Iran's Tortuous Path Toward “Islamic Liberalism”

This article provides an overview of the intellectual and sociopolitical roots of Iran's tortuous path toward Islamic liberalism and reform. It analyzes the shift in the ideological orientation of a major faction within the political elite from a radical to a relatively moderate and liberal interpretation of Islam. The authors trace the roots of this ideological shift to a series of political developments since the triumph of the Islamic revolution in 1979, including various failures of the revolutionary regime to fulfill its populist and egalitarian promises; a considerable erosion in the legitimacy of the ruling clerics; the successful (though largely silent) resistance of the youth and women against the culturally restrictive policies of the Islamic Republic; the rise of a distinctly anti-fundamentalist, liberal-reformist interpretation of Islam by a number of Iranian theologians and religious intellectuals; and the precipitous decline in the popularity of revolutionary ideas in the 1990s. In spite of the increasing appeal of liberal-democratic ideas of individual freedom, pluralism, and political tolerance in the new reform movement and the overwhelming endorsement of these ideas in four recent national elections, including two presidential polls, the authors argue that the movement has had but a limited and, for the most part symbolic, influence on Iran's objective, and still repressive, political conditions.     

Reforming policy roles in the Jordanian policy‐making process

The aim of this diagnostic analysis is to identify the weaknesses in the process of reforming policy in Jordan. This study will first present a diagnostic analysis of the characteristics of administrative reform in Jordan. Following this, weaknesses will be identified with a focus on policy roles in the policy‐making process. Administrative reform has long been an area of interest and development in Jordan since the early 1980s. Conferences were held, political and technical committees formed, and expertise and resources invested. The outcomes of these programs have been below expectations, with inadequate impact. This investigation paid attention on how Jordan can best invest its resources to maximize efficiency in the public sector, specifically the process of reforming policy. This study concludes that the primary factor impacting efficiency, accountability, and responsiveness is the degree of authority at both national and organizational level. Recent efforts in Jordan to tackle these issues could create more conflicts that threaten the Jordanian government's stability. Other resources have been dedicated to reviewing the rules and values that govern the relationship between state and society.     

Attempted Serial Neonaticides: Case Report and a Brief Review of the Literature

Neonaticide is an infant murder occurring on the day of birth. The case reports found in the literature are often focused on the mother as the agent in the context of pregnancy denial, dissociative symptoms, or psychosis. However, this report describes a rare case of attempted serial neonaticides, in which the acts were committed by a nurse at the nursery of a referral hospital in Brazil. The authors describe a forensic psychiatric evaluation for criminal responsibility and correlate the information from this particular case with relevant forensic themes, namely neonaticide, Munchausen by proxy syndrome, and serial healthcare killers.     

Knowledge on DNA Success Rates to Optimize the DNA Analysis Process: From Crime Scene to Laboratory

DNA analysis has become an essential intelligence tool in the criminal justice system for the identification of possible offenders. However, it appears that about half of the processed DNA samples contains too little DNA for analysis. This study looks at DNA success rates within 28 different categories of trace exhibits and relates the DNA concentration to the characteristics of the DNA profile. Data from 2260 analyzed crime samples show that cigarettes, bloodstains, and headwear have relatively high success rates. Cartridge cases, crowbars, and tie‐wraps are on the other end of the spectrum. These objective data can assist forensics in their selection process.The DNA success probability shows a positive relation with the DNA concentration. This finding enables the laboratory to set an evidence‐based threshold value in the DNA analysis process. For instance, 958 DNA extracts had a concentration value of 6 pg/μL or less. Only 46 of the 958 low‐level extracts provided meaningful DNA profiling data.     

