Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the Andes

Although military rule disappeared in Latin America after 1990, other forms of authoritarianism persisted. Competitive authoritarianism, in which democratic institutions exist but incumbent abuse skews the playing field against opponents, emerged in Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador during the post-Cold War period. This article seeks to explain the emergence of competitive authoritarianism in the Andes. It argues that populism – the election of a personalistic outsider who mobilizes voters with an anti-establishment appeal – is a major catalyst for the emergence of competitive authoritarianism. Lacking experience with representative democratic institutions, possessing an electoral mandate to destroy the existing elite, and facing institutions of horizontal accountability controlled by that elite, populists have an incentive to launch plebiscitary attacks on institutions of horizontal accountability. Where they succeed, weak democracies almost invariably slide into competitive authoritarianism. The argument is demonstrated through a comparative analysis of all 14 elected presidents in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela between 1990 and 2010.     

Election law violations as campaign effort: turnout in Japan's House of Councillors elections

Electoral fraud is a form of corrupt behaviour but it is also a form of electoral behaviour. Once the grosser forms of stuffing the ballot box have been eliminated, illegal campaigning often involves precisely the same activities as does legal campaigning. What makes it electoral fraud is ‘stepping over the line’, spending X?+?Y when the legal limit is X for example. In this study we analyse the determinants of legal and illegal campaign efforts as well as the impact of such efforts on voter turnout. We use the aggregate number of election law violations per district as a measure of Y, which is normally unobserved because it is illegal and thus unreported. We further distinguish between various types of election fraud such as vote-buying and canvassing and determine their effects on turnout. We find that electoral fraud is more common in close races and when there is intraparty competition. Similarly, illegal campaign effort in general mirrors legal efforts in increasing turnout although its effects depend on the type of violation in question.     

Social cleavages and electoral competition in India

Given the great diversity in language, ethnicity, and caste in India, and the resulting millions of possible winning electoral combinations, why is it that in contemporary India we see large state-wide and inter-state political coalitions built around categories such as “Bahujan” or “Backward Caste” instead of thousands of separate caste parties competing at the regional or zila (district) level? This question is the focus of Christophe Jaffrelot's India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in India, Pradeep Chhibber's Democracy without Associations: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India, and Anirudh Krishna's Active Social Capital: Tracing the roots of development and democracy. This review assesses how these works address the question of political organization and social cleavages in India, examining the differences in approaches and discussing what still needs to be addressed.     

Failing witnesses in serious and organised crimes: policy perspectives for witness protective measures in Malawi

Witness protection (procedural and non-procedural) concept has become firmly entrenched in modern criminal justice systems for purposes of securing the much needed testimony and amelioration of vulnerable witnesses’ circumstances. Witness protective measures have been used mostly in serious and organized crime prosecutions. Notwithstanding this, Malawi’s criminal justice system including its reforms has completely ignored this leaving witnesses vulnerable to tampering and intimidation. This article explores Malawi’s circumstances by focusing on serious and organised crime such as corruption and money laundering. It further offers some recommendations and policy perspectives as to what can possibly be done to ameliorate the witness situation.     

人体不同体液内PSA含量及其法医学意义

目的检测人体不同体液内前列腺特异抗原(PSA)含量,探讨其法医学价值。方法收集成年人(19～63岁)晨尿40份(男28份、女12份)、血液58份(男45份、女13份)、唾液25份(男14份、女11份);青少年(10～15岁)男性晨尿205份;哺乳期(25～31岁)女性乳汁9份;使用Cobas e411型全自动电化学发光免疫分析系统及T-PSA定量测定试剂盒,检测各样本T-PSA含量;分析不同体液及不同年龄青少年男性尿液PSA含量差异。结果除男、女性唾液外,其它样本均可检测到PSA,其中成年男性尿液含量最高,与其它体液比较具有显著性差异(P<0.000 1);青少年男性各年龄组尿液PSA含量随年龄逐年增高,11岁及以下年龄组含量不足1ng/mL,14岁及以上年龄组可超过1 000ng/mL。结论前列腺发育成熟的男性尿液PSA含量较高,在进行精液斑的法医学检验时应给予充分注意。     

How to lose allies and finance your enemies: the economisation of conflict termination in Afghanistan

