Insane Arsonists: An Early 21st Century Sample

We studied all individuals (n = 41) who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity for arson and who were committed to a California state psychiatric hospital on October 1, 2016 in a cross‐sectional analysis. This group of insane arsonists contained 33 (80.5%) males and eight (19.5%) females with a mean age at the time of the index arson of 35.9 years. At least 87.8% (n = 36) were considered to not have been participating in psychiatric treatment at the time of the index arson. Five (12.2%) of the insane arsonists had previously been found not guilty by reason of insanity for arson or had been convicted of having committed arson. Our findings suggest that lack of participation in psychiatric treatment was the most important factor in contributing to the index arson and the most important problem to be addressed in subsequent psychiatric treatment plans.     

The Influence of Knut Wicksell on Richard Musgrave and James Buchanan

The schools of thought that Richard Musgrave and James Buchanan represent in the field of public finance differ a great deal. Musgrave represents the insider-Harvard vision of socio-political reality while Buchanan represents the outsider-Chicago-Virginia-public choice vision. The foundation of different schools of thought by Musgrave and Buchanan is surprising insofar as both Musgraveand Buchanan call Knut Wicksell their intellectual father and claim their own work to stand in the Wicksellian tradition. In this paper, the influence of Wicksell on the works of Musgrave and Buchanan is traced out. The paper comes to the conclusion that it is Buchanan on whose work Wicksell had the strongerinfluence.     

Social Inequality and the Perceived Income Justice Gap

This paper attempts to answer the question whether justice evaluations of income inequality in a society are determined more by country differences or by the social position an observer occupies. In very general terms what we study is whether, in shaping justice beliefs, cultural factors are more important than social-structural ones, or vice versa. In view of transformation societies, country differences are conflated with differences in the transformation processes the countries are experiencing. This is why we distinguish different types of transmations with regard to the postcommunist countries of Eastern and Central Europe testing empirically whether these transformation types exert influence on the justice beliefs, and how this influence compares to that of positional effects. With International Social Justice Project (ISJP) data of 1991 and 1996, we study the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Bulgaria, East Germany, and—as a western referent society—West Germany. Main results are that in the early phase of transformation the different transformation types as well as social positions matter in shaping justice evaluations, over time, however, the types of transformation clearly lose influence. In 1996, compared to 5 years earlier, the countries have become similar in that most of the variation in the perception of the income justice must now be attributed to the positional differences of individuals. We conclude that the characteristics of the transformation processes decrease in importance for determining public views about social justice. In this respect, the transformation societies of Eastern and Central Europe may well be on the route to becoming more like western societies.     

The role of social learning in adaptiveness: insights from water management

The article introduces the notion of adaptiveness and discusses the role of social learning in it. Adaptiveness refers to the capacity of a social actor or social–ecological system to adapt in response to, or in anticipation of, changes in the environment. We explore arguments both from a theoretical perspective and through illustrations from case studies of water management in the Alps of Europe and Mekong in southeast Asia. We propose and illustrate that social learning processes are important for building adaptiveness in several ways and at different scales. Social learning can help cope with informational uncertainty; reduce normative uncertainty; build consensus on criteria for monitoring and evaluation; empower stakeholders to take adaptive actions; reduce conflicts and identify synergies between adaptations; and improve fairness of decisions and actions. Findings in the case studies provide some support for these generalizations but often with caveats related to diversity of stakeholder interests, levels of shared understanding versus contested knowledge and scale of coordination. For this reason, we suggest that future work pays greater attention to issues of agency, knowledge and scale: What strategies have individuals and organizations pursued in successful examples of social learning? How are the boundaries and interactions between science, policy and practice managed? How does social learning occur across spatial and temporal scales?     

eGovernment Applications and Public Personnel Acceptance: An Empirical Analysis of the Public Servant Perspective

Given the importance of eGovernment applications as an integral part of modern public service provision, this contribution concentrates on the issue of continued technology acceptance of public servants. The goal of this article is to connect individual, technological, and organizational aspects in an explanatory model. Using Theory of Reasoned Action and the Technology Acceptance model, an extended model of continued end-user behavior is analyzed. The results show the importance of Ease of Use, Usefulness, Openness to IT, and Subjective Norm for Acceptance and a Continued Q4 Usage Intention. However, a significant influence of Bureaucratic Culture cannot be shown.