The politics of health-care reform in the Netherlands since 2006

This article comments on Schut and van de Ven's overview of the results of purchaser competition in Dutch health care, which concludes that the glass can be seen as half full or half empty. Although it is true that results have been achieved, we believe that the evidence is incomplete and in some respects flimsy. More importantly, however, Schut and van de Ven neglect the political context of the market reform introduced in 2006. The reform is far from finished and there has been a constant need for political compromise. Optimism about the market's potential also seems to be on the wane. Several insurer and provider initiatives have provoked political resistance. As a result, there are good reasons to argue that the reform's future is uncertain.     

Measuring New Public Management and Governance in Political Debate

New Public Management (NPM) recently has been compared and contrasted with public governance (PG) to illustrate shifts in conceptions of public administrations and in reform agendas. The authors develop measures to capture the relevance of NPM and PG in textual discourse and investigate the extent to which they have entered the political debate. Content analysis of electoral programs for the 2005 Italian regional elections reveals that even in this legalistic country, considerable attention was paid to both NPM and PG issues. An important explanatory variable in preference for NPM or PG is party ideology, highlighting often‐ignored within‐country dynamics. Furthermore, the authors show how a methodological approach adapted from mainly political science and business research can be exploited in the field of public administration.     

Distribution of gunshot residues--the influence of weapon type

Gunshot residue (GSR) analysis is a frequently used forensic method for investigating shooting events. In this process, GSR-particles are detected on pertinent objects, often the hands of a suspect, with energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis in a scanning electron microscope. The question asked in court is usually the following: "… has or has not a given shot been fired by the suspect (at a certain place and time)?" Unfortunately, this question frequently cannot be answered by the analyst. Only the presence or absence of "characteristic" GSR-particles on the investigated sample can be stated with confidence. All other assumptions are inherently biased by many factors that are usually only known by the culprit or are generally unknown. In order to draw more profound conclusions from GSR analytical results, the dynamics of GSR particles have to be considered, i.e., how these particles reach a suspect. Consequently, the formation of the plume after firing was investigated for eleven different firearms with high speed-video analysis. The results show that a vast scope exists between revolvers - distributing many particles near the shooter - and e.g. shotguns that are quite sealed. These differences between the various weapon types should be considered for interpretation of the results of GSR-analysis.     

The demand for transparency: An empirical note

By encouraging socially wasteful rent seeking and corruption, natural resources abundance might not be a blessing but a country’s curse. A recent attempt to impede these practices of corruption with theft is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The purpose of this organization is to verify and fully publish company payments and government revenues from oil, gas, and mining. Using a probit estimation technique the paper analyses empirically the political and socio-economic factors which determine a country’s participation in EITI, which can be interpreted as revealed willingness to reform.     

The economic tradition and the constitution of science

There has been an institutional turn in the philosophy of science, which has led the discipline to become more concerned with understanding how the scientific process actually works. This paper argues that such a philosophy of science, which lies beyond only proposing a logic of science, has something to learn from economics. Economic thinking can be instrumental in understanding the actual scientific process, and in proposing proper institutions guiding scientific competition. It is, however, also argued that economics would benefit from overcoming the pure logic of choice inherent to the neoclassical approach, by further developing the institutional approach to economics.     

Functions of mass media in interpersonal communication

SUMMARY

This paper is the result of a research project on the function(s) of mass media in interpersonal conversation. Based on their research findings the authors conclude that mass media and mass media topics play an important role in conversation; that it forms an integrated component of personal communication; that the mass media is particularly often mentioned in small groups and in groups of lower intensity of conversation, and that the mentioning of the mass media as such fulfills several functions in conversation.     

Commodity composition of trade in manufactures and south‐south trade potential

Using two different measures, the degree of correspondence between a country's export vector of manufactures and a trade partner's import vector is determined. These export‐import similarity measures are shown to contribute to an explanation of bilateral trade intensity. They are then used in computing an index of export potential in manufactures for 34 developing countries, and an index showing the potential to replace LDC imports presently originating from developed countries. Given the existing LDC commodity composition, the possibility of substituting imports of DC manufactures by LDC supplies ‐ for example, through preferential inter‐LDC trading ‐is found to be limited only.