Electoral participation

Among her publications are a number of articles and chapters on political participation and ethnic politics.     

Policy processes sans frontières: interactions in transnational governance of global health

Policy Sciences - National policy on global health (NPGH) arenas are multisectoral governing arrangements for cooperation between health, development, and foreign affairs sectors in government...     

A rising generation of Europeans? Life‐cycle and cohort effects on support for ‘Europe’

Despite much research on age and attitudes, it remains unclear whether age reflects accumulated life experience or conditions prevailing during an individual's formative years – that is, a life‐cycle effect or a cohort effect. In respect to attitudes towards the European Union (EU), the issue is particularly important. Although many analyses indicate a correlation between age and support, the relationship has not been adequately theorised and extant analyses have generated contradictory results. In this article, theoretical expectations for both life‐cycle and cohort effects on support for the EU are developed and tested using a cross random effects model. This not only identifies the nature of an age‐support relationship, but also highlights substantial generational differences in attitudes towards European integration and explains the inconsistencies in extant empirical analyses.     

Bureaucratic justice: the incarceration of mainland Chinese women working in Hong Kong's sex industry

Since Hong Kong's return to the People's Republic of China (PRC) there has been a significant rise in the number of Chinese visitors to Hong Kong, including women crossing the border to engage in sex work. Sex work itself is not a crime in Hong Kong, but related activities, like soliciting, are prohibited. Sex work is treated as work for immigration purposes, and visitors who engage in work without an employment visa are breaching their conditions of stay. More than 10,000 mainland Chinese women have been arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced in recent years, causing the correctional population to expand beyond capacity. The authors examine the experiences of 58 incarcerated women in their encounters with the Hong Kong criminal justice system and find that women are processed in a highly routinized bureaucratic manner. They consider the purpose served by the largely bureaucratic form of justice that has emerged in response to migrant sex workers in Hong Kong.     

The role of confirmation bias in suspect interviews: A systematic evaluation

Purpose. The three studies presented in this paper systematically examined the effect of expectations of guilt on interviewer questioning style, confession, denial rates, and suspects' verbal behaviour during interview. Method. Undergraduate students were recruited to participate in the three studies. In Study 1, 61 participants formulated questions that they wanted to ask a suspect to determine whether or not they cheated on a task. Prior to formulating their questions, participants were led to believe that the suspect was likely to be guilty or innocent. In Study 2, 45 ‘innocent’ and ‘guilty’ participants were accused of cheating on a task and were interviewed with either guilt‐presumptive questions or neutral questions. In the final study, 58 participants listened to a selection of audiotaped interviews from Study 2. They then rated various aspects of the suspects' verbal behaviour. Results. As hypothesized expectations of guilt resulted in the formulation of more guilt‐presumptive questions even when participants were free to generate their own questions (Study 1). A significant association was found between suspect guilt/innocence and whether they confessed or denied, although there was no association between questioning style and confession or denial rates (Study 2). However, as expected, ratings of independent observers who listened to tape recordings of the suspect interviews indicated an influence of questioning style on the suspects' verbal behaviour whereby a self‐fulfilling prophecy effect occurred (Study 3). Conclusions. These results indicate that expectations of guilt can indeed have an effect on questioning style and that this in‐turn can lead to a self‐fulfilling prophecy effect.     

Transnational Exchange of Forensic DNA: Viability,Legitimacy, and Acceptability

Forensic DNA profiling and databasing have become increasingly significant resources for criminal investigations in many jurisdictions. More recently, there have been attempts to recruit these technologies into the policing of cross-border organized crime, migration and terrorism. We examined the trajectory of one such attempt, the establishment and operationalisation of the Prüm Treaty within the European Union. We describe the way in which early technological considerations underlying DNA profile exchange, managed within law enforcement bureaucracies, have given way to a concern with broader societal issues and the necessity for a multifaceted scrutiny of this particular technolegal innovation. Central to this issue is the hybrid nature of exchange arrangements created as a result of the European Council Decision on Prüm (2008). The Prüm Treaty departs from the increasingly normalized framework for criminal justice cooperation, and at the same time, does not facilitate DNA exchange within a more traditional multinational instrument. We consider the significance and implications of the political decisions behind Prüm, as well as the consequences for the development of transnational DNA exchange in terms of three key issues: technical and scientific challenges (viability); legal challenges (legitimacy); and ethical and socioeconomic challenges (acceptability). Unless the Prüm structure is reformed, an important and promising initiative may remain encumbered with unresolved problems of legitimacy and acceptability. A lack of direct democratic involvement of many member states precluded the creation of consensus on issues such as privacy, data protection and due process issues, upon which legal and political regimes could then act.