Russian Authoritarian Pluralism: a Local and Global Trend?

Russia is a country that has witnessed increasingly authoritarian governance over the last decade. Civil liberties have been curtailed; local and regional political power has been usurped by the Kremlin. Russia remains a democracy insomuch as elections are conducted, but increasingly those elections are so heavily influenced by state control over the media and fiscal elements of social power that substantive Western notions of democracy have greatly atrophied. However, the decline in substantive democracy has received solid support from the Russian electorate. As such, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, Russia has become an ‘authoritarian pluralist’ state that now expresses long-standing cultural affinity for a strong authoritarian rule under an increasingly thin veneer of democratic principles. Furthermore, variations of this new Russian model seem to be spreading globally.

Democracy is the dictatorship of the law. The stronger the state is, the freer the individual.

Vladimir Putin     

Mitochondrial DNA sequence alterations observed between blood and buccal cells within the same individuals having betel quid (BQ)-chewing habit

There are hundreds of millions of betel quid (BQ) lovers widely spreading around the world. Compositions in BQ may generate reactive oxygen species, which would induce DNA damage. However, oral epithelial cells as well as blood have often been used as reference samples in comparison with the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence of hairs. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the extent of mtDNA sequence variation in regular BQ-chewers' oral epithelial cells, and thus to evaluate the forensic availability of the buccal cells from BQ-chewers using the mtDNA markers. The hypervariable segments I and II in the D-loop control region of mtDNA between paired samples of blood and buccal scrape cells from 75 non-BQ-chewers (to be a control group), 60 BQ-chewers, and 67 oral cancerous patients were DNA sequenced and compared. Among the three groups, the alteration rates of 1.3% (1 out of 75), 10% (6 out of 60), and 61% (41 out of 67) were identified from the control, BQ-chewers, and the cancerous group, respectively. In the cancerous group, as expected, high rate of DNA alteration between blood and buccal samples was found. In the BQ-chewers, one and five individuals had the length and point alterations, respectively. Interestingly, most of point alteration sites, e.g., mtDNA positions 153, 16189, 16093 identified from BQ-chewers, were also observed in previous literatures. As for the control subjects, one case with point alteration, and none with length alteration, was identified. For all the three groups, not only the oral cells but also the normal blood samples exhibited high frequency (>55%) of length heteroplasmy at poly-(C)n track. Statistical analyses revealed that significance was observed between the severity of mtDNA alteration in BQ-chewers' oral epithelial cells and the history of BQ-chewing (p = 0.02), with a tendency of positive association. Based on the guidelines by Carracedo et al., we suggest that the interpretation of mtDNA variations between criminal evidences and the oral epithelial cells (as a reference or known sample) from BQ-chewers should be performed with particular caution using the PCR-based mtDNA sequencing. Our findings would be valuable in mtDNA analysis of hair evidence, especially for those countries where the habit of BQ-chewing is popular.     

Redistricting, Candidate Entry, and the Politics of Nineteenth-Century U.S. House Elections

The effects of redistricting on candidate entry patterns in contemporary House races has received growing attention in the scholarly literature, yet virtually no consideration has been given to this question in the context of historical elections. This is unfortunate as the wider variation in congressional redistricting during the nineteenth century gives us increased leverage in terms of understanding strategic candidate behavior. Utilizing a new dataset of candidate quality for nineteenth-century House races, we examine whether candidates with prior electoral experience are more likely to run in districts that are altered during the redistricting process, and provide an account of how differences in the prevalence of redistricting may affect strategic entry decisions of politicians. Our results suggest that entry decisions and electoral outcomes are affected by redistricting in this era. Moreover, our analysis provides an opportunity to use history to test contemporary theories of congressional elections in a broader context .     

An Easy and Accurate Regression Model for Multiparty Electoral Data

Katz and King have previously proposed a statistical model formultiparty election data. They argue that ordinary least-squares(OLS) regression is inappropriate when the dependent variablemeasures the share of the vote going to each party, and theyrecommend a superior technique. Regrettably, the Katz–Kingmodel requires a high level of statistical expertise and iscomputationally demanding for more than three political parties.We offer a sophisticated yet convenient alternative that involvesseemingly unrelated regression (SUR). SUR is nearly as easyto use as OLS yet performs as well as the Katz–King modelin predicting the distribution of votes and the compositionof parliament. Moreover, it scales easily to an arbitrarilylarge number of parties. The model has been incorporated intoClarify, a statistical suite that is available free on the Internet.     

Dealing with the Unthinkable: a Study of the Cognitive and Emotional Stress of Adult and Child Homicide Investigations on Police Investigators

Although the death of a child is without doubt one of the most distressing events imaginable, when it occurs in suspicious circumstances, such as at the hand of a parent or close family member, its effects are often more acute and incomprehensible. This paper presents an exploratory study comparing the cognitive and emotional stressors experienced by police when investigating child and adult homicides. The results of an online survey questionnaire with 99 experienced UK police investigators are presented, with key differences found in the cognitive and emotional stress experienced depending on whether the victim is a child or an adult, key differences and similarities identified in the ways investigators deal and cope with adult and child homicide cases, with a tentative discussion of the implications for the well-being and training of police investigators provided.     

The state must compete: Optimal pricing of legal cannabis

We examine the socially optimal pricing strategy for the legal cannabis industry that faces significant competition from an illicit market. We explore the impact of different preferences for legal and illicit cannabis using a constant elasticity of substitution utility function. We find that under a range of policy objectives and other circumstances, the socially optimal pricing strategy is for the legal market price to be dramatically lower than the illicit market price. This contradicts the approach taken across Canada in the year since legalization. These findings suggest that governments should adopt policies to reduce the price of legal cannabis.     

France,Britain and the intervention in Libya: an integrated analysis

This article seeks to explain the decisions by Nicolas Sarkozy's France and David Cameron's Britain to intervene in the 2011 Libyan crisis. None of the three major theories of international relations—constructivism, defensive realism and liberalism—can explain on its own such intervention decisions as the Libya case. The article's novel analytical model proposes that each theory emphasizes factors and mechanisms that explain part of the decision-making process and that these factors interact with state behaviour in complex ways. Britain and France initially began to consider intervention because they felt that the emergent norm of the ‘responsibility to protect’ applied to the Libyan case and because they believed the massive flows of refugees fleeing the violence were a threat to their border security. Both countries believed military intervention could be successful at relatively low cost and that if they did not intervene the problem would not be solved. At that point, the Sarkozy and Cameron governments engaged in initial action that made them more likely to intervene by jeopardizing their future economic relations with the Gaddafi regime and making him more likely to threaten them with future terrorist attacks. Taking initial action also meant that French and British prestige would ultimately have suffered had they not intervened to achieve a satisfactory solution to the crisis. Paris and London viewed international and regional support as a critical prerequisite for intervention and they sought and attained it. Finally, the Sarkozy and Cameron governments were able to minimize any domestic political risk of intervening because they had public and/or opposition party support.