Problems of Cross-Cultural Comparison: Analyzing Linguistic Strategies in Tanzanian Domestic Violence Workshops

Campaigns against domestic violence and projects designed to reform laws are increasingly part of the development initiatives undertaken in African nations. Such projects are subject to standard criticisms of development (e. g., its tendency to enhance the power of donors over recipients) and to more recent concerns raised by postcolonial feminist scholarship (e. g., its tendency to ignore how women's condition in developing nations emerges from relations between donors and recipients). Mindful of these criticisms, many gender and law reform projects begun in Tanzania in the 1990s were designed to foster egalitarian relations between donors and recipients as well as to change laws and legal practices with respect to domestic violence. In addition, many projects relied on interactive workshops to impart information about law reform while empowering local participants. This essay focuses on two domestic violence workshops held in Tanzania in 1998. Linguistic analysis is used to expose the multiple relations of power in these development initiatives. The article demonstrates that demands on the structure of interaction-that is, everyone must be encouraged to participate-can work against creating egalitarian relations and suggests that some challenges to reforming development lie at the level of linguistic interaction.     

The 2016 Austrian Presidential Election: A Tale of Three Divides

The 2016 Austrian presidential election was remarkably different than the previous ones in the history of the country characterized by its stable political system. Not only did it open the role of president in Austria to debate, but it also sidelined the two political parties that had dominated Austrian politics since World War II. Alexander Van der Bellen won the election with one of the closest margins in recent history. This article argues that the election divided the country in more than one way. Besides the near 50–50 divide between the candidates, the results show that it generated important dynamics in territorial politics as well, notably in the states and cities of Austria. These results point towards a party system transformation in Austrian politics.     

Correction to: Abstract rules for complex systems

European Journal of Law and Economics - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of corresponding author Mario Mario Rizzo was incorrect. The correct name...     

Electoral cycles in active labor market policies

We examine how electoral motives influence active labor market policies that promote (short term) job-creation. Such policies reduce measures of unemployment. Using German state data for the period 1985 to 2004, we show that election-motivated politicians pushed job-promotion schemes before elections.     

Fatal Acute Poisoning from Massive Inhalation of Gasoline Vapors: Case Report and Comparison with Similar Cases

We describe a case of an acute lethal poisoning with hydrocarbons resulting from massive accidental inhalation of gasoline vapors. The victim, a 50‐year‐old man was found unconscious inside a control room for the transport of unleaded fuel. Complete autopsy was performed and showed evidence of congestion and edema of the lungs. Toxicological investigation was therefore fundamental to confirm exposure to fumes of gasoline. Both venous and arterial blood showed high values of volatiles in particular for benzene (39.0 and 30.4 μg/mL, respectively), toluene (23.7 and 20.4 μg/mL), and xylene isomers (29.8 and 19.3 μg/mL). The relatively low values found in the lungs are consistent with the fact that the subject, during the rescue, underwent orotracheal intubation followed by resuscitation techniques, while the low concentrations for all substances found in urine and kidneys could point to a death that occurred in a very short time after first contact with the fumes of gasoline.     

Youthful Familicidal Offenders: Targeted Victims,Planned Attacks

A nonrandom national sample of 16 familicides, which involved 19 offenders (ages 14 to 21 years) who either killed or made a serious attempt to kill their families, was studied. The majority of offenders were Caucasian (78.91 %) males (84.21 %) with interpersonal family conflicts due to parental control, substance use, or physical violence. Prior to the murders, 50 % of the offenders reported to others their intent to kill their families. All of the 42 reported victims were specifically targeted and most of the homicides were planned shooting attacks (75 %) rather than spontaneous eruptions. Immediately following the homicides, 75 % of the offenders stole money from their families, and in 50 % of the cases they either called their friends to report the murders or to plan leisure activities. All offenders were immediate suspects and 81.25 % confessed to the homicides. Implications for furthering our understanding of this group of young offenders are offered.     

Do they Aggress Earlier? Investigating the Effects of Ego Depletion on Police Officers’ Use of Force Behavior

Endowed with the state monopoly on the legitimate use of even potentially lethal force, it is intolerable for police officers to act outside the governing legal and ethical framework. At the same time, officers are expected to exert self-control and refrain from excessive use of force when they deal with provocative and perilous situations. This study sought to investigate corresponding self-control and self-control failures through the role of ego depletion in the decision to use force by police officers. Two experiments were conducted using officers from a German State Police force, requiring the participants to use force against a provocative role player. Experiment 1 found that the ego depletion measure failed and there were no differences between the groups. Using a different ego depletion method, experiment 2 found that ego-depleted participants aggressed earlier than controls. These results indicate that circumstances that produce ego depletion could lead to the inappropriate use of force through reducing self-control. This has major implications for the police use of force and how we understand police officers’ decision-making in response to provocation.     

Uncivil society and social policies in Brazil: The backlash in the gender,sexual, and reproductive rights and ethnic and racial relations fields

This paper analyzes how dynamics between Brazil's right-wing populist government and civil and uncivil organizations affected the role of civil organizations, especially rights-based ones, and Brazil's democratization process. These dynamics contributed to stripping policies of their progressive nature and rejecting the values of diversity, freedom, and equality. Our analysis relies on the inhabited institutions approach to comprehend the role of action, interaction, and meaning in institutionalized spaces. We analyzed two policy fields—gender, sexual, and reproductive rights, and ethnic and racial relations—through documents and in-depth interviews. Our analysis shows that Bolsonaro's government mobilized mechanisms related to institutional changes, the replacement of actors, and their interactions to inhibit civil society organizations' influence in policy formulation and provision and strengthen the participation of uncivil groups, thereby legitimating conservative ideas and discourses, and closing civic space for NGOs with rights-based agendas.     

Relational and Group Collective Self Responses to Observed Victimization Across Cultures

Mental representations of the “self” consist of both individual aspects (i.e., how one differs from other people) and collective aspects (i.e., how one relates to other people), with collective aspects further consisting of interpersonal relations (the “relational” self) and of memberships in social groups (the “group collective” self). Some researchers assume that there is a universal motivational hierarchy in self-representations (with the relational self being more relevant than the group collective self). Other research suggests that the relative importance of self-representations varies across cultures. This paper tests the motivational hierarchy hypothesis in a cross-cultural context. Emotional reactions (anger, outrage, vengeful intentions) to observed victimization of a collective or relational group member were assessed in Germany, Japan, and the USA. In line with the motivational hierarchy hypothesis, we found, across all three countries, evidence for the primacy of the relational self over the group collective self.