The Cold War culture of the French and communist parties

This study is a comparative essay about the ‘Cold War culture’ of the two main communist parties of Western Europe, the French and the Italian, during the tense period of 1947–53. Both parties had a common Marxist ideology and used similar elements of propaganda: anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, defence of ‘national independence’, defence of the Soviet Union, and the struggle for peace. However, while the French communist ideology was completely focused on the Soviet position, the Italians tried to maintain a limited autonomy for their parliamentary activity and their reactions to national issues. The reception and use of communist ideology and propaganda by some social categories of population, especially among the working classes, is then examined. The essay concludes with a reflexion on the notion of the ‘culture of war’ in France and Italy.     

Loan delinquency in community lending organizations: Case studies of neighborworks organizations

Abstract

This article reports on qualitative data gathered through interviews conducted in 1996 with key leadership and staff from 13 community lending organizations. Loan servicing and collection procedures within the organizations were examined. Findings suggest that several organizational factors of nonprofit lenders are related to their loan delinquency rates: social networks, business culture, funding sources, composition of the board and loan committees, staff structure, loan intake, and collection tools.

The study also finds that the nonprofit sector's institutional environment and its partnership with the private sector in a mutually beneficial process influence the loan delinquency rate. More specifically, active participation of local bankers in NeighborWorks¹ loan committees, diverse funding sources (from both the public and private sectors), and a diffusion of business practices through dense social networks are related to NeighborWorks’ loan servicing and collection policy and procedures. These factors in turn influence NeighborWorks’ rehabilitation loan delinquency rates.     

The 2009 Elections in Schleswig-Holstein: Polarised Electoral Campaign,Exceptional Election Results,and an Unspectacular Process of Government Formation

The elections for the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag were held on 27 September 2009. After conflicts between the governing parties the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), Prime Minister Carstensen had ended the ‘grand coalition’ and called for early elections, one year earlier than scheduled. The electoral campaign centred on the divide between the Christian Democrats who favoured a coalition with the Liberals, and the Social Democrats who competed for a majority together with the Greens. The elections resulted in large shifts in party strength. Christian and Social Democrats together lost about 22 percentage points of votes, while most of the smaller parliamentary parties attained their best election results in Schleswig-Holstein state elections ever. CDU and FDP gained a majority of seats and formed a coalition that re-elected Carstensen into office on 27 October. Using concepts from coalition theory, our analysis shows that a Christian–Liberal coalition was indeed the most likely outcome of the government formation process.     

Extension des privilèges constitutionnels de la Douma russe dans les ‘interstices de la procédure’ 1906–1917

Summary

The nobility and the Netherlands Senate 1815–1830

From 1815 to 1830 the northern and southern Netherlands formed a single kingdom under Guillaume I. In this kingdom the nobility was the only social order to enjoy special political rights. The political influence the nobility could exercise as an order was primarily at the provincial level. The Corps Equestres had a role as a sort of electoral college for the Provincial Estates of the separate provinces. In 1815, after the States General had been divided into two chambers, the influence of the provinces made itself felt particularly through the elections for the Second Chamber, the members of the First Chamber, the Senate, being appointed by the king. Despite the fact that over ninety percent of them belonged to the nobility, the nobility as an order never became a political group exercising power at the national level.     

Failing to Yield? Ploughs,Conservation Agriculture and the Problem of Agricultural Intensification: An Example from the Zambezi Valley,Zimbabwe

Agricultural intensification, or increasing yield, has been a persistent theme in policy interventions in African smallholder agriculture. This article focuses on two hegemonic policy models of such intensification: (1) the ‘Alvord model’ of plough-based, integrated crop-livestock farming promoted in colonial Zimbabwe; and (2) minimum-tillage mulch-based, Conservation Agriculture, as currently preached by a wide range of international agricultural research and development agencies. An analysis of smallholder farming practices in Zimbabwe's Zambezi Valley, reveals the limited inherent understanding of farmer practices in these models. It shows why many smallholder farmers in southern Africa are predisposed towards extensification rather than intensification, and suggests that widespread Conservation Agriculture adoption is unlikely.     

The Potential of Internet Mobilization: An Experimental Study on the Effect of Internet and Face-to-Face Mobilization Efforts

In recent years, voluntary associations and political organizations have increasingly relied on Internet-based mobilization campaigns, replacing traditional forms of face-to-face recruitment and mobilization. Within the literature, one can observe an intensive debate about the possible consequences of this transition. Most importantly, the question is whether political mobilization through the Internet is just as effective as mobilization in a face-to-face setting. In this article, we report on a mobilization experiment using both traditional (face-to-face) and modern (Web site) incentives for mobilization. The experiment was conducted among undergraduate students in Belgium and Canada and included a test of medium-term mobilization effects. Results suggest that the Internet is successful in transferring knowledge and raising issue salience among respondents, but neither experimental manipulation led to significant behavioral changes. We do not find any indication that among this experimental sample Internet-based mobilization would be less effective than traditional face-to-face forms of mobilization.     

Ballpoint pen inks: the quantitative analysis of ink solvents on paper by solid-phase microextraction

We wish to describe further developments to a method previously reported on the detection of 2-phenoxyethanol in ink. The solid-phase microextraction (SPME) sampling technique, together with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), has been used to quantify solvents in writing ink. In conventional approaches, the analysis of ink on documents requires some degree of destructive sampling. The methods commonly used remove ink samples from paper using a scalpel or a paper punch. To avoid document destruction, a sampling cell was constructed that allows solvents to be adsorbed directly onto the SPME fiber from the headspace above the document surface. Analytes (ink volatiles) are then desorbed from the SPME fiber on a gas chromatograph equipped with a mass selective detector (GC-MSD). With this method, it was possible to detect the presence of ink solvents on documents for a period lasting up to c. 2 years.     

High-Risk Interrogation: Using the “Mr. Big Technique” to Elicit Confessions

Kassin et al. (Police-Induced Confessions: Risk Factors and Recommendation, 2009) provide a detailed and thoughtful analysis of how police interrogation practices might elicit false confessions from innocent suspects. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a brief review of a relatively recent development in Canadian police investigation practice and discuss how this procedure may increase the likelihood of police-induced false confessions. The so-called “Mr. Big Technique” is a non-custodial interrogation tactic wherein suspects are drawn into a supposed criminal organization (actually an elaborate police sting) and subsequently told that to move up in the organization, they must confess to a crime. In this article, we describe this remarkable interrogation technique and discuss issues relevant to the potential induction of false confessions.     

Programmatic actors and the transformation of European health care States

In France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the decades from the late 1980s to the present have witnessed significant change in health policy. Although this has included the spread of internal competition and growing autonomy for certain nonstate and parastate actors, it does not follow that the mechanism at work is a "neoliberal convergence." Rather, the translation into diverse national settings of quasi-market mechanisms is accompanied by a reassertion of regulatory authority and strengthening of statist, as opposed to corporatist, management of national insurance systems. Thus the use of quasi-market tools brings state-strengthening reform. The proximate and necessary cause of this dual transformation is found in the work of small, closely integrated groups of policy professionals, whom we label "programmatic actors." While their identity differs across cases, these actors are strikingly similar in functional role and motivation. Motivated by a desire to wield authority through the promotion of programmatic ideas, rather than by material or careerist interests, these elite groups act both as importers and translators of ideas and as architects of policy. The resulting elite-driven model of policy change integrates ideational and institutionalist elements to explain programmatically coherent change despite institutional resistance and partisan instability.