We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel data after controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happiness can be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A rise in income causes...

The globalized Western culture of innovation, as propagated by major aid institutions, does not necessarily lead to empowerment or improvement of the well-being of the stakeholders. On the contrary, it often blocks viable indigenous innovation cultures. In African societies and African Diasporas...

This article aims to further develop the field of innovation studies by exploring the emergence of citizen journalism in South Korea's social movement sector. To achieve this aim, the framework of innovation theory has been extended to innovations in social fields beyond technology and the...

Associationalism under authoritarian rule is not automatically a good thing. The empirical findings laid out in this article indicate that authoritarian dispositions and practices are prevalent in all types of Vietnamese civic organizations, at least as far as internal decisionmaking processes...

China's shift in energy policies has been broader, deeper and more successful than that of most other emerging economies, although the economic costs of this transition are tremendous because China is an over-industrialized country whose production is highly energy-intense and it depends on...

The question of whether and how authoritarian regimes may use gender politics to preserve their rule has attracted insufficient academic attention so far. Research on state feminism shows that non‐democratic regimes often enact women‐friendly policies for the purpose of maintaining power....

The proliferation of social organizations in China has engendered a lively debate about how to conceptualize these social forces. This paper argues that such a conceptualization should take into account the role that both the party-state and social actors attribute to social organizations. With...