Rally ’round which flag? Terrorism’s effect on (intra)national identity

Public Choice - Exploiting a unique panel of student respondents surveyed both shortly before and after the March 2016 bombings in Brussels, this paper analyzes the effects of terrorism on social...     

An evolutionary step in intellectual property rights – Artificial intelligence and intellectual property

This article addresses and analyses the issues concerning the ownership of computer generated works within patents and copyright, and concludes that the current regime is woefully inadequate to deal with the growing use of more and more intuitive artificial intelligence systems in the production of such works. It considers the respective claims of interested parties to such rights before moving on to a consideration of the creation of a new legal personality to which such rights could be granted to resolve the difficulties inherent in the current system.     

Explaining the Prevalence of Illegitimate Wage Practices in Southern Europe: An Institutional Analysis

This paper proposes that the prevalence of illegitimate wage practices in Southern European societies results from the discord between the formal rules (formal institutions) and the socially shared unwritten rules that reflect citizens' beliefs (informal institutions). To evaluate this, a 2013 survey is reported on whether employers in five Southern European countries fraudulently evade tax and social security payments by paying employees a portion of their salary off the books. A strong association is revealed between the extent of wage under-reporting and the degree of institutional asymmetry across these societies. The implications for theorising illegitimate wage practices are then explored.     

Response to Lindsay,Mansour, Beaudry,Leach and Bertrand's Sequential lineup presentation: Patterns and policy

This paper is a response to the earlier paper by Lindsay, Mansour, Beaudry, Leach and Bertrand (2009). We argue that eyewitness research is an important public good and that high‐quality in research and policy formulations offered to the public interest is required to maintain our standing of trust. We argue that even though sequential lineups have been successfully codified in some jurisdictions as the exclusive eyewitness identification procedure, the claim of sequential superiority is built upon errors in the research process and that the evidence of reduced false identification with sequential lineups is completely offset by reductions in correct identifications. We reject the idea that the loss of correct identifications can be dismissed as guessing on the basis that this is speculative and that there is no published empirical support for the idea. We reject the idea that false identifications are necessarily more valuable for society to reduce than are correct identifications to achieve. Improvements in eyewitness identification are important, and interesting lines of investigation are available. It is questionable whether the sequential lineup is important among them.     

The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade — How lasting were its benefits?

In 1981, Nicaragua was awarded a UNESCO prize in recognition of the success of the 1980 National Literacy Crusade (CNA) through which, it was claimed, three quarters of the country's illiterate had been taught to read and write. This article reports the follow-up of several women graduates of the CNA. It finds that, a decade later, a significant proportion of them are no longer able to read or write; and that of those who can, many had previously attended formal schooling as children for several years. An assessment of national census and survey figures suggests that about 9 per cent of the population became literate solely as a consequence of Nicaragua's ambitious adult-education interventions in the 1980s. Other benefits, such as the impact on child health and survival, have yet to be quantified.     

The impact of protective shields and videotape testimony on conviction rates in a simulated trial of child sexual abuse

In Experiment 1 mock jurors watched a videotape simulation of a sexual abuse trial that included a 10-year-old child witness testifying in one of three different modalities: (1) The child testified in court while directly confronting the defendant (open court condition). (2) The child testified in court with a protective shield placed between the child and the defendant (shield condition). (3) The child testified outside the courtroom and the child's testimony was presented to the jury and the defendant on a video monitor (video condition). The mock jurors judged the guilt of the defendant after watching the entire trial. The modality of the child's testimony had no impact on conviction rates. In Experiment 2 subjects watched the same trial that was used in Experiment 1. The trial was stopped immediately after the child testified (the child was the first witness to take the stand), and subjects judged the guilt of the defendant. The modality of the child's testimony had a significant impact on conviction rates. Subjects in the open court condition were more likely to convict the defendant than subjects in the shield and videotape conditions. These findings are relevant to Supreme Court decisions regarding the use of protective devices with child witnesses.     

Cultural Pluralism: A Response to Seglow's Critique

I examine Seglow's critique (Politics 17(3) 1997) of my assessment of Parekh's theory of operative public values (Politics 16(3) 1996). This examination has four main stages: (a) the rejection of crucial aspects of Seglow's interpretation of my argument, (b) the rejection of his claim that my argument is logically committed to certain other specific positions which I do not support, (c) the rejection of his claim that I my argumentative strategies are misleading, (d) the consideration of possible similarities and disagreements between our respective positive positions on cultural pluralism.