The subjective well-being political paradox: Evidence from Latin America

The subjective well-being political paradox describes the observation that individuals are on average more satisfied with their lives in welfare states than under right-leaning (conservative) governments, which are less likely to promote welfare policies; however, at the individual level, people who identify as leaning politically more to the right show higher levels of life satisfaction than those who describe themselves as leaning to the left. This subjective well-being political paradox has previously been observed in Europe. The present study investigates whether this paradox can also be found across 18 Latin American countries by using data from 9 waves of the Latinobarómetro survey. In addition to life satisfaction, we further consider respondents’ self-rated ability to meet their financial needs in a satisfactory manner, which can be seen as a proxy for satisfaction with income. Latin America is an interesting region to study this question because of its political history and the emergence of left-leaning governments during the last fifteen years. We find that people report higher life satisfaction and a better ability to meet their financial needs under left-leaning governments compared to centre and right-leaning governments. In contrast, conservative individuals report higher financial and overall well-being than liberal individuals, which confirms the subjective well-being political paradox that was also found in Europe. Our analysis includes controls for macroeconomic indicators, such as inflation and unemployment rates and GDP per capita as well as socio-demographic factors

Synthesis and Isomerization of 3-Pyrroline Enamines

3-Pyrroline reacts with cyclic ketones to form enamines as kinetically controlled products. Under more vigorous conditions, pyrroles are formed as thermodynamically controlled products by way of a 1,3- hydride shift

The happiness–income paradox revisited

The striking thing about the happiness–income paradox is that over the long-term —usually a period of 10 y or more—happiness does not increase as a country's income rises. Heretofore the evidence for this was limited to developed countries. This article presents evidence that the long term nil relationship between happiness and income holds also for a number of developing countries, the eastern European countries transitioning from socialism to capitalism, and an even wider sample of developed countries than previously studied. It also finds that in the short-term in all three groups of countries, happiness and income go together, i.e., happiness tends to fall in economic contractions and rise in expansions. Recent critiques of the paradox, claiming the time series relationship between happiness and income is positive, are the result either of a statistical artifact or a confusion of the short-term relationship with the long-term one

Everybody thinks online participation is great – for somebody else: a qualitative and quantitative analysis of perceptions and expectations of online participation in the Green Party Germany

Based on a case study from the Green Party Germany, we discuss the expectations and potential effects of the introduction of new online participation opportunities. These methods are often used in hopes of drawing in a wider group of participants, but existing literature on digital inequality suggests that this is unlikely to happen. Applying a mixed methods approach, we investigate how likely the expectations related to these new opportunities are to be met. We used semi-structure interviews to draw out what effects party members think online participation will have. We then conducted a survey asking members about their plans to change their behaviour. Comparing expectations to prospective behavioural changes, we find that the high hopes of both party members and leaders – to draw in those members who currently do not engage – are likely to be disappointed. Members who are better off, better educated, and already more active, will likely benefit more than those the party hopes to engage. We argue that this is linked to the prevailing digital divide, and that those who are targeted for more participation need to be more actively addressed to achieve broader participation