When do NGOs Matter? Activist Organisations as a Source of Change in the International Debt Regime

Who drives change in international economic regimes? While mainstream International Political Economy scholarship has traditionally focused on the major players within states and markets as the key sources of political and economic change, recent studies have sought to highlight the important role that is also played by a wider range of social actors. A common point of reference here is the activities undertaken by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), with the campaign to put debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries on the global agenda being often cited as the exemplar of a civil society success story. This article explores the mechanisms through which the international sovereign debt regime for the world's poorest and most indebted economies has changed over the last 15 years, with increasing acceptance that large-scale debt relief was appropriate for a select group of countries leading to the establishment of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) Initiative in 1996 and the Enhanced HIPC Initiative in 1999. Through tracing how international NGOs were able to shape the reform agenda with respect to the international sovereign debt regime for low-income countries, the article seeks to enhance our understanding of when, why, and how NGOs can potentially act as an important source of change in international economic regimes.     

Detecting the True Nature of Allegations of Rape

A study was conducted to test whether it is possible to build a model to distinguish true and false allegations of rape based on the theory of fabricated rape. The theory is based on the principle that a false complainant of rape has not been raped and has to fabricate a story while the story of a true victim is based on recollections of the event. Consequently, false complainants will behave as liars do, construct their story based on their own sexual experiences and on mental representations, beliefs of how such a crime would happen (De Zutter et al. in Eur J Psychol Appl Leg Context. doi: 10.1016/j.ejpal.2016.02.002, 2016). To test the theory and to build a model to discriminate between true and false allegations of rape, a police sample of true and false allegations was studied. A total of 129, 72 true and 57 false, allegations of rape fulfilled the stringent criteria of the current study, among others on ground truth. Fifty-four allegations of rape, 27 true and 27 false, were used to build a prediction model based on the theory of bounded rationality by Gigerenzer (2002). The remaining 75 cases, 45 true and 30 false, were blindly categorised as either true or false based on the model. The model was able to predict the true nature of the majority of allegations with an accuracy rate of 91 %. Thus, it seems possible to discriminate to a considerable extend between true and false allegations of rape.     

Elasticity in evaluations of criminal evidence: Exploring the role of cognitive dissonance

Purpose. Previous experiments have demonstrated asymmetrical scepticism in investigators' judgments of criminal evidence – evidence inconsistent (vs. consistent) with the dominant hypothesis about a case is judged as less reliable. In addition, some types of evidence (e.g., witness testimony) are more susceptible to asymmetrical scepticism than others (e.g., DNA evidence), indicating varying degrees of elasticity. This article proposes that inconsistent evidence arouses cognitive dissonance, and that the dissonance can be reduced through either asymmetrical scepticism (for high‐elasticity evidence) or belief change (for low‐elasticity evidence). The hypotheses are tested in two experiments. Methods. In both experiments, law students made a preliminary judgment about the guilt of a suspect in a homicide case, and subsequently received a piece of DNA or witness evidence which was either consistent or inconsistent with the preliminary judgment. The extent to which participants changed their guilt judgments, judged the additional evidence as reliable, and felt dissonance served as the main dependent variables. Results. Inconsistent (vs. consistent) evidence did arouse stronger dissonance, but only for witness (and not DNA) evidence. Experienced dissonance (Experiment 1) and dissonance reduction (Experiment 2) accounted for the effect of the evidence on changes in guilt judgments, but not for the effect on reliability judgments. The greatest dissonance reduction was observed among participants who received inconsistent witness evidence but did not change their guilt judgments accordingly. Conclusions. It appears that dissonance plays a significant, although complex, role in investigative judgments of guilt and reliability. Alternative dissonance‐reducing mechanisms that can account for the findings and practical implications are discussed.     

X‐ray Diffraction and Rietveld Refinement in Deferrified Clays for Forensic Science

Soil vestiges might provide information about a crime scene. The Rietveld method with X‐ray diffraction data (RM‐XRD) is a nondestructive technique that makes it possible to characterize minerals present in the soils. Soil clays from the metropolitan region of Curitiba (Brazil) were submitted to DCB treatment and analyzed using XRD with CuK_α radiation in the step‐scan mode (0.02° 2θ/5 s). The GSAS+EXPGUI software was used for RM refinement. The RM‐XRD results, together with the principal component analysis (PCA) (52.6% total variance), showed the kaolinite predominance in most analyzed samples and the highest quartz contents in “site 1.” Higher anatase, and gibbsite and muscovite contents influenced discrimination, mainly in “site 3” and “site 1,” respectively. These results were enough to discriminate clays of four sites and two horizons using a reduced amount of sample showing that the technique can be applied to the investigation into soil vestiges.     

