A Fatality Following Ingestion of the Designer Drug Meta‐Chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) in an Asthmatic—HPLC‐MS/MS Detection in Biofluids and Hair

A 20‐year‐old man, a cocaine addict and regular ecstasy user, with a medical history of allergic asthma died after ingesting half a tablet earlier the same day. The white tablet, stamped with a “smiling sun” logo looked very much like an ecstasy tablet and was sold as such. He experienced a severe asthma attack just after ingesting the half tablet and it evolved over the next few hours into fatal cardiorespiratory arrest. Biological samples, taken after embalming, were analyzed by high‐performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC‐MS/MS). Analysis revealed meta‐chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) in concentrations of 45.8 mg in a similar tablet obtained later from the drug dealer, 5.1 ng/mL in the bile, 0.3 ng/g in the liver, 15.0 ng/mL in the urine, and its absence in a hair sample (<0.02 ng/mg), which indicated he was not a regular user (whereas strong concentrations of MDMA and cocaine were found in the hair). Interrogated by the police after his arrest, the dealer said that he had sold the victim and for the very first time two tablets with the same “smiling sun” logo. The tablet used for analysis was from the same brand as the one ingested by the victim. The autopsy excluded other causes of death, while the histological analyses showed a large number of polynuclear eosinophils in the bronchial walls, confirming the asthmatic pathology. None of the other organs examined (larynx, liver, heart, adrenal glands, and kidneys) showed any distinctive signs, and in particular no inflammatory infiltrate. The death was the result of an asthma attack in an asthmatic person, violently decompensated following ingestion of approximately 20 mg of mCPP.     

Assessing the Risk Posed by Terrorist Groups: Identifying Motivating Factors and Threats

While terrorist organizations have been analyzed for their motivations and tactics, little has been done to develop a systematic understanding of what makes some groups more dangerous than others. Knowing what makes some groups more threatening than others, or what conditions can influence a single group to become more or less of a threat, would help governments to prioritize resources during counterterrorism efforts. Using an approach similar to Ted Robert Gurr's assignment of a risk score to identify impending minority group rebellion, this article develops and tests a set of terrorist organizational characteristics. A two-phased approach is used. First, the authors identify key characteristics that could be anticipated to drive groups to be more active or deadly. The characteristics were identified and measured for terrorist groups for 1990–1994. The authors test group characteristics against subsequent group violence intensity from 1995 to 1999. Findings indicate that some group characteristics, such as religious ideology and group size, are important to understanding a group's relative level of violence. Though the study focused on a relatively short period of time, the findings indicate that a more comprehensive study of the impact that group characteristics have on violence levels would be a worthwhile undertaking.     

Party Elites' Perceptions of Voters and Public Opinion

Given the vast amounts of research on party competition, party strategy, political communication and electoral campaigning, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the study of national party elites' perceptions of voters and public opinion. This article argues that the mindset of leading party officials, and more specifically their perceptions of voter and public opinion rationality, driving forces and knowledge, is a much‐neglected explanation for why parties adopt the electoral strategies they do. Analysed here are unique internal party documents from two Swedish parties during the period 1964 to 1991: the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. A simple analytic framework is proposed for the study of party elite perceptions of voters and public opinion. In contrast to the overwhelmingly pessimistic view of voter rationality that still prevails in contemporary research, the findings presented in this article suggest that national party elites in general have had a surprisingly positive view of voters and, in particular, public opinion. Perceptions of voters and public opinion were largely unaffected by the parties' electoral fortunes, and did not become gloomier over time.     

Co‐production as a route to employability: Lessons from services with lone parents

Policy‐makers claim to support personalized approaches to improving the employability of disadvantaged groups. Yet, in liberal welfare states, mainstream activation programmes targeting these groups often deliver standardized, low‐quality services. Such failures may be related to a governance and management regime that uses tightly defined contracting and performance targets to incentivize (mainly for‐profit) service providers to move people into any job as quickly as possible. This article draws on evidence from third sector/public sector‐led services in Scotland to discuss an alternative approach. These services co‐produced personalized support in partnership with disadvantaged service users (in this case vulnerable lone parents). We suggest that, in this case, street‐level co‐production and personalization were facilitated by co‐governance and co‐management in the design and organization of provision. We conclude by identifying lessons for future employability services.     

