Droughts and corruption

Public Choice - Natural disasters are challenges for good governance. That conclusion follows from recent research investigating the effects of natural disasters on one important force hostile to...     

Party system dynamics and the making and breaking of Italian governments

This paper explores the dynamics of the highly fluid Italian legislative party system. It uses the same theoretical approach as the paper by Laver and Kato (this issue) to explore the making and breaking of governments in Italy following electoral reform. Under office-seeking motivational assumptions, the electoral system provides incentives for parties to band together into cartels in order to fight elections, with the winning cartel forming a government coalition. Inter-electoral legislative party competition, however, within a structure of permissive rules on the formation of legislative party groups, provides incentives for at least some members of the winning cartel to defect. The facility with which legislative parties can split and combine in Italy creates a highly dynamic decisive structure underpinning the making and breaking of governments. This cannot usefully be analysed with traditional models that take parties as unitary actors and assume that the party system is essentially fixed for the entire inter-electoral period.     

Sustainability reporting: How consistency and interdependence in financial and managerial accounting enhance eco-controls

Sustainability reporting requires consistency and interdependency of financial accounting and managerial accounting. Accounting is closely entangled with the eco control (EC) in organisations. The quality of (sustainability) reporting and the disclosures is only as good as the quality and consistency of accounting data captured. Therefore, accounting choices and practises have an important role to play in sustainability reporting. This study explores the mechanism through which accounting informs EC. Through the independent and serial use of two levers, first ‘interdependency’ between financial accounting and management accounting and second, though the use of ‘digitalized information’ as a moderating variable, it is probed as to how EC are shaped. An empirical investigation is undertaken by carefully curating primary data, analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling technique to inform broader debates in the ‘sustainability reporting’ literature concerning the mechanisms through which EC, are influenced by accounting mechanics, choices and disclosures. Sound EC contributes to sustainability accounting and governance to meet needs of the firms direct and indirect stakeholders without comprising the firm's ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders. The study established that the interdependency between the financial accountants and the management accountants output, mediates the effect of a consistent financial language on EC practises and this effect is independent of the firm size or the industry category. This article brings to the fore, the interplay of FA and MA in informing the environmental controls. The under researched perspective addressed by this study is that EC are highly interdependent with the consistency and comprehensiveness of accounting that informs it which in turn is effected by the cooperation and coordination (interdependency) between FA and MA information providers.     

Evaluation of the placenta in a stillborn fetus to estimate the time of death

The authors present a case of a presumably unknown pregnancy, in which the newborn was found dead in the bathroom. The child was considered stillborn and the death due to natural causes. The literature on estimation of the time of fetal death is reviewed. It has been reported that certain placental histological changes are useful in predicting the time of death in stillborn fetuses, but little has been published about their potential role. Furthermore, parameters evaluated by literature in examining the placenta for determining time of fetal demise in cases of stillbirth are not uniform in the few studies that have been published. We emphasize that any attempt to estimate the time of fetal death without an adequate knowledge of placental morphological changes is futile and forensically unjustifiable, and that a comprehensive placental, external, and histological examination of the fetus is still the method of choice to gain a reliable forensic answer.     

Mitochondrial DNA control region population data from Macedonia

Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the entire control region were analyzed in 200 unrelated individuals from Macedonia. A total of 163 different haplotypes were found as determined by 177 polymorphic sites. The probability of a random match was calculated as 1:121 (0.83%). The basic phylogenetic structure of the Macedonian population as derived from its haplogroup distribution is in agreement with other West-Eurasian populations. Upon publication, the population data are going to be available in the EMPOP database (www.empop.org) [W. Parson, A. Dür, EMPOP—a forensic mtDNA database, FSI:Genetics 1 (2) (2007) 88–92; W. Parson, A. Brandstätter, A. Alonso, N. Brandt, B. Brinkmann, A. Carracedo, et al., The EDNAP mitochondrial DNA population database (EMPOP) collaborative exercises: organisation, results and perspectives, Forensic Sci. Int. 139 (2–3) (2004) 215–226.].     

K9s killed in the line of duty

While police work comes with a slew of dangers, little research has focused on deaths of police dogs in the line of duty. The purpose of this paper is to begin a conversation about violence toward police dogs and the treatment of animals working with the police.

To do so, a database of 96 police dogs that died in the line of duty in the United States between 2011 and 2015 was compiled, drawn from the Officer Down Memorial Page. More police dog deaths were reported in 2014 and 2015, during summer months, with half clustering in the Southern US. The victim police dogs were mostly younger and recently employed by the policing agency. The most frequent cause of death was heat exhaustion, followed by gunfire and automobiles. Most offenders were apprehended by police or shot.

Policymakers and researchers should encourage systematic data collection for a better understanding of the extent of the issue.     

What is a Chief without Land? Impact of Land Reforms on Power Structures in Namibia

Abstract

Land is a key element to socio-economic development, peace- and state-building in Africa. It is inherent to local identity and inextricably linked to power. In Namibia, land rights were historically administered and allocated by traditional authorities. However, with the adoption of the 2002 Communal Land Reform Act, these customary land rights were codified. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted in Namibia with state officials, traditional authorities of the Nama and Ovambo ethnicity, workers and farmers, we show that although it was presented as a decentralization reform, the Act reintroduced the Namibian state as a central actor in land tenure. This has resulted in power struggles between the state and traditional authorities, albeit to varying intensities as some traditional authorities have historically restricted access to communal land and limited political leverage.