Drawing on a new dataset the article investigates a case study of the population of interest representatives lobbying the European Parliament. It examines the role of economic and cultural... Show moreDrawing on a new dataset the article investigates a case study of the population of interest representatives lobbying the European Parliament. It examines the role of economic and cultural resources to account for the representation of organised interests from different EU member states. It adds to the existing literature on the density of organised interests by showing that in addition to economic resources, cultural capital plays a significant role in stimulating the activity of organised interests. Whether countries have a high number of organised interests in the parliament’s interest group community depends on both whether they are economically prosperous and how large a share of their citizens participate in associational life. In addition, the findings demonstrate how the ranking of countries in the population of organised interests lobbying the parliament depends on the benchmark used to measure density. Show less
Socio-ecological interventions assume that there are ‘links’ between the individual process that determinesdisaster mental health and the social context one lives in. However, there is insufficient... Show moreSocio-ecological interventions assume that there are ‘links’ between the individual process that determinesdisaster mental health and the social context one lives in. However, there is insufficient empirical basis for this claim. This paper summarizes the main findings from a research programme, in which two advanced statistical techniques on data from two floods were applied, respectively Uttar Pradesh, India 2008 and Morpeth, England, 2008. By means of multilevel structural equation modelling it was found that individual psychosocial resources (coping behaviour and social support) are employed more parsimoniously and effectively when disaster affected individuals can rely on a trustworthy and effective social community. Additionally, usingmultilevel con¢rmatory factor analyses to address screening outcomes yielded two methodologicalproblems: nested variance due to the disaster context and poor construct validity.These can be illustrated,but not dismissed without applying advanced statistical analyses. The findings strongly suggest that community interventions promoting social context and individual interventions not only share the same objective, but also impact mental health via the same individual mechanisms. Show less
