Disclosure of child sexual abuse: expressed emotions and credibility judgments of a child mock victim

Both lay persons and professionals believe that the emotions displayed by a child witness during disclosure of sexual abuse are a factor of importance when judging the child's credibility. Unfortunately, not all children display emotions according to expectations, leading to misjudgments, and possible miscarriage of justice. In the present study, we examined how lay people's credibility judgments were influenced by a child's displayed emotions during the disclosure of sexual abuse. Participants (n?=?119), viewed video recordings of a mock police interview of an 11-year-old child actor disclosing sexual abuse, displaying one of four emotional expressions (angry, sad, neutral, and positive). Results showed that participants were strongly influenced by the emotions displayed; in particular, the display of strong negative emotions (anger) or positive emotions during disclosure significantly reduced judged credibility. The credibility ratings predicted the participant? judgments of the defendant's guilt and the willingness to pass a guilty vote in a hypothetical trial.     

Electing Mayors with the Supplementary Vote Method: Evidence from Norway

Both Norway and England have used the supplementary vote (SV) method to elect mayors. SV was intended to elect mayors with a broad popular mandate, and deemed easy for voters to use. Previous research on English mayoral elections focusing on the supply side of the elections has found that voters supporting minority candidates with their first vote face difficulties using the optional second vote to choose among the remaining two top-candidates in municipalities where there are many candidates in the race. A close race, on the other hand, seems to give voters a helping hand in making this choice. Drawing on these findings, we link data on the 48 Norwegian mayoral races to survey data to further explore how the supply side of the elections and individual voter resources affect effective voting and use of the optional second vote. We use both standard logistic regression and multi-level models as statistical tools. The result reveals that 27 out the 48 elected mayors in Norway came out as majority winners (more than 50 per cent of the votes). The analysis suggests that the supply side of the elections is of minor importance for whether voters use their second vote or not. The probability of using the second vote is reduced by age, and voters who claim to understand how the electoral system works use the second vote more frequently. The analysis also reveals considerable variation in the number of first and second votes for the top two candidates (effective votes) between municipalities, and the results suggest that this variability may be explained partly by the closeness of the elections. Voters in municipalities with competitive mayoral races are more likely to vote effectively than voters in municipalities with less competitive elections. At the individual level party members are more likely to vote ineffectively.     

Does Democracy Decrease Fear of Terrorism?

ABSTRACT

Fear is an integral part of terrorism. Fighting fear can thus be a crucial part of counterterrorist policies. In the case of terrorism, citizens look to the state for protection. Yet, most studies of terrorist fear emphasize individual-level factors. We lack studies that link fear to features of the state, especially whether democratic states are capable of reducing fear among its citizens. Our study aims to fill part of this research gap by asking whether democratic government reduces or increases fear of terrorism. We find that there is substantial cross-country variance in citizens’ fear of terrorism. The results suggest that fear is more widespread among citizens in non-democratic countries compared to citizens in democratic countries. Actual exposure to terrorist attacks has no impact on citizens’ fear of terrorism when we account for whether the country is a democracy or not. Hence, democratic government displays resilience towards fear mongering.     

Public Sector Growth: Comparing Politicians’ and Administrators’ Spending Preferences

The notion that appointed bureaucrats act as budget maximizers still stands strong within theories attempting to explain the growth in the size of the public sector. This paper reports the results of a case study that included local authority politicians and bureaucrats in 30 Norwegian municipalities and where differences in spending preferences was empirically investigated. Counter to the original theory, bureaucrats seem to be less expansive than their political counterparts. The most expansive were found to be members of political left‐wing parties, the more peripheral politicians and administrators, women, those with lower education and those working in the public sector. Nevertheless, there is some support given to a modified hypothesis that administrators have stronger preferences for ‘slack’ (that is, organizational slack in terms of spending more money on internal administration) than politicians. The data also strongly support the notion that within a specialized sector, both politicians and administrators have similar preferences for higher spending to their specific sector.     

