Limits of knowing or the consequences of difficult-access problems for multi-method research and public policy

How can scientists acquire an adequate level of knowledge on phenomena whose actors actively conceal their activities? Social phenomena such as terrorism, sects, corruption, Mafia organizations, drug dealers, or government intelligence agencies actively guard their secrecy, conceal their activities, decide who is allowed (not) to know, and have no interest in being observed or understood by others. The article discusses the consequences of researching difficult-access problems for doing multi-method research. In an ideal?Ctypical approach, we distinguish between social problems that can be easily accessed and those that are difficult to access or non-accessible. To distinguish the two, we define characteristics that eventually lead to the conclusion that scientific inquiry that follows the conventional paradigm of professionalism, transparency, and replicable research reaches its limits when confronted with the active resistance of phenomena that do not like to be observed, understood, or critically approached. From this flows, the necessity to think about interdisciplinary, collaborative, and investigative modes of research that come with various prices.     

Valuations – or How to Say the Unsayable

In this paper, the author revisits "the emotive theory of value" and argues that values are not entities but nothing other than "linguistic fictions". Accordingly, valuations—i.e., valuing actions—can be defined as approving or disapproving attitudes of a subject to some object. In this perspective, values cannot be true or false: What we can do is just compare them with regard to strength. As a consequence, value judgments are to be understood as sentences which are used either to say that a subject s values an object o positively or negatively, or to express (evince) a valuation. The author then shows some relations between normative and evaluative discourses. First, he claims that norms as well as valuations are not true or false. Second, he argues that both may be explained or justified, even if the former are usually justified teleologically whereas the latter are explained referring back to the subject's background and life-style. Third, he notes that a legal order originates from the fact that valuations "crystallize" into norms. Finally, the author examines some further questions related to his analysis. In particular, he argues that the different realms of values, e.g., morals, aesthetics, politics, etc., do not correspond to different evaluative attitudes, but to different phenomena and diverse spheres of human life.     

Beyond competition: the normative implications of consumer-driven health plans

The Federal Trade Commission/Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition appeals to efficiency arguments in promoting a wide range of health care market reforms. But the market-based reforms discussed in Improving Health Care are not simply neutral with regard to equity in access to services; they are likely to have substantial and inequitable distributional effects. We use the case of consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), the pillar of the Bush administration's private-sector health reform efforts, to illustrate the limitations of viewing health policy reform through the lens of Improving Health Care. We conclude that the speculative efficiency gains from CDHPs need to be balanced against well-documented equity concerns within a normative framework. Moreover, other important ethical issues arise with regard to the risks imposed on the population by the introduction of policies that are based on a faith in markets rather than empirical evidence.     

The problem of single parent/child paternity analysis--practical results involving 336 children and 348 unrelated men

In a certain amount of paternity investigations, only DNA from child and alleged father is analyzed, thus increasing the possibility of false paternity inclusions. The aim of this study was to determine how many wrong paternity inclusions could be detected in a rather small geographical area comparing empirical results from 336 children and 348 men (13-15 STRs were investigated per person). This comparison between each child and all unrelated men (i.e. all putative fathers from the other cases) with an especially designed computer program resulted in 116,004 man/child pairs. Less than three excluding STRs were found in 1666 child/unrelated man pairs (1.44% of the comparisons). At least one unrelated man with only two or less STR mismatches could be determined for 322 children (95.8% of all investigated children). In 26 comparisons no STR mismatches between a child and an unrelated man were detected, thus at least one and up to three "second father(s)" under 350 men could be found for 23 children, if the mother is excluded. Paternity probabilities between 95.475% and 99.996% were calculated. Our results underline the difficulties in motherless paternity cases using only STR analysis and advise great precaution in assigning verbal predicates such as "paternity proven" in those investigations.     

Die Berücksichtigung von Leistungen der Länder für das Naturerbe im Finanzausgleichssystem des Bundes1

