Research and Opinions

How does decentralization relate to trust in institutions at different levels of multi-level governance? This article examines whether four dimensions of decentralization—local self-rule, local interactive rule, regional self-rule, and regional shared rule—are associated with trust in local/regional authorities, national governments, and European Union institutions. Using Eurobarometer survey data and country-level measures from the Local Authority Index and Regional Authority Index covering 29 European countries (2008–2018), the analysis finds that decentralization has uneven relationships with institutional trust. Local self-rule is consistently associated with higher institutional trust across all governance levels, whereas regional self-rule is generally linked to lower institutional trust. Local interactive rule and regional shared rule show weaker and more conditional relationships. The findings suggest that decentralization does not uniformly strengthen institutional trust. Instead, trust depends on how authority and accountability are structured across levels of governance.

The Partition of Punjab in the summer of 1947 is perhaps one of the most studied subjects in the history of the Indian subcontinent, encompassing a range of themes and aspects. Recently, the focus has shifted from ‘high politics’ to ‘human’ — this is termed the emergence of a ‘new history’ — in which loss, enmity, trauma, and women have become the dominant themes in academic writings. These works highlight that women have been the primary victim of sexual abuse, violence, and massacre; others analyze novels, short stories, and theatre productions to research the Partition; and the rest focus on its inheritance, covering memory, testimony, and history. Thus, communal divide, bloodshed, massacre, trauma, dispossession, and violence have dominated these studies. This is one part of the story, or one side of the picture. Where is the other? Did no stories and/or precedents of sharing, friendship, memory, compassion, or heroism exist? Were people not risking their lives to save their neighbours from rampaging mobs? This essay attempts to uncover, showcase, and examine the untold human stories of the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent — sharing, friendship, memory, compassion, and love — by answering these questions through twenty-five in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews with the Partition survivors. The findings suggest there were stories of people risking their lives to save their neighbours from rampaging mobs, bridging the communal divide, and escorting their fellow villagers to either India or Pakistan.

Purpose: As a pilot study, we explored how Korean immigrant youths could collaborate with their autistic siblings to support the learning of daily living skills using video-based instruction. The following research questions were addressed: (a) Is there a functional relation, or positive effect, between the training and siblings’ fidelity of implementation? (b) Is there a functional relation between the intervention and the autistic youths’ completion of self-selected daily living skills? (c) How do autistic youths and their siblings evaluate the social validity of the program?

Methods: We used a nonconcurrent multiple probe single-case experimental design across three autistic youth-sibling dyads. The autistic youths selected a daily living skill they desire to learn. Siblings created task analyses and video clips for the intervention. After training, siblings implemented video-based instruction embedded with least to most prompts and reinforcement.

Results: Siblings’ fidelity of video-based instruction increased after training. The autistic youths’ percentage of task completion increased upon the implementation of intervention. All three sibling dyads reported high levels of social validity with regard to their preference of the instruction, feasibility, and sustainability.

Conclusion: The findings of this pilot study suggest that culturally adapted, family-engaged, video-based training and intervention that are informed, planned, and implemented collaboratively with autistic youths and family members can be beneficial in promoting the youths’ daily living skills acquisition while ensuring socially valid approaches.

Political trust is a fundamental component of democratic stability, yet its relationship with the quality of schooling remains underexplored. This study examines how both student-level perceptions of schooling—measured through distributive justice, procedural fairness, and functional effectiveness—and national-level investment in education influence political trust across 22 European countries. Using data from Round 2 of the European Social Survey (2004) and national-level education expenditure from the World Bank (2004–2006), this study employs multilevel modeling to assess the impact of quality of schooling on political trust. The results reveal that students’ perceptions of distributive justice, procedural fairness and functional effectiveness significantly impact political trust, alongside national-level spending in education. These findings highlight the role of education in shaping political attitudes and suggest that government commitment to educational quality can enhance trust in political institutions. The study offers important implications for policymakers, particularly in the context of ongoing debates on education privatization and public investment in schooling.

Police in Pakistan is one of the least trusted institutions, yet limited research has explored the underlying causes of this distrust. This study examines trust in police in the provinces of Punjab (Lahore) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP; Peshawar) using performance and procedural justice frameworks. Based on survey data collected in 2016 from individuals with direct interactions with the police, the study investigates factors influencing public trust in these provinces, which have adopted distinct policing approaches. The findings show that procedural evaluations, such as satisfaction with investigation time, access to information, and adherence to human rights, are strong predictors of trust in police in both provinces. However, functional evaluations, including the ability to detect crimes, prevent crime, and apprehend criminals, significantly influence trust only in KP. The trust model performs better in KP, where the police benefit from greater administrative autonomy and reduced political interference compared to Punjab. These findings underscore that police reforms, such as depoliticization and administrative autonomy, are essential for improving police performance and fostering public trust.

This study explores the link between culture and support for violence against children in six South Asian (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) and European (Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden) countries. Utilizing data from the World Values Survey, it tests three hypotheses based on modernization theory. Results reveal that various measures of secularism are negatively associated with support for violence against children. For instance, individuals not affiliated with any religious organizations are more inclined to reject such violence. Similarly, belief that God is not important in life and respect for authority is a bad thing are linked to reduced support for violence against children. Moreover, post-materialist values show a negative correlation with violence. However, there is also evidence of rejection of violence against children among adherents of traditional values. The study does not discern a consistent cross-cultural pattern of association, suggesting that the spillover effects of secular value orientations are more complex than initially expected.

