Silvia M. Mendes’s research while affiliated with University of Minho and other places

The evolution of IT tools and the high percentage of children and youths who use them have produced various changes in peer relationships. Children and youth from ethnic minorities seem to be more vulnerable to victimization at school. Will they also be more vulnerable to cybervictimization? The current study examines lifetime prevalence of juvenile victimization and its demographic and socio-economic correlates, using a random sample of 7–12th grade classes in three different-sized cities in Portugal. The sample consists of 4,048 students. The overall prevalence of victimization, the diversity of forms, and the prevalence of cyberbullying victimization were calculated and used as broad measures. Findings show that half of the participants reported having suffered at least one victimization experience. Multivariate analyses showed that being female, living in a medium or large city, having low relative family and personal affluence, and ethnic minority status are associated with a high risk of cyberbullying lifetime victimization. These results allow identifying patterns of youth migrant cybervictimization in Portugal and highlight the importance of testing ethnicity as a potential mediator for severity and frequency in online deviance behavior. Limitations and practice implications for monitoring are discussed.

This book uniquely enriches and empowers its readers. It enriches them by giving them the most detailed and extensive data available on the policies and preferences of key democratic actors-parties, governments, and electors in 25 democracies over the post-war period. Estimates are provided for every election and most coalitions of the post-war period and derive from the programmes, manifestos, and platforms of parties and governments themselves. Thus, they form a uniquely authoritative source, recognized as such and provided through the labour of a team of international scholars over 25 years. The book empowers readers by providing these estimates on the website http://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/MPP1. The printed text provides documentation and suggested uses for data, along with much other background information. The changing ideologies and concerns of parties trace general social developments over the post-war period, as well as directly affecting economic policy making. Indispensable for any serious discussion of democratic politics, the book provides necessary information for political scientists, policy analysts, comparativists, sociologists, and economists. A must for every social science library-private as well as academic or public.

Background Social inclusion is a context for both risk and protective factors of migrant youth delinquency. This study aims to shed light on the issue by comparing delinquency amongst native, first-generation, and second-generation immigrant youths in Portugal, a country located in the south of Europe, an area where research in this field is still scarce. Methods The research is based on the International Self-Reported Delinquency (ISRD-3) dataset, which includes information on over 4,000 adolescents, who self-reported on their socio-demographic status, leisure activities, school and neighbourhood environment, family bonds, and self-control. Results Nested Logistic Regression analyses showed that a young first-generation immigrant is twice as likely to commit a crime, with or without violence, as a young native born in Portugal. However, no differences were found regarding the prevalence of delinquency amongst second-generation immigrants and natives, which is likely due to the integration and cultural assimilation of the immigrant over time. Regarding the analysed risk factors, it was found that both structural and individual factors, identified by the theories of control, stress, as well as situational action theory, have a direct effect on the commission of juvenile crimes (both non-violent and violent). Moreover, this effect is significant in adolescents living in Portugal in general, both immigrants and natives. The most influential variable for both types of delinquent behaviour, with and without violence, is peer delinquency, followed by low morality and self-control. Conclusion These findings have relevant policy implications and are useful for evidence-based interventions aimed at promoting migrant adolescent well-being and targeting host countries’ performance.

Purpose This paper investigates organizational performance effects by using performance management (PM) practices (both quality and internal managerial practices) and the moderating effects of the organizational context (cultural aspects and government pressures) on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Interrelationships are studied based on data collected by a unique survey administered to Portuguese government agencies. A combination of the economic theory (and the New Public Management [NPM] assumptions) with the institutional theory (inspired by the old institutional economy [OIE] and the new institutional sociology [NIS]) provides a plausibly adequate theoretical framework. Findings These support the hypothesis about the positive effects of PM practices use (both internal and quality-oriented practices) on organizational performance which validates economic and NPM assumptions. The regression results also show that performance would improve if PM practices were aligned with the organizational culture (at least partially). Looking at the moderating effects, the study finds that agencies more oriented to the use of internal management practices aligned with a citizen-centred approach would have improvements in internal performance, reinforcing OIE assumptions. In addition, findings confirm expectations about the insignificant impact on performance when agencies use PM practices under great government pressures (NIS in the isomorphism perspective). Research limitations/implications The limitations appointed in the literature regarding the use of the survey method also apply to this study. Originality/value This paper innovates by the research on the interrelationships between the organizational context, the use of PM practices and the organizational performance. The use of different theories in a complementary way (economic and institutional theories) in the explanation of performance consequences provides new insights into the body of performance management in the public sector.

We examine consensual and coercive police–citizen relations in São Paulo, Brazil. According to procedural justice theory, popular legitimacy operates as part of a virtuous circle, whereby normatively appropriate police behavior encourages people to self‐regulate, which then reduces the need for coercive forms of social control. But can consensual and coercive police–citizen relations be so easily disentangled in a city in which many people fear crime, where the ability to use force can often be palpable in even mundane police–citizen interactions, where some people fear police but also tolerate extreme police violence, and where the image of the military police as “just another (violent) gang” has significant cultural currency? Legitimacy has two components—assent (ascribed right to power) and consent (conferred right to govern)—and consistent with prior work from the US, UK, and Australia, we find that procedural justice is key to the legitimation of the police. Yet, the empirical link between legitimacy and legal compliance is complicated by ambivalent authority relations, rooted in part in heightened cultural expectations about police use of force to exercise power. We finish the paper with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.

