Federalism and the Concept of Political Territoriality: Towards an Analytical Framework for Comparative Territorial Politics

The core issues comparative territorial politics addresses are how and why territory is used to delimit, maintain, or create political power; and with what kind of consequences for efficiency (output) and legitimacy (input). The aim of this article is to integrate various research strands into the comparative study of territorial politics, with federal studies at its core. As an example of a conceptual payoff, ‘political territoriality’ refers the observer to three dimensions of the strategic use of areal boundaries for political power. By focusing on territory as a key variable of political systems, the actors, processes and institutions are first analytically separated and continuously measured, enhancing internal validity, and then theoretically integrated, which allows more valid external inferences than classic, legal-institutionalist federal studies. After discussing the boundaries and substance of comparative territorial politics as a federal discipline, political territoriality is developed towards an analytical framework applicable to politics at any governmental level. The claims are modest: political territoriality does not serve so much as an explanatory concept as rather an ‘attention-directing device’ for federal studies.

Individual predictors of adolescents' vocational interest stabilities

The study investigated the predictive utility of interest profile differentiation, coherence, elevation, congruence, and vocational identity commitment and career maturity (career planning and exploration) on the 10-month interest stability of 292 Swiss eighth-grade students: profile, rank, and level stabilities were assessed. Controlling for socio-demographic and vocational interest type variables, measures of differentiated and coherent vocational interests were significant predictors of profile stability. Interest elevation predicted more rank and level stability. The career development variables explained only a non-significant additional amount of variance in the different stability measures.

Connecteurs pragmatiques et métareprésentation: l’exemple de parce que

L’objectif principal de cet article est de montrer que certains emplois des connecteurs pragmatiques nécessitent la construction d’une métareprésentation. Nous verrons d’abord que les capacités humaines de métareprésentation sont diverses et montrerons ensuite que cette diversité se retrouve dans les différents types d’emplois des connecteurs. Nous proposerons une esquisse de modèle qui rend compte de cette propriété des connecteurs dans le cadre de la théorie de la pertinence. Enfin, nous testerons la validité de notre modèle en présentant des données dans le domaine de l’acquisition du langage, plus particulièrement sur la production de parce que chez des enfants entre deux et quatre ans.