Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040263

Authors: Joonpyo Lee Jaemyung Park

This study examines how Vietnam regulates overseas study and how this regulatory structure shapes international student mobility to South Korea. Through a qualitative analysis of key legal and policy instruments, especially Decree No. 86/2021/ND-CP, it finds that Vietnam governs overseas study through a centralized legal-administrative system that structures eligibility, student management, intermediary oversight, and return obligations. It also finds that important implementation gaps persist, particularly in relation to private intermediaries, monitoring capacity, and the gap between formal regulation and students’ actual mobility trajectories. These findings suggest that receiving countries such as South Korea should pay closer attention to the pre-departure institutional conditions that influence student mobility before arrival. The study contributes by providing a legally grounded account of how sending-state regulation operates in the Vietnamese case and why pre-departure institutional conditions matter for receiving-country contexts such as South Korea.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040262

Authors: Elvi Chang Komalsingh Rambaree Päivi Turunen Stefan Sjöberg

This study examines how local social policies addressing young people’s well-being and working-life capacities within the framework of sustainable development are understood, and how they might be further developed in a Swedish municipal context. The study draws on three qualitative datasets: professionals from municipal social services, representatives of municipal units and civil society organisations, and young people aged 15–19. Data were analysed using abductive thematic analysis informed by Doyal and Gough’s theory of Human Need and Helne and Hirvilammi’s Having–Doing–Loving–Being model of relational well-being. Findings indicate that professional participants recognise links between social, economic, and ecological dimensions of sustainability, yet practice is largely oriented towards individual and social concerns, with limited engagement with the natural environment. Youth participants indicated detachment from both nature and societal processes, framed responsibility as habitual, and exhibited intergenerational detachment alongside temporal and geographical distance from sustainability issues. The findings also indicate siloed municipal sustainability policies. The study concludes that current policies may insufficiently integrate the ecological and relational dimensions of human needs and that there is a need to develop ecosocial policies and practices that promote more sustainable well-being and working-life capacities, especially for young people.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040261

Authors: Ashley J. Blount Abby L. Bjornsen Kayla J. Hundt Kara M. Schneider

Elite and high-performance sport is frequently framed as an individual or coach–athlete endeavor, obscuring the broader family systems that sustain athletic careers. Recent scholarship has begun to document the central role of wives and partners within athletic family systems, highlighting the extensive emotional, domestic, logistical, and identity-related labor they perform to support athletic participation and success. Despite its centrality, this labor remains largely invisible within sport science research, organizational policy, and athlete support structures. Drawing on feminist theories of care and family system theory, this narrative review synthesizes interdisciplinary literature examining the unpaid and unrecognized labor of women partners, also commonly referred to as the wives and girlfriends (WAGs), across athletic career stages. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040260

Authors: Jan Breckenridge Georgia Lyons Mailin Suchting

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a key driver of women’s homelessness and financial insecurity. In Australia, Safe at Home (SAH) programs have emerged as an innovative, wrap-around service response that increases victim-survivors’ safety by implementing a range of strategies and tools that enables them to remain in their home or a home of their choice. SAH responses represent one strategy that effectively prevents homelessness and mitigates the financial, social, and emotional disruption associated with housing relocation after leaving a violent and abusive relationship. This paper examines the implementation of SAH responses in Australia through a critical synthesis of national policy documents and published literature. The paper outlines the four nationally endorsed pillars of SAH (maximising safety, integrated responses, homelessness prevention, and economic security) and examines how these pillars shape service design and outcomes. Evidence from evaluations and outcome studies indicate that SAH can enhance women’s sense of safety, support housing stability, and reduce the financial burden of leaving a violent partner. Access and effectiveness vary depending on the design of the response and location. Challenges include limited affordable housing supply, inconsistent perpetrator accountability, and structural barriers to long-term economic security. Sustained investment in SAH programs, robust data collection mechanisms, and stronger integration of housing and economic supports are ultimately needed to ensure SAH can fulfil its potential as a core component of Australia’s DFV service system.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040259

Authors: William Jankowiak

This paper examines the cross-cultural prevalence of the femme fatale (dangerous woman) motif using folkloric materials, ethnographic accounts, and consultations with ethnographers across 84 societies. Narratives were coded for depictions in which male protagonists suffer harm following involvement with an unfamiliar but physically attractive woman. Results show that 94% of sampled societies contain recognizable femme fatale imagery. When male motivation could be inferred, narratives overwhelmingly emphasized expectations of emotional attachment or long-term partnership rather than short-term sexual encounters. This pattern challenges interpretations that frame male involvement primarily in terms of sexual gratification or predatory intent. Instead, the findings suggest that femme fatale narratives function as culturally mediated responses to recurrent mating dilemmas rooted in asymmetric emotional investment. More broadly, the study demonstrates how universal predispositions toward attraction and attachment are symbolically elaborated within culturally specific moral frameworks.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040258

Authors: Ursula Trummer Paul Bukuluki Girum Hailu Maheteme Ronald Kalyango Michela Martini Davide T. Mosca Hadijah Mwenyango Sonja Novak-Zezula

Building the capacity of health and social care professionals in health and migration is essential for the East and Horn of Africa region, which, according to UNHCR, hosted 23.6 million forcibly displaced people who have fled conflicts and climate change-related floods and droughts by the end of 2024. There is a high demand to build a critical mass of expertise and experts on health and migration that can engage in policy, programme and practice development. To contribute to the building of a community of experts, an online course on health and migration was developed and five courses were implemented from 2021 to 2024 with the participation of international experts in migration and health, universities and international institutions (WHO; UNAIDS, IGAD), in collaboration with the UN International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Makerere University, Uganda, and the Center for Health and Migration Vienna, Austria (CHM), and with funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior. The courses lasted nine weeks each, offering two three-hour sessions per week, and were complimented by discussion forums and webinars on topics of special interest, e.g., climate change. Participants were working in policy development, programme coordination, research, and service delivery in health and social care in communities affected by migration, cross-border settings, refugee and IDP settlements in the East and Horn of Africa geographic region. The importance of the course for capacity building in the respective countries as well as for personal development is underlined by continuous high numbers of applications from highly qualified people and highly positive evaluations from participants, and the demonstrated impact on the practice of service provision for refugees and IDPs. Future considerations should concentrate on developing sustainable frameworks for courses, including intergovernmental collaboration and community development.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040257