Research on the relationship between performance and trust is commonplace in social sciences, yet trust in child protection systems (CPS) remains an emerging area of study. This research delves into how three dimensions of performance—distributive justice, procedural fairness, and functional effectiveness—affect trust in CPS in England and Norway, drawing insights from organisational and social psychology literature. A cross-sectional survey collected data from 981 individuals in England and 1,140 in Norway. Results suggest that procedural fairness and the competences indicator of functional effectiveness significantly and positively impact trust in CPS in both countries. Resources significantly influence trust in Norway’s CPS, while distributive justice has no impact on trust in either country’s CPS. These findings hold theoretical and practical implications for trust in CPS.

Aurat March, shaped by both local and global influences — including the current landscape of women’s rights and the movements such as the #MeToo — seeks to challenge patriarchal structures by redefining traditional gender roles, critiquing institutions like marriage and family, and addressing issues related to bodily autonomy and sexuality, including topics such as rape, pornography, and prostitution. The March has adopted and implemented various practical strategies in response to the significant backlash from patriarchal forces. This study explores these backlashes and strategies through qualitative content analysis, drawing on archival research and in-depth semi-structured interviews with supporters and critics of Aurat March. Findings reveal that the utilisation of social media, the deconstruction of public-private and productive-reproductive binaries, and the transition of discussions regarding bodily rights and sexual autonomy from private to public spheres are key strategies employed by Aurat March to confront the backlash it has received from patriarchal figures, including media representatives, religious circles, and state authorities. This contributes to the discourse on reconceptualising activism in Pakistan and the Global South, particularly about the tactics and strategies adopted by women’s movements to navigate these challenges.

This study investigates the political spillover and stealth democracy hypotheses as complementary mechanisms to account for any relationship between workplace democracy and democratic legitimacy in Europe from micro (employee-level) and macro (country-level) perspectives. The results from the micro-level analyses reveal that neither workplace democracy nor self-reported membership in trade unions has any direct impact on democratic legitimacy; rather, past union membership produces a negative impact. However, the effect of workplace democracy on democratic legitimacy becomes salient only when mediated by job satisfaction and political interest. On the other hand, the macro-level analysis demonstrates that union density, a measure of workplace democracy at the country level, plays a significant role in explaining democratic legitimacy. The relevance of union density may indicate that employees wish to keep democratic institutions in check by recruiting into the trade unions and applying legal and mobilizational pressure on the mainstream political institutions.

This paper examines the associations between democratic performance, secular–traditional value orientation, and satisfaction with democracy in India and Pakistan through the lens of democratic performance and modernization theory. In an analysis of data from the 2012 World Values Survey, respect for human rights (one of two measures of democratic performance) has a stronger effect on satisfaction with democracy in India than in Pakistan. Freedom of choice influenced satisfaction with democracy only in India. Rather than having a direct effect, secular–traditional value orientation moderates the relationship between freedom of choice and satisfaction with democracy.

This study attempts at analyzing the process of reimagining and reproducing the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and Pakistan in 1971 in the textbooks at school level during the dictatorial regimes of Zia and Musharraf. What has appealed me to draw temporal, spatial, and thematic limitations for this research? To begin with, the dictatorial regimes, are believed to, have deeply relied on manipulating the Textbook Boards to further their agendas. Moreover, both the dictators are deemed to be opposing ideologues — e.g., Zia — a fanatic ruler — radicalized the textbooks while Musharraf — a champion of ‘Enlightened Moderation’ — tried to deradicalize the curriculum. Additionally, partitions present two different scenarios for a fascinating comparison — e.g., in 1947, Pakistan was an emergent state while in 1971, a parent state. The content analysis of the textbooks reveals that both the regimes adopted Hegel’s ‘philosophical’ approach of treating history — selecting the personalities, events, or periods of their choice while excluding or discarding the other — to reinforce the national narrative. It further suggests that the state-sponsored curriculum fosters religious nationalism, rather than secular nationalism, which, subsequently, nurtures majoritarian nationalism and bolsters the process of othering the minority groups in the country.

Landlordism is still considered an expression of power and superiority in Pakistan like many other countries in the world. This paper is aimed at: (1) to explain the very basic concept of land ownership; both in religious and social context, (2) to sketch historical pattern of land acquisition and its exploitation for exerting social control and political pressure and keeping the masses’ economic down to earth. The history of Indo-Pak demonstrates the gap between original Islamic landownership principles and actual historical practice, firstly by the first Muslims of India, then by the British and most recently by contemporary Pakistan. Conversely, post independence of Pakistan, after going through various waves of military–landlords–politicobureaucratic rule, oligarchy has reached to such a state that even the current political administration draws its chief share from landlords. The study suggests that for economic development and uplift of the pro-poor farming community, overcoming social and political injustice and getting rid of the clutches of landlordism is the dire need of the time and society.