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Contrasting the Madisonian model of democracy with Westminster style arrangements, this chapter examines how American political scientists and policymakers expressed second thoughts about the constitutional settlement of 1787 and looked towards the British political system for possible reforms to their own. In particular, it details the arguments offered by Thomas Finletter, James MacGregor Burns, and others, from the 1940s through to the early 1960s that the United States might adopt certain features of the Westminster model. The chapter analyzes their proposals and the – essentially negative – reception that they received. It concludes by addressing the failure of these proposals and the endurance of fragmented government within the United States.

Mindful leadership offers a powerful antidote to the stress and burnout facing many school leaders today. This chapter integrates three key streams of mindfulness research and practice – contemplative, cognitive, and organizational mindfulness – to present a more caring and compassionate model of educational leadership.

Drawing on the experiences of focal school leaders, the chapter explores how mindful leadership practices can transform schools by cultivating awareness of self and others. In addition, this chapter explores how leaders can situate themselves within and the larger school-community environment, developing equanimity and resilience in the face of challenges, adopting a stance of curiosity and openness to multiple perspectives, nurturing authentic relationships and emotional attunement, and navigating paradoxes of purpose and identity with wisdom.

Rather than a fixed technique, mindful leadership is presented as an ongoing practice and way of being – purposeful, present, and openhearted. By starting where they are and committing to continual growth, educational leaders can become leaders in fostering cultures of well-being and transformative learning. The chapter concludes with suggested mindfulness practices for individuals and organizations to support this lifelong journey. Mindful leadership is ultimately a courageous and pragmatic path to more clearly see reality, embrace vulnerability, and wholeheartedly engage in positive change.

This study aims to understand the role of seeking social support in the relationship between perceived helplessness, self-efficacy and satisfaction among graduate students during the pandemic, drawing upon the transactional model of stress and coping. Graduate students are composed of nontraditional students who are considered significantly different from traditional students. Nonetheless, research has yet to explore how seeking social support contributed to graduate students’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially to the relationship between feelings of helplessness and positive mental health. More specifically, this study examined how seeking social support from others mediates the relationship between perceived helplessness and self-efficacy, academic satisfaction and general life satisfaction among graduate students.

Using quantitative data collected from 545 graduate students at a large, research-intensive university in the USA, structural equation modeling was used to test our conceptual model.

The results of this study indicate that perceived helplessness has a direct and adverse relationship with self-efficacy. Social support mediates the negative relationship between the two variables, buffering the negative psychological experience students feel and leading to higher levels of self-efficacy and two domains of satisfaction. Self-efficacy is positively associated with academic and general life satisfaction among graduate students. Academic satisfaction positively predicts general life satisfaction, as well. A conceptual model was developed, yielding acceptable goodness-of-fit statistics.

This study adds to the postsecondary education literature and contributes to the larger discourse identifying the positive role of social support in supporting graduate students to cope with psychological challenges that may be exacerbated under stressful conditions.

This study aims to examine the influence of workplace phubbing on employee deviant behavior and negligence, while also investigating the mediating role of coworker conflict. Additionally, the study explores the moderating effect of workplace mindfulness on the relationship between workplace phubbing, the mediators and employee deviant behavior and negligence.

Data were gathered from employees in the service sector in the UAE using an online survey questionnaire. A total of 374 participants submitted complete responses. The study’s hypotheses were tested through regression-based moderated path analysis, incorporating conditional process modeling and nonlinear bootstrapping.

The study indicates that experiencing “phubbing” at work contributes to feelings of coworker conflict, which subsequently leads to increased interpersonal deviance and employee negligence. Moreover, workplace mindfulness weakens the positive influence of being phubbed on coworker conflict, interpersonal deviance and employee negligence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have examined the negative impact of being “phubbed” at the individual employee level within the service industry. This study aims to contribute to both theory and practice by elucidating the mediating mechanism of coworker conflict and exploring the moderating effects of workplace mindfulness.

There does not exist any precise definition of ‘development’. In view of the indispensability of an interpretation of this concept a degree of speculation seems to exist in a development process. This is the reason this chapter has been included in this work. No scholar has precisely defined ‘development’ and ‘developing’ countries. It is believed that indigenous people know best what would be most suitable for them for development of their country. However, any discussion of these topics becomes incomplete, controversial, etc. in the absence of any precise definition. This chapter is no exception to this although an attempt has been made to outline development.