Authors: Braveheart Gillani Meagan Ray Novak Terrique Morris David Crampton

Oilfield worksites and the communities shaped by them are increasingly recognized as gendered spaces in which rotational labor, contractor hierarchies, and production imperatives can reshape norms of accountability and consent. This scoping review synthesizes conceptualizations of oilfield masculinities in scholarship on oil and gas extraction and examines their links to gendered harm, moral strain, and institutional accountability. Following PRISMA-ScR guidance, multidisciplinary databases were searched for English-language publications (2000–March 2024); eighteen sources met the inclusion criteria. A supplementary media scan (2000–2025) was conducted to contextualize cultural narratives surrounding oilfield labor. The synthesis identifies recurring themes, including frontier and breadwinner masculinities, emerging safety-oriented masculinities, gendered workplace exclusion, and the relational impacts of rotational absence and reintegration. Across studies, harms are most consistently described as patterned outcomes of work organization and fragmented governance rather than isolated incidents. Media representations frequently amplify heroism and endurance while minimizing institutional responsibility.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040255

Authors: Justina Mandravickaitė Tomas Krilavičius

In this study, we examined how disinformation and trustworthy news differ in their narrative construction across nine theoretically motivated dimensions. We address the following research question: how do disinformation and trustworthy news differ in narrative organisation and epistemic grounding? We analysed 610 English-language news articles (308 pro-Kremlin disinformation and 302 trustworthy articles) covering selected international events from 2015 to 2023, using data derived from the EUvsDisinfo dataset. Narrative elements were extracted using a hybrid pipeline combining large language models and knowledge graphs, resulting in article-level representations for comparative analysis. Ordinal scores (1–5) were assigned for emotional intensity, cultural complexity, conspiracist structure, source diversity, crisis intensity, evidence support, media control, solutions orientation and memory work. Non-parametric comparisons showed significant differences in eight of these nine dimensions. Disinformation articles revealed stronger conspiracist structuring and greater meta-media hostility, as well as significantly lower source diversity, evidence support, cultural complexity and weaker memory work. Emotional intensity did not differ reliably across disinformation and trustworthy news. A simple additive NarrativeRisk score, which we designed as a transparent and interpretable summary measure, showed between-group differences in both parametric and non-parametric tests. As a univariate discrimination indicator, NarrativeRisk achieved ROC AUC ≈ 0.84. Cluster analysis identified three recurrent narrative profiles, including one dominated by disinformation, one by trustworthy news and one mixed profile. These findings indicate that disinformation is distinguished not only by factual unreliability but also by different patterns in narrative organisation.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040256

Authors: Narcis Eduard Mitu George Teodor Mitu Mihaela Zglavoci

The European Union (EU) relies heavily on voluntary tax compliance, yet evidence on how tax literacy (TL) and tax education (TE) relate to tax morale (TM) and voluntary tax compliance or compliance intentions (VTC) remains fragmented across partly disconnected strands of the literature. This systematic review examined EU-relevant evidence on the stakeholder contexts in which TL/TE are discussed in relation to TM and VTC, with particular attention to schools, communities, and public institutions. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020, searches in Scopus and Web of Science (2000–2025) applied two complementary query streams focused on TL/TE and TM/VTC-related mechanisms. The searches identified 1327 records; after deduplication and screening, 402 studies were included. Based on structured coding of titles, abstracts, and author keywords, the review maps patterns of emphasis and framing rather than causal effects. Public-institutional and education-related contexts were the most frequently signposted stakeholder environments, while digital and outreach-oriented delivery cues were more visible than classroom-based cues. Trust and fairness/justice dominated the explanatory vocabulary. Overall, the review supports an ecosystem-oriented interpretation of stakeholder coordination in EU tax literacy research.

Societies doi: 10.3390/soc16040129

Authors: Gabriela Arcos-Cuaspud Andrea Basantes-Andrade Sonia Casillas-Martín Marcos Cabezas-Gonzáles

This study examines the effects of a three-month pedagogical intervention that integrated artificial intelligence (AI), social media, and web-based tools to strengthen digital literacy, creativity, and cultural participation among secondary education students in Ecuador. The intervention was theoretically grounded in perspectives of inclusive digital education and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), emphasizing participation, accessibility, and collaborative knowledge construction. The intervention involved 61 students supported by 31 university facilitators and was developed under a mixed-methods action research design with a pre–post (quasi-experimental) approach. Pre- and post-test surveys were administered to assess changes in digital competencies and creativity, while semi-structured interviews explored students’ perceptions of creative expression and their engagement with the cultural and technological ecosystem. Quantitative results showed statistically significant improvements in digital literacy and creativity (p < 0.001), while qualitative findings evidenced increased student empowerment, critical awareness of algorithms, and active cultural participation. The integration of AI and social media promoted an inclusive, student-centered learning environment that enhanced autonomy, reflective thinking, and media engagement. These results suggest that hybrid and culturally contextualized AI-mediated interventions may foster 21st-century competencies, strengthen digital equity, and promote creative agency in educational contexts of the Global South, particularly within emerging digital learning environments in Ecuador.

Grandparents can play a variety of roles in the lives of their grandchildren, ranging from occasional visitor to full-time caregiver, representing a stabilizing force or a source of conflict. Grandparents' level of engagement varies according to cultural norms, familial need for support, and legal determinations. Research suggests that children benefit from the presence of supportive and involved grandparents and perhaps lose out on opportunities for social capital when grandparents are absent from their lives. This article discusses the roles and relationships between grandparents and grandchildren, highlights the impact of those relationships on both, and outlines various legal implications for understanding grandparenting within the context of family law cases.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040254

Authors: Duane A. Gill Liesel A. Ritchie Adam M. Straub J. Micah Roos Erin Y. Boyle Thomas M. Kersen

In August 2022, the Pearl River flooded portions of Jackson, Mississippi and temporarily closed the city’s water treatment plant, leaving most citizens without access to safe drinking and potable water for more than a month. This event punctuated an ongoing water crisis that had lingered for decades in this predominately African American city. We employ a social production of disaster approach to reveal aspects of slow violence perpetrated against disadvantaged peoples that increased their collective vulnerability to flood risks and limited their access to safe water. Using survey data collected one year after the flood, we examine event-related psychosocial stress as measured by the Impact of Event Scale and associated risk factors related to Conservation of Resources Theory. Multivariate analysis indicates that resource losses from the flood, health concerns about water quality, and trust in government were significantly related to elevated levels of psychosocial stress. Although the 2022 Pearl River flood can be treated as a discrete event, a social production of disaster perspective situates the flood in terms of its cascading effects and cumulative impacts on the city’s water infrastructure and citizens who depend on it.

