Citizenship Norms in Eastern Europe

Research on Eastern Europe stresses the weakness of its civil society and the lack of political and social involvement, neglecting the question: What do people themselves think it means to be a good citizen? This study looks at citizens’ definitions of good citizenship in Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, using 2002 European Social Survey data. We investigate mean levels of civic mindedness in these countries and perform regression analyses to investigate whether factors traditionally associated with civic and political participation are also correlated with citizenship norms across Eastern Europe. We show that mean levels of civic mindedness differ significantly across the four Eastern European countries. We find some support for theories on civic and political participation when explaining norms of citizenship, but also demonstrate that individual-level characteristics are differently related to citizenship norms across the countries of our study. Hence, our findings show that Eastern Europe is not a monolithic and homogeneous bloc, underscoring the importance of taking the specificities of countries into account

A review of the systematic biology of fossil and living bony-tongue fishes, Osteoglossomorpha (Actinopterygii: Teleostei)

The bony-tongue fishes, Osteoglossomorpha, have been the focus of a great deal of morphological, systematic, and evolutionary study, due in part to their basal position among extant teleostean fishes. This group includes the mooneyes (Hiodontidae), knifefishes (Notopteridae), the abu (Gymnarchidae), elephantfishes (Mormyridae), arawanas and pirarucu (Osteoglossidae), and the African butterfly fish (Pantodontidae). This morphologically heterogeneous group also has a long and diverse fossil record, including taxa from all continents and both freshwater and marine deposits. The phylogenetic relationships among most extant osteoglossomorph families are widely agreed upon. However, there is still much to discover about the systematic biology of these fishes, particularly with regard to the phylogenetic affinities of several fossil taxa, within Mormyridae, and the position of Pantodon. In this paper we review the state of knowledge for osteoglossomorph fishes. We first provide an overview of the diversity of Osteoglossomorpha, and then discuss studies of the phylogeny of Osteoglossomorpha from both morphological and molecular perspectives, as well as biogeographic analyses of the group. Finally, we offer our perspectives on future needs for research on the systematic biology of Osteoglossomorpha

The uncertain first-time voter: Effects of political media exposure on young citizens’ formation of vote choice in a digital media environment

The digital media environment changes the way citizens receive political information, also during an election campaign. Particularly first-time voters increasingly use socialmedia platforms as news sources. Yet, it is less clear how accessing political information in such a unique social setting affects these cohorts’ decision-making processes during anelection campaign, compared to experienced voters. We compare effects of these two groups’ political information exposure on their vote choice certainty during the 2015 Danish national election. We furthermore test how the relation between exposure and certainty can be mediated by active campaign participation. An 11-wave national panelstudy was conducted, using a smartphone-based assessment of citizens’ (n = 1108) media exposure and vote choice certainty across the campaign period. Results suggest that first-time voters’ social media exposure is responsible for their increase in certainty as the campaign progresses, while this effect is absent for experienced voters