recognize case law as a primary source of law, allowing judges to have mighty power, and maintaining the principle of separation of power thoroughly is not a matter of right or wrong, or better or worse. All legal systems should aim to protect the liberties and rights of the sovereign people and promote their happiness, so they should be evaluated as helpful in achieving this goal. It seems that many British and American lawyers and citizens believe that granting strong power to judges helps protect civil liberties and rights better.

THE EFFECTS OF THE UNEMPLOYMENT ON THE ATTITUDES TOWARDS SYRIAN REFUGEES: TURKEY CASE

International migration movements have very important effects at global, macro and micro levels. These effects come in a wide variety of forms, and they are primarily on socio-economic, political and military areas. Undoubtedly, its negative effects on unemployment are among the most important. The aim of this study is to examine the unemployment perception of citizens in the host country, with reference to the claims that international migration increases unemployment. For this purpose, data from the field study conducted in 2019 on the Syrian refugees in Turkey was used. The data was analysed with the structural equation modelling within the scope of the locals' accepting and rejecting attitudes towards immigrants and a meaningful model has been created. When the regulatory effect of the locals' unemployment status is examined, the effects of unemployed on rejecting immigrants and, the employed on accepting immigrants have been determined.

Cultural and Civilizational Ties between India and China Today

From the second half of the 20th century bilateral relations between India and China have not received adequate coverage in domestic and foreign science. India and China, due to the strengthening of their economies and the gradual increase in political weight in the world arena, are increasingly viewed as geopolitical rivals, with the emphasis shifting from their bilateral to regional cooperation. It is notable that there are almost no articles on the cultural and civilizational ties between the countries. First of all, this is due to the limited nature of these contacts determined by a number of geopolitical and historical reasons. The countries separated by the world tallest mountain range developed independently from one another with little interaction between them, and it was not until the second half of the 20th century that these Asian powerhouses established solid relations. The bipolar period, in fact, formed the countries’ ambiguous perception of each other, which in many respects continues to restrain cooperation not only in the cultural sphere, but also in other areas. In addition, China and India themselves tend to pay little attention to this lack of communication, since at this stage and in the context of mistrust and rivalry cultural and civilizational ties are not a priority. Even statistics are scarce in both Indian and Chinese sources. At the same time, it is this line of cooperation that might somewhat smooth out the contradictions that have accumulated between the countries in other areas and contribute to a better understanding of each other. Because of intensifying personal contacts between the citizens of both countries and growing importance of the media sphere this mutual understanding is of utmost importance. This article aims to fill the gap that exists today in the scientific field regarding the dialogue of cultures between Delhi and Beijing. The author examines the main elements of cultural cooperation between the two countries and identifies the key problems they face today, as well as points out the opportunities for rapprochement based on the areas that make possible the development of appropriate interaction: religion, traditional health practices, similarities in the political outlook, large expatriot communities, education, art and tourism.

“Chugoku Senpan” in Hino Ashihei’s Fushun Prison no Senpantachi ：A Comparison with Their Representation in Contemporaneous Newspaper Reports

This paper explores the representations of soldiers who remained detained in China as war criminals for 10 years after Japan’s defeat in 1945, and the Japanese public’s reception of these representations. In the mid-1950s, China started conducting diplomacy through allowing a controlled opening to citizens of other countries, and the number of Japanese visiting China significantly increased. In particular, the Chinese government considered the opening of the Fushun War Criminals Management Center to the public to be one of its most important diplomatic initiatives.In light of this, first, this paper analyzes newspaper articles by reporters of the Japan Broadcast Inspection Team who visited China in 1955. Then, this paper turns to letters from readers of Hino’s work, and examines their reaction to Hino Ashihei’s Fushun Prison no Senpantachi. Finally, this paper compares such newspaper articles and Hino’s work, and identifies the characteristics of his representation of “Chugoku Senpan” (Japanese war criminals in China) and the issue of the detention of war criminals.Hino Ashihei was a writer who served in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and he was therefore inevitably familiar with issues surrounding the war. For that reason, readers paid close attention to his representation of Japanese war criminals. This paper argues that the significance of Hino’s visit to the Fushun War Criminals Management Center was best represented through his depiction of the body, and that the work took on the role of informing Japanese readers about the “present” situation of the soldiers 10 years after their defeat.

Applying and Understanding an Advanced, Novel Deep Learning Approach: A Covid 19, Text Based, Emotions Analysis Study

