Trial and Error – Failing and Learning in Criminal Proceedings

This paper addresses the selective mechanisms by which criminal proceedings produce strong arguments. It does so by focusing on the failing of argument themes (topoi) in the course of criminal proceedings, rather than on their career. In a further step, the notion of failing is bound to learning: different forms of failing point at different ways and places of learning. The study is comparative, relating cases from four different legal regimes (England, USA, Italy and Germany) that are taken from four extensive ethnographic studies in defense lawyer’s firms. We will track down the failures of topoi at three different stages (pre-trial, trial, and deliberation) in our different legal regimes. Failing occurs in all proceedings in various modes and at different stages. We argue that those modes as well as the different stages at which they occur point at the spots in the respective procedures that allow for learning about the inherent conceptions of “good reasons.”     

Looking for Locals: Voter Information Demands and Personal Vote-Earning Attributes of Legislators under Proportional Representation

Proportional representation systems affect the extent to which elected legislators exhibit various attributes that allow them to earn a personal vote. The sources of variation in personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) lie in informational shortcuts voters use under different electoral rules. List type (closed or open) and district magnitude (the number of legislators elected from a district) affect the types of shortcuts voters employ. When lists are closed, legislators' PVEA are of decreasing usefulness to voters as magnitude (and hence the number of candidates on a list) increases. When lists are open, legislators' PVEA are increasingly useful to voters as magnitude increases, because the number of candidates from which voters must choose whom to give a preference vote increases. As predicted by the theory, the probability that a legislator will exhibit PVEA—operationalized as local birthplace or lower-level electoral experience—declines with magnitude when lists are closed, but rises with magnitude when lists are open .     

Great Expectations: Understanding Bali and the Climate Change Negotiations Process

This article reviews the December 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali. It considers expectations for the meeting and whether the event delivered on these expectations. It also evaluates the long-term context of the meeting and examines the discussions in Bali on the post-2012 period (when the Kyoto Protocol's first 'commitment period' expires). The article finds that the Bali meeting did not necessarily meet public expectations or respond directly to the latest scientific assessments calling for urgent action. However, the article also finds that Bali was successful in the context of the prevailing political and diplomatic realities and the immense complexity of the climate change challenge – a problem that does not lend itself to a 'quick fix' solution. The article concludes that Bali produced a solid outcome that gives direction to future talks and sets a clear deadline for their completion. Finally, it argues that, contrary to some experts' opinion, the lack of detail in the Bali outcome may prove to be a strength rather than a weakness, since it provides flexibility to negotiators as they try to craft a consensus by the end of 2009.     

The use of 3D visualization for sustainable tourism planning

This paper describes the results of using 3D visualization (3DV) in sustainable tourism planning (STP) during the Comcot project in Estonia. Organizers were interviewed on the characteristics of 3DV for STP and on how participants were involved in discourse using 3DV. The study describes experiences from the Setu, Maidla, and Võrtsjärv lake regions of Estonia. The content analysis of the interviews suggested that the precise selection of visualization objects, detalization levels, and user interface characteristics may significantly influence the quality of STP sessions and help to optimize time, financial, and human resources allocated for a project. The coherent design of the 3DV tool and the neutral moderator positively affect the level of participant involvement in STP and support a trusted platform for community decision making.     

Violence as a part of the drug scene

Our study explores the violence that occurs in the drug scene from the perspective of those who use illicit drugs in Finland. We conducted 56 theme interviews with people with experience using multiple substances and studied how they produced agency related to violent acts. We were interested in the kinds of meanings they gave to violence and how these meanings varied according to different positions: (1) experiencing violence (victim), (2) committing violence and (3) witnessing violence. We found that in the drug scene, these positions were not fixed but overlapping and intertwined. Violence was usually projected onto the psychopharmacological properties of the substances or rationalized as being necessary for survival. The relations to and positions of violence differed considerably between men and women. Whereas in men’s interviews violence was often anchored to masculine power and questions of honour, in women’s accounts it was often related to intimate partner violence. However, irrespective of the individual’s position and gender, violence appeared to be a damaging experience that weakened his or her self-esteem. This vulnerability is encountered when people wish to quit the drug scene and its internal normative rules.     

Bracing for Cold Peace. US-Russia Relations after Ukraine

Despite rising back to prominence during the global economic turmoil, the International Monetary Fund remains under severe pressure over its lack of legitimacy and effectiveness. It is surrounded by increasingly vibrant and potentially competing systems of regional financial arrangements. But while it is feared that regional arrangements can undermine the global financial order, they can also help buttress the multilateral institutions that are struggling to manage an increasingly complex global economy. The purpose of this article is to draw on trade, exploring the decades-long efforts to ensure compatibilities between regional trade agreements and the multilateral trading system, to offer lessons to financial policymakers.     

Semiotics of pride and profit: interrogating commodification in indigenous handicraft production

This study investigates the shifting terrain of pride, profit and power relations in minority language communities under contemporary globalisation. While “pride” associates linguistic-cultural heritage with identity and preservation, “profit” views these as sources of economic gain. In contemporary late capitalism, “pride” seems to be increasingly giving way to “profit”. Arguing that this transformation needs to be interrogated in terms of complexity and that a detailed, multilayered semiotic analysis can open a privileged window for such an inquiry, this study combines critical multimodal discourse analysis and an ethnographic approach to analyse processes of semiotic commodification in handicraft production in the indigenous minority language community of the Sámi in northern Lapland. The investigation focuses on the activities of an innovative Sámi artist and entrepreneur, and within these a range of paper notebooks, which are, although designed by the Sámi artist and sold in her handicraft shop in Lapland, produced by women living at the border of Thailand and Laos. The investigation illuminates two critical shifts: how the move towards profit can open up space to contest the ownership of pride within an ethnic community. Second, how this move makes way for new, globalised modes of production of ‘indigenous handicrafts’ and creates global vectors of power, engaged in both empowerment and exploitation, in the production of both pride and profit. The study thereby contributes to the understanding of the increasingly complex power relations and the ambivalence and multiple effects of practices constituting the apparent shift from “pride” to “profit”.     

The logic of regulatory impact assessment: From evidence to evidential reasoning

Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.     

Seizing the opportunity: tackling fossil fuel subsidies under the UNFCCC

Analyses from international and nongovernmental organizations have pointed to the negative environmental, economic and social implications of the sizable subsidies handed out by governments for the production and consumption of fossil fuels. Given their relevance for achieving climate policy objectives, it is perhaps surprising that the climate regime established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) does not address fossil fuel subsidies. This article discusses the possible role of the UNFCCC in tackling fossil fuel subsidies. It suggests that the UNFCCC could enhance the transparency around fossil fuel subsidies and put in place incentives for countries to undertake subsidy reform. However, the possibilites under the UNFCCC will be limited by political barriers to subsidy reform at the national level and will need to be carried out in coordination with other international institutions active in the field.