This doctoral dissertation examines whether incumbency affects democracy, and if it does, how re-election impacts on the political system. This thesis links and extends two theoretical traditions that hardly ever have been combined: political support theory and incumbency theory. Political support theory is used as a proxy to examine democracy from a multidimensional perspective. In this theoretical tradition, there has been a considerable concentration of studies on developed nations, and which take a comparative approach. Also, there is persistently inadequate attention given to measuring the form of a government, with a strong predominance of parliamentarian systems. Likewise, most of the research is focused at the individual level, in where the use of statistical techniques is prevailing, and the mixed methods are, nearly, non-existent. On the other hand, there are no studies that explain incumbency effects on democracy directly. Despite there being plenty of inferences which can be taken from incumbency analysis and its extrapolations about democracy and elections, there is a scarcity of studies that associate both political phenomena. In most cases, scholars analyse incumbency as an advantage in popular elections in developed countries, mainly the U.S. The main argument of this thesis proposes that incumbency has effects on democracy and that those impacts will have adverse consequences on the democratic system. Taking Chile as a case-study, a developing country with a presidential system and with similarities to Western party systems, this research seeks to respond three hypotheses. 1) The categories of support identified by Booth and Seligson in 2009 could, to an extent, be modified by including questions that gauge the role of the presidential institution in the Chilean political system. 2) It is expected that incumbency will be shown to have distinct impacts on democratic political legitimacy. 3) The effect of deputies' re-election on political legitimacy dimensions will depend on the composition of legislative pairs at the electoral district level in Chile: two newcomers, one newcomer and one incumbent, or two incumbents. This investigation uses a mixed method strategy. From a qualitative perspective, I characterise all law bills proposed to the NC to limit the re-elections of public authorities in Chile, between 11th March 1990 and 31st December 2016. In line with this doctoral dissertation's aims, a context analysis is used to analyse the content of draft laws related to incumbency. From a quantitative approach, I examine the legislative incumbency effects on political legitimacy dimensions in Chile, from 2008 to 2014. In line with this doctoral dissertation's aim, a series of statistical techniques are used to analyse the effects of incumbency on political support. The findings suggest that: 1) The effects of incumbency are distributed differently according to the component of political legitimacy. 2) The rotation of political elites (seniority and the circulation of elected deputies) is the most substantial incumbency dimension to explain political support in comparison with the competition dimension. 3) The three indicators based on the margin of victory are only related negatively to support for government management. 4) The HDI has effects on political support, but they were inconsistent. 5) The legislative pair composition produces a moderator effect on incumbency indicators. 6) Politics and ideology play a pivotal role in understanding and explaining political support theory. This research concludes that is necessary to keep expanding studies that relate incumbency and democracy by taking other countries with different electoral systems, that arguments hold by politicians should be adjusted considering evidence, and it is imperative to reduce the perception-facts gap in citizens.

This thesis combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine both women’s psychological wellbeing after miscarriage and the specific coping strategies that are associated with coping well with this event. Chapter 1 reviews the ways in which miscarriage has been defined and its estimated prevalence. As definitions of miscarriage tend to vary across Western countries, the research implications of this are discussed. Chapter 2 reviews the literature related to women’s psychological responses following miscarriage, discussing the main outcomes which have been examined, including depression, anxiety, stress and grief. As the literature is relatively small, and current research is limited by small and non-representative samples, Chapter 3 takes an epidemiological approach by cross-sectionally investigating the psychological correlates, and relevant sociodemographic, reproductive and health-related variables associated with miscarriage using a large population sample of young Australian women. Sociodemographic and reproductive variables most strongly predicted membership of the Miscarriage and No Miscarriage groups, while psychological wellbeing did not distinguish the two groups in the stepwise logistic regression. Using the same data but applying longitudinal methods, Chapter 4 examined whether trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism varied over time and according to women’s miscarriage status. Relevant sociodemographic and reproductive variables identified in Chapter 3 as possible confounding variables were controlled in these analyses. Miscarriage was found to affect trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism, with poorer outcomes on all variables for women reporting miscarriage by comparison to women who had never miscarried over a seven-year period. Because miscarriage has significant effects on women’s mental health and wellbeing, the next part of the thesis was dedicated to examining the predictors of, and coping strategies related to, coping well after miscarriage. Since the term coping well is not easily defined, Chapter 5 is a critical review of the theoretical frameworks of coping, with an emphasis on identifying the conceptualisation and measurement problems which have limited advancements in the field. Chapter 6 is a review of the psychological, reproductive and sociodemographic predictors of adjustment to miscarriage, highlighting the conflicting evidence and the need for multivariate methods when analysing these relationships. Using the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health data, Chapter 7 uses longitudinal methods to investigate predictors of Mental Health among young women reporting miscarriage. Optimism, social support and the number of miscarriages were strong predictors of Mental Health among women reporting miscarriage. Chapter 8 is a review of the research which has examined the coping styles and strategies that women use to cope with miscarriage. The majority of this research tends to be of a qualitative nature, and therefore the next step was to complete interviews with nine women to gain a more in-depth understanding of the specific coping strategies related to positive outcomes after miscarriage. Social support was reported as facilitating adjustment to miscarriage, consistent with the quantitative analyses. Acknowledgement and support from health professionals was also described as facilitating adjustment. While the quantitative analyses had also initially suggested that satisfaction with the general practitioner was an important predictor of adjustment, this variable did not reach significance when other reproductive and psychological variables were controlled for. Taking all the results into consideration, it appears that changes to social norms and attitudes regarding miscarriage may help women to cope with this challenging and distressing experience. Interventions to help women cope with miscarriage need to be grounded in an understanding of women’s need for social and family support, and understanding from health professionals. However, it is essential that interventions should be comprehensively evaluated, and future research in this area is warranted.

