Why Anticorruption Reforms Fail—Systemic Corruption as a Collective Action Problem

With an increased awareness of the detrimental effects of corruption on development, strategies to fight it are now a top priority in policy circles. Yet, in countries ridden with systemic corruption, few successes have resulted from the investment. On the basis of an interview study conducted in Kenya and Uganda—two arguably typically thoroughly corrupt countries—we argue that part of an explanation to why anticorruption reforms in countries plagued by widespread corruption fail is that they are based on a theoretical mischaracterization of the problem of systemic corruption. More specifically, the analysis reveals that while contemporary anticorruption reforms are based on a conceptualization of corruption as a principal–agent problem, in thoroughly corrupt settings, corruption rather resembles a collective action problem. This, in turn, leads to a breakdown of any anticorruption reform that builds on the principal–agent framework, taking the existence of noncorruptible so‐called principals for granted.     

Quantitative MRI in Isotropic Spatial Resolution for Forensic Soft Tissue Documentation. Why and How?*

Abstract: A quantification of T1, T2, and PD in high isotropic resolution was performed on corpses. Isotropic and quantified postmortem magnetic resonance (IQpmMR) enables sophisticated 3D postprocessing, such as reformatting and volume rendering. The body tissues can be characterized by the combination of these three values. The values of T1, T2, and PD were given as coordinates in a T1–T2–PD space where similar tissue voxels formed clusters. Implementing in a volume rendering software enabled color encoding of specific tissues and pathologies in 3D models of the corpse similar to computed tomography, but with distinctively more powerful soft tissue discrimination. From IQpmMR data, any image plane at any contrast weighting may be calculated or 3D color‐encoded volume rendering may be carried out. The introduced approach will enable future computer‐aided diagnosis that, e.g., checks corpses for a hemorrhage distribution based on the knowledge of its T1–T2–PD vector behavior in a high spatial resolution.     

Implementation of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management in Cambodia: effects of regime design

Over the past 20 years, a cluster of international environmental agreements has developed aiming at reducing the risks associated with production and use of chemicals. The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is the newest addition to this cluster and serves to guide efforts to meet the 2020 goal to use and produce chemicals in a way that minimizes significant adverse effects on human health and the environment. SAICM differs from other chemical and waste agreements on several key points: It is a policy framework that is legally non-binding; it comprises a broad scope of activities; and it allows for active participation of non-governmental stakeholders. A central aim of SAICM is to decrease the gap between developed and developing countries in terms of capacities to manage chemicals safely. This article examines the early implementation of SAICM, based on a national-level case study in Cambodia and interviews with SAICM stakeholders. The results show that SAICM has generated a clear momentum in Cambodia and has led to several implementation projects. Based on the interviews, the overall conclusion is that design features of the SAICM—its broad scope, multi-stakeholder participation and voluntary status—are appropriate for the purpose of improving chemicals management in a developing country like Cambodia. However, these features also bring about difficulties in measuring progress on implementation. The future development of SAICM therefore needs to balance the benefits of its key design features with the need to more effectively and precisely monitor progress toward the 2020 goal.     

Environmental policy integration and bilateral development assistance: challenges and opportunities with an evolving governance framework

The aim of this article is to examine progress so far, as well as current challenges and opportunities for EPI in bilateral official development assistance (ODA). A short review of progress shows that effectiveness has so far been limited. Although there has been intense donor activity in relation to stating commitment to the EPI principle and developing a wide range of processes, institutions, and tools, a large part of ODA still is likely to have directly harmful impacts on the environment. The implications for EPI of the emerging governance framework for ODA, namely, the principles stipulated in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, are then discussed. Both challenges and opportunities are presented, and these are empirically illustrated with a case study of the integration of climate change adaptation in ODA. Finally, this article proposes that at least four special conditions apply to EPI in the bilateral ODA context as compared with domestic EPI: two or more jurisdictions, electorates, and governments are involved; a negotiation context characterized by sovereign states but with a potential power asymmetry; potential conflicts of interest and equity concerns in cases where environmental objectives refer to global environmental problems primarily caused by developed countries; and a policy-making process characterized by a comparatively wide span of both strategic and operational decisions, where EPI can take on very different meanings. The initial exploration presented in this article suggests that these conditions hold, and that, as a consequence, EPI arguably involves more ‘high-politics’ decisions and questions than in a domestic policy context.     

