In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. In response to the rapid and global spread of the disease, different countries instated different kinds of measures in...Show moreIn March 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. In response to the rapid and global spread of the disease, different countries instated different kinds of measures in different degrees, that of course triggered different outcomes. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the first case of COVD-19 was reported on February 27th of 2020 in Nigeria, and it did not take long before it spread all across the region. Despite the general challenges that the region faces in context of containing public health emergencies – relating to lack of resources and state-capacity, low accessibility of health services, poverty and a large informal sector - national responses too differed vastly. Uganda, for example, is a country often praised for its response.This stands in stark contrast with the response of neighboring country Tanzania, whose approach was characterized by simplification, denialism and dismissal of the pandemic. This thesis yields an explanation for delayed national COVID-19 responses by first comparing the cases of Tanzania and Uganda, and then taking an in-depth look at Tanzania's delayed COVID-19 response. The argument holds that, in Tanzania, contemporary political and institutional factors should be taken into account together with the post-independence, historical legacy of the ruling CCM party. It makes use of critical juncture theory and the concept of medical populism to illustrate the opening up of political-space in light of the 2020 Tanzanian Presidential elections. Further research might focus on other enablers of populism in Sub-Saharan Africa, as manifestations of populism remain under-researched there. For example, (lack of) economic development has been identified as a global cause for populism. Although this was not the case for Tanzania specifically, it might play a role elsewhere in the region.Show less
The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on Dutch public organizations, and on society as a whole. This study aims to explore the leadership preferences among public servants during times of...Show moreThe COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on Dutch public organizations, and on society as a whole. This study aims to explore the leadership preferences among public servants during times of crisis, and to make concrete recommendations for further research into the underdeveloped knowledge on public leadership preferences in times of crisis. To do so, semistructured interviews were conducted with employees from the municipalities of The Hague and Gouda, during which they were asked to report their needs in terms of three leadership styles: laissez-faire, transactional and transformational. The study found that transformational leadership was preferred during the pandemic and encourages fellow researchers to verify this using quantitative means. Further recommendations include the reexamination of the usefulness of laissez-faire leadership and the usage of different leadership frameworks to touch upon other behaviors.Show less
This paper investigates the causes behind the continual suspension of the European Union’s (EU) Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) under its general escape clause (GEC) throughout the period of 2020...Show moreThis paper investigates the causes behind the continual suspension of the European Union’s (EU) Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) under its general escape clause (GEC) throughout the period of 2020-2023. The GEC was triggered in March of 2020 on the recommendation of the European Commission to give member states fiscal room to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, but has remained in place for over three years, despite the subsiding of pandemic emergency measures, restored levels of economic activity, and the repeated recommendations and predictions from numerous European institutions that the rules were to be reinstated at the end of 2022 by the very latest. With the emergence of a legislative proposal from the European Commission to reform the SGP’s rules, questions have emerged from journalistic endeavours and academic literature as to the purpose of the extended suspension. This paper utilises explaining-outcome process-tracing as described by Beach and Pedersen (2013) to compare the expectations and assumptions of varying theories, particularly the “failing forward” theory of Jones et al., (2016) to investigate and explain the European Commission’s decision-making in the case of the SGP’s continual suspension. It concludes that the continual suspension can be minimally explained by ongoing reform efforts by the European Commission, in line with the theoretical expectations of Jones et al. and the findings of Schön-Quinlan and Sciponi (2017). It cannot rule out that the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the economic knock-on effects, played a part in the decision for continual suspension. The findings of this paper have implications for understanding the European Commission as a fiscal actor in an economic crisis, and understanding the relevance of particular theories of European integration to the historical context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Show less
