Global resource grabs,agribusiness concentration and the smallholder: two West African case studies

This paper places land grabbing within the context of developments within agribusiness within the last 30 years, tracing the various trajectories of increasing competition and concentration and pressures on commodity prices that have resulted in increasing dispossession of smallholders and a move in some agri-food chains towards large estate production. The paper explores the ways in which contemporary agricultural policies and neoliberal market reforms reflect these developments and examines recent framing of land policies in Africa in the context of the development of agrarian capital and agribusiness. Competitiveness results in dispossession of less successful smallholders from below by commercial smallholders, and from above by large estates vertically integrated into agribusiness marketing chains. This is illustrated with examples from the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire and pineapples in Ghana.     

Zur Anwendung zwingenden Gemeinschaftsrechts in der aktuellen Rechtsprechung des BVerwG zum Artenschutz nach der “Kleinen Novelle” des Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes

Zusammenfassung  Nachdem die “Kleine Novelle” des Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes für Unsicherheit bei der Anwendung der neuen Reglungen gesorgt hat, enthalten die ersten Entscheidungen der h?chstrichterlichen Rechtsprechung eine hohe aktuelle Brisanz. Der Beitrag geht auf die aktuelle Rechtsprechung des BVerwG zum Artenschutz bei Infrastrukturvorhaben unter dem Aspekt des Gemeinschaftsrechts ein. Behandelt werden die Einschr?nkung des St?rungsverbots, “vorgezogene Ausgleichsma?nahmen”, die Prüfung des Ausnahmetatbestands nach vollendeten Tatsachen, die Zulassung von Ausnahmen bei ungünstigem Erhaltungszustand der Art, das Auseinanderfallen von Entscheidungs- und Beurteilungszeitpunkt sowie die Berücksichtigung von Kosten bei Alternativen.     

The politicians’ wage gap: insights from German members of parliament

Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament (MPs), this paper analyzes the politicians’ wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for election probabilities and campaigning costs, we find a positive income premium for MPs which is statistically and economically significant. Our results are consistent with the citizen candidate model, with a PWG of 35%–65% when comparing MPs to citizens occupying executive positions. However, it shrinks to zero when restricting the control group to top level executives.     

WHAT SHAPES CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF THEIR PUBLIC OFFICIALS' ACCOUNTABILITY? EVIDENCE FROM LOCAL ETHIOPIA

In this article, we study which institutional factors shape citizens' views of the local accountability of their public officials. Our departing assumption is that evaluations of local accountability reflect not only citizens' poltical attitudes and beliefs but also whether local institutions contribute to an environment of mutual trust, accountability and ultimately democratic legitimacy. Combining public opinion data from a large‐N citizen survey (N = 10 651) with contextual information for 63 local governments in Ethiopia, we look at access to information, participatory planning and the publicness of basic services as potential predictors of citizens' evaluations of local public officials. Our findings suggest that local context matters. Jurisdictions that provide access to information on political decision making are perceived to have more accountable officials. Moreover, when local governments provide public fora that facilitate citizens' stakes in local planning processes, it positively affects citizens' evaluations of the accountability of their officials. Our study adds to the empirical literatrure by showing that establishing local institutions that can foster citizen–government relations at the local level through inclusive processes is crucial for improving public perceptions of accountability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neonatal death following clozapine self-poisoning in late pregnancy: an unusual case report

The report presents a fatal poisoning of a neonate occurring in the final stage of gestational life and evoked by his mother, who, while 9 months pregnant, took a toxic dose of clozapine aiming at committing suicide. She was also severely poisoned, but ultimately was saved. The woman had been taking the medication due to schizophrenia and depression prior to conception, and the discontinuation of the drug in the course of pregnancy increased the risk of the woman attempting suicide. In the course of comprehensive toxicological analysis based on the developed analytical procedure with the use of LC-APCI-MS, clozapine and its two metabolites, norclozapine and clozapine-N-oxide, were determined in postmortem blood, liver and kidney in concentrations explaining the death of the neonate. The interpretation of the above-described case is complex and--apart from toxicological aspects--also involves issues associated with psychiatry, pharmacotherapy in pregnancy and medicolegal problems.     