Rural landlessness,extended entitlements and inter‐household relations in south Asia: A Bangladesh case

This article shows how people in one part of Bangladesh rendered landless and impoverished by river bank erosion make innovative use of kinship and other ideologies legitimating reciprocity and mutual aid to re‐establish themselves rent‐free on the land of others. It thereby addresses a larger empirical issue: where are the fully landless rural poor in South Asia living, and through what means? Theoretically, it extends Drèze and Sen's analysis of entitlements and poverty to instances of inter‐household cooperative conflict and mutual aid among extremely poor people. A culturally informed, gender disaggregated analysis of those locally called uthuli because they have settled on others’ land without monetary payment demonstrates that women's ‘extended entitlements’ [Drèze and Sen, 1989:10] as daughters, sisters and mothers are often critical assets in establishing residence. Women are also key agents in the establishment and maintenance of uthuli residence and in managing the benefits stemming from it. Using this approach, we show how landless women's entitlements are pivotal in securing access to a houseplot for themselves and their families.     

A funny thing happened on the way to the mosque: promoting civil society and religious pluralism through local conflict

Understood primarily as a meta-narrative reflecting citizens' reluctance to accept migration and Islam as permanent components of their society, grass-roots protests against mosque construction also highlight a democratic paradox regarding multi-level governance: while national governments bear chief responsibility for ensuring fundamental religious freedoms, local authorization procedures affecting mosque construction (e.g. zoning, building permits) have rendered communal spaces a Ground Zero for the regulation of Islamic faith communities. While similar protests have taken place across Europe, German officials face special problems in responding to challenges by neighbourhood groups, rooted in the complicated nature of federalism, the legacy of National Socialism and a new, if misunderstood, element of ‘militant democracy’ at local levels. The Pankow-Heinersdorf case, staged on the outskirts of eastern Berlin, shows that multifaceted interventions can help contesting parties come to terms with religious differences, develop their networking and dialogue skills and actually contribute to more effective democratic participation at the local level.     

The Institutionalization of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI)

A number of observers have expressed serious concerns that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), as it expands in the Sahel, may become strong enough to be a threat to Europe and carry on the global mission of Al-Qaeda as conceived by bin Laden. This fear seems unwarranted. Using institutional analysis to study the AQMI behavioral fluctuations over the last decade, this article argues that AQMI's need to find a compromise between external and internal legitimacy has constrained its behavior. The affiliation of the Algerian terrorists with Al-Qaeda was in many ways a marriage of convenience that created a number of internal contradictions. At the cognitive level, implicit Algerian nationalism to rid the country of its corrupt regime remains at odds with pan-Islamic views shared by Al-Qaeda's leadership. At the normative level, indiscriminate suicide bombing supported by Al-Qaeda is abhorrent to many Algerian terrorists, who construe their mandate in the spirit of the Algerian war of independence where it is their duty to protect civilians. These and other contradictions prevent AQMI from developing a coherent political agenda and thus it is less likely to engage in a long-term conflict against European societies.     

THE PROCESS OF DEMILITARIZATION AND THE REVERSIBILITY OF THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The process of militarization has permeated Northern Ireland society both overtly and in more subtle and pervasive ways. Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, reductions in state military personnel and infrastructure have been made and several acts of paramilitary decommissioning of weapons carried out. However, the political culture and discourse remains combative and bifurcated as the democratic institutions and processes struggle to achieve viability. Support for the Agreement has faltered as the raised expectations of improvements in quality of life, particularly in communities worst affected by the Troubles, have not been met. Vacuums such as the rolelessness amongst former combatants and gaps in policing have contributed to internecine conflict. As in South Africa, there has been a transition from political to criminal violence in local communities. A formal process of demobilization, demilitarization and reintegration of former paramilitary actors, combined with training in political skills would resolve some of these issues and ensure the irreversibility of the peace process itself.     

预防犯罪的新思路：美国的经验

在学校和监狱系统实施犯罪预防计划具有很好的效果。学校的犯罪预防就是要实施早期干预和吸毒预防教育。在监狱中实施戒毒、就业服务和社区服务计划,可以有效地遏制累犯率。