Societies doi: 10.3390/soc16040128

Authors: Rūta Žukauskienė Meda Andrijauskienė Asta Savanevičienė Natalija Mažeikienė Gita Šakytė-Statnickė Rūta Čiutienė

Recent geopolitical events have led to an increased research focus on the experiences of female refugees. As careers play a crucial role in socio-economic integration, this study aims to examine the scope and characteristics of research findings on the careers of refugee women in host countries. Following the general research questions for bibliometric analysis, the major trends and intellectual structures of the research field of women refugees’ careers were identified. Four hundred and fifty-three articles selected from the Web of Science database (search by title, abstract, and keywords) for the period 2000–2023 were analyzed using VOSviewer (1.6.20). The results show that key challenges faced by forcibly displaced women include mental health disorders, language barriers, discrimination, downward career mobility, and pressure of traditional gender roles. The research reveals that critical enablers for female refugees’ workforce participation and economic independence are language training, culturally sensitive healthcare, and access to childcare. Simultaneously, empowerment strategies, including entrepreneurship and participation in professional networks, are proved to foster resilience and create pathways for successful career steps.

Societies doi: 10.3390/soc16040127

Authors: Theodora Saridou Charalampos A. Dimoulas

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches date back more than 60 years, there is no doubt that in the last 4 years, we have entered the era of AI. The advanced capabilities of Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) have noticeably reshaped multiple sectors, becoming a driving force in participatory environments. Recent developments in Machine/Deep Learning (ML/DL) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) have enabled the introduction of tools and applications integrated into various professional fields. Areas ranging from education and media to art, tourism, and food science incorporate AI technologies to optimize established workflows, facilitate change, enhance creativity, and foster interaction. The current Special Issue includes nineteen multidisciplinary research works exploring AI in participatory environments, primarily focusing on technologies, ethics, and literacy aspects. Employing diverse methodologies, the research identifies various uses of AI along with the critical ethical and legal risks and challenges they entail. Concerns about inaccuracy, algorithmic bias, data infringements, and the potential erosion of transparency and interpretability need to be addressed in every phase of the design and implementation of AI technologies. Co-creative human-in-the-loop processes and human judgment need to be further strengthened and supported through digital/AI literacy initiatives. In this regard, effective regulatory frameworks, inclusive institutional strategies, and targeted training programs can ensure responsible and trustworthy AI use with a balance between technological evolution and human oversight.

This study investigates whether the consolidation of corporate compliance in Brazil after Law No. 12.846/2013 resulted in substantial gains in effectiveness or reinforced predominantly symbolic compliance patterns. The research uses administrative data from the National Registry of Substantiated Complaints between 2009 and 2024 and applies a quasi-experimental strategy composed of interrupted time series, logistic regression with clustered errors, and fixed-effects models. The results show no structural break following the law and a statistically significant decrease in the probability of conflict resolution in the post-law period (OR = 0.941; 95% CI: 0.909–0.974). Additional robustness analyses with a balanced recurrent-firm panel point in the same direction, but the event-study specification does not fully satisfy the parallel-trends diagnostic (Wald p = 0.010). The findings therefore provide convergent evidence consistent with means-ends decoupling in the post-law regulatory environment, while suggesting caution in stronger causal interpretations. These findings contribute to debates on legal endogeneity, the audit society, and society-level compliance washing, showing that the expansion of formal integrity apparatuses has not been matched by verifiable gains in corporate responsiveness.

Bridging the gap between welfare and climate policies is essential for simultaneously pursuing increased well-being and reduced carbon emissions. This study uses a policy Delphi approach, involving experts and stakeholders from five European countries: Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, and Sweden, to assess the perceived desirability and feasibility of six eco-social policies for enabling 1.5°C lifestyles. The results show that eco-social policies are challenged by current growth and work paradigms, which transcend welfare-regime-related, ideological, social, and institutional rationales. Of the selected policies, stakeholders found low-efficiency housing retrofits the most desirable, but income caps the least desirable. Worktime reduction, job guarantees, and income ceilings raise deep concerns over work, motivation, and consumption. However, universal basic services, free public transport, and public renovation raise concerns about service efficiency, innovation incentives, and welfare entitlement. Stakeholders agreed that eco-social policies are desirable and feasible, but only when combined in a way that balances social and environmental impacts. They believe it might be easier to address challenges in understanding and implementing these policies if they were part of a broader, coordinated approach at a supranational level, rather than isolated, single-issue policies targeting specific sectors.

Why do states subsidize unprofitable industries? This paper applies the Programmatic Action Framework and adapts it to neocorporatist settings to uncover the political determinants of industrial policies. Empirically, it explores how a longstanding coalition of economic, administrative and political actors has maintained public funding for the sugarcane agro-industry in French overseas departments, despite new policy objectives for agricultural diversification and subsidy reallocation. Drawing on extensive archival and interview data, I argue that this tripartite programmatic group has leveraged long-term institutionalized structures to resist subsidy reform and secure support for sugarcane production. Through coordinated discursive strategies to counter “transformative” policy proposals, and relational tactics to exclude challenging actors from the policy venue, each subgroup of this coalition has preserved its social position and the associated political resources gained from policymaking. These findings suggest that innovative policy reform in such sectors will require new public-private alliances capable of challenging entrenched programmatic groups.

In the past decades, scholars have provided novel insights on the role of media within regulation. Still, this strand of research has received less attention to the networked nature of contemporary regulatory governance. This article studies surrogate inspectorates, who focus on motivating the implementation/enforcement of regulatory rules, often temporary and without formal capacity. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 2700 newspaper articles, this article studies how the presence of surrogate inspectorates affects the way regulatory agencies are framed within newspaper articles. The results show that (a) media attention for regulatory agencies has increased in the past 12 years and is increasingly negative and (b) that the presence of surrogate inspectorates is associated with more sensational, personalized, conflict, and negative news coverage of regulatory agencies. This study concludes that, as the regulatory network becomes more complex with, for example, surrogate inspectorates, the control of regulatory agencies over media framing diminishes.

How do provisions for administrative sanctioning affect the implementation of loose legal norms? To streamline regulation, governments have increased their penal capacity by authorizing administrative sanctioning, and they have decentralized regulatory responsibility by loosening legal norms. A case study of Norway's animal welfare governance shows how using administrative sanctions to enforce loose legal norms led to unpredictable sanctioning and, thereby, subverted regulatees' trust in law enforcement. Ensuing resistance from regulatees pressured inspectors to regain legitimacy by tightening loose legal norms and by backing down on administrative sanctioning. Inspectors thus reversed streamlining policies to protect the primary purpose of their profession: to motivate compliance with animal welfare law. The case highlights unintended consequences of streamlining regulation. It also illustrates how frontline workers may protect their primary purpose by disregarding policies they perceive as disruptive.

