Demography and democracy: the impact of youth cohort size on democratic stability in the world

The traditional explanations for the survival of democratic systems mostly include economic and cultural variables. Only rarely has attention been given to the age structure of a society. This article introduces a hypothesis involving the ‘youth bulge’ concept popular in conflict studies. It is hypothesized that democratic countries with proportionally large male youth cohorts are more likely to become dictatorships than societies with a smaller share of young men. A causal link between demography and democracy is assumed to exist because young men are the protagonists of virtually all violent political action as well as political extremism with a potential to threaten democracy. Strong evidence supporting the hypothesis is found using data for 110 countries in the period from 1972–2009.     

Irrtum über die Voraussetzungen eines lebensgefährdenden Waffengebrauchs

Irrt ein Exekutivbeamter bei der Ausübung eines lebengef?hrdenden Waffengebrauchs darüber, dass ein wahrgenommenes Tatgeschehen in rechtlicher Hinsicht das – den Rechtfertigungsgrund des § 7 Z 3 WaffGG konstituierende – Deliktsmerkmal der konkreten Gemeingefahr (§ 176 Abs 1 StGB) verwirklicht, so liegt ein Irrtum über den sozialen Bedeutungsgehalt eines normativen Rechtfertigungsmerkmals vor, der nach § 8 StGB als sogenannter Erlaubnistatbestandsirrtum und nicht als Rechtsirrtum (§ 9 StGB) zu beurteilen ist.     

Vorschläge zur Errichtung einer nationalen Menschenrechtsinstitution in Österreich

Österreich hat im Hinblick auf seinen nationalen Grund- und Menschenrechtsschutz durch die 1920 geschaffene Zentralinstanz des Verfassungsgerichtshofs lange Zeit eine Vorreiterposition in Europa belegt. Inzwischen wird jedoch immer deutlicher, dass zur Erfüllung völkerrechtlicher Menschenrechtsverpflichtungen sowie eines umfassenden Grundrechtsschutzes auf nationaler Ebene – im Sinne der Trias "respect, protect, fulfill" – die nachprüfende gerichtliche Kontrolle allein unzureichend ist. Die Schaffung einer unabhängigen und pluralistischen nationalen Institution würde dem Prozess einer kontinuierlichen Verbesserung der normativen und faktischen Menschenrechtssituation am Besten zum Ziel gereichen. Das umfangreiche Mandat einer solchen Menschenrechtsinstitution soll neben der Beratungs- und Berichtsfunktion gegenüber Regierung, Gesetzgebung und anderen staatlichen Organen insbesondere eine breite Kontrollbefugnis betreffend die Maßnahmen von Sicherheitsexekutive, Justizwache und Militär umfassen. Mediatives Einschreiten sowie die Kooperation mit internationalen und Nichtregierungsorganisationen komplettieren gemeinsam mit menschenrechtlicher Bildungs- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Forschung und Dokumentation die Hauptaufgaben der Institution. Seit der Weltmenschenrechtskonferenz 1993 in Wien besteht an der besonderen Bedeutung derartiger Einrichtungen kein Zweifel mehr; durch stetige Vorstöße internationaler Gremien, wie des Europarates und letztlich der Europäischen Union, erfährt die diesbezügliche Diskussion jetzt zusätzlichen Antrieb. Neben dem generellen, weltweiten Trend zur Errichtung nationaler Menschenrechtsinstitutionen stellen besonders die Entscheidung der EU, die in Wien ansässige Beobachtungsstelle für Rassismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit (EUMC) ab März 2007 in eine Europäische Grundrechteagentur umzuwandeln, sowie Österreichs kurz bevorstehende Ratifizierung des Fakultativprotokolls zur UNO-Folterkonvention (OPCAT) unser Land vor die bedeutsame Aufgabe, endlich mit den zahlreichen europäischen Staaten gleichzuziehen, deren nicht-gerichtlicher Menschenrechtsschutz schon längst einer an den "Pariser Prinzipien 1993" orientierten, finanziell sowie organisatorisch unabhängigen Institution obliegt.     