In March 2020, the Dutch government began implementing measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and to reduce the burden to the national healthcare system. Historically, Dutch mental...Show moreIn March 2020, the Dutch government began implementing measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and to reduce the burden to the national healthcare system. Historically, Dutch mental healthcare has been slow to implement and utilise digital interventions, however, the new public health policies regarding social distancing presented an acute and emergent need to do so. Despite therapists’ concerns regarding its efficacy and potential technical challenges, countless mental healthcare professionals turned to videoconference therapy to conduct generalistic Basic Mental Healthcare outpatient treatments. This paradigm shift presented a rare opportunity to examine whether videoconferencing therapy yields comparable results to in-person interventions for common mental health disorders. Arkin, a large mental healthcare facility and research institute in central Amsterdam, collects routine outcome monitoring data for patients under its care, to support shared decision-making. For the purposes of this study, basic mental healthcare patients (N = 1392) were divided into three cohorts: Treatments performed prior to, treatments performed partially during, and treatments performed entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown; and pre- and post-test data were used to compare outcomes. Across the three cohort conditions, there were no differences in the treatment outcomes for videoconferencing therapy conducted during lockdowns, as compared to in-person interventions done prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, or blended treatments that had commenced as in-person treatment before the pandemic and then transitioned to videoconferencing during the lockdown. This observational study seems to indicate that videoconferencing and in-person therapies can produce similar clinical results in Basic Mental Healthcare patients with common mental health disorders, bolstering the findings of other meta-analyses and randomized controlled studies investigating this topic.Show less
Economic Governance in EU has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), window for reforms have become visible. To...Show moreEconomic Governance in EU has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), window for reforms have become visible. To understand the implications of the proposed reforms by the EU Economic Governance Review, we conduct a case-study analysis of both COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Debt Crisis of 2009 to understand how efficient these proposed SGP reforms could be. The case-study analysis compares the public expenditures of member states to derive the efficiency of the Excessive Deficit procedure (EDP) under SGP. The author is able to derive limitations pertaining to policy failure in the analysis. Overall, even though the study might identify the subjective relevance of EDP amongst the member states, the procyclical impact of the reforms suggest further discourse in the field.Show less
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was assumed that European cooperation, both individually and collectively, would produce better results than autonomous national self-interest. Especially the...Show moreDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, it was assumed that European cooperation, both individually and collectively, would produce better results than autonomous national self-interest. Especially the demand for increased cross-national cooperation to accelerate data exchange for multilateral COVID-19 research to inform public health policy-making was highly critical. However, sharing health data for secondary purposes such as research is difficult, as technical, political, and ethical issues were identified before the COVID-19 pandemic. This thesis focused on data management issues and barriers such as a lack of metadata standards and data interoperability. Facilitating cross-border secondary use of health data to inform public health decisions has been on the EU's agenda for some time, leading to the creation of the Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space and the European Commission’s recommendation on a European electronic health record exchange standard, among other things. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an excellent case study for determining whether these guidelines were adequate for guiding efficient data sharing in collaborative research. For instance, the EU made a significant investment in cooperative COVID-19 research projects with the goal of providing data to support public health policies. In this thesis, ReCoDID, ORCHESTRA, unCoVer, and SYNCHROS—four projects financed by the EU Horizon2020 program—are discussed in detail. The projects shed light on the challenges of sharing patient-level data from observational cohorts, particularly with regard to data management issues such as data interoperability. It was discovered that EU guidelines did enable the formation of research projects and that these projects were even aimed at improving data harmonisation and exchange in COVID-19 research. However, because there is still no EU-standardised agreement on the selection of data interoperability standards, this has become a difficult task. Specifically, none of the four projects examined was able to locate interoperability standards at the legal, policy, care process, information, application, or infrastructure levels.Show less
What happens when populist radical right parties (PRRPs) adopt an anti-lockdown stance? PRRPs in Western Europe, which in ideology are mostly comparable, have been divided on the issue of COVID-19....Show moreWhat happens when populist radical right parties (PRRPs) adopt an anti-lockdown stance? PRRPs in Western Europe, which in ideology are mostly comparable, have been divided on the issue of COVID-19. The answer does not follow automatically from their economic, cultural or anti-elitist positions, which all seem to advocate for a different strategy. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, two PRRPs have each taken a different approach: one became an anti-lockdown party, the other did not. In this study the effects of becoming an anti-lockdown party on their voter base, who either vote for economic, cultural or anti-elitist reasons, have been examined using a mediation analysis on existing panel data. This study concludes that voters, who mostly vote because they agree with the PRRPs cultural right-wing positions, might be dissuaded to vote for a PRRP that has become an anti-lockdown party. However, anti-lockdown attitudes most strongly positively affect voting for an anti-lockdown party on their own and appear to tap into a new voter base. Future research is needed in order to corroborate this finding.Show less