Given the ongoing climate crisis, the frequency and severity of natural disasters are increasing. These events result in enormous reconstruction costs, pose a high burden on state budgets, and potentially drive homeowners into private insolvency. One policy instrument for collectively covering such costs is a compulsory insurance scheme for natural hazards. As the impact of natural disasters is uneven, introducing mandatory insurance regulation has a range of social and financial implications. While some European countries have introduced compulsory schemes, others have adopted different policy responses. Taking this variation as the main puzzle, I consider what factors can explain the introduction of compulsory insurance for natural hazards. Building on public risk and quiet politics literature, I identify several factors and test these against three empirical cases: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This analysis finds that focusing events are necessary for policy change, but the position and power of interest groups, as well as exogenous shocks within the EU context, were also crucial to explaining the introduction, rejection, and even termination of compulsory insurance schemes for natural hazards.

The ecosocial policy integration, required to address the intertwined social and ecological challenges of climate change, has been central to the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which was launched to tackle the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while simultaneously supporting the green and digital transitions outlined in the European Green Deal. Drawing on the growing eco-welfare debate, our contribution first examines how the 27 national plans implementing the RRF integrate social and environmental measures. It then explores the drivers behind different patterns of ecosocial policy integration in three countries which show different levels of ecosocial policy integration: Italy (high), Poland (medium), and Germany (low). Our findings show that institutional factors have been key in shaping national ecosocial policy mixes, driven in the Italian case by a strong governmental will to comply with the EU ecosocial guidelines, whereas in Poland and especially in Germany the absence of ecosocial policy legacies and the limited involvement of pro-ecosocial societal actors have limited the effective integration of social and ecological measures.

This article pursues two objectives. First, it aims to trace the genealogy of data protection regulation in major liberal democracies. To do so, it examines the evolution of this regulation in the United States, France, and Germany, among others, and relies on the policy actors' triangle framework. Second, the article provides an explanation for the paradox that emerges from this diachronic analysis: a long-term stagnation of data protection regulation despite the radical transformation of the information environment and surveillance practices over the last three decades. The article finds that this long-term regulatory stagnation can be explained by a constant trade-off between competing and sometimes irreconcilable policy goals and, especially since 9/11, an overlap between state and private interests. Despite post-Snowden reforms, this conflict of interest continues to shape the regulation, raising many democratic concerns.

While outsourcing of public services is today widespread, maintaining their quality remains a challenge. External inspections are seen as essential for overseeing private providers, yet their effectiveness has not been thoroughly investigated. This study evaluates the impact of pre-scheduled inspections on the performance of private and publicly operated prisons in England and Wales between 2004 and 2012, focusing on two key safety indicators: self-harm and violence. Our findings reveal that private prisons' performance in these safety measures was weak, and that pre-scheduled predictable inspections are not effective enough to mitigate this weakness. The findings suggest that governments should consider areas where outsourcing may be inappropriate, and how existing inspection systems can be optimized.

This paper investigates how citizens perceive and evaluate the digitalization of education. Drawing on original survey data from six OECD countries (Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the US), the study addresses the overarching question: Does public opinion support or inhibit the digital transformation of education? The analysis focuses on three core aspects in this regard—perceptions of state performance, demand for digital device use in schools, and concerns about data governance. Findings reveal cautious but conditional public support: while many endorse digitalization, significant concerns persist about data privacy, especially regarding private tech companies. Support varies systematically by socio-economic status, age, household composition as well as in line with general dispositions and attitudes towards global technology companies. The paper also identifies a significant degree of cross-country variation, which, however, does not neatly map onto existing welfare state regimes.

European economies face the task of providing the necessary skills for the “twin transition” in a period of skill shortage. As a result, we may expect countries to reorient their labor market policy towards re-skilling. We look for evidence of a reorientation in two relevant policy fields: active labor market policy (ALMP) and adult education (AE). We explore general trends in both fields based on quantitative indicators and compare recent policy developments in four countries with strong ALMP and AE sectors: Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden. We do not observe clear evidence of a general movement away from activation and towards re-skilling in ALMP. However, in AE, we identify several re-skilling initiatives that address skill shortages. Relying on insights from queuing theories of hiring and training, we argue that due to changes in the population targeted by ALMP, the locus of re-skilling policy is increasingly moving towards AE.

How can polycentric governance promote the development of ecosocial policies within existing policy systems? Through a study of green reforms of Danish vocational education, the paper argues that polycentric governance institutions are particularly useful at engaging constituent actors in innovation and constructive collaboration over reforming education programs to integrate ecological goals into vocational education. Combining significant autonomy for governance units and their nesting in a larger governance structure, polycentric governance helps address three key governance challenges: developing agreement among actors with clashing material interests about what green transformation entails; identifying how joint gains can be reached within a common vision of the development of the economy; and setting up an institutional structure that supports continuous adjustment to respond to technological advances and shifting social demands. Polycentric governance is, however, not a panacea. The state thus plays an important role in supporting autonomous governance units to develop ecosocial policies.

Against the background of the European decarbonization strategy, this study examines the extent to which the expansion of renewable energies can lead to tensions with the social and ecological dimensions of the sustainability concept. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 66 experts conducted in the trinational metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine in Germany, France, and Switzerland. Following a description of the status-quo in each country, a public choice analysis is used to identify the key actors in the political decision-making process to determine the extent to which they facilitate or impede the energy-transition and cross-border cooperation, as well as group-specific socio-environmental-conflicts. Based on the identified conflicts, eco-social-policy recommendations are derived that can also enhance trinational cooperation.

Compliance with government rules and guidelines is essential for effectively managing pandemic emergencies. Few studies have examined how street-level bureaucrats (SLBs)' behavioral performance shapes citizen compliance decisions. This study combines the stereotype content model (SCM) with the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion in a large-scale randomized between-subjects survey experiment conducted in China. The study tests the hypothesis that citizens' impressions of warmth and competence toward SLBs have respective and interactive positive persuasive effects on their compliance with government rules and guidelines during a pandemic emergency. The study finds that the impressions of competence and warmth are always important for citizen compliance in a pandemic emergency; and the impression of warmth matters more for citizen compliance for competent bureaucrats. An interaction effect between impressions of SLBs' warmth and competence in predicting citizen compliance was also confirmed. Citizens are more inclined to comply when they perceive SLBs as both competent and warm. The study concludes that citizens' compliance with government rules and guidelines during a pandemic emergency partly depends on their impressions of the quality of bureaucratic encounters. Thus, probing and highlighting citizens' impressions of SLBs during citizen–bureaucratic interactions is theoretically and practically worthwhile.