This thesis combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine both women’s psychological wellbeing after miscarriage and the specific coping strategies that are associated with coping well with this event. Chapter 1 reviews the ways in which miscarriage has been defined and its estimated prevalence. As definitions of miscarriage tend to vary across Western countries, the research implications of this are discussed. Chapter 2 reviews the literature related to women’s psychological responses following miscarriage, discussing the main outcomes which have been examined, including depression, anxiety, stress and grief. As the literature is relatively small, and current research is limited by small and non-representative samples, Chapter 3 takes an epidemiological approach by cross-sectionally investigating the psychological correlates, and relevant sociodemographic, reproductive and health-related variables associated with miscarriage using a large population sample of young Australian women. Sociodemographic and reproductive variables most strongly predicted membership of the Miscarriage and No Miscarriage groups, while psychological wellbeing did not distinguish the two groups in the stepwise logistic regression. Using the same data but applying longitudinal methods, Chapter 4 examined whether trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism varied over time and according to women’s miscarriage status. Relevant sociodemographic and reproductive variables identified in Chapter 3 as possible confounding variables were controlled in these analyses. Miscarriage was found to affect trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism, with poorer outcomes on all variables for women reporting miscarriage by comparison to women who had never miscarried over a seven-year period. Because miscarriage has significant effects on women’s mental health and wellbeing, the next part of the thesis was dedicated to examining the predictors of, and coping strategies related to, coping well after miscarriage. Since the term coping well is not easily defined, Chapter 5 is a critical review of the theoretical frameworks of coping, with an emphasis on identifying the conceptualisation and measurement problems which have limited advancements in the field. Chapter 6 is a review of the psychological, reproductive and sociodemographic predictors of adjustment to miscarriage, highlighting the conflicting evidence and the need for multivariate methods when analysing these relationships. Using the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health data, Chapter 7 uses longitudinal methods to investigate predictors of Mental Health among young women reporting miscarriage. Optimism, social support and the number of miscarriages were strong predictors of Mental Health among women reporting miscarriage. Chapter 8 is a review of the research which has examined the coping styles and strategies that women use to cope with miscarriage. The majority of this research tends to be of a qualitative nature, and therefore the next step was to complete interviews with nine women to gain a more in-depth understanding of the specific coping strategies related to positive outcomes after miscarriage. Social support was reported as facilitating adjustment to miscarriage, consistent with the quantitative analyses. Acknowledgement and support from health professionals was also described as facilitating adjustment. While the quantitative analyses had also initially suggested that satisfaction with the general practitioner was an important predictor of adjustment, this variable did not reach significance when other reproductive and psychological variables were controlled for. Taking all the results into consideration, it appears that changes to social norms and attitudes regarding miscarriage may help women to cope with this challenging and distressing experience. Interventions to help women cope with miscarriage need to be grounded in an understanding of women’s need for social and family support, and understanding from health professionals. However, it is essential that interventions should be comprehensively evaluated, and future research in this area is warranted.

