Are Protection Policies for Human Trafficking Victims Effective? An Analysis of the Italian Case

Since the 1990s trafficking in human beings has increasingly become a priority in the international and European policy agenda. The international community took action against it with the United Nations Protocol against Trafficking (2000), the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) and the Directive 2011/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Protecting its Victims. In the same period the number of studies and research works on it has increased. Nevertheless, some of the most important research questions remain almost unanswered. In particular, there is a paucity of data about the effectiveness of the policies against human trafficking. This paper provides some knowledge in this field. In particular it presents some considerations on the effectiveness of the Italian policies on the protection of and assistance to victims in the period 2000–2008. The data analysis suggests that the effectiveness varied across years and that the entry of Romania in the European Union, apparently, had an impact on the phenomenon and on the policies effectiveness. The lesson to be learned is that under the umbrella of human trafficking very different situations, changing across time and countries, coexist. In order to be effective a national policy should be capable of a) planning actions which take into account the national characteristics of human trafficking; b) monitoring whether and how the phenomenon has changed and change the policies accordingly.     

Dimensions of the economic vote: Valence,positional and patrimony voting in Portugal's 2011 elections

This article contrasts three dimensions of economic voting, namely valence, positional and patrimony voting. Whereas the first two dimensions have been frequently explored, the patrimony variable has scarcely been tested as an explanatory variable of voting behaviour. It measures the electors' assets (both risky and non-risky), and seeks to capture the elector's wealth at election time. Using the 2011 post-election survey carried out in Portugal following the June elections, the data show that comparing of the three dimensions, valence is the most important. It was found that patrimony variables, although not significant in a comprehensive vote model, are important explanatory factors of party identification, itself a key variable of vote choice in Portugal.     

Comparing the Democratization of Intelligence Governance in East Central Europe and the Balkans

This article discusses the reform of intelligence governance in two sub-regional groupings of former communist states: East Central Europe and the Balkans. These two sub-regions are delineated according to the pace and nature of transformations that they have undergone since the collapse of communist rule and their relations with respect to the European Union, the key political and economic organization in Europe. A number of lessons are drawn from comparing experiences in the two sub-regions relating to democratic reform of the security apparatus, and in particular the intelligence sector. Significant factors in the consolidation of democratic governance of intelligence include the nature of precursor communist-era regimes and the legacies they created, whether armed conflict has occurred during the transition, the extent and character of external (especially EU) assistance, and the strength of media and civil society. These factors appear to have influenced how transitional regimes have sought to introduce institutional reforms to constrain the powers of those services and their susceptibility to arbitrary use. They also have influenced measures taken to redress abuses by intelligence services under the preceding communist regime and the legitimation of the post-authoritarian state.     

The Prospective Impact of Family Functioning and Parenting Practices on Court-Involved Youth’s Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Court-involved youth exhibit high rates of psychiatric symptoms, substance use, and delinquency, yet little is known about the contributing roles of caregiver and...     

Gender Discrimination in Microfinance? Some Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

Microfinance literature has proved the existence of gender discriminatory practices against women in some specific contexts. Discrimination is often explored from the access side (loans approved or denied). Following Agier and Szafarz (2013), we deviate from this practice and use the variable loan size, considering up to four loans for each client. Drawing on data from a microfinance programme in Uganda, we find no evidence of gender discrimination against women clients, even though our results show that the loan size is influenced by personal characteristics and that women, in contrast to men, are rewarded according to their credit history.     

Institutionalization of Children with Disabilities in Croatia: Social Workers' Perspectives

Abstract

This study aims to advance understanding of social workers’ perceptions of the circumstances necessitating and preventing the placement of children with disabilities (CwDs) in institutions. This retrospective study involved thematic analyses of one focus group (n?=?7) and semi-structured individual interviews (n?=?12). Participants included social work professionals with experience providing welfare services for CwDs and their families. In effort to prevent separation of CwDs from their families, results suggest a need for continued monitoring of deinstitutionalization of CwDs alongside increased availability, accessibility, and quality of childcare, alternative child welfare and family support services.     

Competition and service quality: Evidence from Swedish residential care homes

Against a backdrop of increased levels of marketization of welfare services in OECD countries, this article aims to shed light on the separate effects of private ownership and competition for the market on service quality. Using residential elder care homes in Sweden as our case, we leverage unique panel data of ownership and competition against a set of indicators, pertaining to the structure, process, and outcome dimensions of care quality. The main finding of our analyses is that competition for the market does surprisingly little for quality: private entrepreneurs perform neither better nor worse under stiff competition and the quality of care is approximately the same in those nursing homes that are exposed to the market as in those that are not.     

Andrea Cox: Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017, 4181 pp,Series: Critical issues in crime and society,LCCN: 2017007405

Journal of Youth and Adolescence -     

International Relations Studies in the USSR/Russia: Is there a Russian National School of IR Studies?

This article discusses the development of Soviet/Russian international relations (IR) studies starting from the end of Second World War until the present. It reveals that Soviet IR studies were based on a mixture of realism and Marxism–Leninism, with realism predominating. It was a very important feature of the Soviet understanding of IR, and it continues to have a strong influence even now on both the study and practice of IR. The author then analyses barriers to the formation of a national school in IR in the Soviet Union. The contemporary state of Russian IR studies is also discussed. The article demonstrates how political changes in the country led to a transformation of Russian IR studies (with the emergence of new IR institutions, new journals, and new universities in and outside Moscow). Influences on Russian IR studies from different national schools (American, British, and French) are also touched upon.