菲中关系:古老的友谊崭新的气象

距北京以南330公里的山东省德州市,有一座纪念碑见证着菲中人民之间源远流长的友谊.这座纪念碑是为纪念苏禄王巴杜卡·巴塔拉1417年远行中国而建.这位苏禄王前往北京拜会明朝的永乐皇帝,但在返回途中却不幸因病辞世.     

“It’s the politics, stupid!”. The politicization of anti-corruption in Italy

This article aims to analyze the relationship between judicial activism against political corruption and electoral accountability. The judiciary plays a pivotal role in enforcing anti-corruption legislation, and, in many countries, courts have moved closer and closer towards that kind of working. In the article, we analyze the conditions under which a judicial prosecution of corrupt practices can also lead to electoral punishment of political misconducts by voters, or to a failure of accountability mechanisms. The latter outcome is more likely to occur if judicial activism is politicized. The ‘politicization’ of anti-corruption initiatives is here defined as an increase in the polarization of opinions, interests, or values about judicial investigations and the extent to which this polarization is strategically advanced towards the political debate by parties, political leaders, and media. By crystallizing a new dimension of political conflict, political actors can negatively affect electoral accountability, diminishing the risk of electoral punishment. We study this phenomenon by analyzing the case of Italy, a country which has experienced high levels of politicization of anti-corruption. However, whether and to what extent anti-corruption policies can be politicized is a question open for many other countries that can take a similar path.     

Fire debris analysis and scene reconstruction

During the summer of 2010 near a little village in the south of Italy, a fire destroyed a piece of brushland without any apparent economic importance. The remains of a fire-setting tool were found at the point of origin of the fire. It was started using a well-planned and methodical approach. The analytical results demonstrated a sophisticated and effective incendiary tool designed to leave little evidence that could identify the offender. The action and the purpose of the arsonist were clear but the basic motivation was unpredictable. The burned area was without any relevant economical interest. It was burnt during the past and has not been used for any cultivation or sheep farming but in the region there was evidence of bushfires that had been lit to stimulate the growth of forest fruits to be harvested for sale.     

Being poor,feeling poorer: Combining objective and subjective measures of welfare in Albania

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how combining objective and subjective measures of welfare can enrich traditional poverty profiles by exploring the relationship between these welfare measures, and examining what explains the differences between the two. One important finding of our analysis (using data for Albania) is that reconciling subjective and objective poverty profiles suggests the presence of sizable economies of scale. This result calls for increased attention to the proper estimation of a scale parameter for poverty analysis, as changes in assumptions on economies of size and adult equivalence scales are likely to produce significant changes in the analysis of poverty and its distribution across households and individuals.     

The Survival of Gunshot Residues in Cremated Bone: An Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry Study

Gunshot residue (GSR) has been sought and demonstrated on many types of material and with many techniques. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP‐OES) could be a useful method on difficult substrates, but a systematic study on burnt material has never been performed. Hence, this study aims at evaluating the usefulness and reliability of this method on burnt samples. Sixteen adult bovine ribs (eight with soft tissues, eight totally skeletonized) were shot using two kinds of projectile (both 9 mm full metal‐jacketed or unjacketed). Then, every sample was led to complete calcination in an electric oven. The area of the gunshot entrance wound was swabbed and analyzed by ICP‐OES; the results were also correlated with a previously published parallel study by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an SEM–energy dispersive X‐ray analyzer. ICP‐OES proved to be very sensitive and reliable even on degraded material and can be an appropriate nondestructive method for detecting residues on difficult and delicate substrates such as burnt bone.     

On the Relationship between Violent Conflict and Wages in Colombia

We analyse how forced displacements caused by violent conflict are related to the wages of workers in Colombia. Using data from the Quality of Life Survey (2011–2014), we analyse the differences in wages between those forced by violence to move to other regions, and those who moved for other reasons. We apply Propensity Score Matching techniques to compare workers from the two groups, finding that forced displacement is related to decreases of between 10 and 29 per cent in the wages of males, and between 18 and 37 per cent in the wages of females, relative to their counterparts. Thus, forced displacements are related to poorer labour market outcomes in terms of wages.     

Rebuilding Utopia? Critical criminology and the difficult road of reconstruction in Latin America

This contribution assesses the developmentof criminology, during the last few decades, and contemplates the future course of critical criminology in view of developments in current capitalism, and their impact on ``Third World' societies (Latin America in particular).     

Unity and Disunity in the FMLN

Problems of unity can affect an armed opposition group at many stages of its existence—during the war, in peace negotiations, and in its transition to political party. This article assesses how internal divisions affected the performance of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. It finds that while the FMLN suffered significant internal divisions in the early years of the war, it remained remarkably unified from 1983 on. Significant divisions began to appear during the later war years but were not exacerbated until after the war's conclusion, when repeated fracturing occurred. The FMLN began to present itself as a programmatically coherent party only in 2005, and this ideological homogeneity allowed it to establish a series of partnerships with moderate, non‐revolutionary sectors of Salvadoran society and to achieve victory in the 2009 presidential elections.