Assessing the institutionalization of private sustainability governance in a changing coffee sector

The potential of transnational private governance initiatives to constitute effective alternatives to state‐led regulation of global value chains rests on their ability to scale up and become institutionalized in a given sector. This study examines whether such institutionalization has occurred in the coffee sector, the commodity with the most widespread adoption of certified products and over 30 years’ experience of private governance, and tests hypotheses on facilitating and inhibiting conditions. It finds that while norm generation around responsible supply chain management and the organizational institutionalization of standard‐setting bodies is well advanced, the practice of internalizing social and environmental externalities through the routinized production and purchase of higher priced certified goods continues to be questioned by industry actors. Indeed, conditions that favored normative and organizational institutionalization, such as high levels of industry concentration, product differentiation, and deliberative interaction, are shown to represent barriers to the practice‐oriented institutionalization of market‐driven regulatory governance.     

Hobsbawm in Trinidad: understanding contemporary modalities of urban violence

Eric Hobsbawm’s milestone work Bandits is attentive to the rural poor and situates social banditry within the world of peasant resistance, but his concepts are surprisingly adaptable to contemporary urban settings. Drawing on Hobsbawm’s conceptualisation of social banditry and avengers, this article examines the perspective of gangs who perceive themselves as victims of inequality, poverty and capitalism; who serve as social actors and security providers for their communities; and who at the same time engage in cruelty and high levels of violence and terror. This qualitative study is based on fieldwork undertaken in Trinidad and Tobago. Findings show that Hobsbawm’s figure of the avenger contributes to a better understanding of the contemporary modalities of urban violence and helps unpacking and characterise the ambiguity of the relationship between gangs and local communities.     

Application of Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy in Paint Trace Examination

Raman spectroscopy has proved to be a promising technique in forensic examinations, where optical microscopy, micro‐infrared spectroscopy, and microspectrophotometry in the visible and UV range are used for identification and differentiation between paint traces. Often no organic pigments are detected using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, because their content in a trace is usually undetectable. Application of a micro‐Raman spectrometer equipped with several excitation lasers helps forensic experts in paint analysis enabling identification of main pigments. Three cases concerning comparative examination of car paint are discussed in detail. The comparison of Raman spectra of paint chips found on clothing of a victim or smears found on body of a damaged car to these of paint chips originated from the suspected car enabled us to identify the car involved in the accident. When no comparative material is available, the method can be useful in establishing the color and make of the car.     

Private regulation,public policy,and the perils of adverse ontological selection

What problems can private regulatory governance solve, and what role should public policy play? Despite access to the same empirical evidence, the current scholarship on private governance offers widely divergent answers to these questions. Through a critical review, this paper details five ontologically distinct academic logics – calculated strategic behavior; learning and experimentalist processes; political institutionalism; global value chain and convention theory; and neo-Gramscian accounts – that offer divergent conclusions based on the particular facets of private governance they illuminate, while ignoring those they obfuscate. In this crowded marketplace of ideas, scholars and practitioners are in danger of adverse ontological selection whereby certain approaches and insights are systematically ignored and certain problem conceptions are prioritized over others. As a corrective, we encourage scholars to make their assumptions explicit, and occasionally switch between logics, to better understand private governance's problem-solving potential and its interactions with public policy.     

Establishing of chemical composition of printing ink

The subject of the examinations was primarily court tax marks of 50 and 200 PLN, which were suspected not to be genuine. Both inks on the questioned marks as well as comparative genuine marks and inks sent by the manufacturer were analyzed. No information about their chemical composition was available from manufacturer. In the examinations, infrared (IR), visible, X-ray fluorescence, and Raman spectrometry were used. The examinations showed that inks and glue on the marks of both values were the same as samples of those sent by the manufacturer. Discrepancies in some results were observed probably due to contamination, that is, an accidental presence of the foreign substance on the surface (e.g., sweat, saliva while sticking the marks to the surface or physical handling of the documents). It was concluded that there are original (genuine) court tax marks.     

The effect of re-annealing on the distribution of refractive index in a windscreen and a windowpane classification of glass samples

Tiny glass fragments of two typical objects being of interest in forensic investigations: car windscreen and windowpane were examined from the point of view of their importance as crime evidence. Both examined objects were made from float glass and were toughened. The present paper concerns examination of refractive index distribution across the objects under investigation before and after the glass fragments were annealed according to previously chosen procedure. The annealing procedure was carried out in order to increase discrimination power of refractive index (RI). The following conclusions can be drawn from the results obtained. For both examined objects the mean RI was significantly higher after annealing and, at the same time, standard deviations in RI were smaller. The distributions of RI for both examined objects appeared not to be normal; the deviations from normality were observed at both sides of RI distributions. It was found that the difference in the values DeltaRI (difference between mean values of RI after annealing and before annealing) for both examined object was not significant and thus it would be not a good parameter to differentiate between two heat strengthen objects. The attempt to classify 181 glass samples on the basis of theirs RI and DeltaRI was performed. Increased discrimination of glass samples was observed.     

Mainstreamed voluntary sustainability standards and their effectiveness: Evidence from the Honduran coffee sector

Voluntary Sustainability Standards have become a popular private governance framework for more sustainable agri-food value chains. Yet, amid increasing concerns over the decoupling of standards and practices, it is still unclear to what extent agricultural standard requirements are implemented on the ground, and what may account for such differential implementation. This study employs a novel dataset of 659 Honduran coffee producers to examine this puzzle, focusing on the most widely used standards in the coffee sector (Common Code for the Coffee Community, Fairtrade, Fairtrade/organic, UTZ Certified, and Rainforest Alliance). It first presents results on implementation and behavioral change, based on matched groups of certified and non-certified farmers, for eight representative social and environmental sustainability practices. Analyzing determinants of implementation success, it finds that the stringency of rules – if they are known by farmers – and the level of farm-gate prices are significantly correlated with farmers’ performance and lower levels of decoupling across a majority of indicators. These results speak to the importance of supporting small-scale actors’ awareness of and financial capacity to comply with proposed sustainability rules.     

Examination of lubricating oils by infrared spectroscopy

Approximately 60 oil samples obtained from the chassis of various motor cars have been examined by infrared spectroscopy. The samples were oils from the engine, gearbox and back-axle. Differences in absorbance of some absorption bands in the infrared spectra (IR) of oil samples were observed. An optimal set of absorption bands was chosen, which was used for quantitative comparison of slightly differing spectra. The significance of differences was tested using Hotelling's T²-test.