Government Selection and Executive Powers: Constitutional Design in Parliamentary Democracies

Provisions for a parliamentary investiture vote have become increasingly common in parliamentary democracies. This article shows that investiture provisions were largely introduced when new constitutions were written or old ones fundamentally redesigned. It also shows that the constitutions that endowed executives with strong legislative agenda powers also endowed parliaments with strong mechanisms to select the executive. It is argued that constitution makers’ decisions can be seen in principal–agent terms: strong investiture rules constitute an ex ante mechanism of parliamentary control – that is, a mechanism to minimise adverse selection and reduce the risk of agency loss by parliament. The findings have two broad implications: from a constitutional point of view, parliamentary systems do not rely exclusively on ex post control mechanisms such as the no confidence vote to minimise agency loss; parliamentarism, at least today and as much as presidentialism, is the product of conscious constitutional design and not evolutionary adaptation.     

Using myths: Former Yugoslav perpetrators and violence

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, increased levels of east to west immigration in Europe partly explains the delinquent activities among a growing number of Eastern Europeans in western cities. Young people from te former Yugoslavia have a reputation for being particularly violent. In this article we argue that the alleged violence among Yugoslav delinquents is not so much a reflection of reality, but rather a myth used instrumentally by Yugoslav delinquents themselves to establish a position on the criminal scene – as doorkeepers, bodyguards, money collectors or other so-called `specialists in violence'.     

Explanatory models of malingering

Rogers (1990a, 1990b) proposed three models to explain why certain persons malinger mental illness: pathogenic, criminological, and adaptational. Highly experinced forensic experts (N=320) performed prototypical ratings on attributes associated with each model: the highest ratings were given to the adaptational model. In addition, a principal components analysis provided initial empirical support for these three explanatory models. The relevance of these findings to theory and clinical practice is discussed.     

The psychiatrist's role in retrospective determination of suicide: an uncertain science

Psychiatrists have made significant contributions to our understanding of the phenomenon of suicide and are generally regarded as experts in all matters relating to suicide. When a legal determination must be made as to whether an individual has died as a result of suicide or by accidental (or any other) means, psychiatrists are often called upon to proffer their expert opinion to assist the courts to resolve the matter. Two case illustrations are presented and analyzed in which psychiatrists were called upon to make such retrospective determinations of suicide. The question is raised as to whether psychiatrists may sometimes exceed the limits of their scientific expertise in making such determinations.