Psychoactive substances in seriously injured drivers in Denmark

This study assesses the presence of a number of psychoactive substances, including alcohol, based on blood samples from 840 seriously injured drivers admitted to five selected hospitals located in five different regions of Denmark. The study was a part of the EU 6th framework program DRUID (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, Alcohol and Medicines). Blood samples were screened for 30 illegal and legal psychoactive substances and metabolites as well as ethanol. Danish legal limits were used to evaluate the frequency of drivers violating the Danish legislation while limit of quantification (LOQ) was used for monitoring positive drivers. Tramadol is not included in the Danish legislation therefore the general cut off, as decided in the DRUID project was used. Overall, ethanol (18%) was the most frequently identified compound (alone or in combination with other drugs) exceeding the legal limit, which is 0.53 g/l in Denmark. The percentage of seriously injured drivers testing positive for medicinal drugs at levels above the Danish legal limit was 6.8%. Benzodiazepines and Z-drugs (6.4%) comprised the majority of this group. One or more illegal drugs (primarily amphetamines and cannabis) were found to be above the Danish legal limit in 4.9% of injured drivers. Young men (median age 31 years) were over-represented among injured drivers who violated Danish law for alcohol and drugs.Diazepam (4.4%), tramadol (3.2%), and clonazepam (3.0%) were the medicinal drugs most frequently detected at levels above LOQ, whereas amphetamines (5.4%) (amphetamine [5.2%] and methamphetamine [1.5%]), tetrahydrocannabinol (3.7%), and cocaine (3.3%), including the metabolite benzoylecgonine, were the most frequently detected illegal drugs. A driver could be positive for more than one substance; therefore, percentages are not mutually exclusive. Poly-drug use was observed in 112 (13%) seriously injured drivers. Tramadol was detected above DRUID cutoffs in 2.1% of seriously injured drivers. This is 3.5 times that observed in a Danish survey of randomly selected drivers. Moreover, illegal and medicinal drug levels above the Danish legal limit were present more than 10 times as frequently as in injured drivers, whereas ethanol was present more than 30 times as frequently than in randomly selected drivers. The results indicate that there is an increased risk in traffic when driving under the influence of psychoactive drugs, especially alcohol in young male drivers.     

Neo-Orientalism and the new barbarism thesis: Aspects of symbolic violence in the Middle East conflict(s)

Imaginaries of 'terrorism' and 'Arab mind' backwardness can be seen as closely connected: the latter explains the former as irrational--violence thus becomes the product of backward cultures. I regard this way of representing the violence of peripheralised peoples as a specific expression of symbolic violence: new barbarism. The 'new barbarism' thesis implies explanations of political violence that omit political and economic interests and contexts when describing violence, and presents violence as a result of traits embedded in local cultures. New barbarism and neo-Orientalist imaginaries may serve as hegemonic strategies when the production of enemy imaginaries contributes to legitimise continuous colonial economic or political projects, as can be witnessed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.     

Violent crime and substance abuse: a medico-legal comparison between deceased users of anabolic androgenic steroids and abusers of illicit drugs

Several case reports and survey studies have indicated that abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) often leads to increased aggressiveness and feelings of hostility that may occasionally trigger violent behaviour. Other observations indicate that many users of AAS also abuse alcohol and/or various illegal substances. Since substance abuse is a well-known risk factor for violent behaviour, it could be that violence committed by AAS users might, at least in many cases, actually be caused by abuse of other drugs. In order to examine this possibility further here, the criminal histories (in terms of incidences of convictions) of deceased users of AAS with (AASpos-subst.pos) and without (AASpos-subst.neg) signs of abuse of other illegal substances were compared to the corresponding histories of deceased users of illicit substances testing negatively for AAS (subst.pos-AASneg) at the time of autopsy. The risk of being convicted for a crime against property was significantly higher in the subst.pos-AASneg group than in either the AASpos-subst.neg or AASpos-subst.pos groups (RR=0.048 versus 0.408). At the same time, the risk of being convicted for a crime of violence was at least as high for the two AAS-positive groups as for the AAS-negative group. Furthermore, when compared with the first 3 years after the first criminal conviction, a pronounced increase in the proportion of incidence of violent crimes and a marked reduction in the proportion of incidence of crime against property was observed during the 3-year period immediately preceding death only among the AASpos-subst.neg subjects. In conclusion, the incidence of violent crime among users of AAS without signs of other drug abuse was comparable to the corresponding incidences for drug addicts without AAS use. This observation suggests that the violent criminality observed among AAS users is not confounded in any systematic fashion by abuse of other drugs. The findings also indicate that use of AAS in certain predisposed individuals might cause a high rate of violent crimes, especially if the use of AAS is combined with the use of other illegal substances.     

