Linking EU climate and energy policies: policy-making,implementation and reform

This contribution examines the EU’s innovative climate and energy package: how this package of binding policies has been initiated, decided, implemented and reformed. The key argument is that linking climate and energy concerns can help to explain how the EU managed to adopt an ambitious package of policies aimed at achieving 2020 goals. The combination of differently valued issues, side payments to overcome distributional obstacles and the creation of synergies contributed to a successfully negotiated outcome. The consequences for implementation and further policy development towards 2030 are explained by challenges in reproducing these joint EU-level gains at national level and by new circumstances. This may weaken the EU’s chances of realizing a low-carbon economy and ‘leadership by example’ in international climate policy.     

The Issue of Ethics and Authority for Licensed Mental Health Professionals Involved in Parenting Coordination

We examine the ethics of licensed mental health professionals accepting the authority inherent in binding arbitration when acting as parenting coordinators (PCs). PCs execute their duties under the umbrella of their professional identity and standards of practice. Fundamental differences exist in how the law and the behavioral sciences conceive human behavior and authority, in particular, authority by role and authority by status. Ethical concerns arise when licensed mental health professionals accept the authority to render binding judgments and ask clients to surrender their autonomy through informed consent. We offer recommendations for PCs to avoid these ethical complications.     

Testing the Theoretical Relationship Between the Role of the Society at Large and the Willingness to Adhere to the Police Code of Silence

Asian Journal of Criminology - This study examines the relationship between the role of the society at large and the code of silence in China and South Korea. Although both countries embrace...     

Weaving Tangled Webs: Offense,Defense, and Deception in Cyberspace

It is widely believed that cyberspace is offense dominant because of technical characteristics that undermine deterrence and defense. This argument mistakes the ease of deception on the Internet for a categorical ease of attack. As intelligence agencies have long known, deception is a double-edged sword. Covert attackers must exercise restraint against complex targets in order to avoid compromises resulting in mission failure or retaliation. More importantly, defenders can also employ deceptive concealment and ruses to confuse or ensnare aggressors. Indeed, deception can reinvigorate traditional strategies of deterrence and defense against cyber threats, as computer security practitioners have already discovered. The strategy of deception has other important implications: as deterrence became foundational in the nuclear era, deception should rise in prominence in a world that increasingly depends on technology to mediate interaction.     

Differences in personality and mental state between suspects and witnesses immediately after being interviewed by the police

Abstract

There is increased recognition that people interviewed by the police are often psychologically vulnerable due to modest intelligence, mental health problems, disturbed mental state, and personality problems. The current study aimed to investigate differences in the mental state and personality between suspects and witnesses. The participants were 78 individuals (47 suspects and 31 witnesses) who had been interviewed by the Icelandic police. They were assessed psychologically immediately after the interview with the police was completed. Significant differences emerged between the two groups with the suspects being more depressed, hopeless, compliant and personality disordered than the witnesses. Four of the suspects claimed to have made a false confession to the police due to their immediate need or psychological problems.     

The politics of currency crises in Sweden: Policy choice in a globalised economy

In the two‐pronged debate on ‘globalising markets’ the ‘society‐centered’ perspective claims nation‐states are losing economic control whereas the ‘state‐centred’ perspective holds that ‘business as usual’ is possible. Both views are oversimplified. Looking at Sweden's 1992 currency crisis, we suggest that studies over time provide insights about the significance of political craftsmanship. We argue that market influence on domestic policy making should be regarded as a variable contingent on a fortuitous (from the point of view of market actors) confluence of political and economic circumstances. Our analysis suggests that this confluence, to some extent, can be controlled or manipulated by the state.     

The fate of governing parties in times of economic crisis

The severity of the recent economic crisis in Europe provides an opportunity to test some of the conventional hypotheses about the effects of economic adversity on election outcomes in a broadly comparative context. In 16 of 27 elections held in EU member countries between 2008 and the end of 2011, incumbent governments went down to defeat. In many of the cases in which a governing party was defeated, a government of the center-left was replaced by one of the center-right. The average level of decline in the share of the vote for governing parties (−8.1%) however was surprisingly modest in comparison with previous election cycles. Nevertheless, the results were devastating for governing parties in a number of instances, such as Ireland or Hungary. We also consider the relative merits of retrospective and prospective interpretations of these outcomes in the light of contextual effects arising from factors such as globalization and institutional clarity as these affect perceptions of the responsibility of governing parties or coalitions in coping with the crisis in the domestic political environment.     

A review essay

Abstract

When Kiyoshi Kojima first articulated the concept of a Pacific Free Trade Area in 1966, he anticipated that the removal of tariffs among the developed nations of the Pacific could encourage economic growth among the less developed nations of the Pacific Basin if the developed countries made certain structural adjustments. He particularly recommended that the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan import more primary materials from the developing countries of Asia and Latin America rather than from each other, and that the developed countries lower any restrictions on the import of light manufactured goods from the developing nations.     

Postcards and Propaganda: Cartographic Postcards as Soft News Images of the Russo-Japanese War

Postcards are an important resource that has been largely overlooked in mainstream research on historical events, political attitudes, perceptions, propaganda, and communication. Accordingly, this article expands the relevance of the postcard from social artifact to historical document embodying social and political messages. In particular, the article examines the images and representations used in cartographic postcards during and after the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Not only is this relevant to the study of political propaganda, but also for the study of historic media, popular consumption of political messaging, and as an additional tool with which to study the history of international politics and communication. The political history leading up to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War is briefly covered. Images of cartographic postcards are examined in context of the conflict, with the goal of gaining a greater appreciation for postcards as a form of early “soft news” visual mass media. As such, this is a means by which imperial attitudes and public opinion were shaped. Recommendations are made to broaden the use of postcards as primary documents, especially as these cards are enjoying an online renaissance (e.g., collecting, displaying, discussing). They are valuable in augmenting a variety of research agendas and are fruitful for the study of early modern mass media, social history, public discourse, and political messaging with regard to soft news and public opinion.     

Loading the policy blunderbuss

Ending Gang and Youth Violence: A Cross Governmental Report including further evidence and good practice case studies (EGYV) (HM Government, 2011) describes the Coalition's attempts to develop a coordinated policy strategy to reduce gang related and more general youth violence. The report extends to 84 pages, 23 headline measures, and refers to over 60 reputedly relevant initiatives. Amidst some refreshingly honest admissions (‘We understand that you can't arrest your way out of the problem’), significant emphases are placed on locally coordinated multi-agency action, and on an articulated strategy of family level prevention, individual intervention and police suppression. While the report evidences much good-will, good practice and hard work, at least three core problems relating to expertise, evidence and moral vision critically undermine its strategic coherence; and we contend that the measures flowing from it will, at best, produce weak evidence of no overall effect, and at worst, prove counter-productive.