Societies are grappling with uncertainty about how to adapt to the emerging knowledge economy. Drawing on the public policy literature, we propose a new approach to studying the politics of ideas during long-term structural changes. We depart from existing scholarship that focuses on the politics of ideas during episodic crises, and instead focus on ideas that develop gradually in the context of “slow-burning” crises, using the example of the knowledge economy. In slow-burning crises, the processes of defining problems and identifying solutions unfold over different timeframes and lead to variation in coalition building because they involve a diverse set of actors promoting ideas at different levels of abstraction. Our cross-national quantitative analysis of national public debates shows that employers act as key problem brokers, proposing problem diagnoses that focus on efficiency challenges. In contrast, the actors proposing solutions are more diverse, promoting ideas centered on inclusion and governance.

Education equips individuals with valuable skills to protect them against employment risks associated with the digital transition. As scholars debate whether vocational education and training (VET) or general education better insures against technology-induced employment risk, we ask how this type of risk, as perceived by individuals, shapes their education preferences. Our analyses, based on a survey of over 11,500 respondents across seven European countries, show that VET is regarded as a safe haven by those perceiving heightened risk. This relationship remains robust when controlling for various alternative explanations and is consistent across countries. Subgroup interactions indicate that men, high-income earners, respondents with tertiary education, and those politically on the right more strongly favor VET in response to subjective technology risk. Hence, our study suggests that VET's practical, job-oriented focus is perceived as better protection against the growing uncertainty over skill demands in the twin transition than general education.

This paper invites the readers to rethink regulatory governance by examining how trust-based and rule-based governance interact. To do this, it uses analytical narratives of three fictional polities: “Trustland”, “Regland”, and “Concordia”. Each polity represents a stylized model of governance: Trustland is anchored in trust-based governance, Regland in rule-based governance, and Concordia evolves as an attempt for a synergy of both. The analysis reveals the deep logics, political tensions, and institutional trade-offs involved in governing through trust and through rules. It traces how different conceptions and priorities around trust and rules compete in each of the three fictional countries. Trustland is not Utopia, Regland is not Dystopia, and Concordia may be better understood as a “Protopia” – a space of gradual, contested improvement. Four modes of governance compete in each polity to capture alternative configurations of institutional alignment, interaction, and conflicts. Rather than advocating a normative ideal, the paper positions each polity as a field of ongoing political struggle over legitimacy claims, institutional boundary-drawing, and authority. These imaginative narratives offer a framework for rethinking how governance legitimacy is articulated, organized, and contested in contemporary regulatory systems. In so doing, it provides an innovative way of thinking and rethinking the academic field and practice of regulatory governance.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040253

Authors: Huirong Chen Xianchu Huang Xueliang Zhang Wenwen Tian

Since 1978, Chinese–foreign cooperation in running schools (CFCRS) has evolved from fragmented pilot initiatives into a policy-coordinated system of higher education internationalization. This study employs an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to examine how national policy shifts reshaped the structure of CFCRS collaboration networks between 1978 and 2025. Integrating longitudinal policy analysis with Social Network Analysis (SNA), the research identifies five policy-driven stages: exploratory opening, legal institutionalization, regulated development, quality enhancement, and strategic repositioning. Network analysis shows that increasing density, expanding degree centrality of leading institutions, and greater diversification of international partners reflect growing integration into global transnational higher education networks. At the same time, persistent structural concentration in key institutional hubs and regulated entry into partnerships indicate strong path dependence shaped by state-steered governance. The network also exhibits a disciplinary shift toward engineering and STEM collaborations aligned with national innovation strategies, alongside gradual spatial diffusion from coastal regions toward central and western provinces. Conceptually, the findings demonstrate that state-coordinated internationalization can generate dense and diversified collaboration networks without fully liberalizing governance structures. The CFCRS case thus illustrates a model of hybrid governance, where centralized policy coordination coexists with expanding network-based international partnerships.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040252

Authors: Juana Valentina Apolón Urquijo Dany Alejandra Téllez Archila Wilkar Simón Mendoza Chacón Gladys Shirley Ramírez Villamizar

This article formulates guidelines for the transactional regulation of surrogacy in Colombia, based on a comparative analysis with the Mexican regulatory model, especially in the states of Tabasco and Sinaloa. To this end, a qualitative methodology was adopted by applying the technique of comparative law to simultaneously analyze the regulations of the focused Mexican states and the most recent (now shelved) initiative in Colombian law, identifying significant contributions to national progress in surrogacy through the theory of legal transactions, the principle of solidarity, and the right to found a family. The results show that, although Colombia had tried to progress in recognizing procreative will as the basis for filiation and has attempted regulatory adjustments to the civil registry, serious regulatory gaps persisted in the design of post-contractual mechanisms, especially regarding the prevention of human trafficking, the well-being of gestational carriers, institutional monitoring, and the guarantee of breastfeeding. The conclusions show that effective regulation should not focus exclusively on formalizing agreements between adults but should also guarantee the fundamental rights of the child from birth. In contrast, the Mexican model offers valuable tools to enrich the Colombian debate, but it also has some shortcomings that warrant revision. Therefore, this study contributes to the Colombian legislative discussion by calling for comprehensive regulation guided by the dignity of all the involved subjects and based on comparative experiences.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040251

Authors: Kayser

The digital transformation of contemporary societies raises fundamental questions for science and policy alike [...]

International environmental agreements are key instruments for addressing transboundary environmental problems, but treaty ratification remains uneven and clustered across countries despite the proliferation of multilateral treaties. While existing research has concentrated largely on domestic political-economic determinants, less is known about the role of cross-national interdependence and strategic interactions in the ratification of treaties. To address this gap, we present a comprehensive analytical framework drawing on policy diffusion theory to assess whether and through which channels environmental treaty ratification diffuses internationally. Using static and dynamic spatial econometric models on a global panel of 140 countries over the period 1990–2018, we specifically examine learning, competition, and emulation through theoretically grounded interaction matrices that reflect one-to-one relationships between countries and clearly identify trade competitors, cultural peers, and learning channels. The results prove that spatial dependence and significant spatial spillover effects exist across countries. Learning and competition are dominant mechanisms, while the magnitude of the peer-based emulation effect is weaker but statistically significant. Dynamic specifications indicate strong temporal persistence in treaty ratification, reflecting policy path dependence. Prior actions of neighbors play a significant role in shaping current decisions; early adopters act as policy laboratories. The study advances diffusion research by moving beyond distance-only proxies and explicitly modeling cross-national interdependence through mechanism-specific interaction matrices, offering a stronger empirical basis for assessing how cross-national spillover shapes IEA ratification.