This thesis combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine both women’s psychological wellbeing after miscarriage and the specific coping strategies that are associated with coping well with this event. Chapter 1 reviews the ways in which miscarriage has been defined and its estimated prevalence. As definitions of miscarriage tend to vary across Western countries, the research implications of this are discussed. Chapter 2 reviews the literature related to women’s psychological responses following miscarriage, discussing the main outcomes which have been examined, including depression, anxiety, stress and grief. As the literature is relatively small, and current research is limited by small and non-representative samples, Chapter 3 takes an epidemiological approach by cross-sectionally investigating the psychological correlates, and relevant sociodemographic, reproductive and health-related variables associated with miscarriage using a large population sample of young Australian women. Sociodemographic and reproductive variables most strongly predicted membership of the Miscarriage and No Miscarriage groups, while psychological wellbeing did not distinguish the two groups in the stepwise logistic regression. Using the same data but applying longitudinal methods, Chapter 4 examined whether trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism varied over time and according to women’s miscarriage status. Relevant sociodemographic and reproductive variables identified in Chapter 3 as possible confounding variables were controlled in these analyses. Miscarriage was found to affect trajectories of Mental Health, Stress and Optimism, with poorer outcomes on all variables for women reporting miscarriage by comparison to women who had never miscarried over a seven-year period. Because miscarriage has significant effects on women’s mental health and wellbeing, the next part of the thesis was dedicated to examining the predictors of, and coping strategies related to, coping well after miscarriage. Since the term coping well is not easily defined, Chapter 5 is a critical review of the theoretical frameworks of coping, with an emphasis on identifying the conceptualisation and measurement problems which have limited advancements in the field. Chapter 6 is a review of the psychological, reproductive and sociodemographic predictors of adjustment to miscarriage, highlighting the conflicting evidence and the need for multivariate methods when analysing these relationships. Using the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health data, Chapter 7 uses longitudinal methods to investigate predictors of Mental Health among young women reporting miscarriage. Optimism, social support and the number of miscarriages were strong predictors of Mental Health among women reporting miscarriage. Chapter 8 is a review of the research which has examined the coping styles and strategies that women use to cope with miscarriage. The majority of this research tends to be of a qualitative nature, and therefore the next step was to complete interviews with nine women to gain a more in-depth understanding of the specific coping strategies related to positive outcomes after miscarriage. Social support was reported as facilitating adjustment to miscarriage, consistent with the quantitative analyses. Acknowledgement and support from health professionals was also described as facilitating adjustment. While the quantitative analyses had also initially suggested that satisfaction with the general practitioner was an important predictor of adjustment, this variable did not reach significance when other reproductive and psychological variables were controlled for. Taking all the results into consideration, it appears that changes to social norms and attitudes regarding miscarriage may help women to cope with this challenging and distressing experience. Interventions to help women cope with miscarriage need to be grounded in an understanding of women’s need for social and family support, and understanding from health professionals. However, it is essential that interventions should be comprehensively evaluated, and future research in this area is warranted.

Vehicles searching for on-street parking create environmental and economic externalities through increasing network traffic flow and congestion, heightening pollutant emission levels, creating additional noise, giving rise to time delays for through vehicles, and leading to potential safety hazards caused by vehicles manoeuvring into or out of on-street spaces. Despite extensive negative impacts on individual drivers and on society, parking search is an under-researched area, particularly in more recent years and within the UK. Furthermore, current statistical modelling techniques applied to parking search time have not utilised a more comprehensive analysis in which hierarchically structured data on multiple levels could be addressed. The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate and compare the factors that influence drivers urban on-street parking search time and its policy implications. A mixed methods approach was applied that comprised qualitative interviews conducted with local government authority Council Officers and a quantitative revealed preference on-street parking survey (sample size, 1,002 observations) undertaken in four cities in the East Midlands region of the UK in order to obtain individual driver-level socio-economic and other parking related factors that may influence parking search time. Statistically significant variables for each of the cities were identified by employing separate linear regression models. A multilevel mixed-effects model in which drivers (Level 1) are nested within streets (Level 2) was then applied to the pooled dataset. Significant factors in the multilevel (street level) model were identified as: time of arrival at a parking place (for which every time period after the 07:00-07:59 reference case indicated increased search time); parking habit; parking tariff; the number of parking places previously visited (on the same trip); trip time from origin to parking place; area type; trip purpose; weather; vehicle type; and walking time from a parking place to a destination. Comparison of the factors that influence parking search time revealed important differences in statistically significant variables and coefficient values between the single-level and multilevel regression modelling approaches. Policy recommendations based upon the findings of the parking survey, modelling analysis, and further interviews conducted with local authority Council Officers, focus around time of arrival at a parking place, area type, parking charges and the potential technological advances that, if implemented, could have a considerable effect on parking search times within urban areas. Robust data collection and subsequent monitoring of parking search activity within each city should be undertaken in order to provide an evidence base which would support the introduction of future policy measures to reduce parking search activity.

