A Duty‐Free Europe? What's Wrong with Kochenov's Account of EU Citizenship Rights

This article disputes the recent argument of Dimitry Kochenov advocating an ‘EU Citizenship without Duties’. His thesis rests on an untenable form of philosophical anarchism that overlooks the role played by our political obligations to state structures in securing rights. At best, his argument suggests a ‘thin’ form of EU citizenship that allows European citizens to choose which of the Member States they wish to become morally obliged to. A ‘thicker’ form of EU level citizenship could only arise by creating civic obligations at the EU level, the position he rejects. To the extent certain Court of Justice judgments in this area reflect parallel reasoning to Kochenov's, they too suffer from a similar failure to appreciate the role of civic duties to particular Member States (or, eventually, the EU) in creating and securing the status of citizens as equal rights bearers.     

Discourse of decency: white nationalists,white antiracists,and the criminality of color

Contemporary research on white racial attitudes on race and crime reflect a grouping of opinions on a traditional liberal-conservative scale. These two groupings reflect what sociologists and political scientists call ‘issue constraint’ or a ‘clustering’ of ideas into a specific ideological worldview. Many now argue this gulf is growing; a white ‘culture war’ that many interpret as evidence of the increasing fracturing and political bifurcation of white racial identities over ‘hot button’ topics like race and crime. While a substantial literature on race and crime finds white racial attitudes to vary by educational level and political orientation, we know less about shared understandings of crime and race in relation to the processes of white racial identity formation. Rather than view attitudinal statements on race and crime as accurate reflections of essential different and static white racial political positions or ideological orientations, additional scholarship can examine discourse on crime and race as constitutive of the white identities that wield them. Drawing from an ethnographic study with conservative white nationalists and liberal white antiracists, this paper addresses the following question: what is the relationship between discourse on crime and race and the ongoing process of white racial identity formation?     

Is delusional ideation a critical link in the nexus between personality disorder and violent offending?

Evidence suggests that consideration of personality disorder (PD) severity, incorporating both externalising and internalising features of PD, might help to clarify the PD – violence relationship; moreover, that separate developmental pathways might link externalising and internalising personality pathology with criminal violence. This study of 96 forensic patients with confirmed PD and a history of violent offending addressed the question of whether delusional ideation, measured by the Peters Delusions Inventory, might play a significant role in the link between severe PD and criminal violence. Severe PD, defined by summing scores across DSM-IV PD criteria, was significantly associated with delusional thinking, with violence, and with high levels of both externalising and internalising personality features. Delusional thinking was associated with violence via internalising but not externalising PD features, suggesting that the link between severe PD and violence may be partly mediated by delusional thinking.     

Against Global Parliament

Experimentation is often thought to be a key quality of any legitimate democratic system. Employing global parliamentary proposals as a heuristic, this article suggests that top‐down models for global democratization – proffered by liberal cosmopolitans and world government scholars – may create path‐dependencies which foreclose options for experimenting with alternative institutional designs in the future. Drawing upon historical institutionalism, the structure, sequence, and setting of top‐down proposals are outlined to show how experimentation with other forms of democracy may be constrained in problematic ways. Following this assessment, the article suggests that striving for democratic values under a pluralist arrangement of global governance may facilitate incremental institutional development and promote experimentation over time.     

Rebel Behavior in the Context of Interstate Competition: Exploring Day-to-Day Patterns of Political Violence in Africa

This study develops a day-to-day theory of political violence that predicts that rebels respond strategically to the onset of interstate conflict that is directly related to a civil war. Government-initiated interstate conflict is theorized to incentivize rebels to signal their resolve, willingness to bear costs, and vulnerability of government forces. In addition, this form of interstate conflict is predicted to decrease violence against civilian populations, as it makes it more likely that rebels will need to rely on civilians for resources in the future. This is contrary to interstate conflict initiated by an external state, as this signal of third-party support makes civilian support more dispensable from the perspective of a rebel movement. Using a country-day data set constructed from event data, evidence is presented that is consistent with this theoretical logic. Interstate conflict, therefore, is shown to play a significant role in explaining the variation of violent events that occur on a day-to-day basis during a civil conflict.     

Fatal Fentanyl Patch Misuse in a Hospitalized Patient with a Postmortem Increase in Fentanyl Blood Concentration

Opioid‐related mortality happens, even in healthcare settings. We describe serial postmortem fentanyl blood concentrations in a hospital inpatient who fatally abused transdermal fentanyl. This is a single‐patient case report. A 42‐year‐old man with lymphoma was started on transdermal fentanyl therapy while hospitalized for chronic abdominal pain. The patient was last seen awake 1.3 h prior to being found apneic and cyanotic. During the resuscitation attempt, a small square‐shaped film was removed from the patient's oropharynx. Femoral blood was collected 0.5 and 2 h postmortem, and the measured fentanyl concentration increased from 1.6 to 14 ng/mL. Study limitations include potential laboratory or collection errors and missing data. (i) Providers must be vigilant for signs of fentanyl patch abuse. (ii) Postmortem blood concentrations are not static postmortem, likely secondary to decreasing pH, increased aqueous solubility, and tissue redistribution, and are therefore unlikely to accurately represent antemortem blood concentrations.     

Between Accommodation and Contestation: The Political Evolution of Basque and Catalan Nationalism

The recent emphasis placed by several mainstream nationalist parties in Europe on sovereignty objectives invites analysis of the drivers behind this phenomenon. Their evolution is characterized by a complex set of dynamics that influences their options when faced with strategic decisions over participation in an existing state and/or challenging it by pressing for statehood. Spain constitutes a major laboratory for studying such dynamics owing to a diverse range of nationally- oriented parties. The experiences of the Basque Country and Catalonia show the continued relevance of center-periphery cleavages, especially when aggravated by European and global pressures and constraints, but party positioning between accommodation and sovereignty politics is influenced too by changing relationships between Basque and Catalan nationalist elites and civil societies and between mainstream nationalist parties and their direct competitors within party systems.