Jaccard's heel: Radex models of criminal behaviour are rarely falsifiable when derived using Jaccard coefficient

Purpose. This article considers whether the modular facet of popular ‘radex’ models of offender behaviour is falsifiable or a statistical inevitability when using Jaccard coefficient, as evidence from other domains suggests. Method. Data equivalent to that examined in previous papers, and artificial data varying on four parameters, were examined using the conventional procedure of deriving Jaccard coefficients and submitting these to a smallest space analyses (SSA‐I). The parameters were number of variables, number of cases, highest frequency of variable occurrence, and distribution of occurrences. Evidence of a modular pattern in each SSA‐I solution was assessed using one qualitative and two quantitative measures. Results. When variables were free to occur in more than 50% of cases, none of the Jaccard‐based SSA‐I solutions supported the null hypothesis of no modular facet. This contrasts equivalent analyses using Yules Q, where 95.7% of the solutions supported the null hypothesis. When variables were restricted to occur in less than 50% of cases, the number of solutions supporting the null hypothesis changes to .003 and 78%, respectively. Analyses of the artificial data found that reducing the number of variables in a Jaccard‐based solution increased the likelihood of supporting the null hypothesis, which suggests that these solutions are structured by variable occurrence (i.e., frequency) rather than variable co‐occurrence. Implications. Research using Jaccard coefficient to measure co‐occurrences among behaviours should not claim that the modular facet of their radex model is an empirical finding. Unfortunately, this is many of the existing publications.     

Re-examining the saving-investment nexus: threshold cointegration and causality evidence from the ECOWAS

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the relationship between saving and investment in the case of ECOWAS countries. We then employ the Gregory and Hansen (J Econometr 70:99?C126, 1996a; Oxford Bull Econ Stat 58:555?C560, 1996b) threshold cointegration tests and the Toda and Yamamoto (J Econometr 66:225?C250, 1995) causality procedure. Threshold cointegration approach allows estimating changes in the saving-retention coefficients over time. Using yearly data for the period from 1960 to 2007, we show out two groups of countries regarding the cointegration test results. In the first group (The Gambia and Togo), capital is perfectly mobile since there is no long-run relationship between savings and investment. The second group comprised of the ten other ECOWAS countries studied, is characterized by an incomplete capital mobility. Moreover, in the second group the saving-retention coefficient is time-varying in most of the ECOWAS countries (except for Benin and Niger) and is different from a country to another one. The changes in the saving-retention coefficients indicate how international capital mobility has changed. Moreover, the inclusion of trade openness and country size in the saving-investment equation reduces the saving retention coefficients implying improvement of capital mobility over time. Furthermore, investment rates cause saving rates in Benin, Guinea-Bissau and Niger while saving rates cause investment rates in Cote d??Ivoire, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.     

Revisiting <Emphasis Type="Italic">Plato’s Pharmacy</Emphasis>

In this essay, one of Derrida’s early texts, Plato’s pharmacy, is analysed in detail, more specifically in relation to its reflections on writing and its relation to law. This analysis takes place with reference to a number of Derrida’s other texts, in particular those on Freud. It is especially Freud’s texts on dream interpretation and on the dream-work which are of assistance in understanding the background to Derrida’s analysis of writing in Plato’s pharmacy. The essay shows the close relation between Derrida’s analysis of Plato’s texts and Freud’s study of the dream-work. The forces at work in dreams, it appears, are at play in all texts, which in turn explains Derrida’s contentions in relation to the pharmakon as providing the condition of possibility of Plato’s texts. The essay furthermore points to the continuity between this ‘early’ text of Derrida and his ‘later’, seemingly more politico-legal texts of the 1990s. A close reading of Plato’s pharmacy, with its investigation via ‘writing’ of the foundations of metaphysics, and thus also of the Western concept of law, is obligatory should one wish to comprehend how Derrida attempts to exceed the restricted economy of metaphysics through his analysis of concepts such as justice and hospitality.     

Taxation and local government accountability in a clientelist context: Colombia

Increasing the accountability of local government is an important objective of decentralisation. One way to achieve greater accountability is to enhance the reliance of local governments on locally raised taxes. Property taxes are a prime source of increased revenue for local governments. However, it is difficult to levy them effectively in clientelist political systems, like that of Colombia. Recent reforms there have increased the capacity of municipal governments to raise revenue through property taxation. Giving responsibility for assessments of property values to an independent national agency has been especially useful. Municipal government finances are now to some degree independent and protected from the influence of clientelistic political parties. However continuing problems include: the reluctance of mayors to enforce taxation liabilities; the obstacles to opening local political debates on taxation; and the problems faced by national governments in trying to monitor municipal revenues and expenditures. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Change and Permanence in Political Parties

Incessant changes alter political parties in their organization, structure, recruitment and all other characteristics. Nevertheless, they are usually credited with stable features by which they are identified, and which enable them to be classified. If we consider French political parties, it is possible to demonstrate that both change and apparent stability arise from interaction within each party as well as between them and between the social organizations to which they are linked. These interactions and their effects must be related to general processes, such as social and cultural transformation; they cannot be solely explained by specifically political competition.     

Violent Monks in Myanmar: Scapegoating and the Contest for Power

This article seeks to understand why monks played a central role in anti-Muslim violence in transitional Myanmar (2013–2014). We argue that scapegoating is one of many strategies used by monks to gain visibility, to strengthen their autonomous networks, and to increase their social credentials. By analyzing two episodes of monks' participation in religious violence (1930s and 2013–2014), we identify two factors that make scapegoating strategies more likely: (a) decentralized religions foster a multiplicity of organizations and provide incentives for leaders to be entrepreneurial and compete for followers; while (b) the rapid pluralization of the public sphere explains the timing, because it intensifies competition among religious leaders and between religious and secular leaders for social ascendency and power.