Smuggling in Southeast Asia: History and its Contemporary Vectors in an Unbounded Region

This article examines the historical roots of a contemporary phenomenon of large scope in Southeast Asia: smuggling and the movement of contraband commodities. Smuggling is by no means a new issue in this part of the world; states and proto-state polities have been identifying (and attempting to hunt down) smugglers for many centuries. Documentation for this war of wills is particularly voluminous once we enter the colonial period, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. The article analyzes these historical dimensions, and then traces these patterns through the passage of illicit “commodities” today. Two specific contraband lines are chosen as windows into these processes: the transit of narcotics and the movement of smuggled human beings. The essay argues that smuggling is a long-standing phenomenon in this region that is not likely to disappear as a feature of the Southeast Asian landscape anytime soon.     

Promoting financial inclusion for effective anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT)

“Financial inclusion” is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs, especially to the disadvantaged and low income populations. Financial inclusion has gained some importance in the last few decades as a result of findings on the impact of “financial exclusion” on development and especially its correlation to poverty.This paper arguesthat access to financial services contributes to human and economic development; and that financial inclusion and effective AML/CFT are complementary to ensure the safety, integrity and soundness of the financial system and the protection of depositors. It calls for the recognition of country specific characteristics of the derived segments of the society, the risks and national priorities in the application of AML/CFT measures, as well as how financial inclusion has been applied with flexible AML/CFT principles. It concludes that inclusive finance does not necessarily mean that everyone who is eligible uses each of the services, but they should be able to choose to use such services if they wish.     

The Development Mandate of International Institutions: Where Did it Come From?

What was the origin of the commitment of international institutions to promote economic development in poorer countries? A popular view in “post-development” scholarship has been that this international development project was born with Truman’s Point Four program of 1949. This article suggests instead that it emerged for the first time in a significant way out of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, with US-Latin American relations in the early 1940s acting as a key incubator for this innovation in international governance. This historical reinterpretation leads to a different view of the initial content of the international development project and the politics that generated it. It also challenges those who have downplayed the significance of the development content of the Bretton Woods negotiations.     

How do voters react when their party forms a coalition they dislike?

Abstract

While coalitions are conventionally seen as opportunities for parties to realise their policy preferences or to secure their control over political offices, recent studies show that citizens have preferences for coalitions which influence their vote choice. However, these studies do not consider how party and coalition preferences influence each other. This study uses panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study from the 2009, 2013 and 2017 German elections to determine whether voters punish the party for which they voted for being in a coalition they dislike or, alternatively, whether they become more supportive of that coalition. We find weak evidence for the former but strong evidence for the latter.     

A Comparison of Logistic Regression,Classification and Regression Tree,and Neural Networks Models in Predicting Violent Re-Offending

Previous studies that have compared logistic regression (LR), classification and regression tree (CART), and neural networks (NNs) models for their predictive validity have shown inconsistent results in demonstrating superiority of any one model. The three models were tested in a prospective sample of 1225 UK male prisoners followed up for a mean of 3.31 years after release. Items in a widely-used risk assessment instrument (the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20, or HCR-20) were used as predictors and violent reconvictions as outcome. Multi-validation procedure was used to reduce sampling error in reporting the predictive accuracy. The low base rate was controlled by using different measures in the three models to minimize prediction error and achieve a more balanced classification. Overall accuracy of the three models varied between 0.59 and 0.67, with an overall AUC range of 0.65–0.72. Although the performance of NNs was slightly better than that of LR and CART models, it did not demonstrate a significant improvement.     

Institutional and management building in Sub-Saharan Africa: a symposium

In the latter half of the 20th century many factors have contributed to the decline of Africa and especially of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Severe drought and the resultant famine, the international environment of deteriorating export markets, economic and bureaucratic mismanagement, environmental damage and rural decline, political instability and civil wars are some factors often highlighted as representative causes of the decline.     

Health facility characteristics and the decision to seek care

Utilisation of healthcare facilities is low in many developing areas. One possible explanation is that treatment costs, in time or money, are high. Another is that parents perceive treatment benefits to be low. We combine Philippines DHS data with a subsequent facilities survey in order to examine these issues with respect to treatment for respiratory infections and diarrhoea in young children. Controlling statistically for the selectivity of the initiating illness, we find that the staffing level of nearby health facilities is a determinant of the probability that parents take their ill children for curative care.