Politics and the police in Scotland: The impact of devolution

The creation of a Scottish Parliament and Scottish government in 1999, under the process of devolution within the UK, created a significantly different constitutional and political landscape from that which preceded it. The impact on domestic issues in Scotland, such as policing, has been considerable. This is partly because of new structural arrangements, including the creation of a Justice Minister and a Justice Committee of the Parliament, and partly because of the significance of the law and order agenda within Scottish politics. This paper discusses the impact of these developments on the Scottish police. Analysis focuses on the growing involvement of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish governments in key areas such as constabulary independence, police accountability and the management of police resources. Through this discussion, the paper seeks to make a contribution to the debate about the relationship between the police and politics, and the extent to which policing in Scotland is becoming increasingly politicised.     

Effects of a new commitment law on involuntary admissions and service utilization patterns

Recently Nebraska changed its commitment law to include many procedural safeguards and require behaviorally manifested dangerousness as a criterion of commitment. An interrupted time-series design was used to determine what effects the new law had on admission characteristics and service utilization patterns of all those committed to Nebraska's three state hospitals. An immediate drop in involuntary admissions was found, but this decline was temporary. Several changes in the demographic characteristics of those committed were also found. Finally, the law apparently caused an increase in the number of those having to be readmitted. These results raise questions about the implementation of the law, the perception of dangerousness, and the need for more effective liaison between state hospitals and community-based treatment facilities.     

Race as a factor in university admissions

In two recent cases, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306. (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244. (2003), the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause permitted state schools to use race-sensitive admissions in order to obtain the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The diversity-based argument for race-sensitive admissions, scholarships, awards, and other opportunities at universities should have been rejected because it does not consider the full range of costs and benefits and because the more narrow educational effects probably weigh against such programs. However, this does not suggest that applicants’ race, ethnicity, and gender should be ignored. Rather the same consideration that led to the defeat of the diversity argument, i.e., reasoning capacity, supports the consideration of demographic factors. However, attention to such factors further undermines the consequentialist case for affirmative action.     

Evaluating the informative power of Y-STRs: a comparative study using European and new African haplotype data

Male individuals from Maputo (Mozambique) were sampled and 18 Y-STRs were typed: the nine currently used to define the "minimal haplotype" employed in the European, American and Asian "Y-STR Haplotype Reference Databases", as well as the recently described DYS434, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS460, DYS461, GATA A10, GATA C4 and GATA H4. Allele and haplotype frequencies were estimated in a sample of 112 individuals, where it was possible to define 101 haplotypes, with an observed haplotype diversity (HD) of 0.9973. Allele diversity varied between 0.0179 and 0.9220, DYS385 showing the highest level of polymorphism and DYS392 the lowest. When considering only the most recent Y-STRs, the degree of diversity varied between 0.4011 (DYS438) and 0.6910 (GATA C4), except for DYS434 and DYS437 where a very low diversity was observed (0.0700 and 0.0526, respectively). When analysing the same 112 individuals for the nine Y-STRs included in the minimal haplotype, 78 haplotypes were distinguished with a corresponding observed diversity of 0.9884, a considerably lower value than those for Northern Portugal (n=208; HD: 0.9925) and Macao (n=63; HD: 0.9990). Concerning all 18 Y-STRs studied in this population, the observed diversity demonstrates their usefulness in forensic applications, with the exception of DYS434, DYS437 and DYS392. However, since the informative power of a marker has to be judged in haplotype context, a simple software, allowing the evaluation of the increase of HD through the addition of any combination of new markers to the minimum haplotype was designed. The statistical approach devised, demonstrates that an increment on HD is more rapidly obtained for the Mozambican database when adding GATA A10 or DYS439, DYS460, GATA C4, DYS461 or GATA H4, in this order, to the minimal haplotype. DYS434, DYS437 and DYS438, in conjunction with all the other 15 Y-STRs, do not contribute to an increment on HD. When applying the same approach to an European sample (Northern Portugal), the first three Y-STR choices coincide, but the next order of markers are GATA H4, then DYS437 and finally DYS461. In this sample, DYS434, DYS438 and GATA C4 do not increment HD any further.     

Earth system governance: a research framework

The Earth System Science Partnership, which unites all major global change research programmes, declared in 2001 an urgent need to develop “strategies for Earth System management”. Yet what such strategies might be, how they could be developed, and how effective, efficient and equitable such strategies would be, remains unspecified. It is apparent that the institutions, organizations and mechanisms by which humans currently govern their relationship with the natural environment and global biochemical systems are not only insufficient—they are also poorly understood. This article presents the science programme of the Earth System Governance Project, a new 10-year global research effort endorsed by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). It outlines the concept of earth system governance as a challenge for the social sciences, and it elaborates on the interlinked analytical problems and research questions of earth system governance as an object of study. These analytical problems concern the overall architecture of earth system governance, agency beyond the state and of the state, the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and processes as well as their accountability and legitimacy, and modes of allocation and access in earth system governance. The article also outlines four crosscutting research themes that are crucial for the study of each analytical problem as well as for the integrated understanding of earth system governance: the role of power, knowledge, norms and scale.     