Recent studies have found a strong correlation between covid-19 and higher conflict intensity. Yet, scant attention has been paid to the ways in which covid-19 increased the conflict intensity of...Show moreRecent studies have found a strong correlation between covid-19 and higher conflict intensity. Yet, scant attention has been paid to the ways in which covid-19 increased the conflict intensity of pre-existing conflicts. Therefore, this is the gap that this thesis aims to fill. From the disaster-conflict literature, and the covid-19-conflict literature more specifically, I derive three possible causal mechanisms concerning 1) state capacity 2) conflict mitigation, and 3) foreign backers. Consequently, I test these mechanisms with the use of process tracing in the context of the Libyan conflict. The evidence reveals that all three mechanisms were partly present, but did not exactly function as theorized. Indeed, in contrast to the hypothesized causal mechanism, no evidence is found for the suspension of military activities by the state, suggesting that the emergence of covid-19 did not weaken state capacity. Besides, the suspension of conflict mitigating activities and the involvement of foreign backers led to an intensification of violence, despite the continued attention for the conflict during the pandemic. More research, therefore, is necessary to further explore the mechanisms linking pandemics and conflict intensity in pre-existing conflicts.Show less
What is environmental turbulence? How does it affect organisational performance? And how is this relationship moderated by stabilising features? This thesis delves into the topic of organisational...Show moreWhat is environmental turbulence? How does it affect organisational performance? And how is this relationship moderated by stabilising features? This thesis delves into the topic of organisational stability in the wake of turbulence stemming from the outside of (public) organisations. It uses COVID-19 crisis as an example of environmental turbulence and assesses its impact on the provision of education in The Netherlands. Moreover, this thesis investigates the moderating role of stabilising features, conceptualised as personnel stability in the form of personnel tenure, forms of employment and teacher-to-student ratio. This thesis is quantitative and deductive. In order to test this relationship, a statistical model has been set up, with the data on 429 public schools in the secondary education in The Netherlands. This thesis finds positive support for the argument that stabilising features attenuate the negative effect of environmental turbulence on the organisational performance, albeit weakly. This thesis recommends to delve further into contextual factors that could have an impact on aforementioned relationships, by choosing, for instance, a smaller N, or investigating one or few particular schools through interviews and thick description.Show less
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused both academic and financial hardship for students pursuing higher education in the Netherlands, including study delays and layoffs. Given that these types of...Show moreThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused both academic and financial hardship for students pursuing higher education in the Netherlands, including study delays and layoffs. Given that these types of incidents have a bearing on students' overall financial behaviour and that student loans are a common tool among students to finance their postsecondary education, one would expect these effects of the pandemic to have a direct impact on student borrowing behaviour. However, there is another variable to take into account, namely students' financial preferences, particularly with regard to having or taking on debt. Accordingly, this study reports on the degree of debt aversion and how it affects the borrowing behaviour of students in Dutch higher education during this crisis. This relationship is examined by means of three hypotheses and corresponding multiple regression analyses with moderation effects, using data obtained through the use of a survey and an additive index measuring the degree of debt aversion. This research has shown that the financial preference of debt aversion has a negative impact on the borrowing behaviour of students. In other words, the higher a student’s degree of debt aversion is, the lower their monthly amount of student loans will be. This relationship does not differ depending on whether or not a student has been directly affected by the pandemic and the effects thereof.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Metaphors effectively explain a complex (scientific) topic in terms familiar to the non-expert audience. However, metaphors also affect attitude. This thesis investigated the effects that the path...Show moreMetaphors effectively explain a complex (scientific) topic in terms familiar to the non-expert audience. However, metaphors also affect attitude. This thesis investigated the effects that the path metaphor and the wildfire metaphor have on the personal control people experience over the further course of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, participants received a text about the ongoing yet hidden threat of COVID-19, in which a new outbreak was either described as a wrongly taken path, as a wildfire flaring up, or without a metaphor. To measure the experienced amount of personal control, the participants were asked about their feelings of fear and control of the virus and the measures, and how they would bring these feelings into practice by reacting to multiple scenarios involving the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Statistical testing revealed no significant effect of the metaphors on the participants’ responses, potentially due to (amongst others) the time frame of the research. It is necessary to research in which circumstances a metaphor does and does not affect attitude. Then, it can be determined how and when a metaphor can best be employed in daily life to influence the hearer’s perception of a message, for example in the contexts of climate change, disease, and politics.Show less
