Principal–Agent Dynamics and Electoral Manipulation: Local Risks,Patronage and Tactical Variation in Russian Elections, 2003–2012

Abstract

Why are some elections manipulated more severely than others, and why do the techniques used to manipulate them vary over time and space? This article addresses these related questions by showing that patronage resources—not incumbent popularity—make manipulation appealing to frontline agents, while local political conditions can make manipulation personally risky for them. Agents can mitigate these risks by adopting more dispersed forms of manipulation like vote-buying, rather than more centralised falsification. These hypotheses are tested using forensic analysis of electoral data from more than 90,000 precincts per election across Russia’s 83 regions, from 2003 to 2012.     

Evaluating Bioinformatic Pipeline Performance for Forensic Microbiome Analysis*,†,‡

Microbial communities have potential evidential utility for forensic applications. However, bioinformatic analysis of high-throughput sequencing data varies widely among laboratories. These differences can potentially affect microbial community composition and downstream analyses. To illustrate the importance of standardizing methodology, we compared analyses of postmortem microbiome samples using several bioinformatic pipelines, varying minimum library size or minimum number of sequences per sample, and sample size. Using the same input sequence data, we found that three open-source bioinformatic pipelines, MG-RAST, mothur, and QIIME2, had significant differences in relative abundance, alpha-diversity, and beta-diversity, despite the same input data. Increasing minimum library size and sample size increased the number of low-abundant and infrequent taxa detected. Our results show that bioinformatic pipeline and parameter choice affect results in important ways. Given the growing potential application of forensic microbiology to the criminal justice system, continued research on standardizing computational methodology will be important for downstream applications.     

DNA Recovery From Tape-Lifting Kits: Methodology and Practice

In the case of suspicious deaths, the technique of 1:1 taping is often used in Belgium. It consists of affixing a large number of adhesive tapes to the body of the victim. It is conventionally aimed at obtaining microtraces (e.g., fibers, hair) and is usually not used for DNA analysis. However, in some cases, DNA analysis of certain areas of interest identified on the 1:1 taping material can offer a last resort solution. The four-step method that is described in this article involves the selection of areas of interest on the body (Step 1), the selection of the corresponding tapes (Step 2), the decontamination of the tapes (Step 3), the selection of areas of interest on the tapes, for DNA sampling (Step 4). The method is illustrated by its successful application in four murder cases. In each case, DNA profiles of good quality could be identified, including profiles of persons different from the victim.     

Sample Mining and Data Mining: Combined Real-Time and Retrospective Approaches for the Identification of Emerging Novel Psychoactive Substances

Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are synthetic drugs that pose serious public health and safety concerns. A multitude of NPS have been identified in the United States, often implicated in forensic investigations. The most common and effective manner for identifying NPS is by use of mass spectrometry and the true utility lies within nontargeted acquisition techniques. During this study, a liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) assay was developed, validated, and implemented for forensic toxicology testing. A SCIEX TripleTOF™ 5600 + with SWATH^® acquisition was used. Resulting data were compared against an extensive library database containing more than 800 compounds. The LC-QTOF-MS assay was applied to the reanalysis of biological sample extracts to discover emergent NPS. More than 3,000 sample extracts were analyzed, and more than 20 emerging NPS were detected for the first time. Among these were isopropyl-U-47700, 3,4-methylenedioxy-U-47700, fluorofuranylfentanyl, N-methyl norfentanyl, 2F-deschloroketamine, 3,4-methylenedioxy-alpha-PHP, eutylone, and N-ethyl hexedrone.     

Marijuana medicalization and motor vehicle fatalities: a synthetic control group approach

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This paper reports a quasi-experimental evaluation of California’s 1996 medical marijuana law (MML), known as Proposition 215, on statewide motor vehicle...     

The contribution of the right to information laws in Europe to local government transparency on sustainability

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of the right to information laws on sustainability transparency in European local governments. This goal is novel, in that previous studies have examined the effects of various factors on the dissemination of government information (demographic, socioeconomic, political and financial) but not the contribution of legal factors to online transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our research question is this: Do information laws contribute to transparency on sustainability? Using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and a statistical regression analysis, we studied the websites of 106 local governments in ten European countries. The results obtained show that when transparency laws clearly stipulate the rules applicable and the procedures established for appeals, exceptions, refusals and requests, this can favour transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our findings advance understanding of this field and reinforce the basis for legal reforms to enhance sustainability transparency.

     

Democracy's Pin Factory: Issue Specialization,the Division of Cognitive Labor,and Epistemic Performance

This article describes how issue specialization through deliberative institutions called “issue publics” can improve the quality of democratic decision making. Issue specialization improves decisions by instantiating a cognitive division of labor among the mass public, which creates efficiencies in decision making and grants large groups of average citizens a scalable advantage over small groups of even the smartest and most capable individuals. Issue specialization further improves decisions by capturing issue-specific information, concentrating it within the specialized deliberative enclaves of issue publics, and refining citizens’ issue preferences. These advantages are brought to bear in wider democratic politics and policy through information shortcuts and through the specialized electoral incentives of representatives. The article responds to concerns about political ignorance, polarization/partisanship, rent seeking, and socioeconomic bias and argues that issue specialization can provide a valuable brake to polarization yet needs institutional supplementation to engage marginalized citizens and combat bias.     

How the West was Won: A Deconstruction of Politicised Colonial Engineering

History has taught us that the Global North's attempts to ‘civilise' the rest of the world's population, both now and in colonial times, have been fraught with difficulty. This paper argues that this difficulty is mainly owing to the political standpoint and positioning of our perceived engineering and technical superiority. A failure to recognise this viewpoint and to change the way in which we work together—in a global sense—to solve issues such as climate change, threatens our ability to survive as a species. Political standpoints on such issues still assume a superiority of governments in the Global North. This paper retraces colonial engineering projects, mainly directed from the UK, that failed to consider the development of other populations in the world, and their needs. It is also posited that our exploitation in the Global North, which assumes historical superiority as a basic premise, will fail in tackling major issues. Change is needed through a decolonisation of engineering projects, and western engineering curricula that are used to train future professionals. Evidence of the impact of decolonisation on the engineering discipline itself is scarce, but nevertheless, a response is needed to ensure that a more inclusive curriculum and narrative is developed.     

Populists,Producers and the Politics of Rentiership

Populism studies finds itself in a crisis of originality. While some scholars have signalled over-usage, others have argued that by contextualising populism, we are able to specify our own ‘populist moment’ and remedy the term’s slipperiness. This article opts for the latter tactic through a comparison of two aspects of contemporary populism with late nineteenth century precedents. In the late nineteenth century, the American People’s Party pioneered a mode of mass politics anchored in agrarian and industrial labour which launched the term ‘populism’ in Western discourse. Contemporary populists show rhetorical and political overlap with this template, but also come up against two new constraints: (1) a stagnant capitalism increasingly centred on ‘rentiership’; and (2) a disorganised civil society. These factors render today’s populism resistant to analogy but also conceptually more specific, sharpening the contours of our populist moment.