Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: an analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System

Policy Sciences - The literature on policy dynamics has long argued for a better conceptualization and measurement of the dependent variable (“policy”), but this fundamental point has...     

Governing Through Partnerships: Neoconservative Governance and State Reliance on Religious NGOs in Drug Policy

Critical Criminology - This article examines states’ pursuit of partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a strategy of governance in drug policy. State actors have used...     

Humans Are Animals,Too: Critical Commonalities and Differences Between Human and Wildlife Forensic Genetics

Wildlife forensics has recently been recognized among the wide variety of forensic science disciplines. This review compares human and wildlife DNA forensics, which use the same genetic tools, but often for far different purposes. Human forensic genetics almost invariably attempts to identify individual perpetrators involved in a given crime. Wildlife forensics often determines whether a crime has occurred. In addition to techniques familiar in human laboratories, like individual matching with STRs, wildlife analysts may be asked to determine the taxonomic identity, geographic source, or sex of evidence items, or the familial relationships or minimum number of individuals among a group of samples. This review highlights the common questions, legal framework, databases, and similar validation requirements to foster understanding between disciplines. Based on this understanding, human and wildlife DNA practitioners may work together and learn from each other in order to elevate the discipline of forensic genetics.     

American Criminal Trial Films: An Overview of Their Development, 1930–2000

The history of American trial films – and I am speaking of trial films in general at the moment, not of the sub-division of criminal trial films – has been shaped both by changes in public attitudes toward law and lawyers and by shifts in viewer tastes. These same factors have necessitated changes in the way we define 'American trial films'. In earlier years one could recognize a trial film with relative ease: it was a drama in which a heroic lawyer or lawyer surrogate solved the film's dilemmas in the course of a civil or criminal trial, usually a trial held within a courtroom. Contemporary movies, in contrast, are more interested in action than in debate and oratory, and they are more cynical about the effectiveness of legal processes. Thus they tend to embed a short trial scene in a longer adventure story, and they seldom depict lawyers as heroes on the grand scale or courts as places where fundamental social and moral issues are settled. In sum, the trial film genre is undergoing major change, if not dissolution.