How to Cite: Jackson, J. and Kuha, J. (2010). Worry About Crime Among European Citizens: A Latent Class Analysis of Cross-National Data. Under review.

Abstract: This paper examines new measures of worry about crime fielded in the European Social Survey. We use an analytical approach that combines statistical latent class modelling with pragmatic choices for the final classification of the responses into a six-category measure. We undertake an informal examination of the latent class solution in individual countries, and we show that frequency and impact indicators are reliable cross-national indicators (with configural or construct validity) of the experience of negative emotions about crime in people’s lives. Our subsequent estimation of levels of worry in 23 European countries sheds important light on the psychological patterning of worry about crime across Europe.

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How to Cite: Jackson, J. (submitted): Cognitive closure and the fear of crime: Dynamics of risk perception in three European countries. Under second review.

Abstract: This study was designed to assess (a) whether the risk sensitivity model of worry about crime replicates in three European countries, and (b) whether need for cognitive closure can be integrated into the model. A national probability sample survey of adults in Italy, Bulgaria and Lithuania asked people about their worry about crime, risk perception and need for cognitive closure. Additive and interactive relationships between key latent constructs were tested using latent moderated structural equation modelling. The results show, first, that perceptions of the likelihood of victimisation, perceptions of control over falling victim, and perceptions of the consequences of victimisation were all important additive predictors of worry about crime. Second, the association between perceived likelihood and worry was stronger when (a) perceived consequence was high and (b) need for cognitive closure was high. People with a high need for cognitive closure seemed to experience high probability risk as more unsettling and more difficult to resolve. Third, people with a high need for cognitive closure tended to view the personal consequences of victimisation as relatively serious, perhaps because of a heightened tendency to ‘seize’ and ‘freeze’ on circulating representations of crime that are biased towards the vivid and dramatic. In conclusion, the paper provides empirical support for an extended risk sensitivity model. Risk perception seems to involve multiple (interacting) dimensions, as well as individual differences in information judgement and processing. By treating risk perception as a set of interacting judgements, future studies may shed greater explanatory light on the mechanisms by which worry about crime is generated.

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How to Cite: Meljgaard, N. and Stares, S. (2013). Performed and preferred participation in science and technology across Europe: Exploring an alternative idea of “democratic deficit”. Public Understanding of Science, doi: 10.1177/0963662512446560.

Abstract: Republican ideals of active scientific citizenship and extensive use of deliberative, democratic decision making have come to dominate the public participation agenda, and academic analyses have focused on the deficit of public involvement vis-à-vis these normative ideals. In this paper we use latent class models to explore what Eurobarometer survey data can tell us about the ways in which people participate in tacit or in policy-active ways with developments in science and technology, but instead of focusing on the distance between observed participation and the dominant, normative ideal of participation, we examine the distance between what people do, and what they themselves think is appropriate in terms of involvement. The typology of citizens emerging from the analyses entails an entirely different diagnosis of democratic deficit, one that stresses imbalance between performed and preferred participation.

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How to Cite: Gaskell, G., Stares, S. and Pottage, A. (2012). How Europe’s ethical divide looms over biotech law and patents. Nature Biotechnology 30, 5, 392-394.

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How to Cite: Stares, S (2012) Using latent trait models to assess cross-national scales of the public’s knowledge about science and technology. In Bauer, MW, Shukla, R, and Allum, N The Culture of Science: how the public relates to science across the globe. New York: Routledge.

Abstract: This chapter provides an applied example of assessing measurement equivalence for polytomous items across 15 countries, using discrete latent trait models.

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How to Cite: Mejlgaard, N and Stares, S (2012) Validating survey measures of scientific citizenship. In Bauer, MW, Shukla, R, and Allum, N The Culture of Science: how the public relates to science across the globe. New York: Routledge.

Abstract: This chapter is developed from Mejlgaard and Stares (2010), and uses qualitative data to reach a fuller interpretation of the multiple-group latent class model presented in that paper.

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How to Cite: Jackson, J., Bradford, B., Hough, M., Kuha, J., Stares, S. R., Widdop, S., Fitzgerald, R., Yordanova, M. and Galev, T. (2011). ‘Developing European Indicators of Trust in Justice’, European Journal of Criminology, 8, 267-285.

Abstract: A social indicators approach to trust in justice recognises that the police and criminal courts need public support and institutional legitimacy if they are to operate effectively and fairly. We present in this paper the conceptual and methodological tools to devise indicators of trust and legitimacy across Europe. First, we outline the conceptual roadmap for a comparative European analysis of trust in justice. Second, we describe the development process of a 45-item module in Round 5 of the European Social Survey that fields the survey indicators. Third, we present the findings from the quantitative piloting of the indicators in the UK and Bulgaria and document the final wording of the measures. Fourth, we consider the policy implications of the procedural justice model of criminal justice that underpins the current project: by demonstrating to citizens that they are both trustworthy and possess the authority to govern, institutions can enhance public cooperation and compliance.

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How to Cite: Mejlgaard, N and Stares, S (2010) Participation and competence as joint components in a cross-national analysis of scientific citizenship. Public Understanding of Science, 19(5), 545–561

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a ‘democratic turn’ towards active citizen participation in science and technology. The emerging participatory approach has been framed as a critique of a reductionist, outdated ‘deficit model’ of citizen competence, literacy or understanding. Participatory modes of citizen involvement with science are presented as competing rather than complementary in offering a strategy for making science and technology accountable and open to society. We use latent class models to develop cross-national measures of competence and participation, and explore the relation between the two. We argue that the question of how to analyze and assess the role of citizens in knowledge societies should not be an either/or — participation or competence — but a matter of understanding the balance and interconnected-ness of both. We suggest that the idea of a ‘scientific citizenship’ could be a useful integrative notion to bridge the divide between concerns about public participation and public competence.

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