Cross-national Comparative Research Research Articles

Progress and Obstacles in the Internationalization of Criminology

The contributors to this inaugural issue of International Criminology were asked to reflect on the present state of comparative criminology and to speculate on whether it will become more prominent in the future. Progress in developing a coherent research specialization in international criminology over the past half-century has been uneven, with some elements making more rapid progress than others. There have also been surprises, as well as disappointments. In this article, I briefly consider the modern history of efforts to develop a comparative study of criminology. I focus on cross-national comparative research which is largely quantitative. I look at the development of this research by considering its progress along six fronts: (1) developing larger, more representative samples; (2) developing more refined theoretical conceptual schemes; (3) applying more sophisticated research methods; (4) developing new international crime data sources; (5) building longitudinal models; and (6) engaging global organizations in support. I conclude with some general observations.

How to combine and analyze all the data from diverse sources: a multilevel analysis of institutional trust in the world

Scholars who want to perform cross-national comparative research rely on data provided by International survey projects, which study the same concepts in varying countries and periods using different question wordings and scales. In this article, we propose a process to combine and analyse the data pertaining to the same concept—institutional trust—when measures and sources differ. We show how we combined 1327 surveys conducted from 1995 to 2017 by 17 survey projects in 142 countries. The database comprises close to 2 M respondents and 21 M answers to trust questions. We use local regression to visualize the trends in trust for different institutions and sources of data in different parts of the world. We complete these analyses with a 4-level longitudinal analysis of repeated measures. These analyses lead to reliably conclude that institutional trust is a property of the institutions themselves and of the context in which they operate since there is much more variance within respondents than between respondents and more variance between countries than over time. This research contributes to the current debates in political trust research. Since the process presented here can be applied to other fields of research, the research also contributes to enhance the possibilities for comparative cross-national analysis.

Problems of conceptualisation and operationalisation of attitudes toward immigrants in cross-national comparative research

The paper continues the ongoing discussion among experts by considering in detail the problematic inconsistency in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of attitudes toward immigrants in cross-national comparative research. The sources of the identified problems, which are primarily associated with a theoretical impasse, namely the isolation and replication of the tradition of the theory of competitive threat and excessive reliance on literature (especially American) on racial prejudice (but attitudes toward immigrants and attitudes toward the African American population of the United States are far from the same thing). Suggestions are being raised regarding the need for a clear definition of the boundaries between groups (immigrants and host population), applying group-specific approach, overcoming terminological diversity, greater differentiation of related constructs, transition from reflective approach to measurement models to formative one to compile a special comparative index of attitudes toward immigrants taking into account country (regional) specifics, solving the measurement problem in the framework of the survey method when selecting items for the questionnaire (including avoiding double-barreled items). It is also considered options for applied conceptualisation of attitudes toward immigrants within metaphors of distance (social distance) and temperature («feeling thermometer») and related issues of their operationalisation. If necessary, illustrations and examples relevant to Russian reality are given.

Combining Partially Overlapping Multi-Omics Data in Databases Using Relationship Matrices.

Private and public breeding programs, as well as companies and universities, have developed different genomics technologies that have resulted in the generation of unprecedented amounts of sequence data, which bring new challenges in terms of data management, query, and analysis. The magnitude and complexity of these datasets bring new challenges but also an opportunity to use the data available as a whole. Detailed phenotype data, combined with increasing amounts of genomic data, have an enormous potential to accelerate the identification of key traits to improve our understanding of quantitative genetics. Data harmonization enables cross-national and international comparative research, facilitating the extraction of new scientific knowledge. In this paper, we address the complex issue of combining high dimensional and unbalanced omics data. More specifically, we propose a covariance-based method for combining partial datasets in the genotype to phenotype spectrum. This method can be used to combine partially overlapping relationship/covariance matrices. Here, we show with applications that our approach might be advantageous to feature imputation based approaches; we demonstrate how this method can be used in genomic prediction using heterogeneous marker data and also how to combine the data from multiple phenotypic experiments to make inferences about previously unobserved trait relationships. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to harmonize datasets to improve available information across gene-banks, data repositories, or other data resources.

Frontier of control struggles in British and Irish public transport

Few contemporary studies of change in industrial relations use Carter Goodrich’s classic concept of the ‘frontier of control’ (FoC), especially in cross-national comparative research. Our study maps FoC struggles in two public transport organizations in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Qualitative methods generate significant insights into complex day-to-day workplace control patterns in these two cases. Despite changes in the frontier of control in both organizations over time, it is observed that employment relations in the Irish case are more cooperative than in the British. The frontier of control still matters, because workplace control regimes shape managerial ability to secure worker consent and are always potentially contestable terrains.

