Beyond COVID-19: Five commentaries on reimagining governance for future crises and resilience

Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This second suite of commentaries considers the challenges confronting governments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the decades to come with an increasingly broad lens: the need to understand and rethink the architecture of the state given recent and future challenges awaiting governments; the need to rethink government-civil society relations and policies to deliver services for increasingly diverse citizens and communities; the need for new repertoires and sensibilities on the part of governments for recognizing, anticipating, and engaging on governance risks despite imperfect expert knowledge and public skepticism; how the COVID-19 crisis has caused us to reconceive international and sub-national borders where new “borders” are being drawn; and the need to anticipate a steady stream of crises similar to the COVID-19 pandemic arising from climate change and related challenges, and develop new national and international governance strategies for fostering population and community resilience.     

A Cross-Cultural Assessment of Posttrauma Reactions Among Malaysian and US Women Reporting Partner Abuse

Information on partner abuse in women from non-Western cultures and resulting psychological morbidity are scant. The present study examined these issues among women who experienced partner violence and sought refuge at a domestic violence shelter in Malaysia. These women completed a semi-structured interview and standardized measures to assess posttrauma morbidity. Responses by Malaysian shelter residents were compared with a sample of US women who also reported partner violence. The majority of women in both samples reported severe levels of distress and met criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These findings suggest that psychological problems that women face after partner abuse may be similar in many respects, despite political, geographical, or cultural differences.     

From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and Lawyers in Brazil's Illiberal Turn (2014–2018)

Law and lawyers tend to be seen as either preferential victims of or key counterforces to rising illiberalism. Brazil offers a good testbed for these claims. Brazilian democracy has deteriorated considerably, as epitomized by the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. Yet, since 2014, law and lawyers have become ever more central to Brazil's field of state power. As the anti-corruption initiative Car Wash (Lava Jato) gained momentum, Brazilian judges and prosecutors were celebrated, locally and globally, as champions of transparency, accountability, and ‘the rule of law’. Following a closer look at Car Wash, this article questions such idealization of law and lawyers. Drawing on research on press interviews and statements by Car Wash legal officers, I find that, throughout the case, they produced a ‘political grammar’ that is closer to illiberalism than many would predict. Based on recent developments in the sociology of fields, I argue that the production of these grammars yields societal effects that deserve scholarly and civic attention.     

Case report: Identification of skeletal remains using short-amplicon marker analysis of severely degraded DNA extracted from a decomposed and charred femur

Applying two extraction protocols to isolate DNA from a charred femur recovered after a major forest fire, a range of established and recently developed forensic marker sets that included mini-STRs and SNPs were used to type the sample and confirm identity by comparison to a claimed daughter of the deceased. Identification of the remains suggested that the individual had been dead for 10 years and the DNA was therefore likely to be severely degraded from the combined effects of decomposition and exposure to very high temperatures. We used new marker sets specifically developed to analyze degraded DNA comprising both reduced-length amplicon STR sets and autosomal SNP multiplexes, giving an opportunity to assess the ability of each approach to successfully type highly degraded material from a challenging case. The results also suggest a modified ancient DNA extraction procedure offers improved typing success from degraded skeletal material.