Background: Previous studies indicated that victims of intimate partner violence, usually women, are now exposed to perpetrators more during the pandemic, which is a period of unusual psychological...Show moreBackground: Previous studies indicated that victims of intimate partner violence, usually women, are now exposed to perpetrators more during the pandemic, which is a period of unusual psychological and financial pressure with limited access to help services. But, no systematic synthesis of evidence of its psychological effect has been undertaken. Aim: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to estimate the magnitude of pandemic-driven restrictions on the prevalence of psychological IPV rates among women. Method: Articles on IPV against women were searched up to August 18, 2021 using the electronic PubMed and Web of Science databases. The selected studies needed to meet certain criteria. Mixed-effects meta-analysis was performed. This study was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Results: A total of 28 empirical studies that met general inclusion criteria were yielded in the meta-analysis after several rounds of the elimination process (N=54711). Results showed that 22.62% of women were exposed to psychological violence by their intimate partners. The prevalence rate of psychological IPV before the pandemic was 24.78%, whereas it was 17.27% during COVID-19. These prevalence rates of psychological IPV showed no statistically significant difference ( t(26) = -0.373, p = 0.713). Conclusion: The pandemic was not associated with the changes in psychological IPV incidence estimates. However, limited access to emergency services during the pandemic and fear of victims asking for help might have been barriers to reporting the violence. Thus, further research and policy attention are needed. The meta-analysis had many limitations, most apparently publication bias, so it is suggested that the findings be evaluated with this notice.Show less
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions may have far-reaching consequences for mental health among adolescents with experiences of childhood adversities (CA). Exposure to CA...Show moreIntroduction: The COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions may have far-reaching consequences for mental health among adolescents with experiences of childhood adversities (CA). Exposure to CA influences information processing such as threat processing and reward processing and is therefore associated with elevated risk for psychopathology partly due to altered patterns of social functioning. We propose that adolescents with CA may experience loneliness due to the COVID-19 restrictions and that experiencing loneliness can depend on exposure to deprivation and threat because of its distinct effects on neurological development. Methods: We recruited adolescents (N = 79, 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑒= 22,4, SD = 2,645) from the Resilience after Individual Stress Exposure (RAISE) who filled in a questionnaire of experienced Childhood Adversities before the lockdown. We measured loneliness during the first lockdown (April 2020), the relaxation of restrictions (July 2020) and the reintroduced restrictions (October 2020). The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) measured Childhood adversities and the Revised University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (R-UCLA) measured loneliness. Results: The findings showed that loneliness in April, July and October did not change (F(1.906, 131.508) = .187, p > .05). Loneliness and experiences of threat did not interact with each other; reported loneliness was not influenced by experiences of threat (F(1.906, 131.508) = .282, p > .05). Loneliness and experiences of deprivation did not interact with each other; loneliness was not influenced by experiences of deprivation (F(1.906, 131.508) = .237, p > .05). There was an association between loneliness (April) and neglect (β = .1.18 (t (74) = 3.73; p < .001, r=.56), but no association between loneliness and threat (β = .005 (t) (74) = .017; p > .05). Discussion: The corona pandemic is characterized by an unpredictable situation, which may have caused feelings of fear and anxiety for the entire population which resulted in solidarity; the virus could affect anyone. This could explain the absence of association between threat and loneliness as well as the absence of difference in loneliness in April, July and October.Show less
De coronapandemie heeft ervoor gezorgd dat wetenschapsnieuws, in het bijzonder nieuws over de coronavaccins, continu relevant is voor de samenleving. Door deze unieke situatie kan er opnieuw...Show moreDe coronapandemie heeft ervoor gezorgd dat wetenschapsnieuws, in het bijzonder nieuws over de coronavaccins, continu relevant is voor de samenleving. Door deze unieke situatie kan er opnieuw gekeken worden naar concepten zoals nieuwswaarden en uitingen van wetenschappelijke onzekerheid. Deze scriptie kijkt specifiek naar hoe het nieuws over de coronavaccins gepresenteerd wordt op Instagram, een steeds belangrijker nieuwsplatform voor jongeren. Door middel van een kwalitatieve inhoudsanalyse wordt er gekeken naar de nieuwswaarden die aanwezig zijn in het vaccinnieuws op de Instagram van de Nederlandse nieuwssite NU.nl. Ook wordt er gekeken of er sprake is van zogenaamde hedging, te weten taalkundige uitingen van (wetenschappelijke) onzekerheid, iets waar het in de wetenschapsjournalistiek veelal aan ontbreekt. 96 posts over de vaccins uit een tijdsbestek van een half jaar zijn vervolgens geanalyseerd. Hieruit bleek dat de relevante nieuwswaarden vooral bekende nieuwswaarden van socialemedianieuws en wetenschapsnieuws omvatten, zoals positief nieuws en personificatie. Interessant genoeg was sociale relevantie de hoofdmanier waarop het nieuws relevant gemaakt werd, en niet overige zaken zoals economische of politieke relevantie, wat de invloed van de pandemie op de samenleving extra duidelijk maakt. Verrassend genoeg bleek er wel degelijk ruimte te zijn voor uitingen van wetenschappelijke onzekerheid in de Instagram posts, hoewel er wel willekeur was qua wanneer er twijfel aan statements werd toegevoegd en wanneer niet. Hoezeer dit komt door de unieke situatie rondom de pandemie en dus in hoeverre deze bevinding door te trekken is naar wetenschapsjournalistiek in het algemeen is echter onzeker.Show less
