A basic tool set for a generalized directional model

In political science, there are two classes of spatial models: those which are based on a distance logic and those which are based on a directional logic. This distinction can be found in terms of diverse topics, as voting theory, coalition theory or legislative politics. While Tsebelis (Br. J. Political Sci. 25:289–325, 1995) among others discussed implications of distance models, the respective counterparts for directional models have not been explicitly derived in the existing literature. We try to close this gap by discussing discrepancies between both kinds of models and derive some of the most relevant tools for analyses based on directional models.     

Fairness and qualitative portfolio allocation in multiparty governments

How do political parties divide coalition payoffs in multiparty governments? Perhaps the most striking answer to this question is Gamson’s Law, which suggests a strong fairness norm in the allocation of office payoffs among coalition partners. Building upon recent advancements in portfolio allocation research, we extend this approach in three important ways. First, we study fairness with regard to the allocation of policy (rather than office) payoffs. Second, we introduce measures to assess the fairness of the division of policy payoffs following two norms: envy-freeness and equitability. Third, we explore why some allocations of ministerial portfolios deviate from fairness norms. Based on an original data set of party preferences for individual portfolios in Western and Central Eastern Europe, we find substantial variation in the fairness of policy payoffs across cabinets. Moreover, coalitions are more likely to arrive at envy-free and equitable bargaining outcomes if (1) these fair allocations are based on an allocation of cabinet positions that is proportional to party size and if (2) the bargaining power is distributed evenly among government parties. The results suggest that fairness is not a universal norm for portfolio allocation in multiparty governments, but in fact depends on the cabinet parties’ bargaining positions.

     

Revealing Preferences: Empirical Estimation of a Crisis Bargaining Game with Incomplete Information

We develop an empirical estimator directly from an extensive-formcrisis bargaining game with incomplete information and discussits features and limitations. The estimator makes it possibleto draw inferences about states' payoffs from observationaldata on crisis outcomes while remaining faithful to the theorizedstrategic and informational structure. We compare this estimatorto one based on a symmetric information version of the samegame, using the quantal response equilibrium proposed in thiscontext by Signorino (1999, American Political Science Review93:279–298). We then address issues of identificationthat arise in trying to learn about actors' utilities by observingtheir play of a strategic game. In general, a number of identifyingrestrictions are needed in order to pin down the distributionof payoffs and the effects of covariates on those payoffs.     

Collaborative Partnerships and Crime in Disorganized Communities

Collaborative partnerships can be an effective strategy for crime prevention, especially in disorganized communities. Using ordinary least squares regression with 414 American cities, this article finds that police departments with many collaborative partnerships are able to promote informal social control within their communities and capitalize on the resources available to them with the help of other groups. This contention is supported by the effects of collaborative partnerships on crime rates in disorganized communities in comparison to well‐organized communities. Thus, collaborative partnerships of public organizations with other groups may insulate disorganized communities from the effects of community disorganization on levels of crime.     

Rewarding Policemen Increases Crime. Another Surprising Result from the Inspection Game

Inspection games are 2x2 games in which one playermust decide whether to inspect the other player, who in turnmust decide whether to infringe a norm or a regulation.Inspection games have a single, mixed strategy Nashequilibrium, which has counter-intuitive comparative staticsproperties. This result has been used by Tsebelis (1989) andHoller (1992) to show that the economic approach to lawenforcement is not likely to generate clear-cut predictions.In this paper I discuss a variant of the inspection game inwhich the inspector can act as a Stackelberg leader. I willalso show that this version of the inspection game hascounter-intuitive comparative statics properties. Inparticular, increasing inspector’s incentives to enforce thelaw increases the frequency of law infractions.     

市场信用犯罪的刑法学解读

市场信用犯罪是指市场主体在市场经济活动中,违背诚实信用原则侵害了市场信用,具有严重的社会危害性并依法应受刑罚处罚的行为。本类罪的共同客体为市场信用;客观上具有侵害受刑法保护的市场信用这一行为;主体为市场经济主体,包括自然人和单位;主观上为故意,大多具有牟利性。依据不同的标准可以将市场信用犯罪分为不同类型的犯罪。     

Regulating business or policing crime? Tracing the policy convergence between taxation and crime control at the local level

Policing is commonly associated with street‐level crime, whereas regulation is instead associated with the complexities of business and market governance. However, this distinction has been questioned by recent research and it seems that the worlds of regulation and policing are tending to merge. Still, little is known about how this convergence is unfolding. By following the intersection of two international policy‐level processes – the financialization of organized crime and the upgraded monitoring of tax evasion – down to the level of organizational practice in the Swedish restaurant trade, this article contributes to an understanding of the institutional dynamic behind the recent convergence. At the same time, it discusses the conceptual relationship between policing and regulation, and the counter‐arguments that may be needed to overcome the distinction between the two. I specifically address the neglected issue of the differential social valuation of “crime” and “business,” and find that it is relativized by a common focus on unreported transactions.     

