Lethal small bowel obstruction due to pica

Up to 25% of institutionalized patients with cognitive deficiencies display pica-like behavior, with an estimated annual incidence of small bowel obstruction of 2%. We present a case based on the forensic autopsy of a 41-year-old woman who died as a result of a missed diagnosis of small bowel obstruction after ingesting a foreign body. The case underlines the importance of precaution when treating patients with cognitive deficiency and/or language deficits and gastrointestinal symptoms. In such cases, it is important to employ a liberal threshold for radiological investigations and, if possible, obtain a medical history from a person close to the patient.     

Plural strategies of accessing land among peri-urban squatters

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses strategies utilized by migrants/squatters in accessing land for settlement and livelihoods in places where the state and the indigenes are not sympathetic to their needs. Although of significant policy and theoretical significance, this area has not received attention from scholarship, its dominant focus being on understanding the diverse origins, destinations, drivers and processes of migration. In addressing this issue, the study uses the case of Malawian migrants located in Zimbabwe’s peri-urban area of Norton. The finding of the paper is that there are as many strategies for acquiring land as they are migrants. The identified strategies (inheritance, seizures, and purchase) are contingent based – varying according to the access of the parties involved in the transactions.     

Katastrophenschutzrecht – Grundlagen und Perspektiven

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Zwischen Kultur und Kalkül? Vertrauen und Sozialkapital im Kontext der neoinstitutionalistischen Wende

Trust and social capital work in social networks as informal institutions, favouring cooperation between the participants of such social interaction. However, the increasing use of both terms has been accompanied by vanishing conceptual and theoretical precision. In order to counterbalance this development this article tries to clarify some of the major puzzles connected with both terms. First, we embed trust and social capital within the institutionalist turn in political science. Second however, we demonstrate that trust and social capital have been modelled from at least two perspectives: sociological institutionalism and economic institutionalism. Furthermore, attempts of combining those approaches have lead to decreasing theoretical consistency. Finally, we propose that economic institutionalism is theoretically and empirically more fruitful to explain the creation and destruction of social capital.     

Euroscepticism and Right-Wing Extremist Attitudes in Germany: A Result of the ‘Dialectic Nature of Progress’?

Euroscepticism is associated with a new cleavage between the ‘losers’ and the ‘winners’ of globalisation. Current research also indicates that right-wing extremist, racist, and anti-democratic attitudes are more prevalent in lower status groups, particularly those struggling with societal change. These findings are combined with a unique data set covering both topics and thus add to the growing literature on Euroscepticism while also exploring the divide between the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of modernisation processes. The article introduces categories of occupational status groups, namely the ‘engaged’, the ‘skilled workers’, and the ‘legworkers’, which represent different levels of involvement in modernisation processes. It explores the differences in attitudes between these groups and how those differences correlate with citizens' professional status. It is concluded that perceived subjective alienation, which manifests in racist and anti-democratic attitudes, best explains EU-scepticism.     

What autocracies say (and what citizens hear): proposing four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation

ABSTRACT

Autocratic governments make claims about why they are entitled to rule. Some autocracies are more talkative than others, but all regimes say something about why they deserve power. This article takes seriously these efforts by introducing and interrogating the concept of autocratic legitimation. After engaging in a definitional discussion, it traces the development of autocratic legitimation in modern political science by identifying major turning points, key concepts, and patterns of inquiry over time. Ultimately, this introductory article aims to not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also to propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so productively. To this end, the article proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can facilitate comparative analysis: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. Finally, the essay briefly introduces the five original articles that comprise the remainder of this special issue on autocratic legitimation. The article identifies avenues for further research and identifies how each article in the issue advances down productive pathways of inquiry.     

Neuerungen in der Rechtsschutzorganisation im Immissionsschutzrecht

Natur und Recht - Das Umwelt-Rechtsbehelfsgesetz 2017 und das Investitionsbeschleunigungsgesetz 2020 haben die gerichtlichen Zuständigkeiten im Immissionsschutzrecht signifikant...