Political budget cycles and election outcomes

This paper addresses two empirical questions. Is fiscal policy affected by upcoming elections? If so, do election-motivated fiscal policies enhance the probability of re-election of the incumbent? Employing data for 65 democratic countries over 1975–2005 in a semi-pooled panel model, we find that in most countries fiscal policy is hardly affected by elections. The countries for which we find a significant political budget cycle are very diverse. They include ‘young’ democracies but also ‘established’ democracies. In countries with a political budget cycle, election-motivated fiscal policies have a significant positive (but fairly small) effect on the electoral support for the political parties in government.     

Developing Multilateral Surveillance Tools in the EU

The development of the infrastructure of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) is an unaddressed topic in scholarly debates. On the basis of secondary literature on the European Employment Strategy, it is hypothesised that a conflict between an incentive and reluctance to act on the EU level on the side of member states limits the choice for a policy instrument to the OMC, and is a driving force behind the development of its infrastructure. From empirical findings on the OMC e-Europe it shows that for the development of the infrastructure of an OMC on a policy field, a need for an instrument has to be present that can neutralise the conflict between an incentive and reluctance to act on the EU level.     

Democratic accountability and central bank independence: A response to Elgie

Empirical evidence is presented on the development of (violent) political conflict in 19 West European countries during the 1970s, the early 1980s and the entire post‐Second World War period. It is possible to identify three types of nation‐groups: ‘noisy‐participatory’ states such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and more recently Spain and Portugal ‐ and Greece if taken on a per capita base. The group of rather ‘quiet’ democracies consists of the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and Luxembourg, with the remaining countries forming the middle, less clearly delineated group. There are two dimensions of political conflict: collective protest, made up of variables such as protest demonstrations, political strikes and riots, and internal war, characterised by the breakdown of the slate monopoly of violence and the organised use of violence by anti‐system groups. A causal model of political protest is presented and confronted with rival explanations. Empirical evidence and theoretical arguments lead to scepticism about accurate predictions of political violence and political instability.     

Correction to: Intergenerational continuity of crime among children of organized crime offenders in the Netherlands

Crime, Law and Social Change -     

Current psychopathology in previously assaulted older adults

Older adult women age 55+ years (N = 549) were interviewed as part of a population-based epidemiological research study of lifetime experiences with physical and sexual assault and current mental health problems. Although overall rates of psychopathology were low, producing very small cells for comparison, women who reported experiencing physical assault an average of 28 years previously were more likely to present with past year substance abuse, depression, and avoidance and reexperiencing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those with no previous physical or sexual assault. Women who reported experiencing sexual assault an average of 50 years previously were more likely to present with autonomic arousal and avoidance symptoms of PTSD than those with no prior sexual assault. The aforementioned findings should be considered with caution, however, as sample cell sizes were minimal for all but the PTSD symptom subtypes. Mental health service implications for older adults are discussed.     

Spectres of Coke: Judicial Supervision as a Revolutionary Inheritance

Sir Edward Coke is known for having played a central role in establishing the power of the common law courts to exercise a supervisory jurisdiction over the executive/administration. Coke is usually praised in the literature for his boldness in doing this, whilst he is at the same time censured for having dared to suggest that this jurisdiction should be a very wide one. This essay questions the inheritance of judicial supervision and enquires whether there may be a secret to uncover in Coke’s texts. Referring to Coke’s Institutes, it is suggested that the wide jurisdiction of the common law courts that Coke advanced, is linked to and should be understood in light of Coke’s pronouncements in the epigrams on law and justice. Judicial supervision, according to this reading of Coke, involves not only a necessarily limited jurisdiction in accordance with law, but also the desire for an unlimited jurisdiction, which corresponds with Derrida’s analysis of justice and law. This reading of Coke, it is suggested, calls on us to view judicial supervision as revolutionary in nature, which requires of the courts to rethink fundamentally the way in which they exercise their supervisory function.

Were There More Acceptable Alternatives to the Iraqi High Tribunal?

The Iraqi High Tribunal has been criticized on all sides forits failure to deliver fair trials. Many observers have advocatedan international or internationalized court instead. However,these alternatives, even if desirable, were outside the ambitof what was possible in post-war Iraq. Given that a domesticcourt was the only realistic option, much more help and supportshould have been given to it by the international community.     

The Creation of Investigating Chambers at the International Criminal Court: An Option Worth Pursuing?

At a time when the position of investigating judge has beenabolished in a number of civil law countries, and is being questionedin those in which it remains, it might seem curious to callfor such a position to be created at the International CriminalCourt (ICC). However, experience at the ad hoc internationalcriminal tribunals (‘ad hoc tribunals’), and especiallyat the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslaviashows that the essentially adversarial procedure used in internationalcriminal proceedings is not wholly suitable for trying complexand highly political international cases. Having investigatingjudges participate in the investigations of such cases coulddecisively enhance the effectiveness, legitimacy and fairnessof international proceedings. This would be particularly appropriatein the ICC's complex legal system, which allows victims to participatein the proceedings and claim reparations. However, this newprocedure must clearly come with a number of safeguards in orderto avoid the failures attendant on the use of the investigatingjudge in domestic systems, which could be fatal to an embryonicand fragile international court.     

Designing property rights for water: mediating market,government, and corporation failures

Recent decades have seen an acceleration in public concern about the allocation of increasingly scarce water supplies. There are many reasons for this concern, such as growth in urban populations. In this article, we focus on how surface water’s special qualities (the combination of spillovers, rent-seeking behavior, and common pool resources) complicate the assignment of property rights in any legal framework. These characteristics make specific market structures necessary in order to efficiently allocate rights. The state usually designs those structures. Yet, just like markets can fail, so can governments fail to effectively allocate those rights. So designers often turn to quasi-judicial conservancy boards as a second-best solution. We argue that those boards may themselves fail through a form of “corporation failure.” We address these three types of failures, and offer an analysis of two cases that suggests that the likelihood conservancy boards will suffer from corporate failure depends on the actions of the boards and outside stakeholders (like governments).

An original cause of drowning in an industrial environment

We describe an original case of drowning in a wax tank in an industrial setting. The causes of death were multiple, with the association of drowning, mechanical asphyxia, and extensive superficial burns. To our knowledge, it is the first report of drowning in wax, and only 7 previous related observations of drowning in industrial environments were reported in the international literature. These accidents are more often fatal, with multiple associated causes of death due to the incriminated media. Although exceptional, these serious accidents must be prevented in potentially risky industries.