Review Essays

Patrick Dunleavy: Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice
Hartmut Kliemt: Papers on Buchanan and Related Subjects
George Tsebelis: Nested Games. Rational Choice in Comparative Politics
Krister Ståhlberg (ed.): Parlamenten i Norden
Erik Damgaard (ed.): Parlamentarisk forandring i Norden
Martti Noponen (ed.): Suomen kansanedustusjärjestelmä .     

污染环境罪主观方面评析

《刑法修正案（八）》对重大环境污染事故罪进行了重大修改,罪名也变为污染环境罪.一般认为,修改前的重大环境污染事故罪是过失犯罪,但对于修改后的污染环境罪是故意还是过失犯罪,理论上颇有争议,存有过失说、双重罪过形式说及故意说等观点.但过失说及双重罪过形式说均不能正确反映本罪修改的实质意义,不利于正确认定污染环境罪,不利于有效打击污染环境的行为,因而不足取.无论从文理的角度,还是从论理的角度,污染环境罪都应当是故意犯罪.将污染环境罪解释为故意犯罪,有利于惩治污染环境的犯罪行为.     

The Crime Preventers Scheme: A Community Policing Initiative for Regime Security in Uganda

ABSTRACT

For decades, Uganda has received substantial support from development partners to implement Security Sector Reforms (SSR). Using the crime preventers’ scheme that has been implemented by Uganda Police as an element of community policing, I argue that SSR achievements in the country seem unclear and limited. Based on an ethnographic study I illustrate that the widespread crime preventers’ scheme has had contrasting effects on the Ugandan security architecture. The scheme seems to have reduced the police-citizens social distance and augmented police presence while simultaneously cased operational excesses and is routinely used in regime security strategies. To provide a better conceptualization I ask and answer a number of questions; how and why has the crime preventers’ scheme been initiated? How is the scheme related to community policing as we know it? What is the political role of the crime preventers? What motivates people to become active members of the crime preventers’ scheme? How does the scheme empirically operate?     

Cocooned from Crime: The Relationship Between Video Games and Crime

The majority of research on the relationship between video game playing behavior and crime has been conducted by psychologists, has focused only on violent videogames, and suffers from two major shortcomings. First, psychologists have adopted correlational or experimental methodologies that do not in fact assess the empirical relationship between video game playing behavior and crime. Instead, they examine the relationship between video game playing behavior and aggression, and then infer research findings have social implications related to crime. Second, when making such inferences, these studies presume that meso and macro level phenomena are nothing more than the aggregated consequences of micro level events. Recent studies, however, have raised questions surrounding these two components of psychological research, as they have identified negative relationships between video game playing behavior and crime at county and national levels. In this study, we propose that these seemingly contradictory results can be explained using routine activities theory (Cohen and Felson 1979). We contend that video game playing behavior, particularly insofar as it occurs within the home, alters the routine activities of individuals in such a way as to decrease the number of criminal opportunities present within a society. We provide an initial test of this hypothesis using UCR, CPS, and Census data. As predicted by routine activities theory, we find that rates of video game playing behavior in the home are negatively associated with both violent and property crime.     

Does Policy Stability Increase the Constitutional Court's Independence? The Case of Italy During the First Republic (1956–1992)

In this paper, we consider thesentences of constitutional illegitimacy bythe Italian Constitutional Court in theFirst Republic (1956–1992) as a measure ofits independence from politicians. We focuson the Court's incidental review and testwhether the Court's independence increaseswhen there is more policy stability, namelywhen politicians are less able to changethe policy status quo by legislation. Wefollow Tsebelis (2002) in assuming thatlegislative policy change is less likelywhen either the number and/or ideologicaldistance of veto players increases. As aproxy for the size of the veto players'Pareto set, we use either the number ofparties in government, or the number ofparties forming a constitutional majorityin Parliament, or the number of effectiveparties in Parliament, or measures ofideological distance based on Laver andHunt (1992). By controlling for the Court'sdegree of internal cohesion, cointegrationanalysis shows that there is a stable andpositive long-run relationship between theCourt's independence and proxy measures ofthe degree of policy stability.     

Can Performance Management Best Practices Help Reduce Crime?

As performance management systems gain popularity in police agencies, they are increasingly being criticized for their ineffectiveness at reducing crime and for encouraging abuse of authority. Scholars and practitioners, however, argue that these systems can be effective if they are implemented properly with the use of best practices. This article contributes to this debate by evaluating the impact of performance management systems and associated best practices on improving police performance. An analysis of primary survey data of 308 U.S. police agencies shows that performance management systems are effective tools in helping reduce crime across almost all crime categories. However, the best practices of performance reporting to citizens and providing discretion to officers have no significant impact on crime reduction, while consulting officers in the target‐setting process has a negative impact on police performance.     

A note on crime and punishment

The models developed here are intended to convince the reader that Tsebelis' results — that increased punishment leaves the equilibrium level of crime unchanged — is an example of what is possible rather than a general result. To recap the argument in words: it is true that raising the penalty on a crime may cause the enforcing agency to divert attention away to other matters, so that theexpected penalty facing the prospective criminal is not as high as it would have been had the agency not adjusted; but it is not generally true that enforcing agencies will choose to lower their probabilities of enforcement just enough to exactly offset the increased penalty, leaving the expected penalty unchanged, hence the equilibrium level of crime unchanged.⁸ this result sounds unusual when stated in words and it is when modelled using the theory of games too.This work was supported by NSF grant SES-9022882.     

