Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Objective:
This research presents the prevalence of help-seeking among Canadians aged 15 or older living in households who had a mental disorder in the previous 12 months prior to the survey. Associations between help seeking behaviour, community belonging and social support are examined, controlling for other confounding factors.

Methods:
Estimates were based on data from the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey. Cross-tabulations were used to estimate the prevalence of help-seeking for men and women with mental disorder by age groups, by province and the type of disorder. Associations between help-seeking and social support were studied using multiple logistic regression models that controlled for socio-demographic factors and health conditions.

Results:
More than half of the individuals with mental disorder have not sought help for their problems. Especially, men and younger individuals aged 15-24 sought help less frequently than women and older people, respectively. Almost eighty percent of individuals with alcohol dependence did not seek any help for treatment. Individuals with poor self-perceived physical and mental health status were more prone to seeking help. On the other hand, lower education level was significantly associated with lack of seeking help (OR=1.68, 95% CI 1.30-2.18) Individuals with high perceived community belonging (OR=0.72, 95% CI 0.60-0.86) and emotional support (OR=0.98, 95% CI 0.95-0.99) tended to seek help for their psychological problems more often.

Conclusion:
These findings suggest that community belonging and emotional support are mitigating intervening variables in addressing the gap between mental disorders and seeking help.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Concepts drawn from the diverse realm of ?Organisational Studies? have demonstrated their potential for enriching our understanding of many of the crucial areas of concern for IR scholars such as international crisis management (e.g.: Graham Allison, Essence of Decision) and the control of Nuclear Weapons (e.g.: Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons). This paper applies some of the key concepts treated by organisational theorists to the phenomenon of coalition warfare. It considers how fundamental organisational processes such as goal evolution, decision-making, communication, conflict resolution and leadership are played out among a coalition at war. In addition it examines how institutional cultures foster a ?logic of appropriateness? which causes organisational actors to behave counter to ?rational? analyses. In doing so it aims to identify both general and specific organisational factors that need to be addressed by alliances and coalitions at war in order to curtail defective practices and optimise allied politico-military effectiveness. Since the price of failure for military organisations can be very high indeed, the importance of understanding the sources of the worst ?organisational? shortcomings cannot be understated. The article draws upon empirical examples from major historical coalitions such as the Grand Alliance of WW2 and the UN Coalition during the Gulf War in order to illustrate these various organisational tendencies with an effort to extract lessons for present and future coalitions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: It has been consistently documented that much of the property crime in Canada and in the Western world in general is not being brought to the attention of the police. Three approaches were taken in past research to examine the factors contributing to crime reporting behaviour – the economical, psychological, and sociological. This project merges the three approaches under the assumption offered by a socio-ecological framework, which asserts that characteristics of victims, offenders, incidents, and social contexts of neighbourhoods will influence victims’ reporting behaviour. Victims are assumed to form the decision to notify the police of incidents through rational or normative processes.

Data from the Canadian General Social Survey cycle 18 (2004) were used to examine the reporting behaviour of property crimes in Canada. Results of multivariate logistic regressions indicate that the effects of incident characteristics predominately affect victims’ crime-reporting behaviour; however, to a limited extent, the effects of individual and social context characteristics affect the reporting behaviour as well.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study explores the link between the risk of localised victimisation (victimisation occurring in the immediate area around or in the victims residence) and the social and behavioural contexts of the area in which the victim reside (defined as the area within a couple of minutes walking distance from the residence). It particularly aims to explore the relationship between structural (disadvantage) and organisational features (e.g., collective efficacy, and formal social control) of the behavioural context of residential environments and the risk of localised victimisation.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: Nowadays Spanish democracy has less than 40 years old. As others young democracies it suffers one of the most important political problems: low indices of participation in elections and in political life in general.
Recently, some Spanish local governments are introducing different experiences of participatory budgeting in order to increase the democracy educational level of population. One of their goals is to improve people motivation to participate in community decisions. This implementation of participatory budgeting in some Andalusian towns and villages give us an interesting framework to study their influence in community empowerment and, as a consequence, in voting behaviour.
We will measure the electoral behaviour of 150 citizens of Torreperogil (Jaen, Spain). Half of them will be members of the participatory budget assemblies. The other half will be citizens of the village, but they will not be members of these assemblies and will not be involved in the process.
Our main dependent variable is the voting behaviour. We will compare the electoral behaviour in the Spanish general elections of 1999 and the next general elections (March, 2008). We hypothesize an increase in electoral behaviour as a consequence of the community politization and their assumption of control and power (empowerment).