Damoklesschwert Referendum? Die indirekte Wirkung ausgebauter Volksrechte auf die Rechte religiöser Minderheiten

Die indirekte Wirkung der Volksrechte auf den parlamentarischen Prozess bleibt gerade im Bereich der Minderheitenrechte meist unberücksichtigt. Anhand der Analyse von Anerkennungsprozessen für religiöse Minderheiten in den Schweizer Kantonen soll ein Beitrag zur Schliessung dieser Lücke geleistet werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass Parlamente prinzipiell minderheitenfreundlicher entscheiden als das Volk, wenn es sich um schlecht integrierte Minderheiten handelt – drohende Referenden können diesen Effekt jedoch verringern. Die systematische Analyse der entsprechenden Parlamentsprozesse mittels einer Fuzzy Set‐QCA zeigt auf, dass Minderheitenrechte eher innerhalb von Totalrevisionen von Verfassungen umgesetzt werden, in denen keine Debatte über eine mögliche Ablehnung durch das Volk geführt wurde. Restriktive Regelungen entstehen hingegen, wenn diese Gefahr der direkten Demokratie thematisiert wurde. Zudem spielt der Islam eine besondere Rolle – allerdings führt er nur dann zu restriktiveren Regelungen, wenn befürchtet wird, dass eine Öffnung gegenüber Muslimen die Ablehnung der Vorlage durch das Volk zur Folge haben könnte.     

Rapid Separation of Organophosphate Pesticides using Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography and Short‐end Injection,

Organophosphate (OP) pesticides are highly toxic substances and are frequently represented as poisons. In order to qualify and quantify the selected OP pesticides (methyl paraoxon, ethyl paraoxon, methyl parathion, fenitrothion, and ethyl parathion), micellar electrokinetic chromatography and short‐end injection were investigated. This is the first time that this combination has been used to separate OP pesticides. A capillary with 8.5 cm effective length was used, and the analytes were separated within 2.1 min. Separation conditions including buffer (type, pH, and concentration), sodium dodecyl sulfate concentration, and separation voltage were optimized. The limit of detection (LOD) was estimated in the range of 10–20 μM. The OP pesticides spiked in artificial saliva and drinking water gave superior peak profiles, and good average recoveries 95.6% and 62.3%, respectively. Overall, a rapid method with excellent resolution and efficiency was developed and successfully applied in the analysis of potential sample matrixes.     

The adoption of children from out-of-home care: how decision-makers explain the low rates of adoption in Victoria,Australia

The adoption of children from out-of-home care is uncommon in Australia and rarely occurs in the state of Victoria. This paper reports on how professionals involved in making decisions about the permanent placement of children explain the current rates of adoption from out-of-home care in Victoria. Interviews were conducted with eight child welfare specialists, eight adoption and permanent care specialists and five judicial officers. The current low rates of adoption were attributed to the effect of current legislation, the impact of past adoption practices and the establishment of a culture in Victoria in which adoption is now rarely considered an option for children in out-of-home care.     

Women in parliament: assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Poland

Gender quotas aim to increase women’s parliamentary representation. However, the effectiveness of quotas varies. This article explores this issue further by examining the case of Poland, where gender quotas were introduced in 2011. The Polish case presents an interesting puzzle. Although the overall number of women candidates increased almost twofold in comparison with the pre-quota period, this translated into only a slight increase in the number of women deputies in 2011 and 2015. Hence, the impact of quotas was limited. However, the partisan analysis shows that there was a significant variation among individual parties: whereas some parties promoted wholeheartedly women’s access to political office, other parties did not facilitate it. By drawing on rational choice institutionalism, this article shows that institutions and preferences of political parties matter for the effectiveness of gender quotas. In the case of ineffective gender quota policy, political parties have a final say in women’s parliamentary representation.     

Boundary spanning between industry and university: the role of Technology Transfer Centres

Technology Transfer Centres (TTCs) have been analyzed in the last few years by focusing on the relationship between a TTC, provider of knowledge-intensive services, and a firm client-receiver. Less attention has been devoted to a more complex relationship which involves in the dyadic provider-receiver tie a third relevant body, University. We provide both a theoretical and an empirical contribution by studying whether TTCs can bond the academic and industrial system and we define the activities that make-up this role such as: scanning and selection of R&D opportunities, bridge building, semantic translation of domain specific knowledge, co-production of new knowledge. The boundary spanning role of TTCs is discussed drawing on different and complementary theoretical perspectives. Moreover, we test research hypotheses on the antecedents of boundary spanning activity from a knowledge-based perspective. We argue that TTC boundary spanners need to leverage on both technical skills and networking competences. Empirical investigation has been carried out with a survey of the TTC population of North East Italy. The research findings highlight the task coordination activities implied by a boundary spanning role in joint R&D projects and show that the endowment of human capital at individual level and a qualified social capital at individual and organizational level are the main determinants.     