Aid-focused approaches to counter-insurgency reflect a belief that large volumes of development assistance may erode insurgent groups' popular support and ability to recruit. In Afghanistan, this ‘economised’ approach to conflict termination, as the author terms it, formed a central component of the international strategy. As insecurity increased, more aid was provided to the most violent areas, creating a series of secondary effects which undermined stability. Firstly and most importantly, aid served to create rather than ameliorate grievances. Poorly conceived programmes, which focused more on volumes of development assistance than the design of interventions, resulted in reduced support among the Afghan citizenry for the international community and nascent state in Kabul. Secondly, ‘economised’ approaches to the insurgency created incentive structures that favoured instability. Thirdly, large aid flows in highly insecure areas led to ‘leakage’ which financed insurgent groups. These findings lend further support to those who increasingly observe that the relationship between security and development is nuanced and that simply proving more aid may in some cases yield less security in conflict-affected contexts.     

中国艾滋病宽容政策研究

宽容政策的提出是基于艾滋病传播的特点,主张政府从政策的角度对艾滋病人的基本权利作出保障,从人道主义的角度给予关怀。事实上,一切政策执行的后果只要利于艾滋病的预防就要以宽容的态度予以采纳。本文在梳理中国艾滋病政策宽容规定的基础上,提出完善艾滋病宽容策略的构想。     

The role of neurological and psychological explanations in legal judgments of psychopathic wrongdoers

Although brain imaging has recently taken center stage in criminal legal proceedings, little is known about how neuroscience information differentially affects people’s judgments about criminal behavior. In two studies of community participants (N = 1161), we examined how mock jurors sentence a fictional psychopathic defendant when presented with neurological or psychological research of equal or ambiguous scientific validity. Across two studies, we (a) found that including images of the brain did not alter mock jurors’ sentencing judgments, (b) reported two striking non-replications of previous findings that mock jurors recommend less severe punishments to defendants when a neuroscientific explanations are proffered, and (c) found that participants rated a psychopathic individual as more likely to benefit from treatment and less dangerous when a neurological explanation for his deficits was provided. Overall, these results suggest that neuroscience information provided by psychiatrists in hypothetical criminal situations may not broadly transform mock jurors’ intuitions about a psychopathic defendant’s sentence, but they provide novel evidence that brain-based information may influence people’s judgments about treatability and dangerousness.     

STR基因座单倍型的推断方法初探

本文参考Browning SR等提出的以SNP等位基因频率为基础,通过统计学模型推断SNP单倍型的方法,初步探讨亲权鉴定中STR基因座单倍型的推断方法。以两个处于连锁不平衡状态的X-STR基因座的女性分型结果为例进行说明。本方法为STR单倍型的推断提供了一个思路,有助于更科学准确地进行STR分型结果的解释。     

Comparing the effectiveness of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Henderson</Emphasis> instructions and expert testimony: Which safeguard improves jurors’ evaluations of eyewitness evidence?

Objectives

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently determined that jurors may not be able to effectively evaluate eyewitness evidence on their own. As a result, the Court proposed the use of judicial instructions to assist jurors (called Henderson instructions) and suggested the implementation of these instructions would reduce the need for expert testimony. We tested the efficacy of these instructions compared to alternative instructions and expert testimony.

Methods

We utilized a mock trial paradigm, randomly assigning 452 participants to 1 of 20 videotaped trial conditions that varied the quality of eyewitness evidence (both witnessing and identification conditions) and the type of safeguard presented during the mock trial.

Results

Jurors were sensitive to the quality of identification conditions on their own. Jurors were more likely to convict when identification conditions were good and less likely when identification conditions were poor. This relationship was mediated by eyewitness credibility ratings. Expert testimony resulted in skepticism by reducing the likelihood that jurors would convict regardless of the quality of witnessing and identification conditions. No variation of the instructions influenced verdicts.

Conclusions

While jurors were sensitive to the quality of identification conditions on their own, we observed no such effect for the quality of witnessing conditions, even with the aid of instructions and/or expert testimony. Both Henderson instructions and expert testimony may be insufficient for assisting jurors to effectively evaluate problematic witnessing conditions. Future research should examine the use of alternative safeguards.