The mechanics of democracy promotion tools: bridging the knowledge-to-practice gap

By drawing upon the literature that diagnoses the gap between academics and practitioners, this article categorises and describes the traditional democracy promotion tools developed by international governmental and non-governmental organisations to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. Further, it examines the utility of ICTs in promoting and upholding democratic change. The findings inform considerations and specific recommendations offered to the tool developers on how to converge traditional and new democracy promotion tools. These are intended to assist in focusing tool design and development efforts, and promoting standardisation and innovation.     

The Contingency of Voter Learning: How Election Debates Influenced Voters’ Ability and Accuracy to Position Parties in the 2010 Dutch Election Campaign

Election campaigns are expected to inform voters about parties’ issue positions, thereby increasing voters’ ability to influence future policy and thus enhancing the practice of democratic government. We argue that campaign learning is not only contingent on voters’ characteristics and different sources of information, but also on how parties communicate their issue positions in election debates. We combine a two-wave panel survey with content analysis data of three televised election debates. In cross-classified multilevel auto-regression models we examine the influence of these debates in the 2010 Dutch parliamentary election campaign on voters’ knowledge of the positions of eight parties on three issues. The Dutch multiparty system allows us to separate voters’ ability to position parties from their accuracy in ordering these parties. We reach three main conclusions. First, this study shows that voters become more able and accurate during the campaign. However, these campaign learning effects erode after the elections. Second, whereas voters’ attention to campaigns consistently contributes to their ability to position parties, its effect on accuracy is somewhat less consistent. Third, televised election debates contribute to what voters learn. Parties that advocate their issue positions in the debates stimulate debate viewers’ ability to position these parties on these issues. In the face of the complexity of campaigns and debates in multiparty systems, campaigns are more likely to boost voters’ subjective ability to position parties than their accuracy.     

Measuring Control of Corruption by a New Index of Public Integrity

While the last 20 years saw the invention of corruption rankings, allowing comparison between countries and the shaming of corrupt governments, such measurements are largely based on the perceptions of experts, lacking both specificity and transparency. New research, based on a comprehensive theory of governance defined as the set of formal and informal institutions determining who gets what in a given context, allow for more specific and objective, albeit indirect, measurements of control of corruption. Such measurements focus on the institutional framework which empowers public integrity and eliminates many current anti-corruption tools, while validating others. Most importantly, it provides a broader specific context which can empower reforms based on evidence and a clear measure to determine status and progress of corruption control.     

Bioinformatics and human identification in mass fatality incidents: the world trade center disaster

Victim identification initiatives undertaken in the wake of Mass Fatality Incidents (MFIs) where high-body fragmentation has been sustained are often dependent on DNA typing technologies to complete their mandate. The success of these endeavors is linked to the choice of DNA typing methods and the bioinformatic tools required to make the necessary associations. Several bioinformatic tools were developed to assist with the identification of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks, one of the most complex incidents to date. This report describes one of these tools, the Mass Disaster Kinship Analysis Program (MDKAP), a pair-wise comparison software designed to handle large numbers of complete or partial Short Tandem Repeats (STR) genotypes, and infer identity of, or biological relationships between tested samples. The software performs all functions required to take full advantage of the information content of processed genotypic data sets from large-scale MFIs, including the collapse of victims data sets, remains re-association, virtual genotype generation through gap-filling, parentage trio searching, and a consistency check of reported/inferred biological relationships within families. Although very few WTC victims were genetically related, the software can detect parentage trios from within a victim's genotype data set through a nontriangulated approach that screens all possible parentage trios. All software-inferred relationships from WTC data were confirmed by independent statistical analysis. With a 13 STR loci complement, a fortuitous parentage trio (FPT) involving nonrelated individuals was detected. Additional STR loci would be required to reduce the risk of an FPT going undetected in large-scale MFIs involving related individuals among the victims. Kinship analysis has proven successful in this incident but its continued success in larger scale MFIs is contingent on the use of a sufficient number of STR loci to reduce the risk of undetected FPTs, the use of mtDNA and Y-STRs to confirm parentage and of bioinformatics that can support large-scale comparative genotyping schemes capable of detecting parentage trios from within a group of related victims.     

