Tag: update

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Some reflections on MIPEX in German over at the NCCR blog

Together with Gianni D’Amato and Denise Efionayi-Mäder, I have written up some reflections on the new MIPEX results for Switzerland (in German):

https://blog.nccr-onthemove.ch/was-wir-aus-dem-mipex-2020-lernen-konnen-und-was-nicht/

We highlight the comparatively poor protection against discrimination in Switzerland, despite growing attention to Black Lives Matter and racism. We encourage policy comparison not to copy and past policies, but to encourage local solutions to do more.

Incidentally, the new results from MIPEX present nothing new — Swiss immigrant integration policies have been stable in the last few years (though historically they have changed much).

Should we come across as criticizing Swiss policy, let’s not forget the innovative and positive policies on health care in Switzerland (ranked “favourable” by MIPEX).

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Updated PLZ – Cantons Tools for R

Thanks to Eva Van Belle pointing out issues with Appenzell postcodes, I’m happy to announce an update to the postcode to cantons conversion script for R. It’s essentially a database with Swiss postcodes (PLZ) and what canton they are in. For 16 postcodes only a probabilistic assignment is possible, and this is handled by siding with the (typically much) larger municipality.

Convert Swiss postcodes to cantons: https://gist.github.com/druedin/6690720

Two simple helper functions to go with: https://gist.github.com/druedin/8758265

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Measuring Polarization Updated

I have just updated my R-package to measure agreement, polarization, dispersion — whatever you want to call it — in ordered rating scales to R-Forge. Version 1.40 includes more extensive documentation and a long due update of the package vignette. I’ll push it to CRAN in a moment. Every time I work on this package, it strikes me how many times the ‘problem’ has been solved, how different the approaches are, and sadly how often standard deviations are still used.

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MIPEX as a Measure of Citizenship Models: Small Update

I have just added an additional document to the replication material for MIPEX as a Measure of Citizenship Models. The paper in the SSQ uses MIPEX data up to 2010, but the MIPEX releases 2012+ use a slightly different question order because a few questions were added and removed. (It’s this updated version we’ve used for the time series of MIPEX/immigration policy in Switzerland 1848 to 2015.) With this, replicating my MIPEX-based measure of citizenship models was no longer straightforward with the more recent MIPEX releases. There’s one important point to consider, though: with the additional questions in the latest MIPEX data, it probably makes sense to include one or two additional (relevant) questions rather than slavishly following the items used in the SSQ paper.

Ruedin, Didier. 2015. “Increasing validity by recombining existing indices: MIPEX as a measure of citizenship models.” Social Science Quarterly 96(2): 629-638. doi:10.1111/ssqu.12162

Ruedin, Didier, Camilla Alberti, and Gianni D’Amato. 2015. “Immigration and integration policy in Switzerland, 1848 to 2014”, Swiss Political Science Review 21(1): 5-22. doi:10.1111/spsr.12144