The empowerment of Turkish governors within hybrid settings of public administration

The widespread reforms of Turkish public administration and the machinery of government from 2000s onwards resulted in a gradual delegation of certain state’s functions to local and non-state actors, through a gradual rescaling of the policy-making systems and a remarkable hybridization of governance logics. The relevant literature focuses largely on the rising role and importance of involving non-state actors rather than state officials in policy-making processes. The paper explains how the scope and the method of public agents’ influence adapt to the current context of so-called neoliberalization of public administration in Turkey. The paper discusses in detail provincial governors with regard to their relatively ‘disguised’ power in social and economic policies through new hybrid mechanisms.     

The interplay between formal and informal institutions in Turkey: the case of the Fethullah Gülen community

Supporters of the Fethullah Gülen community, an informal institution with an influential role in Turkish political life, have formed an international chain of schools and student dormitories, and a communications web that includes newspapers, journals, television and radio channels, as well as other companies and finance institutions. Although the community has no formal structure, its followers have established these formal institutions to integrate it into formal systems like education and the economy. This paper focuses on the community's educational organizations to argue that, since the community has preferred to pursue its goals within Turkey's existing formal framework, rather than by challenging it or breaking its rules, it can be defined as an accommodating informal institution rather than complementary, competing or substitutive.     

Comparing public attitudes on EU membership in candidate countries: the cases of Croatia,Macedonia and Turkey from 2004 to 2011

Past enlargements of the European Union (EU) have demonstrated that public attitudes on European integration can influence the course of accession processes. Beyond the literature on public EU support in member states and former candidates, the dynamics that shape public attitudes on EU membership within recent candidate countries have not been systematically examined. Analysing nine Eurobarometer (EB) surveys from 2004 to 2011, we argue that evaluations of EU membership in Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey are shaped by utilitarian considerations, belief in various political institutions as well as the fear of losing national identity. The economic crisis of 2008 has changed public opinion towards EU membership in all three countries, but Turkey appears to have been affected the most compared to Croatia and Macedonia.     

Immoderation: comparing the Christian Right in the US and pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey

This article will discuss the “immoderation” of religious political actors – defined as the continuation of a relatively closed and rigid worldview – through a cross-religious comparison of the Christian Right coalition within the Republican Party in the US with the pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey. By adapting a “most different systems approach”, this study will question the similar evolution of two religious political actors in two dissimilar political regimes. In particular, it will question the processes and types of immoderation by looking into (1) “behavioural immoderation”, immoderation for the strategic purpose of forming a small yet ideologically pure supporter base, and into (2) “ideological immoderation”, immoderation as a result of a continued advocacy for a moral role for the state without a full embrace of political pluralism. In this, it will argue that religious political actors are strategic actors who try to guarantee their organizational survival amidst changing costs and benefits of moderation vis-à-vis immoderation. Through its discussion of “immoderation” and through its cross-religious comparison, this study will aim to contribute to the inclusion-moderation literature.     

Suicidal deaths in childhood and adolescence

Suicide has been reported as the second or third most common cause of death in children and adolescents worldwide. In this study, cases of under the age of 19 years submitted to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, First Specialization Board between 1996 and 2000 as suicides by the Board were evaluated retrospectively. The cases included in this study were the cases bearing locally questionable components, so had been submitted to the evaluations by the Board in order to eradicate the doubts. A total of 43 cases were investigated regarding age, gender, cause of death, manner of death, place of death, time of death, and the risk factors. Of the 43 cases evaluated, 31 cases were female and 12 cases were male. The notable suicide method was found to be firearms. Although it was clear that that not all of the suicide cases in this age group had been submitted to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the most striking result of this study, nevertheless, was that girls constituted the 72% of suicidal deaths in this age group.     