SVOD Global Expansion in Cross-National Comparative Perspective: Netflix in Israel and Spain

This article compares the processes by which Netflix entered national pay-television markets in Israel and Spain. In both contexts, Netflix first establishes itself through collaborations with over-the-top (OTT) television operators and then expands through collaborations with legacy providers. By using the perspective of cross-national comparative research, this analysis complicates the scholarly understandings of subscription video on-demand (SVOD) global expansion by drawing attention to the significance of national multichannel providers. Given the differences between the Spanish and Israeli pay-TV markets, Netflix’s similar pattern of engagement in each case highlights the value of understanding SVOD global expansion as a coherent industrial process that produces distinct, context-dependent outcomes. Ultimately, the histories of Netflix in Israel and Spain reveal that internationalization operates at a meso-level where collaborations with pay-television providers facilitate access to national audiences.

Beyond “culture”: A comparative study of forces structuring tourism consumption

Knowledge informing tourism management originating in Anglo-Western and/or capitalist societies is ill-fitted for understanding consumptive practices of tourists from societies with different socio-economic and political systems. Based on 75 interviews, this cross-national (China, Russia, U.S.A.) comparative research aims to delineate how tourism consumption is reflective of the broader social reality. Results shed lights on influential factors beyond personal agencies that include four society- (Economic development, Political shifts, Ideology, Wars/disasters) and three individual-level (Family, Life course mobility, Religion) consumption forming forces. We discuss the extent of these influences across the national contexts. Although the modus operandi in tourism is to understand tourism markets as global affecting a local environment, we argue that tourism consumption remains ingrained within a tourist's local societal contexts.

Community Influences on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Comparison of Four Francophone West African Countries.

Despite long-term efforts to encourage abandonment of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC), the practice remains widespread globally. FGMC is situated in specific social and historical contexts, and both prevalence and rates of decline vary widely across practicing countries. However, cross-national comparative research on the determinants of FGMC is sparse. This paper adds to the limited body of rigorous, theoretically grounded quantitative studies of FGMC and takes a step toward advancing cross-national comparative research. We apply an integrated theoretical framework that brings together norms-based and gender-based explanations of community-level influences on FGMC. We test this framework in four francophone West African countries, drawing on comparable nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Burkina Faso (2010), Côte d'Ivoire (2011-2012), Guinea (2012), and Mali (2012-2013). Results show that community-level FGMC norms and community-level gendered opportunities are associated with girls' risk of FGMC, but that the direct and moderating associations vary qualitatively across countries. Our findings highlight the contribution of context-specific social and institutional processes to the decline or persistence of FGMC.

Resilience to Online Disinformation: A Framework for Cross-National Comparative Research

Online disinformation is considered a major challenge for modern democracies. It is widely understood as misleading content produced to generate profits, pursue political goals, or maliciously deceive. Our starting point is the assumption that some countries are more resilient to online disinformation than others. To understand what conditions influence this resilience, we choose a comparative cross-national approach. In the first step, we develop a theoretical framework that presents these country conditions as theoretical dimensions. In the second step, we translate the dimensions into quantifiable indicators that allow us to measure their significance on a comparative cross-country basis. In the third part of the study, we empirically examine eighteen Western democracies. A cluster analysis yields three country groups: one group with high resilience to online disinformation (including the Northern European systems, for instance) and two country groups with low resilience (including the polarized Southern European countries and the United States). In the final part, we discuss the heuristic value of the framework for comparative political communication research in the age of information pollution.

International vergleichende Forschung – Analysestrategien, Ergebnisse und Erklärungen

This introductory article reviews the history of cross-national comparative research, discusses its typical research designs and research questions, and ultimately summarizes the contributions to this special issue with respect to two questions: (i) What are the methodological challenges of cross-national comparative research today? (ii) What typical effects of the national context have been identified up to now?