The purpose of this study is the same as those of the preceding 16 studies on happiness, health and religion, and they are as follows: to estimate the mean scores and the sex-related differences in the study scales; to examine the associations between the study scales; to investigate the principal components; and to compare the present results with the previous findings.

A non-probability sample of university students in the United Arab Emirates was selected by the “snowball” sample method. To overcome the issue of people refusing to participate in the study, this method was used in the selection process due to the challenge of sampling students in all the universities across the nation, which makes it difficult to choose a probability sample. The approval of the Ethics Committee was obtained from Ajman University to apply the study tools, and then the students were given the choice through open announcement to participate in the study and circulate it to other students at Ajman University.

Results showed that men had significantly higher mean ratings on mental health, physical health and happiness than did women. All the Pearson correlations between the scales were significant for men. Except for the correlations between religiosity and both happiness and mental health, all correlations between the scales for women were significant. A principal components analysis extracted one component for men which was labeled “Well-being and religiosity”, whereas two components were retained for the women which were labeled “Well-being” and “Religiosity and physical health”. Comparing the present sample’s mean happiness score to that of prior students from 16 other countries revealed that it was higher and consistent with other scores from rich Arab nations with a high GDP per capita (such as Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman). In conclusion, happiness was found to be associated with mental and physical health in both men and women, as well as religiosity in men.

Despite the strengths of the current investigation, i.e. the large sample size and the good to high reliability and validity properties of the scales, some limitations have to be acknowledged. First, the convenience and non-probability sample. Second, university students are a special segment of any country. Their age range is limited, and they probably have greater intelligence and more education compared to the general population. Therefore, a replication of the present study using a probability sample from the general population is needed.

SPSS (2009) was used for data analysis. Means, standard deviations, t-tests, d for effect size, Pearson product moment correlation coefficients and principal components analysis were used. For the principal components analysis, the Kaiser criterion (i.e. eigenvalue > 1.0) and the scree plot were used to define the number of components to be retained.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study about happiness in United Arab Emirates.

This study examines the contribution of stakeholder influence and local revenue mobilisation to service delivery in district local governments in Northern Uganda.

This was a cross-sectional and correlational study. Data were collected from the district Local Governments in Northern Uganda using a questionnaire. The unit of analysis was a district. The district’s Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Clerk-to-Council, and Community Development Officer were units of enquiry in this study. The data were analysed using correlation coefficients and linear regression using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results suggest that stakeholder influence and local revenue mobilisation predict service delivery. The results further indicate that local revenue mobilisation contributes more to service delivery than stakeholder influence.

This study provides empirical evidence on the contribution of stakeholder influence and revenue mobilisation to service delivery using evidence from districts in Northern Uganda adding to the scanty literature in developing countries.

Culture (traditional or organisational) has tended to be either a resource or an impediment to socio-economic development (SED) because culture plays an important role in the socio-economic sphere. This study investigates traditional culture that influences SED in light of the prevailing socio-economic situation in the Kingdom of Eswatini (Previously known as the Kingdom of Swaziland). Based on the existing demographics and political state, most people of the Kingdom live in rural areas, where traditional culture is predominant, and poverty is prevalent. That justifies their advocacy for SED influenced by cultural and traditional structures as opposed to one influenced by the internationally inclined modern democratic structures. This study used quantitative approaches and collected data from 30 ‘SED initiatives’. Results of the study indicate that traditional cultural influence is most prevalent in rural communities, while the adoption of the new national constitution in 2005 brought an insignificant change in the way culture influences SED. It was also noted that cultural governance, cultural tourism, customs and traditions, gender discrimination and marginalisation of people living with disabilities are the main existing components relating to the area of the central phenomenon. Further findings indicate that Eswatini culture is largely epitomised by the existence of the Monarchy authority, as a wide range of beliefs, customs and traditions are entrenched in the core values of the same. This infers that the Kingdom of Eswatini is predominated by socio-cultural values, which necessitates a telling influence on SED issues.