Priority of multiple gunshot injuries of the skull

In accordance with Puppe's rule, the analysis of skull fractures may provide evidence on the sequence in which multiple blunt injuries of the skull occurred. In cases of multiple gunshot wounds of the skull determination of the sequence in which the gunshot wounds took place is much more difficult. In some cases, however, analysis of the skull fractures here can also allow the order in which gunshot wounds occurred to be established.     

明诺布鲁克:反思与观察

新公共行政学在公共行政领域具有重要的地位，对公共行政理论与实务的发展，产生了重要而持续的影响。作为对20世纪60年代美国动荡不安的社会现状的回应，新公共行政学者们对主流行政学研究方法进行了质疑与批判，并对当时的主流价值提出抗衡性观点。新公共行政学的理论意涵经由三次明诺布鲁克会议（1968年、1988年和2008年）而延续，尽管三次会议的背景与主题各不相同。然而，在其发展过程中，新公共行政的影响力仍然无法扩展至整个学科领域。     

Transnational Competence in an Emergent Epoch

The article elaborates a framework for understanding the relevance of transnational competence to the dynamics that mark the transformations of our time. Nongovernmental stakeholders interacting through dense civil-society networks that permeate domestic-foreign frontiers bear increasing responsibility for the course of events. Based on linked interests, interorganizational knowledge generation and aggregation, partnerships, and interpersonal/intercultural interactions, they are deeply involved in addressing the many challenges posed by an ever more interdependent world. Transnational competence lubricates transterritorial networks and projects. Here, the authors extend earlier work that posited a worldwide skill revolution both by developing explicit dimensions of transnational competence and by introducing a behavioral component. The new framework provides analytical groundwork for explaining why some people, groups, and networks are more effective than others in forging meaningful transnational solidarities, negotiating and benefiting from the intensifying experience of globalization, and waging successful transnational campaigns. The article also probes how the spread of transnational competence is being facilitated by global migration and transmigration trends. The final section explores the governance implications of expanding transnational competency for the emergent epoch.     

The Pegida Movement and German Political Culture: Is Right‐Wing Populism Here to Stay?

This article outlines the rise and fall of the ‘Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West’ (Pegida), a right‐wing populist street movement that originated in the city of Dresden in October 2014 and peaked in January 2015. The Pegida movement combined fear of ‘Islamisation’ with general criticism of Germany's political class and the mainstream media. This ambivalent and largely undefined political profile proved its strength in mobilising a significant minority of right‐wing citizens in the local context of Dresden and the federal state of Saxony, but generally failed to spill over to other parts of Germany. The social profile of the Pegida movement, which included ‘ordinary citizens’ with centre‐right to far‐right attitudes, points to significant overlap between general disenchantment of the political centre ground in Germany with the political system, as outlined in recent sociological research, and the ability of a largely leaderless populism to mobilise in the streets.     

Crisis Accountability: Ministerial Resignations in Sweden

Accountability processes after crisis events sometimes entail harsh criticism from public and political players alike, forcing cabinet ministers to be on top of the political game and sometimes even resign. However, harsh accountability processes are just as likely to leave ministers undamaged. This article combines two existing theories that propose different factors to account for variation in outcomes: ministerial resignations as a consequence of cabinet formation and individual positions; or resignations as a result of blame management strategies involving individual actors within the cabinet and beyond. Ten crisis episodes in Sweden are analysed and compared. The findings suggest that individual political power bases and experience matter to how well blame management strategies can be employed, while the composition of the government gives structural constraints. The dynamic interplay and framing battle between incumbent decision makers, and external arenas and the skill with which individual ministers engage and frame responsibility, play a key role in determining their post‐crisis careers.     

Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations

Abstract

Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's ‘pacifist’ and ‘antimilitarist’ identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, ‘Japan’ emerges and changes through processes of differentiation vis-à-vis ‘Others’. Neither ‘domestic’ nor ‘material’ factors can exist outside of such identity constructions. We argue that the second, relational, approach is more theoretically sound, but begs three questions. First, how can different identity constructions in relation to numerous Others be synthesised and understood comprehensively? Second, how can continuity and change be handled in the same relational framework? Third, what is the point of analysing identity in relational terms? This article addresses the first two questions by introducing an analytical framework consisting of three mutually interacting layers of identity construction. Based on the articles in this special issue, we argue that identity entrepreneurs and emotions are particularly likely to contribute to change within this model. We address the third question by stressing common ground with the first approach: identity enables and constrains behaviour. In the case of Japan, changes in identity construction highlighted by the articles in this special issue forebode a political agenda centred on strengthening Japan militarily.     

The North Korean abduction issue: emotions,securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’

Abstract

After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for which Imperial Japan was responsible in the 20th century. Why has there been such strong emphasis on an issue that could be disregarded as comparatively ‘less important’? This article understands the ascendency of the abduction issue as the epitome of an identity shift under way in Japan – from the identity of a curiously ‘peaceful’ and inherently ‘abnormal’ state, to that of a more ‘normal’ one. The differentiation of North Korea as ‘abnormal’ emphasises Japan's own (claim to) ‘normality’. Indeed, by incarnating the perils of Japan's own ‘pacifist’ ‘abnormality’, which has been so central to the collective sense of Japanese ‘Self’ in the post-war period, the abduction issue has become a very emotional argument for Japan's ‘normalisation’ in security and defence terms. The transformation from ‘abnormal’ to ‘normal’ is further enabled by Japan trading places with North Korea in the discourse, so that Japan is defined as ‘victim’ (rather than former aggressor) and North Korea as ‘aggressor’ (rather than former victim). What is at stake here is the question whether Japan is ‘normalising’ or ‘remilitarising’, and the role of the abduction issue discourse in enabling such foreign and security policy change.