Special issue: Exploring global and transnational governance of climate change adaptation

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Reading level and the prevalence of a dyslexic profile among patients in a forensic psychiatric clinic

This study aims to investigate Swedish language reading ability of forensic patients and the number of them that present a dyslexia profile. Another aim is to compare the reading level in different subtypes of psychiatric diagnoses. Assessments were made of 185 patients by a battery of reading tests. They were also interviewed about their schooling and their self-estimated reading and writing ability. The results show that the patients’ reading level is below average for grade six children in Swedish compulsory school, and that 16 per cent show a dyslexic profile. Male patients with an immigrant background and a diagnosis of psychosis and anxiety disorders perform the lowest when measuring literacy skills. This proportionately low reading ability can cause difficulties in understanding texts as presented in broadsheet newspapers, civic information and patient records, and might even jeopardize the understanding of adult spoken language.     

Did the Egalitarian Reforms of the Swedish Educational System Equalise Levels of Democratic Citizenship?

In the mid‐1990s an extensive reform of the Swedish educational system was initiated in order to create a ‘school for everyone’ intended to function like a ‘social equaliser’. The new unified gymnasium initiated longer educational programmes with an extended curriculum of social science courses. This article examines whether the well documented gap in levels of democratic citizenship indicators between students in theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes persisted after this massive reform. Given the vast amount of empirical research that has shown that education promotes democratic citizenship, the reform could be expected to result in a decreased civic gap. However, contrary to the conventional wisdom in research on the impact of education, little evidence is found linking the initiation of longer educational programmes with more social science courses to an increase in the levels of the examined dimensions of democratic citizenship. The egalitarian reform of the Swedish gymnasium, which provided more civic education, did not produce hypothesised positive effects on any of the dimensions under study (i.e., political participation, political knowledge and political attentiveness). Rather, results support the pre‐adult socialisation models since the gap between citizens from theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes remained after the unification of the educational system.     

Assessing democracy from below: A framework and indonesian pilot study

The emerging crisis of both elitist and popular strategies of democratization calls for assessments of the problems and options in such a way that different arguments may be put to the test while facilitating debate on improved agendas. This article first discusses the development of a framework for such assessments in the context of the most populous of the ‘third wave democracies’, Indonesia. The best audit of institutional performance, that of Beetham, is developed further by adding the scope of the institutions and the will and capacity of the local actors to improve and use them. This is followed by a presentation of the salient results from a thus designed survey comprising 330 questions to about 800 experienced democracy workers in all 32 provinces. Indonesia's actually existing democracy is surprisingly liberal and accepted as ‘the only game in town’. It suffers, however, from defunct instruments to really facilitate political equality and popular control of public affairs. This is due to monopolization of most rights and institutions by the establishment and the political marginalization of the democratic agents of change. The problems, however, are not all ‘structurally inevitable’. The article concludes by specifying the potential for improvements.     

The Sutherland tradition in criminology: a bibliometric story

In this article, we provide an overview of the body of knowledge associated with the Sutherland tradition in criminology. We track Sutherland’s impact through a bibliometric analysis of papers citing any of Sutherland’s works and by focusing on publications that are co-cited with Sutherland. This approach enables us to visualize Sutherland’s role in relation to the forerunners and founding fathers of criminology during his own active period, to his followers, and to contemporary scholars. The dataset consisted of 2596 genuine articles that cite at least one of Sutherland’s publications, in which he appears as first author in Web of Science ^TM published between 1955 and 2010. The results show a clear impact of the Sutherland tradition more or less throughout the twentieth century, peaking during the 1930s and 1940s and decreasing in the 1990s, when the Sutherland tradition was more powerfully challenged, primarily by the life-course tradition.