Islamist militancy in Sierra Leone

This article examines the contemporary Islamic trends in post-conflict Sierra Leone (through 2009) against the background of international concerns that the country might become a haven for religiously-inspired violence. It argues that there is some evidence that prolonged economic impoverishment and foreign religious influences, especially from Saudi Arabia and Iran, have led to a reinvigoration of Islam in post-war Sierra Leone. Though this reinvigoration has resulted in the visibility of more purist strains of the religion, there are no indications that the Sierra Leonean Muslim groups are actively participating in any worldwide jihadist network or will engage in large-scale religiously-inspired extremism and violence. The recent history of the country indicates that attempts to mobilise religious sympathies for political ends in Sierra Leone have been short-lived and largely unsuccessful     

Election results and opportunistic policies: A?new?test?of?the?rational political business cycle model

The literature on the rational PBC suggests that politicians systematically manipulate economic and fiscal conditions before elections to increase their chances of reelection. Most tests of this theory look for evidence of pre-election distortions in fiscal policy. We propose a new test that explores the two-way interaction between the magnitude of the opportunistic distortion and the margin of victory. The test is implemented using a large panel of Portuguese municipalities. The results show that opportunism leads to a larger win-margin for the incumbent and that incumbents behave more opportunistically when their win-margin is small. These results are consistent with the theoretical model.     

Nationalism and Foreign Policy Discourse in Turkey Under the AKP Rule: Geography,History and National Identity

The argument of this paper is that the new foreign policy orientation of Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is a constitutive component of a new nationalist project, constructed and carried out by the AKP over the last decade. The article expounds the ways in which the AKP has reformulated the notions of nation, national history, homeland and national interest and demonstrates the role foreign policy has played in this reformulation. Our point of departure will be the patterns we have observed in the statements and political practices of the AKP government and its officials, particularly the incumbent minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davuto?lu, whose book, Strategic Depth, presents a more systematic explanation of the major principles and assertions of AKP nationalism and foreign policy. We will also argue that after the Gezi protests in June 2013 this new conception of nation and nationalism has faced with a deep crisis, which has also exacerbated the problem of pursuing an ambitious foreign policy strategy in international arena.     

Does Tolerance of Religion in the Public Space Depend on the Salience of the Manifestation of Religious Group Membership?

The question of the role of Islam in the public space has become a new pivotal point in political disputes about civil liberties in Western Europe. This debate challenges the scholarly literature on tolerance by highlighting that our understanding of the situational factors shaping tolerance judgments remains limited. This study therefore investigates how the salience of the signaling of religious group membership influences religious tolerance. Based on a unique question-wording experiment embedded in an approximately nationally representative survey, I demonstrate that conspicuous manifestations of religious outgroup membership spark stronger intolerance than subtle manifestations and that anxiety mediates the effect of conspicuous manifestations of religious outgroup membership. Finally, I demonstrate that the effect of the salience of religious outgroup membership is strongest among those who are highly opposed to secularism. I conclude by discussing how these findings constitute an important extension of the extant work on tolerance and feed back into the discussion regarding the role of religion in the public space.     

Alternativauftrag, Bindungswirkung hinsichtlich der Bewilligungspflicht

Zwischen einem rechtskr?ftigen wasserpolizeilichen Auftrag nach § 138 Abs 2 WRG und einem Antrag auf Bewilligung desselben Vorhabens liegt hinsichtlich der Frage der Bewilligungspflicht Identit?t der Sache vor. Ein solcher wasserpolizeilicher Auftrag spricht über die wasserrechtliche Bewilligungspflicht desselben Vorhabens ab. Daraus folgt, dass die Bewilligungsbeh?rde an die dem Alternativauftrag nach § 138 Abs 2 WRG zugrunde liegende Beurteilung des Vorhabens als bewilligungspflichtig gebunden ist. Dies allerdings nur dann, wenn sich seit dem wasserpolizeilichen Auftrag weder die Rechtslage noch der wesentliche Sachverhalt ge?ndert hat.     

Neuroscientific and behavioral genetic information in criminal cases in the Netherlands

In this contribution an empirical approach is used to gain more insight into the relationship between neuroscience and criminal law. The focus is on case law in the Netherlands. Neuroscientific information and techniques have found their way into the courts of the Netherlands. Furthermore, following an Italian case in which a mentally ill offender received a penalty reduction in part because of a ‘genetic vulnerability for impulsive aggression’, the expectation was expressed that such ‘genetic defenses’ would appear in the Netherlands too. To assess how neuroscientific and behavioral genetic information are used in criminal justice practice in the Netherlands, we systematically collect Dutch criminal cases in which neuroscientific or behavioral genetic information is introduced. Data and case law examples are presented and discussed. Although cases are diverse, several themes appear, such as prefrontal brain damage in relation to criminal responsibility and recidivism risk, and divergent views of the implications of neurobiological knowledge about addiction for judging criminal responsibility. Whereas in the international ‘neurolaw literature’ the emphasis is often on imaging techniques, the Dutch findings also illustrate the role of neuropsychological methods in criminal cases. Finally, there appears to be a clear need of practice oriented instruments and guidelines.     

Axiomatizations of a positional power score and measure for hierarchies

The extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in terms of the authority structure. This is based upon the bare positions of actors and ignores the existence of decision-making mechanisms. The few studies, which also take into account decision-making mechanisms, are ‘membership-based’. In an earlier paper we demonstrated that such an approach is, in general, inappropriate. As a solution we suggested an ‘action-based’ approach and developed a power score and measure ascribing positional power to actors in hierarchies. In this paper we axiomatize this power score and measure and illustrate their applicability.