From fiddle factors to networks of collusion: Charting the waters of small business crime

Small business crime has been largely ignored in American criminology; studies of nontraditional crime have focused mainly on corporate crime or on the misdeeds of employees pursuing personal gain. This paper calls for criminologists to redirect their efforts toward the systematic study of small business crime. In particular, it advocates in-depth qualitative studies that explore small business culture and opportunity structures, and that examine the networks of collusion that subvert the legitimate economy. The paper concludes with illustrations from an own story currently being shared with the author by a small businessman who participated for five years in an urban crime network that infiltrated the redistributive economy.     

Risky Drinking and Driving/Riding Decisions: The Role of Previous Experience

Factors related to risky drinking and driving/riding decisions were explored by presenting vignettes to 135 older adolescents, 17–24 years of age, with vignettes related to drinking and other social behaviors engaged in at a party. Analyses revealed that alcohol-related behaviors, attitudes toward the acceptability of drinking and driving, and previous drinking and driving/riding experiences were all significant predictors of decisions about driving or riding while intoxicated. Indeed, the overall model accounted for 46% of risky drinking and driving/riding decisions. As predicted, older respondents had more previous experiences with driving while intoxicated and riding with intoxicated drivers than did younger respondents, and they reported that drinking and driving was more acceptable among their peers. However, contrary to expectations, there were no differences in the number of risky decisions made by the two age groups or between males and females. The importance of previous experiences is discussed.     

Bureaucratic choice and nonoptimal provision of public goods: Theory and evidence

Local governments' allocation decisions are modeled in the context of a slack maximizing bureaucrat who produces public goods according to a production function that includes both provision and the constituents' socio-economic characteristics. To gain a better understanding of the determinants of slack, comparative statics and an empirical study of Illinois municipalities are conducted. The indirect output distance function provides efficiency scores upon which we regress several variables, representing socio-economic characteristics, costs and competition measures. We find that slack or inefficient behavior is associated with richer communities, lower education levels and a lack of competition for residents among municipalities.     

The European Union’s partnership policy towards Brazil: more than meets the eye

This article focuses on the evolving nature of the foreign policy of the European Union (EU) towards Brazil, which gained momentum and became more dynamic and denser after the establishment of a formal strategic partnership (SP) in 2007. It provides a historical overview of the institutional relations between Brussels and Brasília, before proceeding with an analysis of the main drivers behind this novel development. The study goes on to offer a critical examination of the implementation of the EU–Brazil SP by casting light on both its major achievements and the challenges it has faced. It concludes that the establishment of a formal strategic partnership with Brazil has contributed to the strengthening of the EU’s globally oriented partnership policy and ultimately to the incremental empowerment of the EU necessary to the assertion of its values, objectives and interests on the international stage.