Forensic psychiatric units in Italy from the 1960s to the present

This article addresses the long-standing continuities in the history of the Italian forensic psychiatric units and views them as the result of conflicting forces, interests, mentalities and strategies at the cross-road of forensic psychiatry, psychiatry, prison and health services. It focuses on the period from the 1960s to the present and deals with, among other issues, the long-term impact of the anti-asylum movements and the on-going debate on the ‘phasing out’ of the forensic psychiatric units.     

The European Union's approach to online behavioural advertising: Protecting individuals or restricting business?

The European Union (EU) has firmly set its stall out to protect individuals' data and privacy and has demonstrated this through the rejection of the old opt-out regime and the introduction of the new opt-in rules. These require businesses to obtain individual's prior and informed consent before their data are collected, stored and used for the purposes of online behavioural advertising (OBA). Individuals in the EU are afforded protection from the apparent dangers relating to data privacy and misuse that is associated with OBA, which is beyond the expectation of most Internet users. However, there are some criticisms levelled at the law that the EU has produced. Is simply gaining informed consent sufficient for protecting all types of information? Do certain types of information require a higher level of consent than others? Does the law fulfil its aim of protecting data subject's privacy and data? Is the current law restrictive to business? Do individuals know or care that their information is being collected for the purposes of targeted advertising and is there a better way to ensure that they do? Finally, will proposed new law to be found in the EU Data Protection Regulation solve any of these problems? This article will assess whether, as a policy decision, the EU's current approach has been too cautious in its attempts to protect individuals or restrict business.     

Forecasting Errors in the Averseness of Apologizing

Apologizing is often seen as the appropriate response after a transgression for perpetrators. Yet, despite the positive effects that apologies elicit after situations of conflict, they are not always delivered easily. We argue that this is due—at least in part—to perpetrators overestimating the averseness of apologizing, thus committing a forecasting error. Across two laboratory experiments and one autobiographical recall study, we demonstrate that perpetrators overestimate the averseness they will experience when apologizing compared to the averseness they experience when they actually apologize. Moreover, we show that this effect is driven by a misconstrual of the effects of an apology. Perpetrators overestimate the potentially negative effects of apologizing while simultaneously underestimating the potentially positive effects of apologizing. This forecasting error may have a negative effect on the initiation of the reconciliation process, due to perpetrators believing that apologizing is more averse than it actually is.     

Capturing Crime at the Micro-place: A Spatial Approach to Inform Buffer Size

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - The current study develops a methodology to identify spatially relevant buffer sizes for micro-place evaluation research. It applies this methodology in an...     

The paradox of grading systems

We distinguish between (i) voting systems in which voters can rank candidates and (ii) those in which they can grade candidates, using two or more grades. In approval voting, voters can assign two grades only—approve (1) or not approve (0)—to candidates. While two grades rule out a discrepancy between the average-grade winners, who receive the highest average grade, and the superior-grade winners, who receive more superior grades in pairwise comparisons (akin to Condorcet winners), more than two grades allow it. We call this discrepancy between the two kinds of winners the paradox of grading systems, which we illustrate with several examples and whose probability we estimate for sincere and strategic voters through a Monte Carlo simulation. We discuss the tradeoff between (i) allowing more than two grades, but risking the paradox, and (ii) precluding the paradox, but restricting voters to two grades.     

Ausbruch aus dem Gehäuse der Economic Governance. Überlegungen zu einer Soziologie der Wirtschaftsdemokratie in transformativer Absicht

The New Economic Governance (NEG) in the European Union is a core element of a neoliberal crisis constitutionalism that has to be seen as blatantly deficient when measured with democratic yardsticks. Strongly normative criticism generates important findings, but ignores the economic dimension of damage to democracy. From the perspective of capitalism theory, the NEG can be recognised as a product of a capitalistic land grab (“Landnahme”) of the political field and as a system of institutions whose functional logic corresponds to the imperative of a crisis-ridden economy characterised by the financial markets. In this context, viewpoints are confirmed that regard the integration of the economic causes of blatant deficits of democracy as an essential element of a new type of inclusive democracy project. The work on a new economic democracy as a core element of such a democracy project thus also becomes a desideratum for a public sociology that wishes to contribute evidence-based knowledge to social disputes.     

Agilität als Chance für einen neuen Anlauf zum demokratischen Unternehmen?

There has been a long-standing discussion since the 1980s about the question whether new production models harbor a potential for extended employee participation and involvement, in most cases with disillusioning results. This paper is concerned with so called “agile methods”, which play an important part in the area of knowledge work in the course of the digital transformation. On the basis of two case studies from software development and industrial R&D, the paper examines the concrete implementation of these methods and the employees’ perspective upon them and their consequences. The result is that agile methods present a potential for extended employee participation and involvement; however, the realization of this potential depends on the concrete way how the agile concept of “empowerment” is implemented.     

Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit auf der Suche nach einer politischen Form. Konturen der demokratischen Postwachstumsgesellschaft

The article examines the triangular relation between ecological sustainability, economic growth and liberal democracy and asserts that this relation is dramatically altered in the face of the increasingly imminent manifestation of the “limits to growth.” In the course of this process, the contours of a “democratic post-growth regime” are beginning to show – though in a very different way than was hoped for by the majority of transformation researchers. Intent on making a contribution to re-relating those normative factions of sustainability research which share a transformative self-understanding to the scientific analysis of modern societies, the paper shows how central eco-political and democracy-related narratives that have dominated the debate for decades have lost credibility, thus opening up the space for a readjustment of the named triangular relation. Applying a social theory perspective, it is subsequently shown how, in the face of modern conceptions of subjectivity and, at best, moderate growth rates, democracy is increasingly turning into an instrument for the unflinching sustainment of unsustainable lifestyles. As it turns out, modern consumer societies persist in their “politics of non-sustainability” more uncompromisingly than ever before.     

Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Its Failed Japan-South Korea Historical Reconciliation

Since the 1980s, Japan’s war memory has strained its relations with South Korea and China, to a less degree, the USA. Two of the thorniest issues are the comfort women and the US atomic bombing of Japan. Before the Obama administration announced its policy pivot to Asia in 2011, both Japanese and American leaders were reluctant to make amends for the past acts of their countries. However, in 2015, the Japanese conservative Prime Minister Abe reached an agreement with South Korea that “finally and irreversibly” resolved the comfort women issue, thus achieving a historic reconciliation between the two countries. In 2016, then President Obama visited Hiroshima to commemorate the atomic bomb victims. Then, in December 2016, the comfort women issue resurfaced in Japan and South Korea relations, indicating a failure of the reconciliation. Why did the USA change its policy on historical issues involving Japan? Why did Abe and the South Korean President Park Geun-hye settle the comfort women issue? Why did Obama visit Hiroshima? Why did the reconciliation fail? In this article, I propose a rational choice theory to answer these questions. Applying the proposed theory and relying on available evidence, I argue that the settlement of the comfort women issue and Obama’s visit to Hiroshima are important components of Obama’s pivot to Asia to balance China’s rise. The reconciliation failed mainly because it did not resolve the historical justice issue promoted by the human rights norms. I discuss some implications for reconciliation in Northeast Asia.