Fatal poisoning in drug addicts in the Nordic countries in 2007

The frequency of medico-legally examined fatal poisonings in 2007 among drug addicts was investigated in five Nordic countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The number of deaths, age, sex, place of death, main intoxicant, and other drugs present in blood samples were recorded to obtain national and comparable Nordic data, as well as data to compare with earlier studies in 2002, 1997, and 1991. Norway had the highest incidence of drug addict deaths by poisoning followed by Denmark, with 8.24 and 6.92 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. The death rates in Finland (4.02), Iceland (4.56), and Sweden (3.53) were about half that of Norway and Denmark. Compared with earlier studies, the death rates were unchanged in Denmark and Norway, but increased in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. In all countries, fewer deaths (29-35%) were recorded in the capital area compared with earlier studies. Females accounted for 11-19% of the fatal poisonings. Iceland deviates with a more equal distribution between men and women (40%). Deaths from methadone overdoses increased in all Nordic countries, and methadone was the main intoxicant in Denmark in 2007, accounting for 51% of the poisonings. In Norway and Sweden, heroin/morphine was still the main intoxicant with a frequency of 68% and 48%, respectively. In Iceland, 3 deaths each were due to heroin/morphine and methadone, respectively. Finland differs from other Nordic countries in having a high number of poisonings caused by buprenorphine and very few caused by heroin/morphine. The total number of buprenorphine deaths in Finland doubled from 16 in 2002 to 32 in 2007, where it constituted 25% of deaths. The general toxicological screening program showed widespread multi-drug use in all countries. The median number of drugs per case varied from 3 to 5. The most frequently detected substances were heroin/morphine, methadone, buprenorphine, tramadol, amphetamine, cocaine, tetrahydrocannabinol, benzodiazepines and ethanol.     

The Role of the Public Manager: Loyalty,Autonomy or Advocacy?

It is argued that the role of the public bureaucracy must be analysed along at least two dimensions. One dimension concerns the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats, i.e. the possible conflict between political loyalty and autonomy. The other dimension concerns the relationship between citizens and bureaucracy, i.e. the possible conflict between openness towards citizens and bureaucratic closedness. With the aid of data from a survey of 407 agency heads in Norwegian municipalities, it was possible to group different bureaucrats along the two dimensions. Four categories emerged from the analysis; a political bureaucrat, an autonomous bureaucrat, the "classic" administrator and the "linking pin". An attempt to predict group membership was made using variables on the societal, organizational as well as individual levels. This attempt was only partially successful, indicating that there is a need for other independent variables to explain group membership.     

Comparative Research in the Nordic Countries: Overcoming Ethnocentrism?1

In the beginning of the 1970s comparative politics was still a neglected genre in Nordic political science. During that decade, however, comparative research started to make headway. An examination of articles published in five leading Nordic political science journals during the 1980s indicates that more than one-tenth of the content was devoted to comparative research. The examination suggests that the Nordic approach to the small-N problem in comparative research is variegated: binary comparisons constitute just over one-quarter of the volume, whereas the share of studies exploiting three to five cases is slightly larger, and the share of studies discussing more than five cases is slightly larger still. However, in the selection of cases for study, a more clear-cut strategy and pattern is revealed. It is clear from the journal data that Nordic comparativists escape ethnocentrism by turning to another ethnocentrism - i. e. they are predominantly preoceupied with the Nordic countries. While this emphasis on Nordic comparisons certainly can be defended on methodological grounds, doubts can be raised about the overall methodological justification of the Nordic orientation. The risks involved are not always recognized. What is known as Galton's problem merits special attention in a Nordic context. The nature of the problem is that empirical relationships may be the result of learning, which means that the cases studied lack independence. Since it is evident that a lot of diffusion occurs in the Nordic countries, the challenges posed by Galton's problem should receive much more attention in Nordic research than is presently the case.