The pandemic COVID 19 has altered individuals’ daily lives across the globe. It has led to preventive measures such as physical distancing to be imposed on individuals and led to terms such as ‘lockdown,’ ‘emergency,’ or curfew’ to emerge in various countries. It has affected society, not only physically and financially, but in terms of emotional wellbeing as well. This distress in the human emotional quotient results from multiple factors such as financial implications, family member’s behavior and support, country-specific lockdown protocols, media influence, or fear of the pandemic. For efficient pandemic management, there is a need to understand the emotional variations among individuals, as this will provide insights into public sentiment towards various government pandemic management policies. From our investigations, it was found that individuals have increasingly used different microblogging platforms such as Twitter to remain connected and express their feelings and concerns during the pandemic. However, research in the area of expressed emotional wellbeing during COVID 19 is still growing, which motivated this team to form the aim: To identify, explore and understand globally the emotions expressed during the earlier months of the pandemic COVID 19 by utilizing Deep Learning and Natural language Processing (NLP). For the data collection, over 2 million tweets during February–June 2020 were collected and analyzed using an advanced deep learning technique of Transfer Learning and Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach (RoBERTa). A Reddit-based standard Emotion Dataset by Crowdflower was utilized for transfer learning. Using RoBERTa and the collated Twitter dataset, a multi-class emotion classifier system was formed. With the implemented methodology, a tweet classification accuracy of 80.33% and an average MCC score of 0.78 was achieved, improving the existing AI-based emotion classification methods. This study explains the novel application of the Roberta model during the pandemic that provided insights into changing emotional wellbeing over time of various citizens worldwide. It also offers novelty for data mining and analytics during this challenging, pandemic era. These insights can be beneficial for formulating effective pandemic management strategies and devising a novel, predictive strategy for the emotional well-being of an entire country’s citizens when facing future unexpected exogenous shocks.

Migration and regional cooperation for development: ECOWAS in perspective

ABSTRACT The phenomenon of migration involves the movement of people from one milieu to another. Different reasons underscore this movement by people such as escape from conflict, quest for greener pasture, search for employment, and coercion from criminal syndicates. This paper focuses on the dynamics of intra-regional migration in West Africa. The importance of migration within West Africa is emphasized in the region’s development agenda, Vision 2020, which places importance on regional resource development. Ease of migration is central to harnessing the region’s human resource potential for development ends. At inception, migration within West Africa was governed by the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons, residence, and establishment adopted in 1979. Within this framework, migration is considered as an integral element in the economic integration of the region. Hence, the protocol provides the right of entry for 90 days, residence and establishment for citizens of ECOWAS member countries. The ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration adopted in 2008 currently governs the migration process in the region. In interrogating migration governance in West Africa, this paper identifies challenges, such as, defective state capacities and continued underdevelopment, protectionist policies, language, colonial vestiges, such as, currency, among others, as factors militating against the successful exploitation of the region’s productive population for development ends.

The cultural and structural motivations of cheap mobility: The case of retirement migrants in Spain and Costa Rica

Retirement migration is an increasingly common phenomenon. It involves the relocation of retirees from richer countries of the global North to places in the world where the costs of living are lower. In contrast from most other migrants, these retirees do not generally relocate to find more work opportunities. Aeromobility, namely frequent air travel, is a key aspect of their ability to be geographically mobile, which social scientists often depict as reflecting the economic advantages and consumerist culture of a new generation of older people. In addition, some experts consider older people’s carbon footprint to be particularly large due to their economic advantages and lack of ecological values (e.g., see Haq et al., 2010). The literature on retirement migration scarcely focuses on the role that aeromobility—particularly cheap flights—plays in retirement migrants’ decision to relocate and their experiences after migration. Using the cases of retirement migrants in Spain and Costa Rica, this article aims to better understand why some retired citizens of richer countries engage in lifestyles based on high-frequency travel, particularly when their migration is driven by the search for more economic security. To answer this question, we argue that values alone do not sufficiently explain social practices and individual decision-making, including the seeming prioritisation of mobility over sustainability.

Socialised to think in terms of left and right? The acceptability of the left and the right among European voters

The left-right dimension plays a crucial role in how political scientists think about politics. Yet we know surprisingly little about the extent to which citizens are able to position themselves on a left-right dimension. By analysing non-response on left-right self-identification question from seven waves of the European Social Survey (N = 295,713), this study demonstrates that citizens’ ability to position themselves on the left-right dimension depends on the political system they live in and its history. Citizens in countries with lower levels of elite polarization place themselves on a left-right dimension less often, this difference is partiularly pronounced for citizens with high levels of political interest. Citizens in countries with a recent authoritarian history were unable to place themselves on the left-right dimension more often. These findings show the importance of political socialization for left-right self-identification.

Good Practices of the European Union Countries Regarding the Integration of Refugees and Migrants

The countries of the European Union, which are final destinations or transit for refugees and migrants, face many social, humanitarian and financial challenges. They are expected to invest efforts and resources to enable migrant communities and the host society to activate their abilities, qualities and skills to build social cohesion and well-being between them. Local administrations provide many services that directly affect the integration of migrants and there-fore have a greater capacity to support the process of social cohesion, as opposed to governance at national level, which in many cases hinders local government initiatives to address social and economic problems arising from immigration. Integration is an extremely individual process and individual needs must be taken into account by the various institutions involved in this activity. Refugee integration is one of the indicators of democratic society, an indicator of the development and promotion of human rights and freedoms. It is a continuous and dynamic process that requires efforts and readiness on the part of refugees to adapt to their host society without having to give up their cultural identity, and therefore - readiness and understanding on the part of the host community and public institutions to perceive refugees as equal persons of themselves. Integration is a long-term two-way process of mutual adjustment of incoming immigrants and citizens of the host country.