Governance of sustainable development increasingly relies on voluntary standards and commitments, the credibility and effectiveness of which hinge on accountability—ensuring actors align with shared goals and follow through on them. However, voluntary initiatives operate outside traditional control structures and blend elements of state, market, and community governance. This study examines how accountability is constructed and practiced through the lens of accountability logics. Using Finland's Commitment 2050 platform as a case, it analyzes how bureau–legal, economic–managerialist, and community logics shape the motivations, standards, processes, and consequences of account-giving. The findings indicate that commitment-based accountability emerges from the shifting and often uneven balance between these logics. While Commitment 2050 fosters multiple motivations and relations, accountability remains largely unrewarded and unsanctioned. This flexibility can broaden participation but weaken effectiveness and legitimacy. Future studies should examine how logic configurations evolve and how voluntary initiatives can achieve credible flexibility.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040250

Authors: Vered Ben David

Parenting research and policy increasingly emphasize visible practices, measurable outcomes, and parental effort as indicators of competence. Across welfare, education, and family intervention contexts, “good parenting” is often evaluated through intensive doing: monitoring, documenting, optimizing development, and managing risk. While these frameworks foreground parental responsibility, they frequently obscure the relational dimensions of care and intensify existing classed, gendered, and racialized inequalities. Building on feminist scholarship that has long conceptualized parenting as relational, ethical, and socially situated, this paper develops a theoretical framework for rethinking parenting by integrating family studies scholarship on intensive parenting, emotional labor, and inequality with Hannah Arendt’s distinctions among labor, work, and action. Parenting is commonly framed as labor, the daily work of sustaining children’s lives, or as work, the longer-term project of producing competent future adults. Drawing on Arendt’s concept of action, the paper reinterprets parenting as a relational practice grounded in presence, responsiveness, and mutual recognition. Using illustrative examples from diverse family contexts, including Indigenous and immigrant communities, the analysis shows how privatized and performance-oriented models of care place strain on families while rendering collective forms of support less visible. The paper concludes by outlining implications for family research and policy, including a shift from outcome-based evaluation toward relational engagement and from individualized responsibility toward strengthened social infrastructures of care, arguing for greater attention to relational care, shared responsibility, and the structural conditions that shape parenting practices and family well-being.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040249

Authors: Špela Pučko Urška Kumar Katarina Habe

The inclusion of vulnerable groups in cultural life is a central issue of social justice, equality, and sustainable development. While equality ensures formal access to cultural participation, equity requires differentiated, needs-responsive measures that address structural barriers to meaningful engagement. Vulnerable groups—those at increased risk of social exclusion and inequality—often face such barriers despite the recognized role of the arts in promoting well-being, empowerment, and social cohesion. This study examines how Slovenia’s main cultural institutions conceptualize and implement inclusion, focusing on target groups, accessibility measures, and structural challenges and assessing whether their practices reflect principles of equality or equity. A mixed-methods approach combined an online survey of 26 institutions with semi-structured interviews with six representatives. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic coding. The findings indicate that inclusion is present but fragmented and largely unsystematic. Institutions predominantly adopt equality-based approaches through general programming and standard adaptations, while equity-oriented, structurally embedded measures remain limited. Groups requiring sensory, communicative, or content-related adaptations are less frequently included. Overall, inclusion remains capacity-driven rather than equity-oriented, highlighting the need for coherent, equity-based frameworks to ensure sustainable and meaningful cultural participation.

Societies doi: 10.3390/soc16040126

Authors: Mohit Kumar Agarwal Aurobindo Ogra

The parks and open spaces of planned neighbourhood are generally underutilized in cities due to the lack of a Child-Friendly Environment (CFE). The quality of parks and open spaces can be elevated by addressing and improving the deficiencies identified in their conditions. There is a need to identify the parameters for rating neighbourhood parks and open spaces. This research aims to understand the level of CFEin the planned neighbourhood parks of a metropolitan city. The research considers three parks as case study areas, Gandhi Park, Maharanapratap Park, and Balmiki Park in the city of Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The research employed the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to rate the parks with the use of a nine-point weighting scale. The research identified various dimensions under five major parameters of CFE, namely: perception, physical, social, cognitive, and emotional. The cognitive and perception parameters are observed to play the most significant role in generating CFE. The research result could be used in planning and developing CFE parks and open spaces in neighbourhoods by incorporating the critical dimensions and key elements of the identified parameters in policy guidelines, norms and standards.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040248

Authors: Antonios Kostas Vasileios Zoumpoulidis Maria Fragkioudaki Anastasios Karasavvoglou

The dominant agri-food system’s well-documented failures—biodiversity loss, deepening rural inequalities, and the erosion of small-scale farming livelihoods—have elevated SSE initiatives and social innovation in the agri-food sector and bioeconomy from a niche policy concern to a structural priority. This paper examines how SSE arrangements drive meaningful transformation in agri-food chains while advancing sustainable development at local and regional scales. Through a narrative review of interdisciplinary peer-reviewed literature and key institutional sources, the paper synthesizes evidence that SSE initiatives generate transformation through three interconnected mechanisms: (a) the reconfiguration of governance structures; (b) the deepening of producer–consumer relationships through spatial proximity and relational transparency; and (c) the more equitable redistribution of value across agri-food territories. These findings suggest that place-based SSE models occupy a central—rather than peripheral—role in sustainability transitions and local development. The paper presents a structured analytical framework linking SSE practices to agri-food chain transformation and develops nine concrete policy implications for scaling and sustaining SSE innovations through coordinated collaboration among public, private, and social economy stakeholders. The findings contribute to a sharper understanding of the conditions under which SSE-driven models can foster sustainable, socially inclusive, and community-oriented agri-food systems and of why the solidarity dimension, rather than organisational form alone, is the decisive criterion for identifying genuinely transformative initiatives.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040247

Authors: José Casás García Alba Silva Rodríguez Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) extends across virtually all sectors of society, including communication. One of the areas in which its influence is expected to be most significant is disinformation, arguably one of the greatest challenges faced by networked societies over the past decade. Through a systematized literature review with a scoping orientation, this study examines how research on artificial intelligence and disinformation has evolved over the last five years and identifies the main thematic strands structuring this field. The analysis of 62 articles reveals a predominance of qualitative approaches (53.3%) and a technocentric perspective structured around five main research lines: (1) AI as a source of disinformation, (2) AI as a tool to combat it, (3) regulatory frameworks, (4) deepfakes, and (5) algorithmic literacy. These findings highlight both the consolidation of the field and the need to advance toward more interdisciplinary and transfer-oriented research.

