Into the sea: capacity-building innovations and the maritime security challenge

Abstract

Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple capacity-building projects, initially in response to Somali piracy. We document the significance, extent and variety of capacity-building activities in this region and examine the ways in which capacity-building at sea has incorporated innovative characteristics that develop and expand the capacity-building agenda as traditionally understood. Our conclusion highlights the need to pay more attention to the maritime domain in international security and development studies and considers ways in which the maritime capacity-building experience may offer important lessons for other fields of international policy.     

This time is different?—on the use of emergency measures during the corona pandemic

European Journal of Law and Economics - In many areas such as consumer law or competition law, legislators can opt between two alternative forms of sanctions to remedy wrongdoing: they can impose...     

L’adoption et le suivi de la performance d’une mesure interministérielle : Le cas du Supplément à la prime au travail

Horizontal management raises significant challenges, particularly when assessing the performance of public programs. This case study focuses on Quebec’s Supplement to the Work Premium (SWP), a social and fiscal cross-ministerial measure, which was never subjected to any performance assessment since its introduction in 2008. We report on findings from interviews with public servants and attempt to explain how the SWP became a social and fiscal measure managed by three public organizations (ministère des Finances du Québec, Revenu Québec and the ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale). Then, we analyze the implementation and performance evaluation of the measure. We argue there is a disjuncture between official and informal responsibilities when assessing the SWP and between the interests of the organizations involved in the assessment.     

The effect of ambiguous question wording on jurors’ presumption of innocence

ABSTRACT

Research suggests that jurors misunderstand the presumption of innocence. However, past studies have not asked participants to estimate the defendant’s probability of guilt, setting aside the fact of charge and indictment. We conduct two studies to explore the impact of this question wording on estimates of the probability of guilt/innocence by jury-eligible Mturk workers. In Experiment 1 (N?=?275), question wording (legal, factual and ambiguous) was varied within participants and revealed significantly higher estimates of innocence in response to the legal than the factual or ambiguously worded question. In Experiment 2 (N?=?303), question wording was manipulated between participants both before (prior) and after (posterior) the presentation of evidence. Prior estimates of guilt were significantly lower in the legal than factual or ambiguous conditions. Question wording also predicted posteriors, and these in turn predicted verdicts. These results suggest that imprecise wording may have contributed to concerns about jurors’ understanding of the presumption of innocence, highlighting the need for further research. Link to associated OSF page: [https://osf.io/ywuxr/?view_only=b2148ffd1f674e62b66d31ed6593e586].     

Analysis of histomorphometric variables: Proposal and validation of osteon definitions

Histological analysis of bone tissue has been used to explore a variety of questions relating to age-at-death, habitual behaviors, health, and nutritional stress. Identification of intact and fragmentary osteons is of key interest to many researchers in these studies, yet the definitions of these features vary between researchers making cross-study comparisons problematic. Furthermore, histological variable definitions are often ambiguous or require subjective classifications by the observer. As a result, and as indicated by previous studies, observer error and misclassification of certain variables, namely intact and fragmentary osteons, can be significant. This study proposes new definitions for intact and fragmentary osteons that are designed to limit observer subjectivity and also explore efficacy of combining osteon types into one variable. A sample of 30 6th rib cross-sections from a modern forensic population was used to test the validity of the proposed definitions. Observations of intact osteon population density (OPD(I)) and fragmentary osteon population density (OPD(F)) were made by three observers for each cross-section. These observations were used to explore the interobserver error associated with the proposed definitions and determine if combining variables into one variable (OPD) mitigates persisting classification difficulties. Results indicate that the proposed definitions significantly reduce interobserver error and misclassification of intact and fragmentary osteons. However, the interobserver error associated with fragmentary osteons is still high. Evaluation of the variables independently indicates that combining variables has potential to reduce the predictive strength of an age estimation model and the ability to interpret age-related bone remodeling.     

“A State in the disguise of a Merchant”: Tech Leviathans and the rule of law

The rule of law is a check on power, requiring equal subjection of everyone to the law, irrespective of wealth or status. Power is not the exclusive preserve of the state, however, especially where rivalled by private entities that rise, in effect, above the law. Today’s tech giants throw the rule of law out of kilter by assuming the trappings of the state— one even has its own “supreme court”— while shunning its accountability. They seek to dissuade, capture and evade any attempt by the state to mitigate the harms arising from their business models. Policy makers scrambling for innovative legislative techniques are unlikely to repair the consequences of extreme concentration of corporate power so long as underlying social injustices and over-deference in democratic institutions go unchallenged. Leviathan, whether in the form of govern mentor corporation, cannot coexist with the rule of law.     

The Influence of Finance Policies on Charter School Supply Decisions in Five States

This paper tests if charter school finance policies influence charter school location. I create a theoretical framework describing the location incentives created by charter school finance provisions and test their relevance empirically by applying a two-step approach consisting of negative binomial models and Wald tests. Using data from New York, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio, I provide evidence that states’ finance provisions are an important policy lever impacting charter school location. Several robustness checks corroborate the initial results.     

Experience of Parental Corporal Punishment in Childhood and Adolescence and its Effect on Punitiveness

The family, as the primary instance of socialization, plays a key role in nurturing values and attitudes. Based on this notion, this paper looks at how parental corporal punishment in childhood and adolescence, as an expression of a strict, authoritarian upbringing, can influence punitiveness later in life. The results of a representative German sample using multivariate analyses show that individuals who were physically punished or abused by their parents during childhood or adolescence are more punitive than non-victims of parental violence. Based on these findings, the question of whether changing parenting styles might have implications at the macro-level of punitiveness is addressed.     

Nationhood and Scandinavian naturalization politics: varieties of the civic turn

The neighboring countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway represent three very similar societies that differ markedly with respect to naturalization policy. While the general trend of a civic turn has brought about some of Europe’s strictest residence and citizenship requirements in Denmark, it has left the liberal Swedish policy largely untouched and the Norwegian somewhere in between the other two. How might such divergence in otherwise very similar societies be explained? This article investigates the role different conceptions of nationhood have played. It is argued that different conceptions of nationhood have mattered, but that the national differences have less to do with the normative content of nationhood than with how politicians tend to conceive of the integration process that newcomers must commit to in order to develop a strong sense of national belonging.