Chronic subjective dizziness

CONCLUSION: Chronic subjective dizziness (CSD) is frequent and affects twice as many women as men. Anxiety is a strong predisposing factor. The pathophysiologic concept of this disorder assumes that balance function and emotion share common neurologic pathways, which might explain that the balance disorder can provoke fear and vice versa, giving rise to a problem in perception of space and motion. In anxious patients this can turn into a space and motion phobia, with avoidance behaviour. OBJECTIVE: CSD is a diagnosis based on the hypothesis of an interaction between the vestibular system and the psychiatric sphere. Patients complain of chronic imbalance, worsened by visual motion stimulation, and frequently suffer from anxiety. Vestibular examination reveals no anomalies. We evaluated the incidence and characteristics of CSD in patients referred to our neuro-otology centre (tertiary hospital outpatient clinic). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective study of 1552 consecutive patients presenting with vertigo. CSD was diagnosed in 164 patients (female:male=111:53). RESULTS: CSD represents 10.6% of the dizzy patients in our clinic. Psychiatric disorder, mainly anxiety, was found in 79.3% of the cases. Other frequently associated factors were fear of heights and former vestibular lesion (healed). In all, 79.0% of the patients with CSD had poor balance performance on dynamic posturography testing.

An Inquiry into the use of illegal electoral practices and effects of political violence

This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence. To answer these questions, a panel survey conducted before and after the elections is combined with external indicators of electoral violence. We find that political parties targeted vote-buying towards specific groups to weaken the support of their political rivals and to mobilize their own supporters. Furthermore, parties instigated violence strategically in areas where they were less likely to win. Although the victims of violence would prefer that parties are no longer allowed to organize in ethnic or religious lines, they are more likely to identify in ethnic terms, support the use of violence and avoid relying on the police to resolve disputes. The overall findings suggest an increased risk of electoral-violence reoccurring.

Violence and displacement. Evidence from the Spanish civil war (1936-1939)

This paper explores the relationship between violence and displacement during civil war focusing on two different forms of population movements (i.e. incoming and outgoing), and two different forms of violence (i.e. direct and indirect). The paper explores the relationship between displacement and violence at the local level in the context of a civil war fought conventionally using fine-grained data from 1,062 municipalities of the region of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). First, the paper suggests that exogenous and endogenous to the war factors combine to generate patterns of resettlement. Second, the evidence indicates that, in acivil war context, refugee flows and violence are interrelated in multiple ways: the arrival of internal refugees in a locality promotes the perpetration of direct violence against civilians; this, in turn, triggers the departure of people from the locality when the other group approaches. Third, indirect violence (i.e. bombings) shows to be the most significant factor accounting for external displacement at the local level, suggesting that bombing can serve as a strong signal for civilians of the type of armed group they are facing. Finally, the Spanish case suggests that the demographic changes provoked by displacement, combined with the lethality of the conflict, are likely to have long-term political consequences.

Subjective health assessments and active labor market participation of older men: evidence from a semiparametric binary choice model with nonadditive correlated individual-specific effects

We use panel data from the U. S. Health and Retirement Study, 1992-2002, to estimate the effect of self-assessed health limitations on the active labor market participation of older men. Self-assessments of health are likely to be endogenous to labor supply due to justification bias and individual-specific heterogeneity in subjective evaluations. We address both concerns. We propose a semiparametric binary choice procedure that incorporates nonadditive correlated individual-specific effects. Our estimation strategy identifies and estimates the average partial effects of health and functioning on labor market participation. The results indicate that poor health plays a major role in labor market exit decisions.

Contextual effects on subjective national identity and nationalist vote in Catalonia

The important inflow of foreign population to western countries has boosted the study of acculturation processes among scholars in the last decades. By using the case of Catalonia, a receiver region of international and national migration since the fifties, this paper seeks to intersect a classic acculturation model and a newly reemerging literature in political science on contextual determinants on individual behavior. Does the context matters for understanding individual’s subjective national identity and, therefore, its voting behavior? Multilevel models show that environment matters. Percentage of Spain-born population in the town is statistically significant to account for variance in the subjective national identity and nationalist vote, even after controlling for age, sex, origin, language and left – right orientation and other contextual factors. This conclusion invites researchers not to underestimate the direct effect of the environment on individual outcomes such as feelings of belonging and vote orientation in contexts of rival identities.

Peacetime Violence in El Salvador and Honduras: A tale of two countries

The end of the Cold War did not bring about an end to violence in Central America. Today, so-called non-political violence continues to worsen. Academics and public policymakers are frequently influenced by the assumption that there is a causal relationship between the political violence of the 1980s and the non-political violence of today. By looking at the cases of El Salvador and Honduras, this working paper seeks to systematize existing claims about the causal relationship between past and present violence into two approaches. Our research shows that high levels of prolonged political violence, along with an abundance of firearms, can lead to high levels of prolonged non-political violence but not in the ways most often cited in existing literature. We propose a new model to better understand the connection between past and present violence and recommend indicators that can be used to measure variations in violence over time in contexts of protracted non-political violence.

Une Suisse pas si paisible : la violence comme moyen de revendication politique (1950-2000)

L'objectif de cette recherche est d'interroger la place, la valeur et l'appréhension de la violence comme un moyen de revendication politique dans un pays comme la Suisse qui s'est construit un mythe de non-violence. Son système de démocratie directe, son aisance économique, sa stabilité politique et sa neutralité seraient censés l'épargner à la fois des insurrections violentes et des conflits internationaux. Toutefois, une recherche dans les archives de la presse nationale révèle que pour la période étudiée, entre 1950 et 2000, la Suisse a vécu les actions collectives violentes provenant des séparatistes et des anti-séparatistes jurassiens, de l'extrême gauche et de l'extrême droite. Le pays a également été le terrain des actions violentes provenant de mouvements de lutte armée clandestins allemands, italiens ainsi que des attentats organisés par des mouvements arabes, comme le Front Populaire de Libération de la Palestine (FPLP). Avec une approche mettant l'accent sur les acteurs, plusieurs axes de recherches ont été développés, notamment la fonction de l'action violente pour les individus et les mouvements qui y ont recouru afin d'exprimer une revendication, qu'elle ait été politique, sociale ou culturelle, et la façon dont le gouvernement suisse a perçu le danger représenté par les différents courants politiques. La question des réseaux développés avec les organisations de lutte armée clandestines a été abordée avec les cas de l'Allemagne et de l'Italie, pour ce qui est des mouvements établis en Europe, puis, avec les organisations issues des pays arabes, notamment le FPLP. L'analyse articule une réflexion à la fois empirique et théorique, ne perdant jamais de vue que la notion de violence est le lieu privilégié de jugements de valeur et que sa signification varie selon d'où provient le discours.