Of veto players and entity-voting: institutional gridlock in the Bosnian reform process

Entity-voting in the Bosnian Parliamentary Assembly is a veto mechanism in Bosnia's consociational institutional setting and an important reason for the country's orientation towards the political status quo. An empirical analysis of the number and nature of adopted and rejected draft laws during the legislative period 2006–2010, embedded in George Tsebelis's veto player approach, leads to the conclusion that the veto players in the parliament – either delegates from Republika Srpska or delegates from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – have pushed the consociational system of checks and balances to its extremes. Entity-voting enables the veto players to “hijack” the parliament for their exclusionary ethnic interests and discourages cooperation and compromise between the veto players. Significant legislation, which in the present article is defined as legislation relevant for the European Partnership, faces severe obstacles to getting passed. In the light of these findings, the article discusses three policy implications: institutional redesign, a change of the actors, and an active role of the European Union for providing the actors with a realistically achievable goal which they equally share. This should reset the current calculus of self-interest and encourage cooperation between the veto players.     

Tending the “oasis of socialism.” Transnational political mobilization of Yugoslav economic emigrants in the FR Germany in the late 1960s and 1970s

The article examines the development of the Yugoslav state's policy of transnational political engagement of Yugoslav citizens on temporary work in the FR Germany during the late 1960s and 1970s. This politicization of labor migrations was shaped by the interplay of the internal turmoil in the Yugoslav federation and the conditions peculiar to West Germany of the time. The change of the state's perception of external migrations is being examined through the extension of the agitation apparatus of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia onto the territory of the FR Germany and the mobilization of economic emigrants against the “hostile” political emigrants residing in that country. The main goal of these measures was to maintain the emigrants' transnational links to their homeland and ensure that their political standing was kept in line with the official Yugoslav ideological tenets until the time of the prospective return migration cycle. The extraterritorial character of these measures, coupled with the specific position of Yugoslavia within the Cold War diplomacy, led to a peculiar ideological interplay and shifting web of cooperation and confrontation between various actors.     

An Examination of the Outcomes of Various Components of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence by Male Offenders

With recognition that police intervention by itself is not entirely effective, in recent years there has been a shift in public policies towards the implementation of a coordinated community response to domestic violence incidents. This article examines the impact of participation in several aspects of a coordinated community response (CCR) in a mid-sized city in the Midwest. Specifically, recidivism was examined using information on officially recorded re-arrests for 131 male domestic violence offenders involved in a CCR type intervention. In addition, exploratory analyses attempt to determine if certain offender characteristics are related to their likely of progressing through each of several post-conviction components of this CCR-type intervention. Limitations of the research and suggestions for policy responses to domestic violence are discussed.

Shooting Through Clothing in Firearm Suicides

Abstract: There is a longstanding empirical rule that people who commit suicide rarely shoot through their clothing, but rather put it aside to expose the nude skin. Signs of shots through clothing have always been considered suspicious, raising presumptions of the presence of an abettor. Our report, based on a retrospective study of fatal suicidal firearm injuries from the years 1980 to 2007, points out that suicide victims only rarely remove clothing from the site of the future entry wound. The report covered 43 cases with fatal gunshot wounds in the area of the thorax, with only four persons (9%) removing the clothing present in the area of the subsequent self‐inflicted wound. Defects present on the clothing of a victim cannot, therefore, be understood as an absolute criterion for disproving the possibility of suicide, and nor do they necessarily indicate an unfortunate accident or homicide. If, however, the suicide victim removes the clothing from the area of the future wound, then this is almost always an indication of suicide.     

Allergologies Versus Homeopathies

This paper is a reconstruction of Levinas’ reading of Hegel and his understanding of violence (of the enemy and the war). Combining Franz Rosenzweig’s reflections which concern the sick philosopher and Hegel’s state, as well as Derrida’s interpretation of the different attributes of violence, our aim is also to give full evidence of Derrida’s critical reading of Levinas. The first part illustrates the various classifications of the figures of violence from the different periods of Hegel’s life and the traces that these figures have left in Levinas’ texts beginning with ‘Liberté et commandement’ in 1953. In the second part we discuss Hegel’s well-known analogy from his Rechtsphilosophie on sovereignty and the organism—that is to say the parallel reading of some paragraphs of Naturphilosophie too—and the relation between totality and violence, in Levinas’ ‘ontology as allergy’ and in Derrida’s autoimmunology.     

Psychopathic Personality Traits and Delinquent and Risky Sexual Behaviors in Croatian Sample of Non-referred Boys and Girls

The current study investigated the association of psychopathic traits with violent and non-violent delinquency, delinquency versatility, and risky sexual behavior in Croatian sample of non-referred boys (n = 226) and girls (n = 480). Psychopathic traits were measured by the self-report Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI). Consistent with the study’s hypotheses, Impulsive-Irresponsible and Callous-Unemotional dimensions were most consistently associated with all outcome measures. Results of the regression analyses showed that the Impulsive-Irresponsible behavioral style had stronger association with non-violent delinquency and delinquency versatility for boys. However, the Impulsive-Irresponsible dimension had stronger influence on risky sexual behavior for girls compared with boys. The results of a two-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three-factor model of the YPI was invariant across gender.     

Public–Private Partnership in Tunisia: Enfidha Airport Assessment of an Infrastructure Achievement

One of the largest recent private-sector investments and the first airport private-sector concession in the Maghreb is Enfidha Airport, a key factor in the success of the Tunisian Government’s public–private partnership (PPP) strategy. However, since Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, political and social turmoil is sweeping the country and worsening the economic indicators. This article aims to assess this PPP infrastructure, allowing us to determine if it is profitable in the long term and contributes therefore to the economic growth. The case study reveals the key role of the economic, social, and political environment in Tunisia, the dawn of the Arab Spring.