Leisure is a context for both risk and protection of adolescent well-being. Using a person-centered analysis, the present study examined the links between after-school time use and the adjustment of an urban sample of 7th–12th graders (n = 3,808), who self-reported on their leisure activities, school achievement, problem behaviors, and happiness. Results indicated that time use patterns were distributed in five clusters: Creative/Social, Productive/Home, High-Social/Sports, Uninvolved/Sports, and Uninvolved/Home. These patterns of time use varied by age, gender and SES, and were linked with adolescent outcomes in a way that adolescents involved with multiple constructive activities presented better adjustment compared with their either uninvolved or socially oriented counterparts. Specific groups of adolescents were at higher risk for problem behaviors linked to after-school time use. These findings have relevant implications for evidence-based interventions and policies aiming at promoting adolescent well-being and targeting at-risk populations of youth.

In this paper we examine consensual and coercive police-citizen relations in São Paulo, Brazil. According to procedural justice theory, legitimacy operates as part of a virtuous circle, whereby normatively appropriate police behavior encourages public self-regulation and pro-active cooperation, which then reduces the need for coercive forms of social control. Tests of the theory in the US, UK, Australia and elsewhere typically pit normative versus instrumental accounts of crime-control policy against one another. But can consensual and coercive police-citizen power relations be so easily disentangled in a city in which many people fear crime, where some people fear police but tolerate extreme police violence, and where the image of the police as “just another (violent) gang” seems still to have significant cultural currency? Our analysis of the composition, predictors and potential consequences of police legitimacy highlights points of similarity and difference in police-citizen relations in this high violence, high fear city of the Global South.

This paper asks whether citizens judge public administration to be trustworthy using different criteria from other political institutions. Using survey data, we estimate ordered logistic and multivariate regressions to compare the determinants of trust in six different political-administrative institutions. Findings show that social trust, political interest, as well as other individual characteristics, have very similar effects on trust regardless of the institution. The evidence shows that people who are older and more educated, interested in politics, and employed in the public sector, are only slightly more likely to make some sort of distinction. Implications for non-discriminant judgement mechanisms are discussed.

_______________________________________________________________________________________ FERNÁNDEZ-PACHECO ALISES, Gloria, TORRES, Mercedes, MENDES, Sílvia y MARQUES, Paula. ¿Son los jóvenes de origen migrante más propensos a la delincuencia que los jóvenes portugueses? Una aproximación dinámica con datos del ISRD-3 en Portugal. Revista Electró-nica de Ciencia Penal y Criminología (en línea). 2018, núm. 20-26, pp. 1-18. Disponible en internet: http://criminet.ugr.es/recpc/20/recpc20-26.pdf ISSN 1695-0194 [RECPC 20-26 (2018), 12 dic] RESUMEN: Las diferencias en la implicación delictiva entre jóvenes de origen migrante y jóvenes nativos en el contexto urbano ha sido uno de los principales temas de estudio en criminología durante las últimas décadas. El interés se debe al hecho de que los inmigrantes están sobrerrepresentados en las estadísticas penitenciarias de muchos países euro-peos. En este estudio, utilizamos los elementos clave identificados en la llamada Teoría de la Acción Situacional (SAT) para determinar qué factores influyen de manera diferente en la propensión al delito de jóvenes de origen inmigrante en compara-ción con jóvenes nativos en Portugal. A través de los datos del estudio internacional sobre delincuencia juvenil (ISRD-3), que incluyó 4043 adolescentes de 12 a 18 años, se evaluaron los datos obtenidos a través de muestras escolares. Los resultados mues-tran, según un análisis de regresión logística multinomial, que factores como la delincuencia del grupo de amigos y la moralidad están significativa-mente relacionadas con el proceso de elección delictiva. Los resultados sugieren una falta de precisión a la hora de discriminar un patrón delictivo específico entre inmigrantes de segunda generación. Se discutirán las implicaciones para los instrumentos de medición y las políticas públicas europeas en el ámbito de la inmigración.

This study examined the lifetime prevalence of juvenile victimization and its demographic and socio-economic correlates, using a random sample of 7–12th grade classes in three different-sized cities in Portugal. The sample consisted of 4,048 students. The overall prevalence of victimization, the diversity of forms, and the prevalence of minor and serious victimization were calculated and used as broad measures. Findings show that half of the participants reported having suffered at least one victimization experience. Bivariate analyses revealed that specific demographic variables (age and city size) and socio-economic variables (relative family and personal affluence, number of caregivers, parents’ and personal immigrant status and father employment status) were associated with all broad measures of lifetime victimization. Multivariate analyses showed that being older (16-21 years), living in a medium or large city, having low relative family and personal affluence, and immigrant status were found to be associated with a heightened risk of lifetime victimization. These preliminary results allow identifying patterns of youth victimization in Portugal, monitoring its evolution and comparing this data with those of other countries.