A Social Discount Rate for Appraisal of Regional Investments: Evidence from Russia

This article provides estimates of a social discount rate (SDR) to inform government policy in Russia. We find that a SDR should be determined for the whole country as well as for particular regions. We apply the social rate of time preferences approach and estimate values for public sector projects at national and regional levels. All calculations are based on data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia. Findings help the decision-making process in the public sector of economics. Suggestions are useful for Russia as well as for post-Soviet countries and other developing economies with regional diversity.     

High‐Resolution Melting (HRM) of Hypervariable Mitochondrial DNA Regions for Forensic Science

Forensic strategies commonly are proceeding by analysis of short tandem repeats (STRs); however, new additional strategies have been proposed for forensic science. Thus, this article standardized the high‐resolution melting (HRM) of DNA for forensic analyzes. For HRM, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from eight individuals were extracted from mucosa swabs by DNAzol reagent, samples were amplified by PCR and submitted to HRM analysis to identify differences in hypervariable (HV) regions I and II. To confirm HRM, all PCR products were DNA sequencing. The data suggest that is possible discriminate DNA from different samples by HRM curves. Also, uncommon dual‐dissociation was identified in a single PCR product, increasing HRM analyzes by evaluation of melting peaks. Thus, HRM is accurate and useful to screening small differences in HVI and HVII regions from mtDNA and increase the efficiency of laboratory routines based on forensic genetics.     

Dominant Discourses,Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia

Drawing on the relevant literature, this article explores key debates and controversies on child labour in the context of Africa and Asia. It first identifies and analyses three dominant discourses on child labour: 1) the work-free childhoods perspective; 2) the socio-cultural perspective; and 3) the political economy perspective. Against the backdrop of these discourses, the article goes on to critically examine aspects of child labour that are underrepresented in the literature and in international policy circles. It concludes by highlighting the importance of grounding children's gendered work within the complex material social practices of interconnected histories and geographies in which their livelihoods unfold.     

Military government, political control and crime: The case of Israeli Arabs

This paper deals with the different methods used to control the Israeli Arab population during the military government (1948–1966). I have sought to expand the standard conceptual framework that serves most criminologists in Israel, and discuss the broader context in which the political control of the Arab population took place. It is vital to consider this context because a significant amount of criminality among the Arab population was an outcome of the political control imposed upon it. The principal goal of the analysis is to clarify the ways in which the political control influenced the criminal process, and to point out to the theoretical and empirical importance of the links between politics and crime, when discussing crime amongst the Arab minority in Israel.     

Fanon,Camus and the global colour line: colonial difference and the rise of decolonial horizons

I focus here on the political stances of Frantz Fanon and Albert Camus regarding the Algerian War of Independence. By examining their reflections on this violent anticolonial struggle, I seek to highlight the role of colonial difference and of racial hierarchies in the constitution of global politics. Fanon's position relies on an ethos of decolonization and on an ethics of difference that—while specific to the Algerian context—also reverberated profoundly among other societies caught in the violence of imperial encounters. Camus' conciliatory approach, however, and his moral equalization of the violence perpetrated by both sides enunciate the inherent racial hierarchies underpinning liberal narratives. I argue that the limits inherent in Fanon's thought—but also its latent potentialities for decolonial thinking—become apparent when examined through the lens of the contemporary activism among North African migrants and their descendants in France. The emergence of self-proclaimed decolonial movements constitutes an attempt to enact a decolonial transnational citizenship, which contests the racial boundaries of French Republicanism. But it also signals a different vision of the universal—one that is entrenched in a terrain of historical specificity and which holds more promise in contesting the global colour line.     

The Importance of Political Context for Understanding Civic Engagement: A Longitudinal Analysis

We contend that political context is important to consider when analyzing social capital and that context has an important but neglected impact on understanding the consequences of civic activity. Our focus is on the influence of rural, local leadership in two Minnesota communities and policies that these elites have developed to bring Internet connectivity to their citizens. One city developed a community electronic network and the other opted for an individualistic, entrepreneurial approach to information technology. Using a quasi-experimental research design and four-wave panel data, we find that elite policy approaches interact with civic activity to predict technology use among citizens, even long after the policies’ initial implementation. In the city with a community network, residents who are integrated into civic life are able to harness these political resources to become more technologically sophisticated.