Prospect theory and presidential elections: Two cases from Yugoslavia and Serbia

Why do presidents in semi-presidential regimes sometimes call early elections? Is the behavior of incumbent presidents different from the behavior of presidential contenders when the former do not need to run for office but face the loss of parliamentary majority in a semi-presidential system? Prospect theory claims that agents make risky choices when facing a loss. Consequently, if incumbent presidents face a loss of majority in the parliament, they will call for early election to try to shore up or salvage the majority. To provide empirical evidence supporting this claim, prospect theory has been applied to the two presidential elections in Yugoslavia and Serbia in which two incumbent presidents, Slobodan Milo?evi? (2000) and Boris Tadi? (2012), had lost early presidential elections. The expected contribution of the paper is to deepen our understanding of how semi-presidential regimes resolve the problem of temporal rigidity and offer novel empirical data in support of the application of prospect theory in political science.     

The Italo–Yugoslav Conflict over Albania: A View from Belgrade, 1919–1939

After the Great War, Yugoslavia found her most dangerous enemy in Italy, which made every effort to destabilise its Adriatic neighbour—Albania played an important role in this policy. This analysis examines the Yugoslav stance towards aggressive Italian policy, arguing that Belgrade firmly believed it a matter of utmost importance to prevent the Italians from creating a foothold in the Balkans from which they could stir Albanian irredentism in Kosovo and menace Yugoslavia in its strategically sensitive southern regions in conjunction with Bulgaria. To prevent Italian interference, Yugoslavia championed the independence of Albania with its 1913 frontiers from the Paris Peace Conference onwards: it dropped Serbia’s—Yugoslavia’s pre-war predecessor’s—territorial ambitions centred on the town of Shkodra. Yugoslav policy-makers, however, could not maintain the allegiance of Ahmed-bey Zogu, a major Albanian chieftain, who took power in Tirana with Yugoslav support; but he then turned to Rome, which was more capable of and willing to provide financial means for the maintenance of the Albanian administration than Belgrade. There were also a number of officials who favoured a more forward policy that would put northern Albania under Yugoslavia’s control and thus more efficiently keep Italian aggressive designs in check.     

Not in our name: collective identity of the Serbian Women in Black

The Belgrade-based activist group Women in Black has been for twenty years now articulating a feminist anti-war stance in an inimical socio-political climate. The operation of this anti-patriarchal and anti-militarist organization, which has resisted numerous instances of repression, has not been until now systematically approached from a social movement perspective. This paper draws upon a range of empirical methods, comprising life-story interviews, documentary analysis and participant observation, to address the question as to how it was possible for this small circle of activists to remain on the Serbian/post-Yugoslav civic scene for the last two decades. My central argument is that a consistent collective identity, which informs the group's resource mobilization and strategic options, holds the key to the surprising survival of this activist organization. I apply recent theoretical advances on collective identity to the case of the Belgrade Women in Black with the view of promoting a potentially fruitful cross-fertilization between non-Western activism and the Western conceptual apparatus for studying civic engagement.     

Anomalous Anterior Papillary Muscle as an Autopsy Finding in Two Cases

Anomaly in the anterior papillary muscle (APM) is known to cause left ventricle outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction, and this rare congenital condition could be a cause of sudden cardiac death. This anomaly and its hemodynamic effects is similar to valvular heart disease. In our two described cases, in which cause of death was, respectively, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and suicide by hanging, the cephalad portion of the left APM was inserted directly into the ventricular surface of the anterior mitral leaflet and chordae tendineae were absent in the area of the direct anomalous muscle insertion; the aberrant papillary muscle was very large and showed an exaggerated anterior displacement within the left ventricular cavity. The described anomaly is a cause of LVOT obstruction. This condition is considered to be rare, although incidence estimates do not exist. In the absence of other possible causes, this finding may indicate arrhythmia as being the immediate cause of death.     

EU Climate Change Litigation,the Role of the European Courts,and the Importance of Legal Culture

The purpose of this article is to show it is only in light of legal culture that climate change jurisprudence in the European Union can be explained. Examining the case law concerning the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, this article demonstrates that climate change proceedings in the European Union raise questions that stand at the heart of the EU legal order; that is, they demand that the boundaries of the EU's regulatory competences are drawn. In effect, the EU courts focus on ensuring that EU climate change laws are in accord with the rule of law or, in the context of EU law, the borders of the EU's environmental regulatory powers. As such, this article shows that attention needs to be given to the interaction between climate change laws and the constitutional role of the EU judiciary. These interactions are considered here together with the contingency of EU climate change litigation on EU legal culture.