Y-STR haplotypes in Central Anatolia region of Turkey

Allele frequencies and haplotypes of the 11 Y-chromosome STRs loci, namely DYS19, DYS385a/b, DYS389I/II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS438, and DYS439 were determined in a sample of 113 unrelated males from the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. In the 113 samples 106 different haplotypes were encountered, of which 100 were observed only once. The overall haplotype diversity was 0.9987. In the study, a duplication at locus DYS19 and locus DYS393 was observed. The results demonstrate that these loci will be very useful for human identification in forensic cases and paternity tests in the Central Anatolia region.     

Regional Inequalities,Decentralisation and the Performance of Local Governments in Post-Communist Romania

The economic growth that has occurred in post-communist Romania has polarised society and greatly increased existing inequalities. The aim of this paper is to investigate regional disparities, to underline the role of governmental mechanisms in smoothing out territorial inequalities, and to examine the possible effects of regional economic disparities on the performance of regional administrations in delivering public services, in the light of the new regionalisation debate. The conclusion is that Romanian counties' institutional performance does not completely correlate with regional wealth; but regional disparities and the mechanisms used to smooth out inequalities have to be taken into account in the public debate concerning further decentralisation.     

Detecting concealed information: The role of individual differences in executive functions and social desirability

The aim of the study was to assess the relationship between deception efficiency and individual differences in executive functioning (EF) and personality, with a particular focus on the influence of social desirability. A mock crime scenario was used, followed by a Concealed Information Test based on reaction times (RT-based CIT). Individual measures of EF (inhibition, shifting, and working memory [WM]) and personality (the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire – Revised, EPQ-R), plus a measure of social desirability (Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding, BIDR) were collected in a distinct session. Results indicated that better executive functions were associated with faster responses to irrelevant items in the RT-based CIT. In a regression analysis, individual differences in shifting and spatial WM were significant predictors of the extra-time taken to lie, compare to truth-telling. No significant relations between deception outcomes and personality measures were noted. Looking at social desirability, the Impression Management scale predicted a further portion of variance in the extra time required to lie, beyond the contribution of executive functions. The utility of an individual differences approach to deception is advocated.     

La structure et le rôle de la diète transylvaine, 1529–1865

SUMMARY

In this article, Michael A.R. Graves and Chris R. Kyle take a new look at the ‘bills of grace’ or ‘sign manual bills’ which were a feature of the early-modern English parliament. These were a special category of bill, often introduced into one of the Houses already written out on parchment, and endorsed with the royal sign manual. The majority of such bills concerned either the affairs of the royal family, or the affairs of private suitors with privileged access to the royal Court, and were generally referred to as ‘bills of grace’. It has long been supposed that such bills were given favoured treatment and enjoyed a speedy and undisputed passage through the two Houses. The article first demonstrates that there have been many misunderstandings about these bills, both by contemporaries and by later historians, and then goes on to show that they present complex problems of interpretation. The authors show how the number and character of such bills varied from one reign to another, and how there were marked changes in the usage of this procedure over time. They conclude that the previously received views about this kind of legislation require revision.     

Intellectual property law and practice in the blockchain realm

Blockchain technology is claimed to be and perceived as one of the revolutionary technologies that will have an enormous impact on our lives in the forthcoming years and decades. The legal questions surrounding blockchain appear to be among the most controversial issues surrounding this novel technology, which create uncertainties as to the scope and speed of its eventual adoption. Is it legal to use blockchain technology? Does or should any governmental authority or court take a record stored in blockchain into consideration in their decisions? Is blockchain reliable? Can the technology be used for the protection and enforcement of legal and property rights?The technological advancements offered by blockchain promise wide ranges of use in a variety of sectors and legal areas, including intellectual property (IP) law. This paper will focus primarily on the possible opportunities that blockchain may offer with respect to the future of IP law and discuss its potential impact on the registration, management and enforcement of intellectual property rights. We will proceed to offer blockchain-based solutions to foster the operation of IP offices, reinforce customs procedures in detecting counterfeit products, and enhance the efficiency of IP rights management by the right holders. The paper concludes by providing some suggestions to pave the way for the advancement of blockchain technology and to increase the number of people that this technology reaches, as well as its successful integration into the various services and registration/transaction channels that we use today.