Teaching police ethics: analysis of an increasingly complex teaching context

ABSTRACT

The importance of ethics in policing and, therefore, in police education and training, is widely acknowledged. Nonetheless, disagreement often exists about the ways in which police ethics subjects should be taught and who should teach them. In this paper, three areas of debate will be critiqued, with the aim of arriving at principled responses to the underlying issues. The first issue will be whether police ethics subjects should include any ethical theory and, if so, to what extent. Related to this, but also a distinct issue in itself, is the question of whether standalone police ethics subjects should be valued over dispersing ethics learning throughout a police curriculum (e.g. as a ‘golden thread‘ running through every subject). Finally, the question of who should teach police ethics subjects will be considered. Here, the issues largely revolve around the relevant significance of philosophical expertise, knowledge and critical analysis as compared to policing expertise. Importantly, the principled responses developed in the paper will not only be theoretically sound. They will also take account of the real-world conditions in which many police ethics subjects are delivered, particularly situations where agreements in place require police ethics subjects to be taught by both police officers and academics.     

Linking Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in Russia

ABSTRACT

Empirical studies in democracies have revealed some degree of causal relationship between public opinion and foreign policy. A look at the relationship between the evolution of Russian foreign policy priorities, as evidenced in the Foreign Policy Concepts (2000, 2008, 2013 and 2016), and public opinion regarding foreign policy measured from 1997 to 2018 shows significant shifts in perceptions of the nation’s international image. The amity/enmity feelings towards others can be explained as responses to key international events, endorsing the thesis of a rational and reactive public. Overall, public opinion and the official policy line in Russia move in the same direction.     

Transcending binaries in critical peacebuilding scholarship to address ‘inclusivity’ projects

Abstract

In light of the recent turn to ‘inclusivity’ in peacebuilding practice, this article problematises established ways of ‘doing critique’ in peacebuilding scholarship. Inclusivity refers to the building of peace as a situated and co-constituted process. This entails what can be termed a new epistemic commitment: the acknowledgement that peacebuilding as a dynamic and emergent phenomenon is also an epistemically co-constituted process. In the article, I make two arguments. First, the move towards inclusivity places currently dominant modes of scholarly critique at an impasse. Persistent ontological and epistemological binaries preclude a productive investigation and challenging of inclusivity projects and their epistemic commitment. Second, I argue that, by returning to historical conditions that were formative in the very emergence of the category of ‘the local’, the conceptual basis of an alternative mode of critique (re)appears. This alternative critical project allows for an analytical sensibility to peacebuilding as emergent and adaptive. It makes it possible to disentangle power relations as these emerge between different and possibly unexpected configurations of actors and knowledge claims in inclusivity projects.     

Tracking the evolution of police training and education in Poland: linear developments and exciting prospects

ABSTRACT

An important issue for police services across the world is the training and education of police personnel. Both training and education have often been linked to the professionalization of policing. An overview of current developments in police training and education in Poland is provided by a discussion and delineation of learning pathways for Polish police officers and the relevant pieces of legislation that have influenced these pathways. This contributes significant knowledge to international literature by being the first repository of information about Polish police training and education. The historical context of police and police training in Poland is introduced first, followed by an overview of the two-tier system of training. Finally, developments of police training in the Polish context are critically assessed to demonstrate the slow, yet undeniable, approach toward professionalisation of police officers in Poland.     

Levelling Up the UK: If not the Conservatives,will Labour Learn the Lessons from Past Policy Failings?

This article considers the levelling-up agenda in the UK, examining the Johnson government's original proposals to tackle regional and local inequality and its continuation under new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following the short-lived premiership of Liz Truss. The 2022 Levelling Up in the United Kingdom White Paper is notable for the frank and wholesale critique it provides of previous governments’—both Tory and Labour—efforts to address the pressing issue of geographic inequality. The assessment was that a pattern of ad hoc and incoherent reforms needed to be replaced by a stable, long term and system-wide approach to change. Yet, under Johnson, Truss and now Sunak, policy churn is continuing, with an approach that falls short in following the lessons set out in the White Paper. We provide a detailed analysis of the government's critique of past reforms, the lessons it has set out and why its reform programme is likely to repeat past failings. Crucially, the approach leaves the structure of central government almost untouched, with substantive reforms instead focussed at the local governance level. We argue the government's programme perpetuates the ‘power-hoarding’ tendencies of the Westminster model, a key bulwark against meaningfully addressing the UK's spatial inequality problem. We conclude that the levelling-up agenda, missions and targets are unlikely to be met under Rishi Sunak, reflecting the endemic nature of short-termism and centralisation of power in the UK's public policy approach. We then consider the approach of Starmer's Labour Party to levelling up and the issues it needs to confront if it forms the next government.