Against Humanitarian Impunity: Rethinking Responsibility for Displacement and Disaster in Northern Uganda

Abstract

Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government's counterinsurgency, including its policy of mass forced displacement and internment, which has led to a vast humanitarian crisis. The Ugandan government policy will be assessed as a war crime, making aid agencies accessories to this crime. This case study is used as an example to highlight that processes which demand the post-conflict accountability of those responsible for violence may be dramatically incomplete, and unjust, if they do not include the humanitarian agencies. In conclusion it will be suggested that if humanitarian organizations built popular accountability mechanisms into their daily operations this might prevent them from being complicit with egregious violence in the first place.     

Social capital and crime in New York City's low‐income housing

Abstract

This article presents evidence that components of social capital can play a prospective role in preventing crime in low‐income housing. It develops a conceptual approach to crime prevention involving social capital, alternative forms of ownership, and environmental design considerations. The study compares five programs that house New York City's poorest, mostly minority residents. The effectiveness of social capital in preventing crime is assessed using data from surveys of 487 buildings in Brooklyn, NY, and crime data from the New York City Police Department.

Results of the analysis indicate that three components of social capital—basic participation in tenant associations, tenant prosocial norms, and a building's formal organization—were all related to reducing various types of crime in the buildings under study 6 to 12 months after social capital was measured. The effectiveness of social capital was related to alternative ownership structures, building characteristics, and housing policy.     

论轮奸的复行为理论与共同正犯说

在我国刑法中，轮奸被定位为强奸犯罪的一种加重情节，而非独立的罪名。因强奸犯罪属复行为犯，复行为中的强制行为之上可成立共同正犯，而奸淫行为具有亲手性和排他性，故不能成立共同正犯，各犯罪人只能轮流地、各自地实施奸淫行为。轮奸不是典型意义上的共同正犯，而是数个独立意义上的强奸犯罪之叠加，也只能在宏观上被拟制成为“共同正犯”，即多犯罪人“在实现各自轮流奸淫被害人的目的支配下”通过参与实施“团体性”强制行为而实现每个犯罪人对被害人的奸淫行为。     

公司集资类犯罪中的共同犯罪问题研究

以公司为主体实施的集资类犯罪的客观行为一般比较复杂,存在多人共同实施、多环节分担实施的现象,司法实践中存在两个方面的问题：一是主观方面从证据上难以证明部分员工对公司的集资犯罪存在直接故意,其犯罪主观故意难以认定;二是公司员工之间的分工比较明确,个别员工实施的行为从外观来看,几乎与公司所从事的集资犯罪没有明显的关联,其共同犯罪行为也难以认定.但他们的行为却对公司的集资犯罪具有促成和加工作用,具有严重的社会危害性.解决这两个问题的理论出路在于,主观上可以引进间接故意理论来解决部分行为人的主观故意的认定,客观上采取“同心一体说”来解决其共同犯罪行为的认定.     

Crime,New housing,and housing incivilities in a first‐ring suburb: Multilevel relationships across time

Abstract

Concepts deriving from criminology, housing policy, and environmental psychology are integrated to test two ways that housing conditions could relate to crime in a declining first‐ring suburb of Salt Lake City. For existing housing, we use a model to test whether housing incivilities, such as litter and unkempt lawns, are associated with later crime. For new housing, we test whether a new subdivision on a former brownfield creates spillover reductions in nearby crime and incivilities.

Police‐reported crime rates were highest for residences near the brownfield and lowest for those farther away. After the subdivision was constructed, this linear decline disappeared, reflecting less crime adjacent to the new subdivision, but also more crime farther away. A multilevel analysis shows that incivilities, particularly litter and unkempt lawns on the block, predict unexpected increases in crime. Both brownfield redevelopment and reductions in incivilities may be important ways to improve declining suburban areas.     

The portfolio allocation paradox: An investigation into the nature of a very strong but puzzling relationship

Abstract.  Perhaps the strongest empirical finding in political science is 'Gamson's Law': the near-perfect relationship that exists in parliamentary systems between a coalition party's seat contribution to the government and its quantitative allocation of cabinet portfolios. Nevertheless, doubts remain. What would happen if the salience or importance of the various portfolios was also taken into account? Should it not be the case that payoffs correspond with bargaining power rather than seat contributions? And perhaps most significantly, would addressing these issues produce evidence that the parties designated to form governments extract disproportionately large payoffs for themselves, as predicted by 'proposer' models of bargaining? Utilizing the results of a new expert survey of portfolio salience in 14 Western European countries, the authors of this article explore each of these questions. Their basic finding is that salience-weighted portfolios payoffs overwhelmingly mirror seat contributions, contra proposer models and any other models based on bargaining power. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for formal models of bargaining.