In the last few decades, educational research has largely demonstrated the effects of the socio-economic background on academic performance. Traditionally, researchers have used the so-called contextualised value-added (CVA) concept, implemented via multilevel statistical models, to assess variation in learning outcomes arising from schools and pupils. Depending on the stakeholders they intend to inform, two basic types of CVA models can be defined: models for school accountability and models for school choice. School accountability models can be further distinguished according to the ‘recipient’ of the information: internal models provide information for school authorities to improve their own practices, while external models provide information for government officials to assess school performance for policy-making purposes. Despite the evidence in favour of the use of more complex models for school accountability, government practice in Chile has been restricted to the use of raw school averages in standardised tests as indicators of effectiveness, which have been used indiscriminately for the purposes of school accountability and school choice. Using data from the Chilean National Pupil Database (SIMCE 2004-2006), this thesis demonstrates how the traditional CVA (2-level) models fall short in addressing the complex phenomenon of academic performance, especially in the context of a developing and highly unequal country, such as Chile. The novelty of the CVA modelling in this thesis is that it extends and improves the traditional models insofar as they explicitly assess the variation between pupils, classrooms, primary schools, secondary schools and local authorities, as well as the correlation between Mathematics and Spanish Language at all levels. This is done by implementing two univariate 4-level CVA models for progress in Mathematics and Spanish fitted separately via maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and a bivariate 5-level cross-classified CVA model for progress in both subjects fitted via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation. External school accountability measures were derived from the extended univariate and multivariate models and compared to measures derived from a model akin to the traditional approach. A number of key differences were found, leading to the conclusion that further adjustments to the traditional CVA models are not negligible. The univariate 4-level CVA models provide more insight into school accountability than the traditional approach in a straightforward fashion, while the bivariate 5-level model encompasses a more reliable and ultimately comprehensive view on school performance. With regard to internal school accountability, further models were specified with the purpose of analysing pupils' heterogeneity to inform school improvement processes. The concept of "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1977) was chosen to shed light on the matter. Since cultural capital is essentially immeasurable, a latent variable was constructed from a group of manifest variables related to access and use of reading materials. From a substantive point of view, this thesis shows how access to all sorts of reading materials and reading habits can have not only a relevant impact on pupils' progress in Language, but also in Mathematics. Finally, this thesis concludes around three main ideas: firstly, school value-added models for school accountability, either external or internal, need to take into account the complexity of influences affecting pupils' academic progress as thoroughly as possible, in order to make a fair assessment of schools' performance and/or to inform school improvement policies. Secondly, school effectiveness is not a unidimensional process, which implies that school value-added models should ideally (when there are available data) reflect upon the multidimensionality of the phenomenon and take into consideration the relationship between different subjects, as well as non-academic outcomes. Thirdly, CVA models can also be used to inform internal school accountability by analysing the effects of meaningful modifiable factors and potentially serve as drivers of school improvement policies.

Active and engaged citizens are the backbone of a strong democracy and a vibrant civil society. Yet recent trends of low electoral turnout in Europe and decreasing levels of civic engagement have called into question the legitimacy of governments and the stability of democracy in the long term, particularly in Europe. Against the background of such developments this research sets out to provide a comparative study of civic engagement and analyse the variations in civic engagement between countries. The study is mainly based on the analysis of the European Social Survey 2002, covering 35,000 individuals from 19 European countries and applies advanced statistical modelling techniques including Multiple Correspondence Analysis MCA) and Multi-level modelling. Although there is a good deal of research examining civic engagement using individual level data or aggregate level data, very few studies have combined both approaches. This study addresses this gap and applies multi-level modelling to examine the relative importance of an individual’s socio-demographic characteristics and his/her country in determining levels and types of civic engagement. Thus, it has the advantage of identifying whether civic engagement is significantly affected by country characteristics or the converse, whether a person’s characteristics (age, education, social class etc.) are all that is needed in order to account for the variations in civic engagement. The innovative application of MCA to explore indicators of civic engagement has led to the identification of three dimensions of civic engagement; political activities, political consumerism and associational involvement. Moreover, by projecting all activities on a two-dimensional map it become evident that citizens who tend to carry out ‘individual’ types of political consumerism such as ‘buycotting’, boycotting and signing petitions are also more likely to be involved in New Social Movement organisations. These significant results shed new light on activities usually regarded as ‘individualistic’ type of activities and suggest viewing them in the context of a wider array of collective actions. Furthermore, in addition to the standard contextual measures such as economic development, welfare regime, income inequality, and levels of democracy, this study introduced two innovative policy measures. To consider the impact of government policies on levels of civic engagement measures of governments’ support of the voluntary sector and civic education at school (comparing the education policies of 19 European countries from 1945-2002) were developed. The results confirmed the importance of both individual level characteristics as well as country level characteristics in explaining civic engagement in Europe. However, differences between countries were reduced to a greater degree when contextual factors were introduced. Particularly the welfare state, showed the greatest effect. This implies that socio-economic conditions and in particular social policy and the degree to which it reproduces egalitarian structures determine to a great extent citizen involvement. In other words the results of this study suggest that the national context matters and that governments can and do shape the nature and levels of civic engagement.