Zygomaticomaxillary suture shape analyzed with digital morphometrics: reassessing patterns of variation in American Indian and European populations

Typological classification of human zygomaticomaxillary suture (ZMS) shape is often used in forensic assessment of ancestry, following earlier studies reporting higher frequencies of "angled" sutures among American Indians and higher frequencies of "curved" sutures among Caucasians. In this paper we present a new method of digital morphometrics to quantify and compare ZMS shape in 60 American Indian and 60 European crania. Suture outlines were recorded as three-dimensional (3D) contours on digital models of adult male and female crania created with a portable 3D laser scanner. Each contour was represented by about four hundred point coordinates, which were transformed via Fourier analysis into amplitude coefficients suitable for use in linear discriminant analysis. Discriminant functions were created that accurately predicted group membership for 83% of the crania in the sample, after leave-one-out cross-validation. The results were compared with traditional typological classifications based on visual evaluation of ZMS shape, and the contour-based method was found to be more effective than the typological approach. However, the distribution of ZMS types within the two sample groups did not conform to previously reported patterns. This discrepancy indicates that ZMS shape may reflect not only genetic factors, but also environmental factors such as diet and stress. In addition, some evidence for sexual dimorphism in the zygomaticomaxillary complex was observed. Based on these findings, we recommend caution when using ZMS shape analysis in forensic ancestry determination.     

Geoengineering governance-by-default: an earth system governance perspective

Geoengineering—the deliberate interference in the climate system to affect global warming—could have significant global environmental and social implications. How to shape formal geoengineering governance mechanisms is an issue of debate. This paper describes and analyses the geoengineering governance landscape that has developed in the absence of explicit geoengineering regulation. An Earth System Governance perspective provides insight into the formation of norms resulting from an overlap in international treaties and from the actions of engaged non-state agents. Specifically, the paper explores the instruments and actors having effect in existing formal and informal geoengineering governance mechanisms. It finds that geoengineering is subject to a form of ‘governance-by-default’. This is due to a situation in which state actors have not resolved the tension between two legal norms: that of ‘precaution’ and that of ‘harm minimisation’. This governance-by-default is characterised by uneven regulation from existing multilateral agreements established for other purposes, an absence of regulation specifically focused on geoengineering, guidance from an international ambition to hold global average warming below 2 °C and to achieve net-zero emissions in the second half of the century, and strong normative engagement by the research community. Governance-by-default is likely to be a stopgap development until more enduring and focused governance emerges.     

Citizens' Blame of Politicians for Public Service Failure: Experimental Evidence about Blame Reduction through Delegation and Contracting

Theories of blame suggest that contracting out public service delivery reduces citizens’ blame of politicians for service failure. The authors use an online experiment with 1,000 citizen participants to estimate the effects of information cues summarizing service delivery arrangements on citizens’ blame of English local government politicians for poor street maintenance. Participants were randomized to one of four cues: no information about service delivery arrangements, politicians’ involvement in managing delivery, delegation to a unit inside government managing delivery, and delegation through a contract with a private firm managing delivery. The politicians managing delivery cue raises blame compared to citizens having no information. However, the contract with a private firm cue does not reduce blame compared to either no information or the politicians managing delivery cue. Instead, the delegation to a unit inside government cue reduces blame compared to politicians managing delivery, suggesting that delegation to public managers, not contracting, reduces blame in this context.     

Volksanwaltschaft und Gerichtsbarkeit

Mit der Bundesverfassungsgesetznovelle BGBl I 2008/2 wurden der Volksanwaltschaft Kompetenzen bei Beschwerden von BürgerInnen über überlange Gerichtsverfahren eingeräumt. Ausgehend von einer Darstellung der Entstehungsgeschichte dieser Novelle beabsichtigt dieser Beitrag die neuen Kompetenzen der Volksanwaltschaft aus verfassungsrechtlicher Sicht, insbesondere im Lichte von Gewaltenteilung und Gewaltenkontrolle, zu analysieren.