A methodology for cross-national comparative focus group research: illustrations from discussions about political protest

We propose a methodology for comparative cross-national focus group research and illustrate how this methodology is useful for advancing our understanding of political protest. Focus group research allows researchers to study the collective process of meaning making and formation of intersubjective attitudes. This process has been shown to be relevant for how people discuss politics, and how in turn it could influence participation in politics. However, a systematic methodology for examining the influence of the historical, social, and political context in different countries has not been developed hitherto. In order to allow for comparisons between the formation of attitudes in different countries, we put forward several methodological decisions aimed at achieving standardization in cross-national focus group research design. Group composition, recruitment strategies, and moderation style are the key facets of focus group research that need to be standardized in order to make meaningful cross-national comparisons, but more practical considerations in implementing focus groups cross-nationally are also discussed. We illustrate and critically assess the proposed methodology based on data from an international comparative research project in which 80 focus groups were conducted in nine different countries in Europe and Latin America.

Comparative Analyses of Housework and Its Relation to Paid Work: Institutional Contexts and Individual Agency

Despite major changes in gender divisions of work since the 1960s, women continue to perform a larger share of unpaid housework and care than men, whereas men continue to perform more paid work. This is true for a wide range of countries. The paper first describes respective macro-trends for women’s and men’s changing contributions to paid work, routine housework and child care over the past 70 years. It then focuses on the role of institutional context and individual agency in gender divisions of routine housework according to cross-national comparative research published since 2000. On the macro level, the paper identifies three main areas of investigation: the role of work–family policies, welfare state regimes, and national levels of gender equality (Gender Empowerment Measure, the Gender Development Index and the Gender Inequality Index) for men’s and women’s divisions of work. On the micro level, studies mainly assess theories of economic dependency and resource bargaining, time availability, doing gender and deviance neutralization. More recently, research is turning to the examination of inter-relations between the micro- and macro-level factors. According to the state of research, women are better able to enact economic and noneconomic agency in national contexts with high levels of gender equality and supportive work–family policies. This is apparent in the Scandinavian countries.

How to Obtain Comparable Measures for Cross-National Comparisons

Comparisons of means or associations between theoretical constructs of interest in cross-national comparative research assume measurement invariance, that is, that the same constructs are measured in the same way across the various nations under study. While it is intuitive, this assumption needs to be statistically tested. An increasing number of sociological and social psychological studies have been published in the last decade in which the cross-national comparability of various scales such as human values, national identity, attitudes toward democracy, or religiosity, to name but a few, were tested. Many of these studies did not manage to fully achieve measurement invariance. In this study we review, in a nontechnical manner, the methodological literature on measurement invariance testing. We explain what it is, how to test for it, and what to do when measurement invariance across countries is not given in the data. Several approaches have been recently proposed in the literature on how to deal with measurement noninvariance. We illustrate one of these approaches with a large dataset of seven rounds from the European Social Survey (2002–2015) by estimating the most trustworthy means of human values, even when strict measurement invariance is not given in the data. We conclude with a summary and some critical remarks.

Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling for Cross-National Comparative Research

This contribution focuses on a model that is gaining currency in cross-national research, namely multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM). Similarly to standard multilevel modelling (MLM), this model distinguishes between various levels of analysis (e. g., individuals nested within countries) and, in doing so, takes the hierarchical structure of cross-national data into account. However, MSEM incorporates a latent-variable approach into the multilevel framework, making it possible to assess the measurement quality of latent constructs. As such, MSEM is a synthesis of structural equation modeling (SEM) and MLM that combines the best of both worlds. The MSEM approach makes it possible to model multilevel mediations and group-level outcomes, and therefore provides a more complete representation of Coleman’s bathtub model. This contribution presents the statistical and conceptual background of MSEM in a formal but accessible manner. The paper discusses applications of MSEM that are particularly useful for cross-national comparative research (CNCR), namely two-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multilevel mediation models, and models for group-level outcomes. A practical step-by-step strategy on how MSEM can be used for applied research is provided and illustrated by means of a didactical example.

An Empirical Comparison of Seven Populist Attitudes Scales

With the recent upsurge of populism in developed and transition democracies, researchers have started measuring it as an attitude. Several scales have been proposed for this purpose. However, there is little direct comparison between the available alternatives. Scholars who wish to measure populist attitudes have little information available to help select the best scale for their purposes. In this article, we directly compare seven populist attitudes scales from multiple perspectives: conceptual development, questionnaire design, dimensionality, information, cross-national validity, and external validity. We use original survey data collected online from nine countries in Europe and the Americas, with around 250 participants per country, in which all seven batteries of questions were present. Results show that most scales have important methodological and validity limitations in at least one of the dimensions tested, and should not be used for cross-national comparative research. We recommend populist attitudes items that work better at capturing populism, and more generally provide guidelines for researchers who want to compare different scales that supposedly measure the same construct.