Societies doi: 10.3390/soc16040125

Authors: Oksana Liashenko Oleksandr Dluhopolskyi Viktor Koziuk Dmytro Zherlitsyn Tetiana Dluhopolska

Contemporary European societies face overlapping societal challenges—ecological degradation, immigration pressures, and widening economic inequality—which generate a pervasive climate of uncertainty affecting citizens’ perceptions of their own life conditions. This study investigates how social pessimism, conceptualised as a multidimensional orientation reflecting perceived threats across environmental, migratory, and distributive domains, relates to subjective financial insecurity at the individual level. Drawing on harmonised cross-national data from the CRONOS-II panel (N = 8993), covering eleven European countries, we construct a composite pessimism index and analyse its association with perceived financial strain using multivariate and multilevel regression models. Results demonstrate that individuals who express greater societal pessimism report significantly higher levels of financial insecurity, even after controlling for income, education, employment status, and country-level heterogeneity. This relationship is moderated by socioeconomic position; specifically, the pessimism–insecurity link is strongest among lower-income and less-educated groups, suggesting that material precarity and anticipatory anxiety compound one another. Cross-national analysis reveals substantial variation in effect magnitude, with the strongest associations observed in Hungary, Portugal, and the Czech Republic, and the weakest in Slovenia and Iceland. These findings contribute to the interdisciplinary understanding of how macro-level societal concerns permeate individual wellbeing, demonstrating that subjective economic vulnerability is shaped not only by objective circumstances but also by the broader socio-political climate in which citizens interpret their life situations. The results underscore the need for policies that address both material conditions and the affective dimensions of societal uncertainty in order to strengthen social cohesion and reduce perceived economic risk. Theoretically, we frame social pessimism as a formative composite capturing perceived threat to societal stability, offering an integrative perspective on how structurally distinct societal concerns converge to shape economic subjectivities.

The global extractive mining industry has undergone significant expansion over recent decades, triggering severe ecological and social impacts that threaten vulnerable communities. Amid these challenges, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) play an increasingly vital role in advocating for equitable and sustainable mining governance. However, existing research on ENGO advocacy remains fragmented across disciplines, necessitating a systematic review to identify patterns of strategies, constraints, and outcomes of NGO activism in diverse mining regions globally. This study employs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, with searches in Scopus and Web of Science yielding 143 articles, screened and resulting in 39 publications meeting the inclusion criteria (published ≥2015, English language, focused on environmental NGOs in mining). The reviewed articles were predominantly qualitative (30; 77%), with quantitative (4; 10%) and mixed methods (5; 13%) approaches comprising the remainder. Articles were assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) and analyzed thematically using NVivo 14. The findings identify six key advocacy strategies emphasizing digital campaigns and community collaboration, reflecting a transformation toward hybrid environmental activism. Simultaneously, NGOs confront persistent structural barriers operating across macro, meso, and micro levels, including state repression, corporate dominance, and community co-optation. Nevertheless, advocacy efforts have produced five significant achievements: governance reform, community empowerment, regulatory change, socio-ecological impacts, and enhanced public accountability. Community empowerment emerges as the most prominent impact, underscoring that affected communities exercise autonomous collective agency amplified—rather than created—by NGO intervention. This study proposes a hybrid environmental activism framework grounded in environmental justice principles that integrates social movement theory with environmental governance perspectives, and recommends further research on gender dimensions, intergenerational justice, and socio-ecological resilience in mining contexts.

This systematic review synthesizes global evidence on environmental NGO advocacy in mining regions, revealing hybrid activism that merges digital campaigns, legal strategies, and community collaboration. Despite multilayered structural barriers, such advocacy advances governance reform, community empowerment, and transparency through a hybrid framework.

Zeolites are porous aluminosilicates with a regular crystal structure, high surface area, and tunable acid sites, making them suitable for use as heterogeneous catalysts. In this study, zeolite was synthesized from kaolin as a precursor and subsequently modified via ion exchange to obtain an acidic catalyst. The catalyst was applied in the esterification reaction between isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid to produce isoamyl acetate. The acidity of the zeolite was enhanced by the ion exchange method using an ammonium chloride (NH₄Cl) solution with a concentration of 1–3 M, followed by calcination at 500°C to produce an H-zeolite catalyst. Based on SEM analysis, it was found that the synthesized zeolite had the morphological characteristics of Na-P1 zeolite, which was further confirmed by XRD results. EDX analysis showed that the zeolite synthesized from kaolin had a Si/Al ratio of approximately 3.35. In addition, based on the results of XRF analysis on the zeolite sample, the presence of Na elements of 0.62% by mass and Na₂O of 2.87% by mass could be identified. FTIR analysis was conducted to determine changes in catalyst characteristics following ion exchange modification. The FTIR spectrum showed an increase in acid sites in the zeolite structure, which was further confirmed by NH₃-TPD analysis with an acidity value of 1.3343 mmol g⁻¹. Subsequently, the catalytic activity of H-zeolite was evaluated in an esterification reaction at 60°C–100°C for 60–180 min. The catalytic esterification reaction with a molar ratio of acetic acid to isoamyl alcohol of 1:3, a catalyst loading of 3% (wt/v), and a temperature of 100°C for 180 minutes achieved the highest acetic acid conversion of 97.02%. Based on the results of GC-MS analysis of the reaction products, it was confirmed that the esterification reaction catalyzed by H-zeolite successfully produced isoamyl acetate with high selectivity. Furthermore, stability tests showed that the H-zeolite catalyst could be reused for up to three reaction cycles with relatively stable performance.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040246

Authors: Jeremy Ko Arturo Garcia Franco Yihan Gao

This study examines the relationship between executive aggrandizement and Quality of Government (QoG) deterioration in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. Drawing on the framework of autocratic legalism—whereby legal forms are used to hollow out legal protections—we theorize how constitutional reforms that concentrate executive power through autocratic legalism may systematically undermine the institutional foundations of impartial governance. We employ a synthetic control method to construct a counterfactual governance trajectory for Venezuela, comparing observed outcomes following the 1999 constitutional reforms to what comparable Latin American countries would predict. Our quasi-experimental analysis provides evidence that the institutionalization of executive aggrandizement was associated with modest yet sustained QoG deterioration from 2000 to 2012. This decline manifested primarily through a collapse in the rule of law and rising systemic corruption, patterns consistent with the theoretical mechanisms of autocratic legalism linking constitutional reforms to governance erosion through institutional capture. The findings suggest that constitutional changes concentrating power in the executive, while appearing procedurally legitimate, may potentially compromise the impartial exercise of state authority.

