Omnivorous Cultural Policy: The Case of Concerts Norway

This article uses the case of Concerts Norway to analyze how the agency of esthetics is changing and expanding within a cultural policy institution. Concerts Norway has provided concerts to all age groups and all parts of the country for nearly fifty?years. The ambition of the institution has been to ensure that all Norwegian citizens have had access to quality music. The article describes how these cultural policy ambitions entail a general esthetic agency, and how different kinds of musical genres have been given agency through the work of the institution, thereby representing a seemingly omnipotent and increasingly omnivorous cultural policy.     

Moving Beyond Command-and-Control: Reflexivity in the Regulation of Occupational Safety and Health and the Environment

Direct or "command-and-control" regulation has had limited success in dealing with occupational health and safety and with environmental regulation. This lack of success has led policymakers to experiment with self-regulation as an alternative means of achieving the goals of social regulation. The economic subsystem fails to acknowledge its social identity and, therefore, appears to be blind to its negative performance regarding the environment and the workplace. The authors of this paper argue that moving beyond command-and-control can be feasible and desirable, at least to a certain extent, but that pitfalls are omnipresent. "Regulatory dilemmas" need to be solved, sound empirical studies need to be conducted, and a guiding theory needs to be drafted. To achieve these goals, the authors suggest use of the key concept of "reflexivity," which refers to the economic organization's relationship with itself. The practical usefulness of this theoretical concept is explored against the background of regulatory practice in the areas of occupational safety and health and the environment. It is concluded that a mode of reflexive administrative law requires a "negotiating government," which adopts a mixture of strategies and learns to cope with issues like third-party interests, access to information, and enforcement.     

How Self-Relevant is Fair Treatment? Social Self-Esteem Moderates Interactional Justice Effects

An organizational field study examined the extent to which fair treatment influences organizational commitment was a function of employees levels of social self-esteem. Following recent research indicating that self-esteem acts as a moderator of procedural fairness effects, we suggested that to examine the relational assumption that self and procedures are related, one should assess the social dimension of self-esteem. In line with predictions, the results indeed showed that fair treatment (assessed by an interactional justice scale) positively influences affective commitment, but only when employees have low social self-esteem. These findings are discussed in light of research on relational models of justice and sociometer theory.     

Volume Determination of Fresh and Dried Bloodstains by Means of Optical Coherence Tomography

The volume of bloodstains found on crime scenes may help forensic investigators reconstruct the location and kinematics of bloodletting events, as stain size, volume, and impact velocity are related. Optical coherence tomography was used as a method to determine the volume and volume ratio of dried and fresh bloodstains on both glass and irregular surfaces or deposited with an impact velocity. The volume of blood drops deposited on smooth glass surfaces was measured within a deviation of 2%. This deviation increased for droplets on irregular surfaces or deposited with an impact velocity. The volume ratio of dried and fresh bloodstains was equal to 19–28% depending on the individual donor and on the use of an anticoagulant. Optical coherence tomography is a good method to determine the volume of fresh and dried bloodstains in laboratory conditions and allows accurate determination of the dry/fresh ratio.     

Remote spectroscopic identification of bloodstains

Blood detection and identification at crime scenes are crucial for harvesting forensic evidence. Unfortunately, most tests for the identification of blood are destructive and time consuming. We present a fast and nondestructive identification test for blood, using noncontact reflectance spectroscopy. We fitted reflectance spectra of 40 bloodstains and 35 nonbloodstains deposited on white cotton with spectroscopic features of the main compounds of blood. Each bloodstain was measured 30 times to account for aging effects. The outcome of the blood measurements was compared with the reflectance of blood-mimicking stains and various body fluids. We found that discrimination between blood and nonblood deposited on white cotton is possible with a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 98%. In conclusion, a goodness of fit between the sample's reflectance and the blood component fit may allow identification of blood at crime scenes by remote spectroscopy.     

Electoral rules and minority representation in Romania

This paper explores the effects that different institutional mechanisms for legislative representation have on ethnic diversity in the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament. It uses an original data set to examine representational outcomes generated by a combination of proportional representation and reserved seats provisions. The findings highlight the benefits that Romania's choice of electoral rules generated for smaller minority communities and limitations that these rules impose on the nature and extent of legislative representation of large minority groups. The paper provides evidence for qualifying the scholarly support in favour of proportional representation. It also draws attention to potential trade-offs between communal representation and ethnic inclusiveness of main political parties that the use of special mechanisms for minority representation might encourage.     

Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte, Politisches System der Bundesrepublik, Politische Soziologie, Vergleichende Politikforschung, Europäische Union, Internationale Politik, Historische Politikforschung

Inhaltsübersicht   (RezensentInnen in Klammern) Literaturbericht    J?rg Faust / Stefan Leiderer: Zur Effektivit?t und politischen ?konomie der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte    Bluhm, Harald, und Jürgen Gebhardt: Politische Ideengeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert. Konzepte und Kritik (Philipp H?lzing) • Dryzek, John S., Bonnie Honig und Anne Phillips (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (Johannes Schmidt) • Ke?ler, Mario: Ossip K. Flechtheim. Politischer Wissenschaftler und Zukunftsdenker (1909–1998) (Wilhelm Bleek) • Priester, Karin: Populismus. Historische und aktuelle Erscheinungsformen (Florian Hartleb) • S?llner, Alfons: Fluchtpunkte. Studien zur politischen Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Michael Becker) • Williams, Bernard: In the Beginning Was the Deed. Realism and Moralism in Political Argument (Carsten Quesel) • Doppelrezension: Henning, Christoph: Philosophie nach Marx. 100 Jahre Marxrezeption und die normative Sozialphilosophie der Gegenwart in der Kritik; Henning, Christoph (Hg.): Marxglossar (Felix Heidenreich) • Doppelrezension: Mouffe, Chantal: über das Politische. Wider die kosmopolitische Illusion; Nonhoff, Martin: Politischer Diskurs und Hegemonie. Das Projekt "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (André Brodocz) Politisches System der Bundesrepublik    Van Ooyen, Robert Chr., und Martin H. M?llers (Hg.): Das Bundesverfassungsgericht im politischen System (Hubert Woltering) Politische Soziologie    Dolata, Ulrich, und Raymund Werle (Hg.): Gesellschaft und die Macht der Technik. Sozio?konomischer und institutioneller Wandel durch Technisierung (Georg Simonis) Vergleichende Politikforschung    Castles, Francis G. (ed.): The Disappearing State? Retrenchment realities in an age of globalization (Marius R. Busemeyer) • Clasen, Jochen, und Nico A. Siegel (eds.): Investigating Welfare State Change: The 'Dependent Variable Problem' in Comparative Analysis (Marius R. Busemeyer) Europ?ische Union    Huget, Holger: Demokratisierung der EU. Normative Demokratietheorie und Governance-Praxis im europ?ischen Mehrebenensystem (Andreas Wimmel) Internationale Politik    Eder, Franz, Gerhard Mangott und Martin Senn (eds.): Transatlantic Discord. Combating Terrorism and Proliferation, Preventing Crises (Alexander Siedschlag) • Marx, Johannes: Vielfalt oder Einheit der Theorien in den Internationalen Beziehungen. Eine systematische Rekonstruktion, Integration und Bewertung (Ralf J. Leiteritz) • Schmidt, Siegmar, Gunter Hellmann und Reinhard Wolf (Hg.): Handbuch zur Deutschen Au?enpolitik (Helga Haftendorn) • Wolter, Detlev: A United Nations for the 21st Century: From Reaction to Prevention. Towards an Effective and Efficient International Regime for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (Andreas Heinemann-Grüder) • Young, Brigitte (Hg.): Die Politische ?konomie des Dienstleistungsabkommens (GATS). Gender in EU und China (Eva Hartmann) Historische Politikforschung    Kaelble, Hartmut: Sozialgeschichte Europas 1945 bis zur Gegenwart (Siegfried Weichlein) • Doppelrezension: Andres, Jan: "Auf Poesie ist die Sicherheit der Throne gegründet". Huldigungsrituale und Gelegenheitslyrik im 19. Jahrhundert; Schwengelbeck, Matthias: Die Politik des Zeremoniells. Huldigungsfeiern im langen 19. Jahrhundert (Rainer Schmidt)