Multi‐Level Democracy

Modern democratic polities regularly operate at several political levels. In the case of the EU at the level of the member‐states and the EU itself, and in addition at federal, regional, and municipal levels. Is there any democratic rule to determine which level is more legitimate than the others? The article argues that from a majoritarian perspective there is none. Individual citizens may have quite different preferences with regard to the level that is of particular political importance for them. The article critically analyses different concepts, from sovereignty to demos, subsidiarity, and the judicial review of competences, and tries to show that none of them can provide a solution to the dilemma. Instead, democratic theory has to assume that in the co‐evolutionary process of institutions and societies at different political levels, the question of the final say has to be left open.     

Simultaneous Homicide–Suicide: A Case Report of Double Drowning

Homicide–suicide is a tragic phenomenon which typically does not result in a criminal charge or trial. However, correct diagnosis and classification of homicide–suicide cases are important to determine the perpetrators and dynamics of each category properly. The deaths in the homicide–suicide acts can be divided into two categories with respect to the number of involved individuals: dyadic deaths and triple or multiple deaths. These two categories can also be divided into two subgroups according to the chronology of the incidents: simultaneous deaths and consecutive deaths. Herein, a simultaneous homicide–suicide case of a father and daughter where both deaths occurred through drowning which was not found in the selected literature review and where the victim was a child is presented. The article aims to clarify the term discrepancies about multiple death cases in the literature and to discuss the pathological and psychosocial characteristics of the simultaneous dyadic death cases.     

Civil Society Making Political Claims: Outcries,Interest Advocacy,and Deliberative Claims

Increased citizen participation is proposed to remedy democratic deficits. However, it is unclear whether such participation improves reason‐based discussions or whether it serves mainly as a safety valve for discontented citizens. To what extent does citizen‐initiated participation involve reason‐based arguments? This study examines citizens’ reason giving based on unique data on citizens’ contacts with local authorities in Sweden. It provides support for proponents of deliberative participation, as an unexpected amount of contacts provided reasons for clearly stated positions and invitations to a constructive dialogue with authorities. There is variation across issues. More conflictual issues involve fewer intentions to participate in a reasoned exchange of arguments. The study shows that citizens deliver more reason‐based input to democratic decision making when they prepare their position in groups than when they participate as individuals. Findings are preliminary but clearly illustrate the fruitfulness of widening the research agenda on civic engagement in politics and public administration.     

Clarifying the complex chemistry of cobalt(II) thiocyanate-based tests for cocaine using single-crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic techniques

Cobalt(II) thiocyanate-based tests are routinely used to screen cocaine products, with the formation of a blue species interpreted as a positive response. An array of other organic bases has been identified as false positives – including well-documented cocaine product adulterant lidocaine and its salt. False positives prompt continued test development, though improvements are hindered by unresolved product structures and reaction pathways. Toward greater clarity, cobalt(II) thiocyanate reactions with cocaine hydrochloride, along with lidocaine and its salt, were investigated using multiple analytical techniques. Reactions involving cocaine hydrochloride yielded glassy, amorphous blue material while reactions of lidocaine hydrochloride monohydrate produced larger, needle-like crystals whose structure was determined via single-crystal X-ray diffraction to be an ion pair (Hlidocaine⁺)₂([Co(SCN)₄]²⁻)·H₂O. While the blue precipitate isolated from reactions involving cocaine hydrochloride was unsuitable for crystallographic structure determination, comparative ultraviolet–visible, attenuated total reflectance infrared, and Raman spectroscopic analysis – along with elemental analysis – supports that this solid is comprised of a comparable ion pair (Hcocaine⁺)₂[Co(SCN)₄]²⁻. Pink crystals isolated from lidocaine reaction vessels were identified as coordination compounds cis-[CoL₂(SCN)₂] and trans-[CoL₂(SCN)₂] where L = lidocaine, while pink crystals from both cocaine hydrochloride and lidocaine hydrochloride monohydrate reaction vessels were the coordination polymer trans-[Co(H₂O)₂(SCN)₂]·H₂O. The results presented herein enable reaction optimization to favor a desired product, whether ion pair or coordination species.     