Inching toward incrementalism: federalism, devolution, and health policy in the United States and the United Kingdom

In the United States, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 envisions a significant increase in federal oversight over the nation's health care system. At the same time, however, the legislation requires the states to play key roles in every aspect of the reform agenda (such as expanding Medicaid programs, creating insurance exchanges, and working with providers on delivery system reforms). The complicated intergovernmental partnerships that govern the nation's fragmented and decentralized system are likely to continue, albeit with greater federal oversight and control. But what about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom? What impact did the formal devolution of power in 1999 to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have on health policy in those nations, and in the United Kingdom more generally? Has devolution begun a political process in which health policy in the United Kingdom will, over time, become increasingly decentralized and fragmented, or will this "state of unions" retain its long-standing reputation as perhaps the most centralized of the European nations? In this article, we explore the federalist and intergovernmental implications of recent reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom, and we put forward the argument that political fragmentation (long-standing in the United States and just emerging in the United Kingdom) produces new intergovernmental partnerships that, in turn, produce incremental growth in overall government involvement in the health care arena. This is the impact of what can be called catalytic federalism.     

Parliaments as changing institutions and as agents of regime change: Evolving perspectives and a new research framework

In this review, the scholarly literature dealing with the role and dynamics of parliaments as institutions that undergo change within themselves and that support and enhance change in the larger regime is considered. One central theory of scholarship dealing with parliamentary change, that of legislative institutionalisation, is examined and found wanting as an explanation of change in mature parliamentary institutions. In discussion of analyses of five instances of parliamentary change, it is shown that parliaments can change in a wide variety of contexts and conditions ‐ including such well‐established legislatures as the United States Congress after over 200 years of evolution. There is no ‘end of history’ in parliamentary change, only the possibility of sometimes startling change from what has gone before. The examination of five instances of parliamentary change also supports the thesis that parliamentary institutional change, and regime change enhanced by parliamentary change, are inexorably linked. Finally, a tentative research framework is evolved from the above analyses and proposed as a means for considering the role of parliaments as changing institutions and as institutions enhancing systemic change.     

构建政府权力运作方式的新模式——论第三部门的发展及其在政府改革中的实践价值

政治体制改革与经济体制改革促进了中国社会自组织能力、自治能力的提高,这首先表现为第三部门的发展壮大.第三部门的发展对政府权力运作方式的变革具有积极意义,带来了全新的政府与社会的关系模式.     

Predation enforcement options: an evaluation in a Cournot framework

The paper characterises the building blocks of a framework to enforce anti-predation rules and subsequently evaluates selected enforcement options in a Cournot-type duopoly predation model. Differentiating between a no rule approach, an ex ante approach and two ex post approaches, it is shown that an ex post approach typically maximises overall welfare. However, an ex ante approach can be the preferred option in cases where the entrant has a large cost advantage over the incumbent.     

Effect sizes in the treatment of sexual offenders

This article considers the benefits of sexual offender treatment in terms of the magnitude of the effect size produced by these interventions. Comparisons are made of the effect sizes with those generated by treatment of other offenders, by treatment for mental health problems, and by treatment for physical health problems. In all cases, effect sizes with sexual offenders are comparable to (and in some cases better than) effect sizes for the treatment of the other groups. As a final note, it is suggested that using a harm reduction index to estimate effect sizes for treatment with sexual offenders would produce more meaningful results.     

Understanding transnational bribery: a corporate crime framework

Despite calls for utilizing white-collar and corporate crime frameworks to study corruption, the role of corporations in supplying bribes to foreign government officials is not well understood. In the current study, we draw upon a recent framework designed to examine the transnational corporate bribery process from an opportunity theory perspective. We apply the framework to a sample of individuals and organizations with enforcement actions levied against them by the United States Department of Justice’s Fraud Section for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 between 2011 and 2016. Using an exploratory mixed methods approach, we assess the prevalence and qualitative nature of multiple components of the framework. Our goal is to develop a systematic way to apply it to different sets of bribery data and to move toward a fuller theoretical account of transnational corporate bribery. Our findings demonstrate the significance of the corporate role in foreign bribery, the utility of the bribery process framework, and some areas of refinement and future theoretical development.

     

Doctors and allocation decisions: a new role in the new Medicare

The role of the physician in the allocation of health care resources has come under renewed scrutiny in recent years. Doctors have always had to face the reality of scarce resources and to do their work in the context of social injustices. With the advent of Medicare and Medicaid came the rhetoric of universal access and the "right to health care." At the same time the field of bioethics was emerging and contributing ideas about other kinds of rights, such as the right to die with dignity. Physicians during this time did not see their role as that of gatekeeper, but rather as advocate for the best care for each individual patient. The 1980s has brought a new awareness of limited resources and the necessity for a rationale for allocation of resources. These social and professional shifts have confronted physicians with the need for yet another shift in their ethical stance. If they are to take part in allocation decisions, for the continued well-being of their patients and of the public health, they will need a new perspective on biomedical ethics. This role can be an ethical one for physicians providing certain criteria are met: there must be universal access to a basic minimum level of care, physicians' levels of income must not be directly related to treatment choices, there must be a closed financial system within which meaningful trade-offs can be made, and there must be an ethically acceptable framework for decision-making.