Using a Continuous Measure of Genderedness to Assess Sex Differences in the Attitudes of the Political Elite

Political Behavior - We investigated the attitudes of the 11,410 candidates in the Finnish 2017 municipal elections who had responded to a Voting Advice Application. Women candidates were, both in...     

Governing Under Pressure: German Policy Making During the Coronavirus Crisis

The global threat of the coronavirus pandemic has forced policy makers to react quickly with totally new policy-making approaches under conditions of uncertainty. This article focuses on such crisis-driven policy learning, examining how the experiences of China and South Korea as early responder states influenced the subsequent coronavirus crisis management in Germany. The first reaction of the German core executive was the quick concentration of decision-making power at the top of the political hierarchy. Asserting the prerogatives of the executive included the radical simplification of the relationship between politics, law and science. State actors took emergency measures by recourse to a single piece of legislation—the ‘infection protection law’ (Infektionsschutzgesetz)—overriding other elements of the legal order. They also limited the government’s use of scientific expertise to a small number of advisors, thereby cutting short debates about the appropriateness or otherwise of the government’s crisis measures. Finally, German actors failed to understand that some of the earlier Chinese and Korean responses required a precondition—namely public willingness to sacrifice privacy for public health—that is absent in the German case.     

Good Scientific Practice and Academic Reviews

Criminal Law Forum - Academic reviews (hereinafter “reviews”) are an integral part of legal journals. While their purpose and usefulness are at times disputed, all sub-disciplines of...     

The strategy process as a result of learning,questioning, and performing in a city organization

Abstract

This article analyzes a strategy-drafting process, using it to illustrate what can happen in a strategy process that affects a city organization but is invisible in the final strategy document. In the ethnographically inspired method, a city organization and its strategy-formulating work were followed for two years. Observations and interviews were the main data-collection methods. The article builds on a framework from the strategy and public management literature. The article concludes that strategy formulation in public organizations is a means of learning new practices, questioning ongoing development, and enhancing performance.     

Gender and Corruption: The Mediating Power of Institutional Logics

Scholars have argued that recruiting more women to office is an effective way to curb corruption; however, the more precise mechanisms underlying why this may be the case have remained unclear. We use meso‐level theories to elaborate on the relationship and suggest that institutional logics mediate the effect of gendered experiences on corruption. We make two propositions: First, we suggest that the relationship between more women and lower levels of corruption is weaker in the state administration than in the legislative arena, because the bureaucratic administrative logic absorbs actors’ personal characteristics. Second, we refine our institutional argument by claiming that the stronger the bureaucratic principles are in the administration, the less gender matters. We validate our theory using data provided by the European Commission (EC) covering the EC countries and original data from the Quality of Government Institute Expert Surveys, covering a larger set of countries on a worldwide scale.     

Kriminalpolitische Initiative: Mehr Sicherheit durch weniger Haft! Vorschläge Nr 6 – Juni 2011

Die AutorInnen haben als Kriminalpolitische Initiative (KI) seit 2004 in fünf Publikationen konkrete kriminalpolitische Reformvorschl?ge pr?sentiert. Eine Reihe dieser Vorschl?ge wurde vollst?ndig oder zumindest teilweise umgesetzt. Die KI sieht weiterhin Bedarf an der Weiterentwicklung der Strafrechtspflege entsprechend dem Grundsatz: „Mehr Sicherheit durch weniger Haft.“ Deshalb definieren die AutorInnen im Folgenden entsprechend der Systematik des neuen Bundeshaushaltsrechts drei Wirkungszeiele und schlagen neun Ma?nahmen vor, deren Umsetzung ihnen besonders dringlich und wichtig erscheint.     

Evaluation of the role of abstinence in heroin overdose deaths using segmental hair analysis

In the body heroin is rapidly metabolized to 6-acetylmorphine and morphine. Victims of lethal heroin overdose often present with fairly low blood concentrations of morphine. Reduced tolerance due to abstinence has been proposed to account for this finding. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of abstinence in drug-related deaths by comparing recent and past exposure to opioids using segmental hair analysis with the postmortem blood morphine concentrations in deceased heroin users. The study included 60 deceased drug addicts in the Stockholm area, Sweden. In 32 cases, death was not related to heroin intake. In 18 of the 28 heroin fatalities, opioids were absent in the most recent hair segment, suggesting a reduced tolerance to opioids. However, the blood morphine levels were similar to those found in the 10 subjects that showed continuous opioid use. Hair and blood analysis disclosed an extensive use of additional drugs that directly or indirectly may influence the opioid system. The results suggest that abstinence is not a critical factor for heroin overdose death. Obviously tolerant subjects die after intake of similar doses. Other factors, particularly polydrug use, seem to be more causally important for these deaths.     

Cause of death and drug use pattern in deceased drug addicts in Sweden, 2002-2003

Compared with their contemporaries, individuals abusing illicit drugs suffer a higher risk of premature death. In Sweden, a simple protocol for registration of fatalities among abusers of alcohol, pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, or other substances, has been used by the forensic pathologists since 2001. This routine was introduced to allow for an evaluation of the cause and manner of death, and patterns of abuse among different groups of abusers. We explored the data on drug abusers (i.e. abusers of illicit drugs) subjected to a forensic autopsy 2002-2003. The Swedish forensic pathologists examined 10,273 dead victims during the study period and 7% (743/10,273) of the cases were classified as drug abusers. Toxicological analyses were carried out in 99% (736/743) and illicit drugs were detected in 70% (514/736) of these. On average, 3.8 substances (legal or illegal) were found per case. The most common substances were ethanol and morphine, detected in 43 and 35% of the cases, respectively. When exploring the importance of the different substances for the cause of death, we found that the detection of some substances, such as fentanyl and morphine, strongly indicated a poisoning, whereas certain other substances, such as benzodiazepines more often were incidental findings. In total, 50% (372/743) died of poisoning, whereas only 22% (161/743) died of natural causes. Death was considered to be directly or indirectly due to drug abuse in 47% (346/743), whereas evidence of drug abuse was an incidental finding in 21% (153/743) or based on case history alone in 33% (244/743). We believe that this strategy to prospectively categorize deaths among drug addicts constitutes a simple means of standardizing the surveillance of the death toll among drug addicts that could allow for comparisons over time and between countries.