The View from Next Door: Greek-Turkish Relations after the Coup Attempt in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Turkey’s recent slide into authoritarianism will have implications for its close neighbours in the West. Especially Greece cannot avoid negative spill-over effects. A coalition government comprising Syriza and Independent Greeks does not have an unconstrained set of policy choices in responding to this. Maintaining effective working relations is a paramount interest but achieving this is easier in principle than in practice especially considering the issues of asylum seekers and Turkish revisionism on the Lausanne Treaty. Unlike the two parties that dominated the Greek political scene after 1974, PASOK and New Democracy, the current government has little experience navigating choppy diplomatic seas with Turkey.     

Party prohibition cases: different approaches by the Turkish constitutional court and the European Court of Human Rights

The article deals with the different approaches followed by the Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in party prohibition cases. The Turkish Constitution and even more so the Law on Political Parties contain a long list of party bans, the violation of which leads to the closure of the party by the Constitutional Court. The Turkish Constitutional Court, both under the 1961 and the 1982 Constitutions, interpreted these provisions in an exceedingly illiberal manner, and has so far closed down a total of 24 political parties. Turkish rules and practices concerning the prohibition of political parties are among the most important ‘democracy deficits’ of the Turkish political system. In the article, the Turkish Court's illiberal approach to party prohibition cases, especially those involving the protection of the national and territorial integrity of the state and of the principle of secularism, is compared with the much more liberal criteria developed by the ECtHR and the Venice Commission.     

Gaspirali v. Il'minskii: Two identity projects for the muslims of the Russian Empire

As “music of commitment,” in the period from the late 1970s to the late 1980s rock music in Yugoslavia had an important purpose of providing a popular-cultural outlet for the unique forms of socio-cultural critique that engaged with the realities and problems of Yugoslav society. The three “music movements” that embodied the new rock’n’roll spirit – New Wave, New Primitives, and New Partisans – used rock music to critique the country's “new socialist culture,” with the purpose of helping to eliminate the disconnect between the ideal and the reality of socialist Yugoslavia. This paper examines the New Partisans as the most radical expression of music of commitment through the works of its most important rock bands: Bijelo dugme, Plavi orkestar, and Merlin. The paper's argument is that the New Partisans' socio-cultural engagement, animated by advocacy of Yugoslavism, was a counter-logic to the nationalist dissolution of a distinctly Yugoslav fabric of a socialist community in crisis. Thus, the movement's revolutionary “spirit of reconstruction” permeating its “poetics of the patriotic” was a mechanism of socio-cultural resistance to political, cultural and moral-ethical de-Yugoslavization of Yugoslav society. Its ultimate objective was to make the case that the only way into the future – if there was to be any – rested on strategic reanimation of the Partisan revolutionary past as the only viable socio-cultural foundation of the Yugoslav socialist community.     

Personality predictors of self-reported offending in Icelandic students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-reported offending and personality. A total of 1603 students in further education in Iceland completed the Mak Self-Reported Delinquency Scale as well as a number of psychological tests, namely the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ and IVE), the Gough Socialisation Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale. Multiple regression analyses showed that five out of the 10 individual personality scales contributed 27 and 30 per cent to self-reported offending for males and females, respectively. Overall, the Gough Socialisation Scale and EPQ psychoticism contributed most to the variance in self-reported offending, but impulsivity, extraversion and a low lie score also added significantly to the variance after interactions among the personality measures had been taken into account. Some gender differences emerged with impulsivity being a better predictor of offending among the males than females. Overall, the findings give strong support for the hypothesis that personality, particularly those relating to antisocial personality traits, is significantly related to self-reported offending in both males and females.     

Differentials in overall and cause-specific mortality among infants born in and out of wedlock,Stockholm 1878–1925

This study investigates differentials in the decline of cause-specific infant mortality by marital status of the mother in Stockholm (1878–1925) and factors contributing to the explanation of these differentials using computerized records of individual entries from the Roteman Archives. Included in the analysis were 120,094 children less than 1 year of age who lived in Södermalm during this period. Cause-specific mortality rates were calculated for three time periods. Cox's regression analysis was used to study the relationship between overall and cause-specific risk of infant death and of being born in and out of wedlock in relation to a set of variables. Infant mortality rates and mortality risks were higher among children born out of rather than in wedlock. The most pronounced differentials in cause-specific mortality rates between these groups of children were seen in cases of diarrhea. The socioeconomic status of the household head and number of children in the household were statistically significant with infant mortality, but explain only part of the excess mortality risk of children born out of wedlock. In Stockholm at the turn of the 19th century being born out of wedlock was strongly associated with poor health outcomes, particularly in diarrheal diseases, pneumonia/bronchitis, and immaturity/congenital causes.