First report from the Swedish National Forensic Psychiatric Register (SNFPR)

To the best of our knowledge, the present register is the only nationwide forensic psychiatric patient register in the world. The aim of this article is to describe the content of the Swedish National Forensic Psychiatric Register (SNFPR) for Swedish forensic patients for the year 2010. The subjects are individuals who, in connection with prosecution due to criminal acts, have been sentenced to compulsory forensic psychiatric treatment in Sweden. The results show that in 2010, 1476 Swedish forensic patients were assessed in the SNFPR; 1251 (85%) were males and 225 (15%) were females. Almost 60% of the patients had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, with a significantly higher frequency among males than females. As many as 70% of the patients had a previous history of outpatient psychiatric treatment before becoming a forensic psychiatric patient, with a mean age at first contact with psychiatric care of about 20 years old for both sexes. More than 63% of the patients had a history of addiction, with a higher proportion of males than females. Furthermore, as many as 38% of all patients committed crimes while under the influence of alcohol and/or illicit drugs. This was more often the case for men than for women. Both male and female patients were primarily sentenced for crimes related to life and death (e.g., murder, assault). However, there were more females than males in treatment for general dangerous crimes (e.g., arson), whereas men were more often prosecuted for crimes related to sex. In 2010, as many as 70% of all forensic patients in Sweden had a prior sentence for a criminal act, and males were prosecuted significantly more often than females. The most commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals for both genders were antipsychotics, although more women than men were prescribed other pharmaceuticals, such as antidepressants, antiepileptics, and anxiolytics. The result from the present study might give clinicians an opportunity to reflect upon and challenge their traditional treatment methods.     

Transfer of academic research: uncovering the grey zone

In this study, we respond to calls for further investigation on why and how scientists choose to commercialize their research. Mowery (University entrepreneurship and technology transfer: process design, and intellectual property, Elsevier, Oxford 2005), in his criticism of the US-system, emphasizes the need for multiple channels between university and industry. His argument makes the case of Sweden interesting, where the researchers own the intellectual property of their research. Sweden thus constitutes a unique case where data can be found on which choices researchers make in a setting where a variety of channels for transfer are available. Our empirical data, collected through case studies, allowed for the expansion of the typology for mechanisms for transfer of academic research as well as the development of a typology for determinants for researchers’ choice to engage in transfer of research. Apart from those contributions to the theoretic discussion, the data also provided policy implications.     

Business Process Re-Engineering and Balanced Scorecard in Swedish Public Sector Organizations: Solutions for Problems or Problems for Solutions?

This article analyzes and discusses the adoption and implementation of Business Process Re‐Engineering (BPR) at a hospital and Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at a local government. At the hospital, BPR was adopted as a solution to problems, but became de-coupled from operations, and later used for legitimacy reasons. At the local government, without having identified clear problems, BSC was adopted as an attractive solution but became coupled, rather than de-coupled, to operations. Our study shows that de-coupling does not follow the path proposed by neo-institutional theory, and that legitimacy from popular management concepts can be obtained both by coupling and by de-coupling the concepts from operations.     

Expectations from Administrative Reforms: An Attempt to Implement the Balanced Scorecard in a Public Sector Organization

The aim of this case study is to explore what actors in a Swedish municipality expect from a new administrative reform (i.e., an attempt to implement the Balanced Scorecard). The findings show that the expectations on changes are highest among the politicians, moderate among the administrators, and lowest among the operative employees. The differences can be explained by the way the reform is anticipated to favor or disfavor the actors, who in turn are influenced by the actors' past experiences. Most of the expressed expectations concern expectations of the outcome of the administrative reform, but some concern expectations on the reform itself.     

The Role of Land Use Consolidation in Improving Crop Yields among Farm Households in Rwanda

Relative to other developing regions, the role of land consolidation in increasing crop yields is poorly understood in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the role of land use consolidation on agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Household-level data are used to estimate a fixed-effects model with matched control groups to mitigate selection bias. The study finds a positive association between land use consolidation and crop yields, but only among farm households with landholdings greater than one hectare, which is well above the average farm size in Rwanda. Findings also point to the importance of non-organic fertilisers and irrigation as there appear to be significant benefits associated with further increases in their use among the consolidated farms.     

The use and non-use of policy appraisal tools in public policy making: an analysis of three European countries and the European Union

The increasing complexity of policy problems, coupled with the political desire to base new policies on the foundation of firm evidence, has accelerated the development of policy assessment tools. These range from complex computer models and cost benefit analysis through simple checklists and decision trees. In the last decade, many governments have established formal policy assessment systems to harness these tools in order to facilitate more evidence-based policy making. These tools are potentially widely available, but to what extent are they used by policy makers and what becomes of the evidence that they generate? This paper addresses these questions by studying the empirical patterns of tool use across 37 cases in three European countries and the European Commission. It uses a simple classification of tools into advanced, formal and simple types. It finds that even when tools are embedded in policy assessment systems, their use is differentiated and on the whole very limited, in particular when it comes to more advanced tools. It then explores these patterns from contrasting theoretical perspectives to shed light on why, when and how different policy assessment tools are used in the policy process.     

The Problem of Emergency in the American Supreme Court

Sixty years before Carl Schmitt wrote his Political Theology, and more than a 100 years before President Bush announced a ‘war on terrorism’ the American Supreme Court grappled with the difficult issue of emergency powers in connection with issues arising out of the American Civil War (1861–1865). The question confronting the Court in a set of cases named the Prize Cases was whether President Lincoln’s decision to respond to acts of aggression by the secessionist Southern states with measures of war was lawful. The legal problem was that Lincoln had made this decision unilaterally although the American Constitution specifically allocates the power to declare war to Congress. The Court solved the dilemma by arguing that in cases where no war has been declared, the decision whether the country is in a state of war is ultimately ‘a question to be decided by him [the President], and [the Supreme] Court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted’ (Prize, p. 669). The precedent, which the Court thereby laid down, has since played out as an important leverage for the Bush government’s legal arguments in connection with the war on terrorism. This article engages the theoretical framework of Locke, Schmitt and Agamben in order to come to a better understanding of this important set of cases.     

The Impact of the European Union on Coalition Formation in a Minority System: The Case of Denmark

Does European Union membership influence coalition patterns in national parliaments? For governments in the Scandinavian countries – with their relatively high share of minority governments requiring external parliamentary support to form parliamentary majorities – the question of ‘coalition management’ is highly relevant. This article provides an empirical test of three central arguments in the Europeanisation literature on the impact of EU membership on national parliaments when political parties pass legislation in the Danish Folketing. The effect of EU content in a law on coalition patterns is compared across policy areas and four electoral periods from 1998 to 2011 encompassing 2,894 laws. The data provide support for the argument that the loss of national agenda‐setting over the legislative process has an impact on coalition patterns in the Danish parliament. It is shown that the coalition patterns on Europeanised legislation are both broader and more stable compared to national, non‐EU‐related legislation. The focus on Europeanisation of legislative coalitions goes beyond previous analysis with an institutional focus, and demonstrates an example of how the EU systematically has an effect on legislative coalition formation in a national parliamentary system.