Killing Nationalism with Liberalism? Austria–Hungary and the Serbian Constitution of 1869

Based on material from the Hungarian archives hitherto unpublished in English, this article examines the contribution Austro–Hungarian diplomacy made to the approval, by the Ottoman government, of a new constitution for its vassal-state Serbia in 1869. The episode reflects the emergence of a Hungarian influence on the Habsburg Monarchy's policy towards Russia, the Ottoman Balkans, and especially Serbia in the years immediately following the Ausgleich of 1867. Hungarian Minister-President Count Gyula Andrássy, through the new Austro–Hungarian consul in Belgrade, Benjámin Kállay, lobbied Vienna to support the new constitution. He did so in the hope that a more liberal political system in Serbia would impede the Serbian government's tendency to foment nationalist unrest within the Habsburg Monarchy and distract Belgrade from its policy of territorial expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.     

Dealigned or Still Salient? Religious-Secular Divisions in Chilean Presidential Elections

With countries like Chile facing secularisation, some research predicts religious-secular cleavages will ‘dealign’, while other research suggests these cleavages will persist so long as religious-secular divisions are reflected among presidential candidates. Using surveys of first-round voting intentions in the five most recent presidential elections in Chile, the analysis shows that religious-secular divisions in voting appear when candidates are divided clearly along religious-secular lines (and not when divisions among candidates are blurred). These findings suggest researchers need to account for the impact candidates' positions have on the appearance of religious-secular divisions before declaring that dealignment has occurred.     

Image analysis of gunshot residue on entry wounds. II--A statistical estimation of firing range.

A statistical investigation of the relationship between firing range and the amount and distribution of gunshot residue (GSR), used automated image analysis (IA) to quantify GSR deposit resulting from firings into pig skin, from distances ranging between contact and 45 cm. Overall, for a Ruger .22 semi-automatic rifle using CCI solid point, high velocity ammunition, the total area of GSR deposit on the skin sections decreased in a non-linear fashion with firing range. More specifically there were significant differences in the amount of GSR deposited from shots fired at contact compared with shots fired from distances between 2.5 and 45 cm; and between shots fired from a distance of 20 cm or less, with shots fired at a distance of 30 cm or more. In addition, GSR particles were heavily concentrated in the wound tract only for contact and close range shots at 2.5 cm, while the particle distribution was more uniform between the wound tract and the skin surfaces for shots fired from distances greater than 2.5 cm. Consequently, for future scientific investigations of gunshot fatalities, once standards have been established for the weapon and ammunition type in question, image analysis quantification of GSR deposited in and around the gunshot wound may be capable of providing a reliable, statistical basis for estimating firing range.