Brazilian Legal Culture: From the Tradition of Exception to the Promise of Emancipation

This article investigates the existence of an original Brazilian legal culture. It parts from a critical examination of the key moments in the history of Brazil through the accounts of its most important scholars, such as Caio Prado Júnior, Darcy Ribeiro, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Wilson Martins, Oliveira Viana, Roberto Damatta, José Murilo de Carvalho, among others. It identifies in the Brazilian legal culture something one might call tradition of exception, which can be found in many of its most prominent aspects, such as the persistent denial of any general or abstract regulatory standards, the uncritical introduction of foreign doctrines and legal patterns, the maintenance of aristocratic traditions in social life and the historical disregard of the Brazilian people as political subject. The article also offers a reflection on the problems and potentials of the current historic moment, in which for the first time Brazilians face the possibility of a genuine cultural emancipation.     

Violent women: a multicentre study into gender differences in forensic psychiatric patients

To gain insight into the relatively small, but increasing group of women in forensic psychiatry, a retrospective multicentre study was started gathering information from the files of 275 female patients of four Dutch forensic psychiatric hospitals on characteristics and violence risk factors. Overall, a picture emerged of severely traumatized women with complex psychopathology with multiple previous treatment failures and many incidents during treatment. The present study investigates specific psychiatric and criminal characteristics of female patients by comparing their data to those of 275 male forensic psychiatric patients. Various prominent differences were found, for example, women had more complex histories of victimization, were more often diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, were more likely to commit homicide and arson and less likely to commit sexual offenses, and were more often involved in inpatient aggression than their male counterparts. Several recommendations for gender-responsive treatment and directions for future research are provided.     

Window-conflicts in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: visual privacy,materiality and right to the city

This article focuses on the visual privacy rights as practised in the urban settings in the late Ottoman Empire (1850–70) and in contemporary Turkey (1980–2010). The analysis draws on the detailed examination of the legal conflicts on the overlooking windows between neighbouring houses in both periods. A hundred legal cases from the Ottoman context and 35 parallel cases from the last decades in Turkey were covered to understand the everyday practices of visual privacy and to compare them with the official privacy rules in the Ottoman and Republican contexts. First, the cases suggest that even today many citizens, including some lower court judges, confidently defend the urban right to be unseen from the neighbour's window despite the contrary decisions of the Supreme Court. Second, the in-depth analysis of the window-conflicts showed that the radical separation of the material world from the human world in both Islamic law and the Republican Civil Law was challenged by popular claims to visual privacy thanks to their exclusive focus on windows. It is argued that popular privacy rights were not about individual private space but about the urban built environment. Hence, windows were targets of the claims of the right to the city.     

Promoting the Utilization of Performance Measures in Public Organizations: An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting Adoption and Implementation

Despite its appeal for improving government, many state and local governments have not developed performance-measurement systems, and even fewer use these systems to improve decision making. This study examines the factors that affect the utilization of performance measurement, based on the results of a national survey of state and local government officials. The goals of the study were to provide better information on the patterns of usage of performance measurement and to use this information to develop an elaborated model of the factors presumed to affect utilization. Using distinctions from the policy and evaluation literature, hypotheses were tested and confirmed: Policy adoption is driven more heavily by factors from rational and technocratic theory, whereas actual implementation is influenced by factors addressed by political and cultural considerations.     

Supplier behaviour and public contracting in the English agency nursing market

The worldwide expansion in the use of private firms to deliver public services and infrastructure has promoted a substantial literature on public sector contract and relationship management. This literature is currently dominated by the notion that supplier relationships should be based upon trust. Less prominent are more sceptical approaches that emphasize the need to assiduously manage potential supplier exploitation and opportunism. This article addresses this imbalance by focusing upon the recent experience of the English National Health Service (NHS) in its dealings with its nursing agencies. Between 1997 and 2001, the NHS was subjected to considerable exploitation and opportunism. This forced managers to adopt a supply strategy based upon an assiduous use of e-auctions, framework agreements and quality audits. The article assesses the effectiveness of this strategy and reflects upon whether a more defensive approach to contract and relationship management offers a viable alternative to one based upon trust.