No description available.

Psychological detachment occurs in the absence of work ruminations during non-work time and is a vital component in the recovery from work-related fatigue, avoiding burnout, performance decrement and detrimental health-outcomes. Overcommitment to work entails excessive job involvement and resembles poor detachment. Detachment and overcommitment are influenced by characteristics of the worker, their work, and their leisure time, but few studies have examined the effects of work or leisure demands on detachment and overcommitment. The current study examined the activity demands, detachment and overcommitment ratings of 51 workers and university students by having participants complete nine internet-based surveys over four weeks, and analysing data with a multilevel modelling approach. Rates of psychological detachment were found to be increased by physically demanding leisure activities, and decreased by mentally demanding work activities when leisure activities were mentally undemanding. In addition, detachment rates were higher when work activities were emotionally demanding and leisure activities emotionally undemanding, and when work activities were emotionally undemanding and leisure activities emotionally demanding. Overcommitment was found to be increased by leisure activities which were mentally demanding or emotionally demanding. Work ruminations during leisure time were therefore found to be influenced by work and leisure demands, with the manipulation of leisure demands thereby offering a method through with to diminish or buffer the detrimental impact of arduous work demands on the recovery from fatigue.

Since 2008 Europe has been in crisis, a financial and debt crisis that spread from the U.S. to all European countries. This thesis aims to provide evidence on the consequences of the crisis for individuals’ labour market outcomes across different countries and regions of Europe and to analyse how the recession has differentially affected sub-groups of the European population. Through the analysis of the longitudinal component of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) dataset, the project sheds light on the labour market trajectories of more than 20,000 Europeans across 11 European countries and 41 regions, before and during the 2008 financial crisis (2005-2012). Sequence and cluster analysis are used to investigate the heterogeneity of individual labour market trajectories across countries and time, while multilevel models are used to study regional labour markets during the years in crisis. The concept of transitional labour markets, as well as theories of labour market segmentation, job competition and job mobility, provide the theoretical framework for this research. The empirical findings show that during the financial crisis, labour market trajectories appear more turbulent and fragmented for the already disadvantaged sub-groups, namely women, younger workers and low educated workers. Furthermore, during the Great recession, an increase in unemployment among men confirms the sectoral profile of the crisis, which hit harder the male-dominated sectors of construction and industry. At the same time, a decrease in inactivity among women is consistent with the added worker effect, according to which women in periods of economic hardship are pushed towards labour market activity in order to contribute to the household income. Countries with weak economies and underperforming labour markets prior to the crisis, such as Greece and Italy, unsurprisingly experienced a deep and persistent crisis, while countries with stronger economies and more inclusive labour markets, such as Denmark and Sweden, managed to survive the crisis with less social harm. The institutional context of the countries offering high chances of employment even during the financial crisis, such as the Nordic countries, lies on the flexicurity of their labour markets. Indeed, flexible labour markets with the use of reduced working-time schemes, i.e. part-time forms of employment, contained unemployment during the financial shock. However, we need to be cautious about flexibility without security or partial deregulation of the markets, implemented in southern European countries, because during the crisis such policies led to further labour market segmentation and thus an increase in employment inequalities. Finally, the region of residence matters in employment outcomes, almost as much as the country of residence. In fact, from the regional analysis of individual employment outcomes during the years of the crisis, an uneven distribution of labour is detected even within the national borders. Summing up, the European crisis should be considered as the sum of national and regional crises.