Die vom Rat von Sachverständigen für Umweltfragen (SRU) mehrfach geforderte ökologische Erweiterung des kommunalen Finanzausgleichs ² ist nur erfüllbar, wenn die damit verbundenen finanziellen Mehraufwendungen der Länder refinanziert werden. Das dafür geeignete Instrument ist der Länderfinanzausgleich. Der Bundesgesetzgeber ist dem Auftrag des BVerfG, die Finanzverfassung bis Ende 2004 zu novellieren ³ nachgekommen. Auf der Grundlage des im September 2001 verabschiedeten Maßstäbegesetzes (MaßstG) ⁴ , das auf einer ersten Stufe die Finanzverfassung durch allgemeine Maßstäbe konkretisiert, wurde im Dezember 2001 das Finanzausgleichsgesetz (FAG), das die konkrete Verteilung des Gesamtaufkommens regelt, durch das Solidaritätspaktfortführungsgesetz ⁵ geändert und tritt Ende 2004 in Kraft. Nach der Systematik des MaßstG ist das dem Finanzausgleichsgesetzgeber in § 8 Abs. 3 S. 2 MaßstG eingeräumte Gesetzgebungsermessen ⁶ auf Null reduziert. Existieren abstrakte Mehrbedarfe dünn besiedelter Länder, sind diese zwingend zu berücksichtigen. Die 2001 eingeführte Einwohnerveredelung dünn besiedelter Flächenstaaten (§ 9 Abs. 3 FAG) berücksichtigt nur sozio-ökonomische Aufwendungen und lässt den durch objektivierbare Indikatoren darstellbaren ökologisch bedingten abstrakten Mehrbedarf naturreicher Flächenländer unberücksichtigt. Eine ökologische Komponente im Länderfinanzausgleich ist mit der finanzpolitischen Neutralität der Finanzkraft der Länder vereinbar und in Anbetracht der Staatszielbestimmung des Art. 20a GG auch geboten. 1) Der Beitrag basiert auf einem im Auftrag der Bundestagsfraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN im Rahmen des Gesetzgebungsverfahrens zum Maßstäbegesetz erstellten Rechtsgutachten. Die Autoren bedanken sich bei der Bundestagsfraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN für die Möglichkeit, die Gutachtenergebnisse zu veröffentlichen.2) Vgl. SRU, Konzepte einer dauerhaften umweltgerechten Nutzung ländlicher Räume, Sondergutachten 1996, Stuttgart 1996, Tz. 263 ff.; SRU, Umweltschutz: Erreichtes sichern—Neue Wege gehen, Stuttgart 1998, Tz. 241; SRU, Schritte ins nächste Jahrtausend, Stuttgart 2000, Tz. 241; SRU, Für eine Stärkung und Neuorientierung des Naturschutzes, Sondergutachten 2002, Stuttgart 2002, Tz. 183 ff.3) Vgl. BVerfGE 101, 158 ff.4) Gesetz über verfassungskonkretisierende allgemeine Maßstäbe für die Verteilung des Umsatzsteueraufkommens, für den Finanzausgleich unter den Ländern sowie für die Gewährung von Bundesergänzungszuweisungen vom 9. 9. 2001 (Maßstäbegesetz—MaßstG), BGBl. 2001 I S. 2302 ff.5) FAG i.d.F. des Gesetzes zur Fortführung des Solidarpaktes, zur Neuordnung des bundesstaatlichen Finanzausgleichs und zur Abwicklung des Fonds Deutsche Einheit vom 20. 12. 2001 (Solidarpaktsfortführungsgesetz—SFG), BGBl. 2001 I S. 3955/3956 ff.6) Vgl. zu diesem Begriff Meßerschmidt, Gesetzgebungsermessen, Berlin 2001.     

Environmental performance and policy regimes: Explaining variations in 18 OECD-countries

Although we are witnessing an increasing interest in the comparative study of environmental pollution in the social sciences, there is sharp disagreement over how the state of the environment and the changes in recent decades should be assessed. Furthermore, the debate on environmental policy has no conceptual focus on societal development. Therefore, the article presents, on the one hand, an index of environmental pollution that integrates the levels of pollution in 1990 and their changes in the 1980s, and, on the other hand, an index that incorporates the ideological aspects of social development. Using this distinction it is possible to identify different paths of societal development in 18 OECD countries. The final part of the article explores various structural, economic, institutional and political characteristics which may be used to explain the different outcomes. The results show that institutional factors are important for a successful environmental performance. However, when it comes to change in policy regime the degree of mobilization of ecological movements and parties is essential.     

The impacts of public interventions: An examination of the forestry sector

This article measures welfare and distributive effects of public market interventions in forestry. These interventions represent both the demand (Jones Act shipping restrictions and minimum wage restrictions) and supply (state forest practice acts, forest incentives payments, taxes and public land management) sides of the market. The authors evaluate how well these programs promote the three standard economic justifications for market intervention: market failure, distributive justice, and stabilization. Their results indicate that, with the single exception of Timber Mart South (a government-sponsored price-reporting service), all market interventions fail to accomplish their efficiency and distributive objectives. Furthermore, the authors find that targeted regulatory programs (such as State Forest Practice Acts) have small impacts when compared to effects of taxation and public ownership.     

Doing homebirth like a man? Constructions of masculinity in South African men’s narratives of homebirth

The intersections between homebirth and masculine identities have not been widely explored. In this paper, we focus on the construction/contestation of masculinity in South African men’s narratives of planning and experiencing homebirth. Drawing on 20 interviews conducted with a sample of 5 men and couples in 2013–2014, a narrative analysis found men constructed ideal masculinities and ways of being a man in relation to homebirth. The paper focuses on the multiple representations of masculinity constructed in men’s talk about homebirth and traces their efforts to articulate a masculine perspective of birth. Men grappled with the meanings of ‘being there’ as a man during labour/birth and articulated alternative modes of being a man that valued and accommodated relationality, passivity and containment. Men thus articulated ways of being present and passive during homebirth that challenged normative constructions of masculinity. The notion of selfless masculinity emerged as a key masculine ideal in which giving and service during birth was constructed as integral to being a good father and man. However, competing forms of normative masculinity constructed in men’s narratives meant gender tensions remained in the continued salience of traditional masculine meta-narratives, such as being the ‘breadwinner’.     

Issues and Actors in African Nonstate Conflicts: A New Data Set

Armed nonstate conflict without the direct involvement of the state government is a common phenomenon. Violence between armed gangs, rebel groups, or communal militias is an important source of instability and has gained increasing scholarly attention. In this article, we introduce a data collection on conflict issues and key actor characteristics in armed nonstate conflicts that provides new opportunities for investigating the causes, dynamics, and consequences of this form of organized violence. The data builds on and extends the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Non-State Conflict data set by introducing additional information on what the actors in the conflict are fighting over, alongside actor characteristics. It covers Africa during the time period 1989–2011. The data set distinguishes between two main categories of issues, territory and authority, in addition to a residual category of other issues. Furthermore, we specify sub-issues within these categories, such as agricultural land/water as sub-issue for territory and religious issues for other issues. As actor characteristics, the data set notes whether warring parties received military support by external actors and whether religion and the mode of livelihood were salient in the mobilization of the armed group. The article presents coding processes, key features of the data set, and point to avenues for new research based on these data.