Lessons learned from inter-laboratory studies of carbon isotope analysis of honey

Forensic application of carbon isotope ratio measurements of honey and honey protein to investigate the degree of adulteration with high fructose corn syrup or other C₄ plant sugars is well established. These measurements must use methods that exhibit suitable performance criteria, particularly with regard to measurement uncertainty and traceability – low levels of adulteration can only be detected by methods that result in suitably small measurement uncertainties such that differences of 1‰ or less can be reliably detected. Inter-laboratory exercises are invaluable to assess the state-of-the art of measurement capabilities of laboratories necessary to achieve such performance criteria. National and designated metrology institutes from a number of countries recently participated in an inter-laboratory assessment (CCQM-K140) of stable carbon isotope ratio determination of bulk honey. The same sample material was distributed to a number of forensic isotope analysis laboratories that could not participate directly in the metrological comparison. The results from these studies have demonstrated that the majority of participants provided isotope delta values with acceptable performance metrics; that all participants ensured traceability of their results; and that where measurement uncertainties were reported; these were fit-for-purpose. A number of the forensic laboratories only reported precision rather than full estimates of measurement uncertainty and this was the major cause of the few instances of questionable performance metrics. Reporting of standard deviations in place of measurement uncertainties is common practice outside metrology institutes and the implications for interpretations of small differences in isotopic compositions are discussed. The results have also highlighted a number of considerations that are useful for organisers of similar inter-laboratory studies in the future.     

Inaccurate Conception: ACB v Thomson Medical

This note considers the decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal in ACB v Thomson Medical in which the plaintiff sought damages for the upkeep costs of a child conceived using sperm from someone other than her husband as a result of negligence by a fertility clinic. The Court held that upkeep costs could not be recovered as a matter of public policy, but recognised a new head of loss, namely damages for loss of genetic affinity. In a controversial ruling, the Court quantified these damages at thirty per cent of the upkeep costs of the child. While holding that punitive damages could be recovered outside the categories recognised in Rookes v Barnard, the Court rejected such an award on the facts of the case.     

Abortion in Northern Ireland: Has the Rubicon Been Crossed?

On 7 June 2018, the Supreme Court delivered their long anticipated ruling on whether the abortion laws in Northern Ireland are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the case was dismissed on procedural grounds, a majority of the court held that, obiter, the current Northern Irish law was incompatible with the right to respect for private and family life, protected by Article 8 ECHR, “insofar as it prohibits abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality”. This Supreme Court decision, seen alongside the May 2018 Irish referendum liberalising abortion, and the 5 June 2018 Parliamentary debate seeking to liberalise abortion laws in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, places renewed focus upon the abortion laws of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which suggests that the ‘halfway house’ of the Abortion Act 1967 Act finally be close to being reformed to hand the decision of abortion to women themselves.     

Criminals and the Price System: Evidence from Czech Metal Thieves

Objectives

This paper tests the economic theory of criminal behavior. Specifically, it looks at “the carrot” side of the theory, studying how thieves react to changes in monetary gains from crime.

Methods

Using a unique crime-level dataset on metal theft in the Czech Republic, we study thieves’ behavior in a simple regression framework. We argue that variation in metal prices represents a quasi-experimental variation in gains from crime. It is because (1) people steal copper and other nonferrous metals only to sell them to scrapyard and (2) prices at scrapyards are set by the world market. This facilitates causal interpretation of our regression estimates.

Results

We find that a 1% increase (decrease) in the re-sale price causes metal thefts to increase (decrease) by 1–1.5%. We show that the relationship between prices and thefts is very robust. Moreover, we find that thieves’ responses to price shocks are rapid and consistent.

Conclusion

Our results are in line with the economic model of crime, wherein criminal behavior is modeled as a rational agent’s decision driven by the costs and benefits of undertaking criminal activities. Our estimates are also consistent with recent results from the United Kingdom, suggesting these patterns are more general.

     

Are DNA data a valid source to study the spatial behavior of unknown offenders?

Studying the spatial behaviour of unknown offenders (i.e. undetected offenders) is difficult, because police recorded crime data do not contain information about these offenders. Recently, forensic DNA data has been used to study unknown offenders. However, DNA data are only a subset of the crimes committed by unknown offenders stored in police recorded crime data. To establish the suitability of DNA data for studying the spatial offending behaviour of unknown offenders, we examine the concentration and spatial similarity of detected but unsolved crimes in police recorded crime data (N?=?181,483) and DNA data (N?=?1913) over 27 Belgian judicial districts for four crime types. We established spatial similarity for certain crime types (in some districts). This offers opportunities for DNA data to be used to study unknown offenders' spatial offending behaviour. Implications for theory and research are discussed.