Shaping the Scope of Conflict in Scotland’s Fracking Debate: Conflict Management and the Narrative Policy Framework

This study applies a narrative lens to policy actors’ discursive strategies in the Scottish debate over fracking. Based on a sample of 226 newspaper articles (2011–2017) and drawing on key elements of the narrative policy framework (NPF), the research examines how policy coalitions have characterized their supporters, their opponents, and the main regulator (Scottish government). It also explores how actors have sought to expand or contain the scope of conflict to favor their policy objectives. Empirically, only the government strives for conflict containment, whereas both pro‐ and anti‐fracking groups prioritize conflict expansion through characterization contests and the diffusion and concentration of the costs/risks and benefits of fracking. In theoretical terms, the study proposes that Sarah Pralle’s conflict management model, which emphasizes symmetrical strategies of conflict expansion by both coalitions, is a potential tool to revise extant NPF expectations about the different narrative strategies of winning and losing coalitions. Moreover, the fact that policy actors mostly employ negatively rather than positively framed characters in their narratives may be a valid expectation for similar policy conflicts, particularly under conditions of regulatory uncertainty.     

Age structure and political violence: a re-assessment of the “youth bulge” hypothesis

A popular hypothesis in international studies states that a “youth bulge”––an age pyramid dominated by large cohorts between 15 and 29 years of age––increases the risk of political violence. However, empirical evidence on this link remains inconclusive to date. In this article, we systematically assess the youth effect using new data from 183 countries between 1996 and 2015. We find that within countries, a decrease in the youth ratio is generally associated with a decrease in the number of violent deaths from terrorism or other internal conflicts, and vice versa. This is also confirmed in out-of-sample predictions. However, the association is not evident in all constellations and sensitive to modeling issues. In particular, large cohorts of young males can become a disruptive power in countries that increase enrollment in post-primary education. Although this is usually followed by fertility decline, youth bulges often remain at record levels for quite some time due to high birth rates in the past. Strong labor markets can in general suppress the detrimental consequences of youth bulges. However, the combination of growing youth cohorts and educational expansion often leads to increased political violence even in the presence of low youth unemployment.     

Psychological and psychiatric aspects of a coerced-internalized false confession

This paper provides an insight into the mechanism of a coerced-internalized type of false confession. The case involved an American airman who confessed to the murder of a close friend after "failing" four polygraph tests. Psychological and psychiatric reports were prepared at the request of the defence and the findings were presented at a military hearing. The airman's confession was ruled involuntary, leading to a dismissal of the charges. The authors discuss the case with reference to the relevant literature on false confession and pseudomemories.     

Effect of photoarray exposure duration on eyewitness identification accuracy and processing strategy

In this study all offenders admitted to Icelandic prisons over a one year period were approached and 229 (95%) agreed to co-operate with the study. Twenty-seven (12%) of the 229 subjects claimed to have in the past made a false confession during police interviewing. Women prisoners more commonly claimed to have made a false confession than males. The main motives given for having made the false confession were to protect somebody else (48%) and police pressure or escape from custody (52%). The great majority (78%) of the subjects had never retracted the confession, claiming that they had perceived no point in dong so. Twenty-one (78%) of the subjects were convicted of the offenses to which they had, allegedly, made a false confession. The findings in the present study raise the possibility that within an inquisitorial system false confessions may go relatively undetected by the judiciary and be rarely retracted or disputed.     

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.     

The relationship of suggestibility and compliance with self-deception and other-deception

The aim of the study was to assess the relationship of interrogative suggestibility and compliance with other-deception and self-deception. The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 1), the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and the Other and Self-Deception questionnaires (ODQ and SDQ) were administered to 237 Icelandic prison inmates. Other and Self-Deception scores did not correlate significantly with suggestibility and compliance, whereas significant correlations were found between the deception scores and EPQ Psychoticism, Neuroticism and Lie scores. The EPQ Lie score explained about one-third of the variance in the ODQ score, suggesting a considerable overlap between the two impression management measures. The most important practical implication of the findings is that self-favouring bias does not appear to significantly influence suggestibility and compliance scores.