Justice,Charity, and Disaster Relief: What,If Anything,Is Owed to Haiti,Japan, and New Zealand?

Whenever fellow humans suffer due to natural catastrophes, we have a duty to help them. This duty is not only acknowledged in moral theory but also expressed in ordinary people's reactions to phenomena such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Despite being widely acknowledged, this duty is also widely disputed: some believe it is a matter of justice, others a matter of charity. Although central to debates in international political theory, the distinction between justice and charity is hardly ever systematically drawn. To fill this gap in the literature, I consider three accounts of this distinction— the “agent‐based,” the “recipient‐based,” and the “mixed” view—and argue that they are all unsatisfactory. I then offer a fourth alternative, the “autonomy” view, which successfully overcomes the difficulties affecting its rivals. I conclude by considering the implications of this view for the moral grounds of disaster relief in earthquake‐stricken Haiti, New Zealand, and Japan.     

Double Punishment for Regional and National Incumbents: The March 2012 Regional Election in Andalusia

Confounding predictions, the 2012 Andalusian regional election resulted in a renewal of left-wing government as the conservative Popular Party failed to obtain an absolute majority of seats. The socialists, who had ruled the region for 30 years, came second but continued in power in coalition with the United Left, which increased its seat share. The article argues that the Andalusian election results should be understood in a multi-level governance perspective. For those who voted for the socialists, the hard austerity policies implemented by the Popular Party central government became more salient than the current performance of the regional government. The behaviour of unemployed voters is also key to understanding the election outcome.     

Decision rules and service delivery in small cities

The research presented here describes the spatial distribution of parks and recreation services in four suburbs of the City of Detroit, Michigan. This comparative perspective suggests that the “decision–rule hypothesis” explains service distribution in some suburbs, as has been the case in central cities. In suburbs which are less highly bureaucratized, standardized decision procedures are not used to allocate service, however. Additionally, patterns of service benefits seem to vary among suburbs depending upon the extent of the reliance on such bureaucratic procedures.     

USAID,Population Control,and NGO-Led Democratization in Egypt: The Fate of the ICPD Programme of Action

Critics of US democracy-promotion strategies of the last 20 years ask: what kind of democracy is promoted by US public agencies and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), how is it promoted, and for what purpose(s)? This paper draws on interviews with NGO, USAID, and UN representatives, gathered in Egypt in 2001, to describe the fate of Egyptian women's advocacy NGOs seeking to implement the pro-democracy platform of action of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). It offers some support for critics' contentions both that external (here USAID) pro-democracy interventions may actually obstruct democratization, and that the instrumental nature of US democracy promotion may mean that such activities are quickly eliminated or downgraded when they conflict with more primary US policy goals.     

Women's political participation in Greece since the fall of the Colonels: From democratic struggle to incorporation by the party‐state?

This article examines the changing nature of women's political participation in Greece and argues that the period since 1974 has seen a shift from political participation through women's involvement in popular democratic struggles to the increasing incorporation of the women's movement by the Greek ‘party‐state’. From 1967–74 Greece lived under the repressive dictatorship of the Colonels. Yet Greece now enjoys some of the most progressive legislation in Europe in the area of equality between the sexes. Most of the demands of the Greek women's movement of the late 1970s were already translated into public policy provisions by the 1980s.

Women's issues came to be accepted on to the political agenda in Greece in part as a result of women's participation in national struggles for liberation and democracy through which they developed close links with the parties of the Left. In the short term, collaboration with the newly formed or newly liberated parties of the Left brought important rewards for the women's organizations and allowed women a voice in Greek politics for the first time. However, it is argued that collaboration has also had its costs ‐ not least of which has been the linkage of progress on women's issues with the spoils of political office.     

The Efficacy of Ideographic Models for Geographical Offender Profiling

Objectives

Current ‘geographical offender profiling’ methods that predict an offender’s base location from information about where he commits his crimes have been limited by being based on aggregate distributions across a number of offenders, restricting their responsiveness to variations between individuals as well as the possibility of axially distorted distributions. The efficacy of five ideographic models (derived only from individual crime series) was therefore tested.

Methods

A dataset of 63 burglary series from the UK was analysed using five different ideographic models to make predictions of the likely location of an offenders home/base: (1) a Gaussian-based density analysis (kernel density estimation); (2) a regression-based analysis; (3) an application of the ‘Circle Hypothesis’; (4) a mixed Gaussian method; and (5) a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) analysis. These tests were carried out by incorporating the models into a new version of the widely utilised Dragnet geographical profiling system DragNetP. The efficacy of the models was determined using both distance and area measures.

Results

Results were compared between the different models and with previously reported findings employing nomothetic algorithms, Bayesian approaches and human judges. Overall the ideographic models performed better than alternate strategies and human judges. Each model was optimal for some crime series, no one model producing the best results for all series.

Conclusions

Although restricted to one limited sample the current study does show that these offenders vary considerably in the spatial distribution of offence location choice. This points to important differences between offenders in the morphology of their crime location choice. Mathematical models therefore need to take this into account. Such models, which do not draw on any aggregate distributions, will improve geographically based investigative decision support systems.     

Variation is the Norm: A Landscape Analysis of Weighted Student Funding Implementation

School districts increasingly rely on weighted student funding (WSF), yet there is little research on this allocation model. This study collects more than 70 measures on each of 19 districts using WSF in 2018 for a landscape analysis of formula features and implementation practices. While districts report common reasons for adopting WSF (equity, flexibility, and transparency), we find no standard WSF model. Homegrown formulas and nonformula features and exemptions reflecting local context are the norms, resulting in substantial differences. Nearly all districts continue to budget with average salaries (likely limiting equity) but grant principals flexibility on staffing, stipends, and contracts.     

Predicting Short-Term Institutional Aggression in Forensic Patients: A Multi-Trait Method for Understanding Subtypes of Aggression

Accurately predicting inpatient aggression is an important endeavor. The current study investigated inpatient aggression over a six-month time period in a sample of 152 male forensic patients. We assessed constructs of psychopathy, anger, and active symptoms of mental illness and tested their ability to predict reactive and instrumental aggression. Across all levels of analyses, anger and active symptoms of mental illness predicted reactive aggression. Traits of psychopathy, which demonstrated no relationship to reactive aggression, were a robust predictor of instrumental aggression. This study (a) reestablishes psychopathy as a clinically useful construct in predicting inpatient instrumental aggression, (b) provides some validation for the reactive/instrumental aggression paradigm in forensic inpatients, and (c) makes recommendations for integrating risk assessment results into treatment interventions.