Working After Retirement and Life Satisfaction: Cross-National Comparative Research in Europe

This study examines differences in life satisfaction between full retirees and working retirees in Europe. We hypothesize that these differences depend on the financial resources of retirees and the resources available in the household and country context. We selected retirees from the "Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe" project and estimated country fixed effects models to explain their life satisfaction. The results indicate a positive relationship between working after retirement and life satisfaction for retirees with low pension income without a partner. Additionally, working after retirement seems to be most important for life satisfaction in relatively poor countries.

The role of the special education centers in developing students’ holistic wellbeing

This cross-national comparative case study research aimed at examining two private special education centers in Dubai and in Lebanon, which provides special education services for families and children with additional needs. The research investigates the center’s structure, staffing and support services, especially for students with ADD/ADHD. Using a qualitative research methodology, the research questions focused on the services provided at these centers to support students (grades 1-6) and the manner in which the teachers and professional staff support the additional needs of the chosen participants. Data collection tools included the following: semi-structured interviews, participatory and non-participatory observations, and document analysis. The study concluded that the professional development and the centers’ structure as well as the systematic strategic implementation of the needed services in both centers were important factors of centers’ success. Results emphasized that achieving the students’ holistic wellbeing and the ‘hot zone’ is crucial for 21st century skills. Recommendations and future studies were discussed. 
 Keywords: special education services; holistic wellbeing; ADD/ADHD; hot zone; and professional development

Cross-national research in audiovisual translation: Some methodological considerations

Cross-national research is a research methodology that aims to make comparisons across countries. Nowadays, cross-national research is growing, especially in some social science disciplines such as sociology, political science, geography, and economics. However, it has not yet steadily entered the field of audiovisual translation (AVT). Despite its theoretical and methodological challenges (Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik & Harkness, 2005), cross-national research could be used successfully in AVT to investigate long-debated issues. These issues include, but are not restricted to, the reception of a given AVT method or strategy, and the different ways in which the translation process is accomplished in different countries. In this contribution, I will outline both theoretical and methodological debates in comparative cross-national research and apply them to AVT. After that, I will briefly present the results of a cross-national study (Perego et. al, 2016) designed to analyse the subtitle reception comparing the way the process takes place in different countries with different AVT traditions. The discussion of the study will contribute to assessing the potential strengths of cross-national research in AVT, thus offering indications on future methodological developments and enabling future and more rigorous international comparisons.

Mediatized participation in European media systems

This article explores patterns of mediatized participation of European citizens and the way they differ across different media systems, in a multilevel, cross-national comparative research design. Mediatized participation is operationalized as audience practices on the Internet. The media system is conceptualized through the theoretical model of digital mediascapes, which applied to 22 European Union countries produced three clusters/media systems. The audience data are from representative online surveys in 8 eastern and western European countries N = 9532 collected by the authors and their research partners. Factor and cluster analyses were performed showing types and patterns of mediatized participation. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and ANOVA were performed to relate the individual level variables to the macro-level clusters of digital media systems. The article shows audiences in the more mediatized, Western cluster are more engaged in participatory practices in comparison to audiences in the Eastern/Southern cluster of European countries which show more extensive information consumption practices.

Measures and votes: Party performance under free list proportional representation with evidence from Ecuador

Free list proportional representation is an electoral system that gives voters as many votes as there are seats, and allows the voter to distribute them anywhere on the ballot. Computing party support under this system can be complicated, since different electors possess and use different numbers of votes. As a result, national election results and derivatives thereof (e.g. electoral volatility) may be calculated incorrectly. Using a stylized illustration, we describe obstacles to vote aggregation under the free list and develop four approaches for counting votes. The first two, “naive aggregationˮ and the “fictional voterˮ technique, have known applications. We propose the third, which we call “weighted votesˮ, to deal with missing data about the number of voters. The last, “weighted preferencesˮ, has been used intermittently, and we offer a generalization for a broad range of applications. Applying these methods to Ecuadorian elections, our results reveal biases in certain approaches and inform the question of which method to use and under which circumstances. Lastly, we make publicly available a definitive set of district- and national-level election results for Ecuador over six elections from 1998 to 2017, thereby making it possible for the case to re-enter comparative cross-national research.