Cerium oxide nanoparticles are found to be a potential candidate for photocatalytic decolorization of cationic dyes based on their peculiar characteristics like switchable redox reactivity, high surface area, and high catalytic activity. Here, we have explored the efficiency of silver-doped CeO₂ nanoparticles (Ag-doped CeO₂ NPs) prepared using Syzygium cumini leaf extract as a reducing and stabilizing agent for photocatalytic degradation of cationic dyes. The green synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed using XRD, FESEM, PL, UV–Vis, and Raman spectroscopy. The XRD pattern confirmed the cubic phase of Ag-doped CeO₂ NPs with average crystallite size ranges between 8 and 31 nm, while FESEM images reported the grain size of 50–60 nm. The characterization methods confirmed the synthesis of Ag-doped CeO₂ NPs. The photocatalytic activity of the nanoparticles can be due to their distinct optical and structural features for enhanced cationic dye degradation. The 5% Ag-doped CeO₂ NPs in the present work showed the highest efficiency toward the degradation of methylene blue (99%) and brilliant green (95%) dyes under solar light. The work highlights the prospects of Ag-doped CeO₂ NPs synthesized through greener pathways as proficient photocatalysts for remediation processes.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040245

Authors: Tesseltje de Lange Masja van Meeteren

This article investigates the housing precarity of EU migrant workers in the Dutch–German border region, focusing on the Venlo Greenport area. Drawing on documentary analysis, 28 interviews, field observations, and stakeholder engagement, it explores how local governance, market dynamics, and framing practices shape housing outcomes. While EU law guarantees free movement, housing remains excluded from the EU rights frameworks, leaving workers dependent on employer-linked or agency-controlled short-stay facilities. These arrangements—often overcrowded, surveilled, and formally temporary—become long-term solutions, producing what we term short-stay sedentarism: prolonged residence in housing designed to deny permanence. The study conceptualises the local “battleground” where municipalities, employers, housing providers, NGOs, and residents negotiate competing interests. Seven interpretive frames—nuisance/disorder, cowboys, human rights, NIMBY, shadow power, integration, and unwanted accumulation—structure these debates, legitimising certain strategies while obscuring structural deficiencies. Findings reveal that certification and enforcement, while intended to improve standards, often entrench precariousness by sustaining the short-stay model. Emerging integration-oriented policies signal a shift but remain fragile amid economic imperatives and spatial constraints. The paper argues that addressing housing precarity requires structural reforms: expanding access to regular housing, reducing employer dependency, and recognising migrant workers as long-term residents rather than temporary labour inputs.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040244

Authors: Angela U. Ekwonye Sophi M. Cahalan Leila Hoeschen Ehrbright

The well-being of university students is deteriorating, highlighting the need for accessible, non-stigmatizing supports beyond clinical care. Positive psychology (PP) interventions have shown strong potential for improving mental well-being, yet they remain largely underutilized in Nigerian universities. This pilot study evaluated the impact of an eight-week education and intervention incorporating acts of kindness, gratitude, positive reframing, and character strengths in improving subjective well-being among university students in Nigeria. Students were assigned randomly to an education + PP group or an education-only control group and assessed at baseline and post-intervention. Independent-samples t-tests were used to examine group differences in outcomes, while mixed-design ANOVA models assessed the effects of group and time. Compared with controls, the intervention group showed significantly higher mental well-being, positive affect, and resilience, with moderate to large effects. While significant main effects emerged across outcomes, time-by-group interactions were observed only for positive affect and resilience. Given rising psychological distress among Nigerian university students, these preliminary results showed that brief, strengths-based PP exercises can meaningfully improve students’ subjective well-being. They can serve as low-cost, non-stigmatizing additions to university mental health services and a scalable complement to traditional care in low-resource settings.

Widespread investments in OECD-style transfer-pricing audits across Sub-Saharan Africa stand in contrast to critiques that question the effectiveness and legitimacy of the OECD transfer pricing guidelines. Our process tracing design aims to explain why Sub-Saharan countries comply with OECD transfer-pricing guidelines by tracing why some African countries implement transfer-pricing audits while others do not. By comparing Kenya's, Uganda's, and Rwanda's compliance with Ethiopia's mock compliance, it reveals conditions supporting the implementation of suboptimal global standards. Drawing on historical institutionalist theory, we show that network effects create a compatibility advantage, enabling governments to increase revenue without undermining competitiveness. However, Ethiopia's approach is performative, and our findings emphasize two key conditions for compliance: the socialization of tax administrations into the transnational tax governance network influencing their policy feedback, and the presence and relative power of the financial service industry providing transfer-pricing advice.

Social Sciences doi: 10.3390/socsci15040243

Authors: Damjan Mandelc

Over the past decade, far-right parties have moved from the political margins into the mainstream of several European democracies. This article examines how migration functions not primarily as a demographic driver of electoral change, but as a discursive resource through which democratic boundaries are redefined. Drawing on a qualitative comparative analysis of political speeches, party manifestos, and public debates in selected European countries between 2014 and 2022, the study investigates how migration is constructed as a threat to welfare systems, national cohesion, and liberal-democratic order. The analysis integrates three complementary frameworks of ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism to demonstrate how exclusion is legitimized through moralized appeals to culture, fairness, and liberal values. Rather than rejecting democracy outright, far-right actors reinterpret concepts such as citizenship, solidarity, and equality in conditional and culturally bounded terms. Migration thus operates as a symbolic condensation of broader anxieties related to globalization, economic insecurity, and political distrust. The findings show how democratic language itself can normalize exclusionary interpretations of membership, contributing to gradual forms of democratic erosion across Europe.

A lifetime of discrimination, stigma, and harassment for LGBTQ+ older adults may be the source of legal conflict or the lens through which family court matters are perceived and litigated. Interdisciplinary family law professionals must understand the historical context and challenges facing LGBTQ+ older adults to meaningfully and competently work with this community. This article examines older LGBTQ+ family systems and intersections with family law professionals. The compounded stigma within legal and familial structures can increase the risk of elder abuse and neglect for this community. Every situation is different and every family is unique, but opportunities for better outcomes are possible when we support LGBTQ+ family connections.

The concept of “eldering” frames aging as an evolving, relational facet within families applicable to diverse legal and cultural contexts. By broadening our professional lenses, we can more effectively respond to the complex, layered interdependent intricacies of families, and the needs of the individuals within, as they evolve through time. This article incorporates valuable insights from this Family Court Review Special Issue and offers a guide for professionals and the court to bridge the gaps between outdated norms and lived realities of family systems, benefitting multigenerations, practitioners, and the court.

Despite receiving major reform in the form of Article 81, there is a great need for continued improvement of guardianship proceedings. People suffering from neurodegenerative diseases are particularly susceptible to financial abuse. The current guardianship system requires enhancements to ensure that incapacitated adults are not being taken advantage of through their reliance on the assistance provided by Article 81. The proposed reform will institute a system similar to that employed by the Integrated Domestic Violence Courts in Family Court.