Consensus Among Public Managers as Strategy for Standardization of Performance Indicators

ABSTRACT

The usefulness of performance indicators increases when organizations compare their data. However, most discussions have failed to emphasize two lines of action that could improve the relevance of such comparisons: a) agreement among service managers on the indicators to be used in the evaluation; b) homogenization of the indicators to be used by organizations, and of the process used to calculate them. In this context, this paper proposes a methodology based on the participation of and consensus among managers, which helps to standardize the construction and presentation of performance indicators. The aim of this proposal is to improve the comparative evaluation of organizations. Finally, in order to test the proposal, a practical application is carried out on the local culture departments of nine large municipalities in southern Spain.     

Book reviews

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Adedeji A (ed.), Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance. London: Zed Books, in association with the African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies, Ijebu‐Ode, 1999. 377pp. ISBN: 1–85649–763–1. US$27:50. http://www.zedbooks.demon.co.uk

Berkovitch N, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women's Rights and International Organisations. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 207pp. ISBN: 0–8018–6028–8. US$34.95. http://www.press.jhu.edu/ press/index.html

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Kathadra A, Letters from Robben Island: A Selection of his Prison Correspondence, 1964–1989. Bellville and East Lansing: Mayibuye Books and Michigan State University Press, 1999. 263pp. ISBN: 087–01352–79 R120.00. http://www.msu.edu/unit/msupress/index.htm

Middleton N &; D Thomas (eds), World Atlas of Desertification. United Nations Environment Programme, 2^nd edition. London: Arnold, 1997.182pp. ISBN: 0–340–69166–2. http://www.unep.org     

Distributive Politics and Regional Development: Assessing the Territorial Distribution of Turkey’s Public Investment

Turkey is often perceived as a country with low bureaucratic capacity and prone to political manipulation and ‘pork-barrel’. This article tests whether this is the case, by analysing the extent to which politics, rather than equity and efficiency criteria, have determined the geographical allocation of public investment across the 81 provinces of Turkey between 2005 and 2012. The results show that although the Turkish government has indeed channelled public expenditures to reward its core constituencies, socioeconomic factors remained the most relevant predictors of investment. Moreover, in contrast to official regional development policy principles, we uncover the concentration of public investment in areas with comparatively higher levels of development. We interpret this as the state bureaucracy’s intentional strategy of focussing on efficiency by concentrating resources on ‘the better off among the most in need’.     

Forensic determination of hair deposition time in crime scenes using electron paramagnetic resonance

Several types of biological samples, including hair strands, are found at crime scenes. Apart from the identification of the value and the contributor of the probative evidence, it is important to prove that the time of shedding of hair belonging to a suspect or victim matches the crime window. To this end, to estimate the ex vivo aging of hair, we evaluated time‐dependent changes in melanin‐derived free radicals in blond, brown, and black hairs by using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR). Hair strands aged under controlled conditions (humidity 40%, temperature 20–22°C, indirect light, with 12/12 hour of light/darkness cycles) showed a time‐dependent decay of melanin‐derived radicals. The half‐life of eumelanin‐derived radicals in hair under our experimental settings was estimated at 22 ± 2 days whereas that of pheomelanin was about 2 days suggesting better stabilization of unpaired electrons by eumelanin. Taken together, this study provides a reference for future forensic studies on determination of degradation of shed hair in a crime scene by following eumelanin radicals by utilizing the non‐invasive, non‐destructive, and highly specific EPR technique.     

Experimental evaluation of rigor mortis IX. The influence of the breaking (mechanical solution) on the development of rigor mortis

In criminal proceedings involving illegally manufactured substances, evidence demonstrating the manufacture is required for successful prosecution. In many circumstances the presence of manufacturing equipment and 'recipes' are clear indicators. However establishing chemical links between starting materials and products would be beneficial additional evidence in such circumstances. Isotope analysis is becoming more commonly employed in disputes over authenticity and provenance of materials such as food stuffs or pharmaceuticals [S. Benson, C. Lennard, P. Maynard, C. Roux, Forensic applications of isotope ratio mass spectrometry--a review, Forensic Sci. Int., 157 (2006) 1-22]. We report here the results of an isotope study investigating a link between hexamine used as a starting material and the product explosive RDX, manufactured using the Woolwich process. Isotopic composition of hexamine and RDX was analysed by stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Five different hexamine samples were selected from a group of eleven for use in this study. One of the five hexamine samples was used twice, providing data on the reproducibility of the synthesis. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of the hexamine starting material and RDX products reveals a reproducible relationship between reactant and product.     

The contribution of the right to information laws in Europe to local government transparency on sustainability

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of the right to information laws on sustainability transparency in European local governments. This goal is novel, in that previous studies have examined the effects of various factors on the dissemination of government information (demographic, socioeconomic, political and financial) but not the contribution of legal factors to online transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our research question is this: Do information laws contribute to transparency on sustainability? Using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and a statistical regression analysis, we studied the websites of 106 local governments in ten European countries. The results obtained show that when transparency laws clearly stipulate the rules applicable and the procedures established for appeals, exceptions, refusals and requests, this can favour transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our findings advance understanding of this field and reinforce the basis for legal reforms to enhance sustainability transparency.