Tools for Anticipating Asylum Denials: An Application to Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, 1997-2001

The growing tendency toward non-compliance with internationalobligations to refugees requires UNHCR to make contingency plansfor asylum denials. Making such plans calls for tools, suchas game theory and confrontation analysis, that link non-compliancein refugee asylum with the configuration of interests for asylumand donor countries in a potential crisis. We illustrate suchtools in a case study of Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 1997–2001,which generated asylum denials by Pakistan ranging from briefborder closings to threats of mass refoulement, linked to thewithholding of assistance by the United States and other donors.We also consider the prospects for using these tools to informcontingency planning for an impending crisis.     

Alcohol-Impaired Driving in Norway and Sweden: Another Look at "The Scandinavian Myth"

Ross's (1975) assessment of the Scandinavian drinking-and-driving laws was a pivotal paper in the international literature because, in many ways, Norway and Sweden offer a critical test of the "tough approach" to deterring alcohol- impaired drivers. The present review raises some methodological and philosophical questions about Ross's approach to the Scandinavian data and examines four types of indirect evidence for deterrence in Norway and Sweden. While no conclusive evidence for deterrence could be identified, there was internal consistency in the pattern of circumstantial evidence pointing to a workable system of external restraints and internal controls in Scandinavia; and this pattern of evidence contrasted sharply with that obtained in the U.S.