Social capital in Scottish and Danish neighbourhoods: paradoxes of a police–community nexus at the front line

Community-oriented social capital strategies and punitive-oriented policing approaches conflict. Establishing local networking initiatives with community-oriented policing at the centre lends itself to an assets-based policing approach, based on honouring, mobilizing and extending the assets of community members. Scholars argue about the need for comparative research on convergences and divergencies across subcultures on the streets and communities. Based on qualitative data gathered from working class communities in Scotland and Denmark in 2014, the article draws inspiration from community-generated theory of social capital to explore the micro-sociology of experiences and understandings about community–police integration policy initiatives. We use this perspective to argue that the building of positive inter-generational and police–community relationships is the result of social exchanges and officers’ use of what we call ‘constructive investment strategies’. Ironically, our insights from Scotland to Denmark also suggest what appear as positive achievements of community policing may instead intensify residents’ negative perceptions of police officers and organizations. In this way, the article illuminates the tangled and conflicted nature of these embedded symbolic interactions, social capital formations and the latter’s form as a potential positional and ‘tribal’ commodity.     

Mediated Agency,Blame Avoidance and Institutional Responsibility: Government Communication in a Personalised Media Landscape

This article explores how personalisation, blame avoidance and institutional constraints collide in contemporary government communication practices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Norwegian ministry, it analyses how a central government agency manages the media during critical news campaigns featuring individuals suffering from inadequate public health services. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the particular limits and aims of government communication, the article combines perspectives from public agency studies with media research on personalisation. It finds that the need to be visible and demonstrate agency in the media drive personalisation strategies towards a strong focus on government leaders, while simplifying the representation of complex government organisation and processes. At the same time, institutional constraints and the formal delegation of responsibility limit the communication repertoire available for public agencies when critical human interest stories dominate in the media. This results in a standard type of unconvincing media performance, where incumbents appear to evade direct personal responsibility. The case study provides new knowledge on dilemmas, negotiations and strategies behind government communication, illuminating how competing interests play out in a rapidly changing media landscape.     

Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.     

The Danish ‘Competition State’: Still Along the Third Way?

This brief review article addresses the question of whether the so-called “competition state” was “abandoned” during the recent Danish election of 2019, which brought the Social Democrats back in government under the leadership of Mette Frederiksen. During the prior Social Democratic government of 2011-2015, led by Helle Thorning-Schmitt, this concept was introduced as a highly controversial policy concept and came to summarize the government’s program of economic reforms and recovery. The concept was subsequently strongly criticized in broader public political discourse as well as by the Social Democratic party and Mette Frederiksen herself. It is thus worth considering, whether the competition state reform program has been “buried” with the recent election, as this might imply a more radical break or discontinuity away from the “third way” competition state reform program embarked upon by most western European Social democrats since the 1990’s. This article will, first, briefly review the public discussion about the competition state in Denmark, before it, second, will recapitulate the academic debate about the competition state and clarify the concept. Third, it will review central tenets of the economic policy of the Thorning-Schmitt government of 2011-2015, as well as, fourth, the announced reform program of the new Social Democratic government. Finally the article will contrast and compare the two programs, and conclude that the “competition state” to a large extent endured the election of 2019, even if the Frederiksen government seems to lead the Danish competition state into reform trajectory towards increasing dis-universalization of social security and pensions.     

Conflict or Cooperation? Political Relations between Governors and Mayors in Major Cities in Argentina

This article explores the nature of the relations between the governors and the mayors of major cities in Argentina. The vast majority of the literature assumes that municipal governments in Argentina are weak, and that mayors therefore align with the provincial authorities. This study argues that there is more diversity in the relations between officials of both levels, and that, in some cases, these relations are openly contentious. Four ideal types of relations are identified, based on political affiliation and type of relation, through the systematisation of 43 cases of major Argentine cities.     

Peasant essentialism and the Agrarian question in the Colombian Andes

Our Daily Bread: The Peasant Question and Family Farming in the Colombian Andes, by Nola Reinhardt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Pp.xv + 308. US$35.

This review article considers a number of problems which arise from an incorrect theorisation of the agrarian question. Instead of a transformation in which some peasants become small capitalists and others de facto workers, rural change is said to involve an absolute opposition: in economic terms the whole peasantry either dissolves or persists. Since the former is clearly not the case, the continued existence of peasants in Colombia is attributed by the book under review to their economic efficiency. Its essentialist framework therefore conceptualises all peasants as a uniform body of commodity producers, rather than as internally differentiated strata incorporating disparate class elements. In contrast to this neo‐populist approach, it is suggested here that capitalist peasants and de facto proletarians are indeed present — but not recognised as such ‐ in the context studied.     

Duplications of the Y-chromosome specific loci P25 and 92R7 and forensic implications

In the present study, we demonstrate that two commonly used Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), P25 and 92R7, are paralogous sequence variants (PSVs) originating from segmental duplications and that at least one of the sequence variants in each group of loci is polymorphic. Several methodologies were used in order to detect the SNP alleles and the PSVs of the loci. All results obtained with the various typing techniques supported the conclusion. The allele distributions of the binary markers were analysed in more than 600 males with seven different haplogroups. For P25, the ancestral allele C was found in several samples from different haplogroups. The derived allele A was always present with an additional C variant. Haplogroup P was defined by the derived allele A at the 92R7 locus. However, the ancestral allele G was always associated with an A variant due to the duplication.     

About the Authors

Biography

About the Authors     

Science Is Golden: Academic R&D and University Patents

Many studies have shown indirect effects of academic research by linking academic research to firm patents. However, since the Bayh-Dole Act, universities are allowed to patent inventions that were funded by federal money and to retain the royalties that these patents generate. As a consequence, universities now are interested in protecting their profitable discoveries, just like any commercial firm doing R&D. In this paper, we apply the econometric techniques traditionally used to estimate the patent production function of firms to data on the patents of American universities. We find that more money spent on academic research leads to more university patents, with elasticities that are similar to those found for commercial firms. In addition, we provide estimates of the effect of establishing a Technology Transfer Office on a university's patent output.