Poverty amid plenty: structural violence and local governance in western Congo

The protracted conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has drawn sharp criticism regarding the model of liberal peacebuilding employed in the country. Critics emphasise the importance of local ownership of peacebuilding mechanisms at sub-national as well as national levels. This raises questions in relation to the popular legitimacy and efficacy of local mechanisms. Drawing on field research conducted in the relatively affluent province of Bas-Congo in Western Congo, this article highlights a lack of popular legitimacy for provincial-level political authority within the province stemming from an acute marginalisation of the population from local structures of power and wealth. The article also demonstrates the inefficacy of more local, village and neighbourhood-based political structures which, aimed at conflict mitigation rather than transformation, ignore the structural roots of local conflicts and do little to counteract the growing social distrust, conflict and disintegration within local communities.     

From ‘Tiger’ to ‘PIIGS’: Ireland and the use of heuristics in comparative political economy

This article analyses the consequences of the narrative construction of the group of countries that has been grouped as ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) for their sovereign debt risk rating. Acronyms for groups of countries can provide a useful shorthand to capture emergent similarities in economic profile and prospects. But they can also lead to misleading narratives, since the grounds for use of these terms as heuristic devices are usually not well elaborated. This article examines the process whereby the ‘PIIGS’ group came into being, traces how Ireland became a member of this grouping, and assesses the merits of classifying these countries together. The contention is that the repetition of the acronym in public debate did indeed shape the behaviour of market actors toward these countries. It is argued that this involved a co‐constituting process: similarities in market treatment drives PIIGS usage, which in turn promotes further similarities in market treatment. Evidence is found of Granger causality, such that increased media usage of the term ‘PIIGS’ is followed by increased changes in Irish bond yields. This demonstrates the constitutive role of perceptions and discourse in interpreting the significance of economic fundamentals. The use of acronyms as heuristics has potentially far‐reaching consequences in the financial markets.     

Reforming the Westminster Model of Agency Governance: Britain and Ireland After the Crisis

Conventional understandings of what the Westminster model implies anticipate reliance on a top‐down, hierarchical approach to budgetary accountability, reinforced by a post–New Public Management emphasis on recentralizing administrative capacity. This article, based on a comparative analysis of the experiences of Britain and Ireland, argues that the Westminster model of bureaucratic control and oversight itself has been evolving, hastened in large part due to the global financial crisis. Governments have gained stronger controls over the structures and practices of agencies, but agencies are also key players in securing better governance outcomes. The implication is that the crisis has not seen a return to the archetypal command‐and‐control model, nor a wholly new implementation of negotiated European‐type practices, but rather a new accountability balance between elements of the Westminster system itself that have not previously been well understood.     

Chemical enhancement of footwear impressions in blood on fabric – Part 1: Protein stains

A range of protein stains were utilised for the enhancement of footwear impressions on a variety of fabric types of different colours with blood as a contaminant. A semi-automated stamping device was used to deliver test impressions at a set force to minimise the variability between impressions; multiple impressions were produced and enhanced by each reagent to determine the repeatability of the enhancement. Results indicated that while most protein stains used in this study successfully enhanced impressions in blood on light coloured fabrics, background staining caused interference on natural fabrics. Enhancement on dark coloured fabrics was only achieved using fluorescent protein stains, as non-fluorescent protein stains provided poor contrast.A further comparison was performed with commercially available protein staining solutions and solutions prepared within the laboratory from the appropriate chemicals. Both solutions performed equally well, though it is recommended to use freshly prepared solutions whenever possible.     

A Comparison of Enhancement Techniques for Footwear Impressions on Dark and Patterned Fabrics,

The use of chemical enhancement techniques on porous substrates, such as fabrics, poses several challenges predominantly due to the occurrence of background staining and diffusion as well as visualization difficulties. A range of readily available chemical and lighting techniques were utilized to enhance footwear impressions made in blood, soil, and urine on dark and patterned fabrics. Footwear impressions were all prepared at a set force using a specifically built footwear rig. In most cases, results demonstrated that fluorescent chemical techniques were required for visualization as nonfluorescent techniques provided little or no contrast with the background. Occasionally, this contrast was improved by oblique lighting. Successful results were obtained for the enhancement of footwear impressions in blood; however, the enhancement of footwear impressions in urine and soil on dark and patterned fabrics was much more limited. The results demonstrate that visualization and fluorescent enhancement on porous substrates such as fabrics is possible.     

Chemical enhancement of footwear impressions in blood deposited on fabric — Evaluating the use of alginate casting materials followed by chemical enhancement

Most footwear marks made in blood on a surface such as fabric tend to be enhanced in situ rather than physically recovered using a lifting technique prior to enhancement. This work reports on the use of an alginate material to recover the impressed footwear marks made in blood and deposited on a range of fabric types and colours. The lifted marks were then enhanced using acid black 1 and leuco crystal violet with excellent results.This presents a new method for the lifting and recovery of blood impressions in situ from crime scene followed by subsequent mark enhancement of the lifted impression.     

Elemental profiling using ICPMS of methylamphetamine hydrochloride prepared from proprietary medication using the Moscow and hypophosphorous synthesis

Illicit drugs manufactured from clandestine laboratories are often impure due to poor laboratory conditions, variations in synthesis and impure starting materials extracted either from common household products or pharmaceutical grade chemicals. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) can be utilised as a multi-element analytical tool to elicit the inorganic impurities which may be present in such samples, however the interpretation of the resultant data can be problematic and complex. This is particularly true when dealing with seized samples of unknown provenance. In this work, we have presented and interpreted inorganic profiles as a means to explore within and between batch variations in known provenance samples produced via two different popular synthetic routes. Samples were prepared from essential chemicals recovered from household materials and pharmaceutical medication available in the UK and extracted using different solvents. The presence or absence of elements in the final synthesised products could be linked to the synthesis route, salting out method and potentially the solvent used in the precursor extraction process.